SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2013 Japan railway unveils super-luxury train Japanese railway operator on Friday unveiled a dining and 14 private suites. age costing up to 1.13 million yen ($11,000) per cou- new super-luxury train it hopes will appeal to Each wood-panelled bedroom has plush beds ple. The company’s website boasts of a “refined and Awell-heeled travellers who don’t mind splash- and a desk along with an ensuite bathroom with a dignified” design that is a “fusion of Japanese and ing out to have their every travelling need fulfilled. shower and toilet, equipped-of course-with a heated Western and of new and old”. The train goes into Kyushu Railway’s “Nanatsuboshi”-Seven Stars-ser- seat. The train travels around the rural southern service in October this year, but is already fully vice has a lounge car with a piano and a bar, top-end island of Kyushu, with a four-day, three-night pack- booked until June 2014. — AFP ‘Today’ show gets makeover with new set, Carson Daly

BC’s “Today” is revamping its show as it tries to brought in Patricia Fili-Krushel, an ally of Burke, to oversee retake the ratings lead it held for decades, adding business operations of the news division, as well as cable N“The Voice” host Carson Daly and a new set to lure channels MSNBC and CNBC. back viewers who defected last year to ABC’s “Good The job of overhauling the show was given to Deborah Morning America.” Turness, a former ITV executive in Britain who oversees the “Today,” which generates the bulk of the profits for NBC News division, including breaking news coverage at its NBC’s news division, is looking to recapture viewers it lost bureaus as well as shows including “NBC Nightly News with after anchor Ann Curry left in June 2012. Earlier that spring, Brian Williams,” the “Today” show, “Meet the Press” and “Good Morning America” snapped the show’s 16-year win- “Dateline.” ning streak atop the morning ratings. “We are a news show. I’ll say it again. We are a news “We want to be very competitive in the morning wars,” show,” Turness told reporters. “We must be ambitious, we Matt Lauer, the show’s co-host, said on the new orange- must be enterprising,” she said. hued set in Rockefeller Center on Thursday from which he To rebuild the audience, Turness says the show will and fellow hosts Savannah Guthrie and Al Roker will be stress exclusives and breaking news stories in a lineup that seen starting Monday. regularly features cooking segments, outdoor concerts and “Good Morning America” on Walt Disney Co’s ABC leads wacky YouTube videos. the ratings race in total viewers and among 25- to 54-year- She listed some recent “Today” exclusives, including an olds, the group advertisers target during the morning interview with cooking show cost Paula Deen, who had A visitor stands behind the work “The End of the 20th shows. “GMA” averaged nearly 2 million viewers in that age been involved in a scandal, an interview with the lawyer for Century” (1983) by German artist Joseph Beuys during a group, about 86,000 more than “Today,” according to convicted national securities leaker Bradley Manning, who preview of the exhibition “The End of the 20th Century - Nielsen data from Sept. 24, 2012, through Sept. 1, 2013. revealed his client wanted a sex change, and interrogation The Best Is Yet to Come - A Dialogue with the Marx Third-place “CBS This Morning,” which has steadily tapes with Ariel Castro, who was convicted of holding three Collection” at the Hamburger Bahnhof museum in Berlin grown its audience since it rebranded with a bent toward women hostage in a Cleveland home. yesterday. — AFP hard news in January 2012, averaged 1 million in 25- to 54- The hub of the show will be a new set, which features a year-olds. desk area for hosts that can rotate 360 degrees, state of the Advertisers spent an estimated $515 million last year for art weather screens for Roker, bright orange couches, and the 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. time slot, according to Kantar Media, Daly’s new digital set, which will allow him to chat with and it is among the more profitable parts of a network’s guests after they appear on the main set. schedule, according to Jon Swallen, Kantar’s chief research The space is also designed for social media interaction officer. with guests, including live stream interviews, and real-time “Today’s” share of that market has dropped to 50.1 per- analysis of social data and reactions from the web. cent from 59.1 percent in 2010, according to Kantar’s num- NBC did not say what it spent on the upgrades. The bers. news bent Turness intends to install at “Today” is a bid to “You used to be able to just buy ‘Today’ and maybe a lit- stop the advance of the “CBS This Morning,” which is in tle CBS,” said Aaron Cohen, chief media negotiator for third place but has closed the gap since launching in Horizon Media. The marketing and advertising firm buys January 2012. Hosted by Charlie Rose, Gayle King and morning show ads for clients that include Geico, Capital Norah O’Donnell, it has positioned itself as a hard-news One and Weight Watchers. alternative to its two more heavily viewed competitors. Cohen said “Today” is still valuable to advertisers “CBS This Morning” has averaged 2.8 million total view- because it trails “Good Morning America” by a just tiny mar- ers so far this season, up 13 percent from a year earlier, but Visitors walk past the installation “Primitiv” (2012) by gin among women 25 to 54, a key morning demographic. still about 1.8 million behind the No. 2 “Today.” Swiss artist Ugo Rondinone during a preview of the exhi- Turning around the morning program has been a focus “NBC doesn’t really think about CBS, but they might bition “The End of the 20th Century - The Best Is Yet to of Comcast, which bought control of NBC Universal in 2011 need to in the future,” said Brian Stelter, a New York Times Come - A Dialogue with the Marx Collection” at the and installed former Comcast Cable President Steve Burke reporter and author of “Top of the Morning: Inside the Hamburger Bahnhof museum in Berlin. — AFP as chief executive of the TV and film unit. The company Cutthroat World of Morning TV.” — Reuters Russian film braves law to tell gay love story taboo-breaking Russian film tackling the love with a street-wise petty criminal, pitched it tivals.” Taramayev said they did not even submit The film takes its title from a Schubert song topic of gay love may have earned critical to one of Russia’s main summer film festivals, the film to Russia’s main film forum, Moscow cycle, Winterreise, that the hero, Erik, a music stu- Aplaudits but its makers fear few will ever Kinotavr, they were surprised it was refused. International Film Festival-opened by Brad Pitt dent, is anxiously practising for a competition. see the movie given the crackdown on so-called “For the organisers of the festival it was this summer-because of the views of its organis- His teacher slams his unemotional performance, “homosexual propaganda”. uncomfortable, because there is such a law, so er, Oscar-winning director Nikita Mikhalkov. until Erik is transformed by a chance meeting A controversial new law signed in June by they thought it was better not to get involved,” “He supports the government’s line and is a with his polar opposite: Lyokha, a manic, foul- President Vladimir Putin makes it legal to ban director Sergei Taramayev told AFP. very political director and we realised that they mouthed youth from a dead-end provincial town events that could be seen as promoting homo- “At least people who were in the jury told us would not take us.” Nevertheless, Kommersant who is frankly homophobic. sexuality to minors. that this was the reason why we were not daily’s film critic Lidya Maslova argued that the “Don’t you have enough poofters already?” Western stars including British actor Stephen accepted for Kinotavr.” The film’s co-writer film would “look great at any European festival.” he asks, catching Erik’s adoring gaze. Fry and US pop star Lady Gaga have publicly crit- Lyubov Lvova said she believed festivals feared The film won prizes at the two smaller Nevertheless they click, and share a climactic icised the law, which so far has been largely used they could lose funding if they showed the film. Russian festivals where it was shown, at the kiss. But ultimately, Lyokha is unable to accept as a threat rather than enforced. “At many festivals-Russian ones-this scared the Window into Europe festival in Vyborg in north- his feelings. The film’s makers said they believed So when the makers of “Winter Journey”, a organisers a lot. They were afraid of this law, that western Russia in August and at Moscow the low-budget film was awarded an 18 certifi- passionate story of a gay classical singer falling in it could stop them getting financing for their fes- Premiere in September. cate because of the new law. —AFP