In The News
• Music TV network CMT will launch a new feed serving the Pacific and Mountain regions, as well as Alaska and Hawaii. The new Western feed launches Sept. 10.
•
Pioneering concert promoter Jack Boyle, who sold his Cellar Door Companies to SFX Entertainment—now Clear Channel Entertainment (CCE)—in 1998 for $106 million to become CCE's music division chairman, will curtail his activities in CCE's Washington, D.C., offices and become chairman emeritus. Stopping short of saying he is semi-retiring, Boyle tells Billboard: "I'll still be available if they need me, but I'm going to get totally out of the day-to-day. I'm not mad at anybody, but I'm 67, and there are other things I want to do. I walked out on my own, in my own time, and not many people can say that."
• Def Jam founder Russell Simmons has been appointed to the board of directors of Brilliant Digital Entertainment, a 3-D technology development company in which he has also become a shareholder. Brilliant Digital creates interactive, animated music videos for the Web.