STORY:
Matt's Millennium Stew
Today's Millennium Stew --------
Dick's Back, Babs Sets Record, Vegas Lucks Out & Newsweek Poll
by Matt Markovich
Everything2000 Stewmaster
---After getting shafted on air-time this New Year's Eve, ABC has made amends Mr. New Year's Eve, Dick Clark. He has signed on to host the New Year's Eve countdown to midnight in Times Square for another five years. Clark, 70, also said Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve on ABC has been expanded to 3 1/2 hours, up from 1 1/2 hours.
''It gives us the opportunity to feature many more performers and guests,'' said Clark, who hosted his 28th consecutive Times Square show two weeks ago albeit an abbreviated one.
----Fans of Barbra Streisand paid a whopping $14,694,750 to hear her ring in 2000, an all-time single concert box-office record, according to the host MGM Grand hotel-casino. Hotel management said all of the 12,477 tickets for the New Year's Eve event sold out.
The previous record gross, as tabulated by the industry's Pollstar Magazine, was $13.4 million, achieved by Placido Domingo, Luciano Pavarotti and Jose Carreras at Giant Stadium in New York on July 20, 1996.
---New Year's Eve wasn't such a bad bet for Las Vegas resorts. Despite concerns that millennium parties and Y2K fears would make the holiday a bust for resorts, Las Vegas tourism officials say the holiday wasn't as bad as had been feared in the waning days of 1999.
The occupancy level for the city's 121,665 hotel rooms was 91.5 percent on New Year's Eve, higher than the 85 percent that had been projected.
---Three weeks ago Newsweek asked its readers to consider five big questions about the century just completed. I bet the folks at Time felt compelled to select a positive influence, Einstein as their person of the century. The Newsweek poll touches more on who "should" have been the person of the century...for good or for bad. Here are the results of the Newsweek poll: then to visit our Web site and share with us your answers. Here are the results.
What was the biggest turning point of the century? Adolf Hitler's becoming chancellor of Germany in 1933, 31%
Who was the biggest villain of the century? Adolf Hitler, 84%
What was the biggest invention of the century? Computers, 45%
What was the biggest medical breakthrough of the century? Antibiotics, 43%
Who was the biggest entertainer of the century? Elvis Presley, 31%
DATE: 1/11/2000
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