HLN Unveils New Set for Robin Meade, to Premiere ‘The Daily Share’

“Right now, HLN is making history,” HLN President Albie Hecht writes to staff

As part of its social-media makeover, HLN unveiled a new set for “Morning Express” with Robin Meade Tuesday morning.

“Our own morning sunshine, Robin Meade and her MXP crew, debuted HLN’s new set which reflects our mission to give the social media community the first all-screens home for the best social news and lifestyle content in the world,” network President Albie Hecht wrote in a memo to staff.

And at noonET, “The Daily Share” will premiere.

Also Read: HLN Chief Albie Hecht’s Rebrand Is Going to Blow Up Cable News Biz: It’s Sort of the Informative Side of ‘Daily Show’

The social-media-oriented show, hosted by Ali Nejad and Yasmin Vassoughian, is one of the first cable news shows whose content is dictated by what’s trending on social media rather than decisions made by producers.

“This is about redefining news as news you share,” HLN President Albie Hecht told TheWrap in awide-ranging interview at the end of 2014 about the network’s new direction.

Also Read: HLN, The Daily Dot Partner for Co-Branded TV, Digital Segments

“It also means where we get our news, so I say to our producers: you have to program this network and this all-screens experience for people who don’t have a TV set, don’t have a magazine, don’t read the newspaper; they’re going to get up, they’re going to look at their phone, they’re going to get their feed or their information.”

Throughout the day, HLN will share photos from its new sets and shows at the #ReadySetGo hashtag.

Also Read: Nancy Grace Trolls HLN Viewers by Replacing Robin Meade on ‘Morning Express': ‘Ding Dong, The Witch is Gone!’ (Video)

Hecht’s full note below.

Team —

Right now, HLN is making history. A year ago we promised to break the cable TV news mode, and at 6 am today, that’s exactly what we did. Our own morning sunshine, Robin Meade and her MXP crew, debuted HLN’s new set which reflects our mission to give the social media community the first all-screens home for the best social news and lifestyle content in the world.

At noon, “The Daily Share,” HLN’s first live daily show under the new brand, kicks off with hosts Ali Nejad and Yasmin Vassoughian. Another first for HLN is T-Mobile’s all-screens sponsorship of The Daily Share.

We’ll be sharing photos of the new HLN all day long. Use the hashtag #ReadySetGo.

In tandem with “The Daily Share” on-air launch, The Daily Share Website went live: http://www.hlntv.com/thedailyshare. Infinite kudos to our digital and social teams.

Continuing on that innovative visual theme, HLN also debuted its new logo and graphics look which shows another example of how HLN is rethinking the way news and information is delivered.

And this spot is reserved for Vale, Jack Vale. The mega successful YouTube star who comes to HLN exclusively to reveal how pranking has become the family business with his wife Sherry and their five kids. “Jack Vale: Offline” is our social media brand’s first original series. Watch, follow, like, share, tweet every Tuesday at 10 pm ET/PT #JackValeOffline.

Of course, thank you Nancy Grace, Dr. Drew and their teams for anchoring HLN’s new brand in prime. You are the Queen and King of social integration in your shows. And on the weekends, Lynn Berry and her WXP team rule. Thank you Lynn for showing us the art of the make-up free selfie.

OMG, we did it thanks to all of you. Always in awe of your unwavering dedication and work.

Mondo thanks!

@AlbieHechtHLN

http://www.thewrap.com/hln-unveils-new-set-for-robin-meade-to-premiere-the-daily-share/ 

Formula 1: German Grand Prix back at Hockenheim - Ecclestone

Hockenheim will host this year's German Grand Prix, according to Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone.

The track hosted the 2014 race but is supposed to alternate each year with the Nurburgring.

But Ecclestone, 84, told Reuters: "It's going to be at Hockenheim. We just have to amend the years of the contract. It was alternating with Nurburgring so we'll just take that out."

The official 2015 calendar does not yet specify a venue for the 19 July race.

The Nurburgring is under new ownership and Ecclestone added: "It can't be Nurburgring because there's nobody there."

Hockenheim staged its first Formula 1 grand prix in 1970.

http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/formula1/30826192

15 January 2015

Mayweather v Pacquiao bout still a long way off, says agent

A long-awaited welterweight fight between Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao is still a long way off, according to the latter's agent.

14 January 2015

Fred Sternburg has denied reports Pacquiao had agreed terms  on a 2 May bout with Mayweather in Las Vegas.

"There is still a long way to go," said Sternburg. "At least the movement has been in a positive direction."

Filipino Pacquiao, 36, and unbeaten American Mayweather, 37, are considered the best fighters of their generation.

Eight-division world champion Pacquiao is the holder of the WBO belt, while Mayweather is the WBC and WBA champion.

A fight between the two has logn been talked about but they have so far been able to agree a deal.

One stumbling block is Mayweather's insistence on a strict blood-testing programme during training, but Pacquiao said those demands cast him in a bad light as a suspected cheat.

http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/boxing/30825154

Nancy Grace Battles 2 Chainz over Pot :Think of the Children

In the news

Nancy Grace Battles 2 Chainz over Pot :Think of the Children

YouTube‎ - 1 day ago

On Nancy Grace's show tonight, the rapper 2 Chainz made some very sensible arguments ...

Niners name Jim Tomsula coach

fter eight known external interviews, including a second sitdown with one candidate, the San Francisco 49ers are staying in house. im Tomsula, who has been the Niners' defensive line coach since 2007, was promoted to succeed Jim Harbaugh, the team announced Wednesday. Tomsula, who was the interim head coach at the end of 2010 after Mike Singletary was fired, led the team to a win in its final game of the season. http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=espn:12168824 "After conducting a thorough coaching search, and meeting with a number of outstanding candidates, Jim Tomsula clearly is the right man to lead this team," CEO Jed York said in a statement. "Jim is a great teacher and a tremendous mentor who conducts himself with great class and integrity." The well-liked Tomsula is set to be formally introduced Thursday in a news conference at Levi's Stadium. York said a day after the season ended he wanted to find a "teacher" to lead the franchise forward. Certainly a coach familiar with the operation was important as the 49ers build around quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who is coming off a disappointing year. "Our organization is excited to have Jim Tomsula leading this football team," general manager Trent Baalke said. "We have had the privilege of working alongside Jim for the past eight seasons. He is a proven leader, teacher and mentor, and we look forward to seeing him apply his craft and vision to our team." In tabbing a popular locker room figure in Tomsula, though, the Niners figure to lose defensive coordinator Vic Fangio, who interviewed for the job on Dec. 30. The Niners' defense was its strength in an up-and-down 8-8 season last year, ranking fifth in the league in total defense. nd there are questions about who Tomsula brings in to replace offensive coordinator Greg Roman, who left for the Buffalo Bills. Because the Niners' offense tried to reinvent itself last year from a ground-and-pound attack to more of a spread passing offense, the next O.C. will seemingly have to make better use of the personnel at their disposal. The promotion of Tomsula represents some continuity as he's been with the Niners for eight-plus years. The Niners' seven-to-10-day search as described by Baalke on was about to end on Day 16 after they conducted interviews that included Fangio, now-Bills coach Rex Ryan, Mike Shanahan, Broncos offensive coordinator Adam Gase, Seahawks defensive coordinator Dan Quinn, Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels, Lions defensive coordinator Teryl Austin and now-Jets coach Todd Bowles. Tomsula served as the Niners' interim coach in the 2010 season finale, after Mike Singletary was fired, and the 49ers beat the Arizona Cardinals, 38-7, as they finished 6-10. Tomsula's only other head-coaching experience came with NFL Europe's Rhein Fire in 2006. In the early '90s, Tomsula worked as a sales rep for a medical equipment company, then delivered newspapers and worked as a night janitor and cut firewood to earn extra cash in his early coaching days with a young family. "It's a good move. I look forward to fighting for Jim Tomsula," said tight end Vernon Davis, who is a neighbor of Tomsula's -- their kids play on the same flag football team. "Tomsula, just the energy that he provides during the games and having a relationship with him, I can tell that (for) players, he's one of those coaches players wouldn't mind playing for. Just his spirit. He's a good guy and a terrific coach. He'll allow you to go out and do whatever you can do. He'll put each and every individual in place to perform at a high level." The Associated Press contributed to this report. http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/12168370/jim-tomsula-promoted-san-francisco-49ers-head-coach

Miley Cyrus and Patrick Schwarzenegger’s Siblings Are Also Dating

Hollywood celebs keeping it in the family Miley Cyrus’s brother Braison and Patrick Schwarzenegger’s sister Christina are dating. According to E! News, the pair hit it off after meeting at Miley’s 22nd birthday party in November and started seeing each other in December, a month after Miley and Patrick began their romance. Braison even posted a couple of pictures to his Instagram with him and Christina looking adorable.

Twenty-year-old Braison is a singer-songwriter and Christina, 23, is a graduate from Georgetown University. Christina and Patrick hail from the Kennedy-Shwarzenegger clan, with mother Maria Shriver, a journalist, and father Arnold Schwarzenegger, the actor and former Governor of California. http://time.com/3668556/miley-cyrus-patrick-schwarzeneggers-siblings-dating-braison-christina/

Christmas Box Office: 'Unbroken,' 'Into The Woods' Score Above, 'Selma,' 'American Sniper' Score Below

As is generally the case, Hollywood dumped a deluge of major product into theaters on Christmas Day in order to take advantage of the 1.5 weeks of “weekdays that act like weekends” that round out the end of the year. We had somewhat four wide releases, Walt Disney's DIS +0.65% Into the Woods (2,478 theaters), Angelina Jolie’s directorial effort Unbroken (3,131 theaters), Mark Wahlberg’s The Gambler (2,478 theaters), and Tim Burton’s Amy Adams/Christoph Waltz art-fraud dramedy Big Eyes (1,307 theaters). Also in semi-wide release is the expansion of Benedict Cumberbatch’s The Imitation Game (747 theaters) and the 331-theater debut of The Interview, which also debuted on nationwideVideo on Demand on Wednesday due to well, I think you know. Debuting in limited release was Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper in four theaters and the Martin Luther King biopic Selma in nineteen venues. May I remind you again that basically nothing opened at all in the first weekend of December? Okay, so with this much to cover, you’ll pardon me if I just concentrate on the newbies for at least today.

The top opener of Christmas Day is in-fact Angelina Jolie’s Unbroken, which a stunning $15.59 million on its first day, including $850,000 in Wednesday previews. That’s the third-biggest Christmas Day debut ever, behind  Les Miserables ($18m), and Sherlock Holmes ($24m) and just ahead of Django Unchained ($15m) and Marley and Me ($14.8m). It’s the fifth-biggest Christmas Day gross ever. The Universal Pictures/Comcast Corp. film, which is about an American olympian who goes through the torments of World War II and then additional suffering as a prisoner in a Japanese POW camp, was positioned as a major Oscar contender with perhaps Ms. Jolie netting a Best Director nomination for her second such-effort. The heat has cooled considerably since the film’s first wave of screenings were of the mixed-positive variety, but a major debut weekend could arguably put it back in play or at least keep in on everyone’s radar.

If you recall, a surprisingly large $38 million four-day debut off a $11.8m Christmas day opening kept the Brad Pitt’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button in play after lukewarm reviews. Christmas also fell on a Thursday that year (2008) as well, as it did in 2003 and 1997. The vast majority of the twelve respective openers those years did over/under 3.5x their Christmas debut figure, with really only Benjamin Button doing noticeably less (3.3x) and some of the kid-friendlier titles doing over/under 4x their Christmas haul. If Jolie’s Unbroken earns around 3.5x its Christmas numbers, then it gets a scorching $54m holiday debut, behind only Sherlock Holmes‘s $62m Fri-Sun Xmas debut and just ahead of Marley & Me‘s $50m Thurs-Sun debut. But even a 3.3x multiplier gets Unbroken to $50m by Sunday.

The next big release is Walt Disney’s Into the Woods. This is of course the star-studded (Meryl Streep, Anna Kendrick, Emily Blunt, Johnny Depp, Chris Pine, etc.) adaptation of Stephen Sondheim’s beloved 1987 fairy tale deconstruction. The $60 million production kicked off its holiday frame with a robust $15.08 million, including $1.1m in Wednesday previews. That’s the fourth-biggest Christmas Day debut and the sixth-biggest Christmas Day gross ever. We may-well see the stage adaptation become the top new film of the weekend, as of course the film’s family-friendly qualities will presumably make it a bigger ticket over Friday, Saturday, and Sunday than the other adult-skewing releases. A 3x multiplier gets to $45m, a 3.5x multiplier gets it to $52m, and a 4x gets it to $60m, although that’s not likely.

I’d wager that the opening day may be a bit front-loaded as fans of the musical raced out to sample the Rob Marshall-directed film version. For example,Rent pulled over 27% of its five-day $17m Thanksgiving weekend haul on its $4.7m Wednesday. Les Miserables opened on Christmas 2012 (a Tuesday) with $18m, dropped to $12m on Wednesday, earned $9m on Friday and Saturday, $8m on Sunday, and then never had another day over $6.8m after  New Year’s Day for the rest of its (admittedly quite successful) domestic run. It’s not a direct comparison, but you get the idea. Nonetheless, this is a smashing start, and I’m sure Disney will being in tears on Sunday if the film earns “just” $40m for the frame.

The next new release is Paramount Pictures/Viacom Inc.’s The Gambler. The remake of the 1974 James Caan vehicle premiered at this year’s AFI Fest as a would-be Oscar contender, and the intent was originally for a platform debut yesterday and a wide release next month. But the film has basically zero chance at any awards recognition, so Paramount decided to just go wide on Christmas. And the Rupert Wyatt picture earned $5 million on its first day, which theoretically points to an $18m four-day debut. Keeping in mind that the picture cost just $25m to produce (for which Chartoff/Winkler Productions, Closest to the Hole Productions, and Leverage Entertainment footed the bill), there is little reason not to presume that Wahlberg’s star power won’t keep the film at least somewhat alive for the next few weeks. Between you and me, I would have kept this one in January, as it certainly would have made more of an impact as an adult alternative on January 2nd or January 23rd. But again, this wasn’t a pricey project and was never going to be a blockbuster.

The last wide release arguably also should have stayed put. The Weinstein Company’s Big Eyes was supposed to debut in limited release today, but the Tim Burton dramedy was moved into wide release after The Interview cancelled its wide release. Alas, the pretty terrific Amy Adams/Christoph Waltz vehicle, which also amounts to an Oscar push that might not happen, only made $1.42 million on its first day. At best we’re probably looking at a $6m four-day debut, although considering the screen count that wouldn’t be too terrible if it can keep up the momentum as a female-skewing multiplex option into the new year. Now before we carp about how low a number that is for Tim Burton, we should know that the film cost just $10m to produce. This was more of a “try something different” project, and the budget was low enough that it basically had to outgross Ed Wood in order to be profitable in the long-run.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/scottmendelson/2014/12/26/christmas-box-office-unbroken-into-the-woods-score-above-selma-american-sniper-score-below/