Morning Report - News from Dec. 17, 1998

POP/ROCK

Album Sales: Garth Brooks and teen crooners ‘N Sync continued to benefit from the strong holiday sales period as Brooks’ two-disc “Double Live” logged its fourth week at No. 1, while ‘N Sync’s self-titled album held onto the No. 3 spot and its holiday collection, “Home for Christmas,” climbed to No. 7. The Brooks album sold 451,000 copies last week--bringing its total sales to 2.6 million--while the two ‘N Sync releases combined for 598,000 copies last week and overall sales of 3.9 million. Eighteen albums in the top 20 enjoyed better sales than the previous week, signaling the height of the holiday shopping season. Celine Dion held onto the No. 2 spot for the second week with “These Are Special Times,” one of three Christmas albums in the top 25.

THE ARTS

Center Expansion: The Segerstrom family has announced it will donate six acres of former farmland worth $16 million for an expansion of the Orange County Performing Arts Center to be called the Segerstrom Center for the Arts. Renowned Argentine architect Cesar Pelli has been hired to design the project’s first phase, which officials said will encompass a concert hall of 1,800 to 2,000 seats and a 500-seat multipurpose auditorium to be built south of the center on what is now a parking lot and a grassy expanse. Center officials said the facilities will be built only with private funds, although no firm cost estimate will be made until Pelli’s designs are done. Groundbreaking is expected in about two years. The Segerstrom family, whose forebears arrived in Orange County in 1898, also donated the land on which the current center was built in 1986. The family firm, C.J. Segerstrom & Sons, built South Coast Plaza in 1966.

Jury Sides With Lloyd Webber: A New York jury Tuesday cleared composer Andrew Lloyd Webber of copyright infringement charges brought by another composer in an 8-year-old lawsuit. Lloyd Webber had been sued by Ray Repp, a composer of religious folk music, who charged Lloyd Webber had used a passage from Repp’s song “Till You” as theme music for “Phantom of the Opera.” Lloyd Webber called the verdict “a victory not just for me but for all songwriters who have been plagued by contingency lawyers.”

TV & MOVIES

Heston vs. ’60 Minutes’: Charlton Heston is taking “60 Minutes” to task over a story the CBS newsmagazine plans to air on him this Sunday, accusing the venerable news show of “SWAT-team journalism.” In an essay in the magazine Guns & Ammo, National Rifle Assn. President Heston says that he cooperated with the story, sitting for a three- to four-hour interview with correspondent Mike Wallace, and admits he had not seen the piece prior to writing his essay. But he wrote: “They can reshape the truth, remake it, mask it or eliminate it. ’60 Minutes’ helped pioneer the technique. And many have paid for its power with their reputations or careers.” “60 Minutes,” meanwhile, will open Sunday’s story by quoting from Heston’s diatribe, with Wallace saying: “Well, Chuck, take a look at what you’ve not seen till now, and tell us if it’s the truth.” A show spokesman said that Wallace will read any response from Heston on a future broadcast.