Quick Takes: ‘NFL Kickoff’ scores big

Thursday’s night’s Green Bay Packers victory over the New Orleans Saints delivered reliably huge ratings for NBC but fell just shy of last year’s NFL season kickoff.

Nielsen reported Friday that the game averaged 27.2 million viewers, compared with the record 27.5 million who tuned in for last year’s opener between the Saints and the Minnesota Vikings.

Besides being the second-most-watched “NFL Kickoff” ever, NBC said Thursday’s down-to-the-wire contest was the second-most-watched regular-season prime-time game ever on the network.

—Scott Collins

‘Glee’ contest to aid arts programs

The maker of the “Glee” DVDs is donating $1 million to school arts programs across the country.

Twentieth Century Fox Entertainment announced the donation Friday, saying it will work with the National Assn. for Music Education to get the money to schools. The company says 73 schools will receive grants ranging from $10,000 to $50,000.

Eligible high schools are being asked to submit videos about why their schools deserve a grant. There will be a public vote to winnow the competition, and education association officials will make the final determination.

—Associated Press

Tate museum’s ‘oil’ exploration

Derelict oil tanks and forgotten industrial spaces hidden in the bowels of the Tate Modern art museum in London will open to the public in summer 2012, providing a new area to “revolutionize” the museum’s work, officials there said.

The opening of the enormous and atmospheric oil tanks in the former power station on the banks of the Thames will provide flexible, subterranean “lunar” spaces and form the foundation for a further expansion of the world’s most visited modern art museum.

“The oil tanks will give visitors a new way to explore and experience art at Tate Modern,” museum director Chris Dercon said. “Architecturally they are fantastic raw spaces, which are being carefully converted for public use without losing any of their unique industrial character.”

—Reuters

Al Jazeera to take world view

Like most television news outlets, Al Jazeera English will station reporters in New York and Washington on Sunday to mark the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. It also will have reporters on hand in Baghdad, Bali, Nairobi, Kabul and Islamabad.

The network, which started five years after the attacks, said it hopes to bring a global perspective to the anniversary that domestic networks likely won’t.

Correspondent Gabriel Elizondo has already traveled extensively in the U.S. reporting on Sept. 11 and its aftermath. On Sunday, anchor Tony Harris will report from the World Trade Center site with other New York-based reporters. Al Jazeera will also send a reporter to Dearborn, Mich., for a story about how the U.S. Muslim community is treating the anniversary.

The event will remind an international audience about what happened on Sept. 11 and how it changed the United States. But through the coverage at overseas sites and documentaries that are airing in the days before, the focus will be on how it changed the rest of the world, said Owen Watson, international executive producer.

—Associated Press

Screamfest lines up global scares

Movies from France, England, Australia and Israel will be part of the lineup at the 11th annual Screamfest, the horror film festival that will take place Oct. 14-23 at the Chinese 6 Theatres in Hollywood.

American films on the bill include “Rosewood Lane,” with Rose McGowan and Lauren Velez; “Julia X 3D,” starring Kevin Sorbo and Valerie Azlynn; “Vamperifica,” starring Dreama Walker, and “Enter Nowhere,” starring Scott Eastwood.

—From a Times staff writer

Broadway in tune with tribute

Joel Grey, Kara DioGuardi, Bebe Neuwirth, Ben Vereen and Brian Stokes Mitchell — along with sailors, nuns, drag queens, ballerinas and a Spider-Man — helped mark the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks with a full-throated reprise of the song “New York, New York.”

The stars and members of musicals like “The Book of Mormon,” “Anything Goes” and “Priscilla Queen of the Desert: The Musical” gathered in Times Square on Friday to belt out the John Kander and Fred Ebb song made famous by Frank Sinatra.

New York Police Dept. Officer Daniel Rodriguez also sang an operatic “God Bless America.”

The mini-concert was a replay of what the Broadway community sang 10 years ago to promote theater in New York City following 9/11.

—Associated Press