Zahn Joins Night Shift as Fox News Anchor

Fox News will get a very familiar face--and, executives hope, a much-higher profile--beginning this week when one of CBS’ leading morning and evening news stars moves behind the 24-hour cable news channel’s anchor desk. Paula Zahn, best known for her six-year stint on “CBS This Morning,” jumps over to Fox News today to anchor the cable network’s signature evening newscast, “The Fox Report.” Zahn also will host one hour of the network’s daily news program, “Fox News Now.” “Any job transition is tough, and I had some very strong years at CBS,” said Zahn, who was most recently the anchor of “CBS Evening News Saturday Edition.” “But here I get a chance to practice my craft two hours a day.” And that’s not all: “The mind-set is different because the mission is different,” she said. “Because Fox is 24 hours a day, the broadcasts have to be more fluid, and the corporate management and newsroom structure have to be more flexible. We can’t have endless meetings talking about changing a graphic or worrying about booking a guest.”

How to Succeed in Animation by Trying

Will it be boom times again this year for feature film animation? With Disney’s “Tarzan” coming this summer and “Toy Story 2” headed for Christmas holiday release, and with studios like Warner Bros. coming out with “Iron Giant,” it just might be. But for now, Hollywood studios are still basking in the big ticket sales from four animated films released late last year. And only one of those films came from Disney. The films included “Antz” and “The Prince of Egypt” from DreamWorks SKG, “Rugrats” from Paramount Pictures and “A Bug’s Life” from Disney and Pixar Animation. “The success of all these animated features reinvigorated the industry,” said Antran Manoogian, president of ASIFA-Hollywood, the international animated film society. The boom in animation is not lost on ASIFA-Hollywood, which is expecting up to 5,000 people to attend its two-day “Animation Expo ‘99” Friday and Saturday at the Glendale Civic Auditorium. The event is open to the public, with ticket prices ranging from $10 to $100. The expo is geared for professional animators and people wanting to learn how to get into the animation industry, with workshops ranging from preparing for a career in animation to various aspects of the field, including film, television, video games and the Internet.

Let the Race for Post-Grammy Sales Begin

And the Grammy boost goes to . . . Lauryn Hill and Ricky Martin. This week’s album sales charts will reveal which artists got the biggest sales surge out of Wednesday’s Grammy Awards telecast. Two solid bets: Hill, who dominated the night with five awards, and Martin, who was introduced to many viewers with a stirring stage performance and a victory for best Latin pop performance. “Our Lauryn Hill sales tripled the day after the show,” said Gary Arnold, a vice president for the Best Buy chain. “She’s going to have a stellar week.” Each of the dozen acts who performed on the show will get a boost, but don’t expect any of them to be No. 1 next week. That will be a race between new albums from rapper Eminem and R&B; trio TLC, the most hotly anticipated releases so far this year. “We were expecting big things and both are doing even better than projected,” Arnold said.

--Compiled by Times Staff Writers