plus 4, A changing landscape in pop music - Detroit Free Press

A changing landscape in pop music - Detroit Free Press
Help-Portrait program brings unexpected and powerful rewards - Nashville Tennessean
Baltimore native pens an unlikely hit single with Taylor Swift parody ... - Baltimore Sun
After 23 years, Pepsi won't be advertising in Super Bowl next year - Lubbock Avalanche-Journal
CEOs profit from nonprofits - Raleigh News & Observer

A changing landscape in pop music - Detroit Free Press

Posted: 20 Dec 2009 12:18 AM PST

It was a year of triumphant comeback and poignant loss. Few stories dominated the world's interest the way Michael Jackson's death did in June.

The summer became an ongoing tribute to the late superstar, restoring much of the goodwill lost during his latter-day legal troubles and thrusting his music back into the center ring: In the five months following his death, U.S. fans purchased more than 7 million Jackson albums and 10.2 million of his tracks, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

The loss of Jackson came as Detroit's Motown Records celebrated its 50th anniversary, a global tribute spoiled only by the lack of a big public party here.

It was a lively, bustling 2009. Eminem returned, Phish reunited, Oasis called it quits. We got our latest round of Beatlemania. Cobo Arena began an extended good-bye with a pair of shows from Kiss, while Comerica Park hosted the concert event of the summer with a two-night Kid Rock stand -- the biggest shows of his career.

Our culture's intense, Internet-fueled fascination with celebrity continued apace. Chris Brown overshadowed the Grammys when word emerged that he'd beaten his girlfriend, Rihanna, the previous night. Kanye West stole the spotlight from the MTV Video Music Awards, though a massive public outcry left him with an overdue lesson in humility.

His target, young Taylor Swift, quickly moved on in a year when she firmly staked a place in the mainstream and further erased the line between country and pop. To their credit, Britney Spears and a resurgent Whitney Houston seemed eager for a divorce from the tabloids and a reunion with their music.

And one saucy British lady delivered the year's best fairy tale in a voice that tugged hearts, leading Susan Boyle to the top of the charts.

In the long haul, we may most remember '09 as the year Lady Gaga made her surge to the front. The glam-pop dynamo closed out the year with a sizzling sophomore album, brandishing genuine star power and setting herself up to be the pop queen of 2010.

In some ways, the decade ended as it began, with several familiar figures -- Eminem, Britney, Beyoncé, Jay-Z, U2 -- in leading roles. But 2009 saw a dramatically transformed music industry, with album sales down at least 15% from 2008 -- and a whopping 50%-plus since the decade's start. The scramble for a new business model went on. It's striking to recall that in 2000, licensing songs for commercials was still fairly taboo for artists -- in 2009, it could be a badge of honor.

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Help-Portrait program brings unexpected and powerful rewards - Nashville Tennessean

Posted: 20 Dec 2009 12:11 AM PST

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"It makes me look at myself better," he said of the photo.

'What we do best'

From cherished home photos of children to school portraits and family photos at the holidays, photos help establish who we are. And that's an important part of Help-Portrait's impact.

In our society, photos act as affirmation, said William Schaffner, M.D., and chair of the department of preventative medicine at Vanderbilt University.

But Help-Portrait, as its Web site reiterates, is not about taking photos — it's about giving them. Photographers, whose livelihood is in the images they capture, give up copyright and any commercial use of the photos they took for the project. Participants walk away knowing that the attention, human connection and photo they received is meant only for them.

"This is truly a gift," said Nashville photographer Joshua Black Wilkins. "This is what we do best, so we want to be able to give that away."

And affirmation comes with the portrait.

"This is a gift that brings out the best in them and reminds them of the best in themselves," Schaffner said.

Culwell said it touched and inspired her to see strangers giving freely not because she had "worked for it, earned it or deserved it," she said. "Giving back is something I've never done. I learned the meaning of giving back."

Powerful potential

In the days following his project's peak on Dec. 12, Cowart has been flooded with response and stories from around the world that have had him in tears.

"My life has been changed dramatically," he said. Even he underestimated the power of his idea.

But Cowart also recognizes that photography is only one way to give. Throughout the project, he has encouraged volunteers to give whatever they can — food for attendees, help in organizing or entertainment. One volunteer and dancer at the Nashville event provided an impromptu tap show while participants waited.

Cowart, who plans to continue Help-Portrait with events next holiday season, said it has the potential to be a powerful movement based on "not what I believe, but what I've already seen," he said.

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Baltimore native pens an unlikely hit single with Taylor Swift parody ... - Baltimore Sun

Posted: 20 Dec 2009 12:18 AM PST

Baltimore Sun, 501 N. Calvert Street, P.O. Box 1377, Baltimore, MD 21278

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After 23 years, Pepsi won't be advertising in Super Bowl next year - Lubbock Avalanche-Journal

Posted: 19 Dec 2009 10:45 PM PST

MILWAUKEE - Pepsi's Super Bowl streak is over after a 23-year run.

Ads for the drinks won't appear in next year's Super Bowl on CBS. Instead, the company plans to shift ad dollars to a new marketing effort that's mostly online.

Pepsi was one of the biggest advertisers in this year's game and has advertised every year since 1987. Frito-Lay, a unit of parent company PepsiCo Inc., will still have Super Bowl commercials in the 2010 game.

The company, which is based in Purchase, N.Y., spent $33 million advertising products like Pepsi, Gatorade, and Cheetos during the 2009 Super Bowl, according to TNS Media Intelligence, $15 million of it on Pepsi alone. Ad time for the NFL championship game cost about $3 million for 30 seconds, on average.

Those prices may have dipped to as low as $2.5 million per 30 seconds for the 2010 game, according to Jon Swallen, senior vice president of research for TNS Media Intelligence. Final figures won't be known until after the game, which takes place Feb. 7 and airs on CBS. The network said last week it has sold about 90 percent of the game's commercial time.

Shipper FedEx also said Thursday it will not advertise again in the Super Bowl due to costs, the same reason the company gave for sitting it out last time around.

Pepsi had been a major advertiser during the Super Bowl. According to TNS, the company spent $142.8 million on the 10 Super Bowl ads from 1999 to 2008, second only to Anheuser-Busch, which spent $216 million. The brewer of Bud Light confirmed Thursday it will have five minutes' worth of advertising in the 2010 Super Bowl.

Pepsi recognizes Super Bowl ads can be effective for marketing, spokeswoman Nicole Bradley said, but the game doesn't work with the company's goals next year.

"In 2010, each of our beverage brands has a strategy and marketing platform that will be less about a singular event and more about a movement," she said.

Notable Super Bowl ads from Pepsi over the years have included celebrities such as Cindy Crawford, Britney Spears and Will.i.am.

The nation's second-biggest soft-drink maker is plowing marketing dollars into its "Pepsi Refresh Project" starting next month as its main vehicle for Pepsi. The project will pay at least $20 million for projects people create to "refresh" communities.

A Web site will go live Jan. 13 where people can list their projects, which could range from helping to feed people to teaching children to read. People can vote starting Feb. 1 to determine which projects receive money.

Pepsi estimates the effort will fund thousands of projects and says other businesses will pledge money, too.

The company does plan to hold events at the Super Bowl related to its new effort.

Pepsi's move leaves the Super Bowl soft-drink field open for rival Coca-Cola Co., which has been widely reported to be advertising this year, though Coca-Cola declined to comment. The world's biggest soft-drink maker was the eighth-highest spender on Super Bowl ads from 1999 to 2008. It spent $30.5 million on two Super Bowls within that decade.

Most advertisers on the Super Bowl do not have as long a history as Pepsi, Swallen said, averaging three to four years in a row before dropping out. They will often cycle back in, though, because it is a rare chance to reach such a wide audience. The 2009 matchup between Arizona and Pittsburgh attracted 95.4 million people.

"It is arguably the one TV programming event of the year where people tune in as much for the commercials as they do for the game that's being played on the field," he said.

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CEOs profit from nonprofits - Raleigh News & Observer

Posted: 19 Dec 2009 10:59 PM PST

On paper, federal law prohibits charities from awarding excessive compensation to their leaders.

But in practice, loopholes and understaffed regulators allow nonprofits to pay almost any salary, a Charlotte Observer investigation found.

"The [IRS] criteria for excessive compensation are so loose that they're virtually worthless...," says Pablo Eisenberg, a senior fellow at the Georgetown Public Policy Institute. "The sky's the limit."

Regulators rarely enforce the rules that do exist. Most years, fewer than 10 of the nearly 2 million U.S. nonprofit leaders are penalized for receiving excessive compensation. And the IRS office that monitors nonprofits is so thinly staffed that it examines just 1 percent of their returns.

Taxpayers and charitable donors pay the price. Each year, charities get tax breaks worth more than $60billion.

To be sure, most nonprofit leaders do crucial, difficult work for relatively little pay. The majority get less than $100,000 a year, according to data compiled by Guidestar, a group that collects information on thousands of nonprofits. Most spend the bulk of their budgets on charitable works rather than executive compensation.

But there are glaring exceptions.

More than 80 nonprofit leaders in North Carolina and South Carolina - most in the health care business - have collected compensation exceeding $500,000.

While salaries for corporate executives dropped about 9 percent last year, the economic downturn did little to curb pay for charity CEOs.

Nonprofit leaders got a 6 percent raise, on average, according to a study by Charity Navigator, which evaluates nonprofits.

Ken Berger, Charity Navigator's president, says most nonprofits aren't trying to line the pockets of their executives. But he is troubled by those who are.

"These kinds of scoundrels poison the public's trust in the whole sector," he says.

Hospital executives and university presidents - who usually bring home between $100,000 and $1 million a year - dominate the list of best-paid nonprofit leaders. But even smaller charities that depend on donations and tax dollars can receive generous salaries.

Consider:

When Cornelius-based American Credit Counselors Corp. folded in 2005, it paid Executive Director John Waskin $5.1 million - almost everything in its bank account. Most of that money was payment for a pension distribution approved by the group's board of trustees. As founder of the group, which helped consumers manage their debts, Waskin played a key role in choosing the trustees.

Rainbow Enhanced Academic Developers, or READ Inc., a Wadesboro group which has counseled about 175 youths with behavior problems, in 2007 paid CEO Lawrence Elliott about $312,000. Since 2005, the group has received more than $10 million in government money.

LC Industries, a Durham-based nonprofit that hires blind people to manufacture mattresses, file folders and other paper products for the military and federal government, in 2008 paid its president, William Hudson, $716,000 in total compensation. About $1.1 million more went to three other executives. With a budget of about $45 million, the fast-growing company says it has become the nation's largest employer of the blind. But it pays its leader about 2-1/2 times more than the average charity in its size category.

Franklin Graham, meanwhile, collected $1.2 million in 2008 from two groups he leads - Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Samaritan's Purse. Graham agreed to go without pay from BGEA and forgo future payments to his retirement accounts in October, after he was questioned about his compensation.

Hudson declined to be interviewed. But others said they have labored long hours running complex organizations and doing vital work.

"Most of the company was built on my name and my experience," said Elliott, of READ Inc. "This company is paying for my expertise, my experience, my education and my ability to run the company successfully."

Some nonprofit leaders also contend that they could make far more money in the private sector.

But charity watchdogs say that argument misses a crucial point: Nonprofits are expected to serve the public interest - and keep executive pay in check. That's why they receive tax exemptions worth billions.

"Some entities now use their privileged status to achieve ends that Congress never imagined when it conferred tax-exemption," former IRS Commissioner Mark Everson told a Senate panel in 2005. "They are wantonly abusing the generosity and faith of the public."

Nonprofit in name alone

Virtually all charities have to do to pass muster with the IRS is show they examined salaries of people in comparable positions and left the decision to independent boards.

The rules allow nonprofits to compare their pay packages to those of executives in the for-profit world, where seven-figure compensation is common.

In one case under investigation by Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, a salary study for a nonprofit leader compared his pay to that of Oprah Winfrey and Britney Spears.

Federal rules also let charity executives and board members profit by doing business with the nonprofits they run.

American Credit Counselors, for instance, paid millions for services provided by companies owned by chief executive Waskin and his wife, Cheryl.

The law allows charities to strike such deals - as long as they're at fair market value.

The IRS can impose fines - known as "excise taxes" - on nonprofit leaders found to be receiving excessive pay or benefits.

But in reality, that rarely happens. Since 2003, the IRS has taken that step about 10 times a year on average.

Part of the problem, experts say, is thin staffing at the IRS office that's supposed to monitor nonprofits.

More charities

From 2005 to 2008, the number of charities filing returns with the IRS increased by 38percent, according to data from the National Center for Charitable Statistics. But staffing in the IRS branch that monitors nonprofits declined over that period.

Marc Owens, who led the IRS's nonprofit branch for a decade before leaving in 2000, said the office doesn't get the attention it deserves from the IRS - an agency that is primarily concerned with collecting taxes, not regulating charities.

For that reason, Owens favors setting up a new oversight agency outside the IRS.

A call for change

With research and new reporting requirements, the IRS has tried to get a better handle on how charities pay their executives, agency officials say.

Lawmakers could help, some experts say, by turning to an appropriate source of revenue: the excise taxes collected from nonprofit foundations. Those taxes, based on the investment income foundations earn, now go into the general fund.

Experts agree the time is ripe for change.

"The sector is hugely important in the lives of our citizenry," said Owens, the former IRS official who now works as a lawyer representing charities. "The government and the public deserve someone paying attention to how well the system is working."

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