Danny Puff

By Euan Rocha

TORONTO (Reuters) - Nearly two months after its formal unveiling, BlackBerry's new Z10 smartphone finally went on sale in the hyper-competitive U.S. market on Friday, where its performance may well decide whether BlackBerry can reestablish itself as an industry leader.

BlackBerry, which is already selling the new touch-screen smartphone in about 25 countries, aims to make the Z10's new operating system the clear No. 3 platform on the market, a realistic but still difficult challenge, analysts say.

"I think the U.S. will be a challenge for BlackBerry more so than some of the countries where they have already launched," said Morningstar analyst Brian Colello.

"The momentum for iPhone and Android is too strong here. I still think they can win over some enterprise users, but the U.S. is a country where BlackBerry's brand has been greatly diminished."

BlackBerry once ruled the U.S. smartphone market, but it has fallen badly in recent years as devices powered by Apple's iOS and Google's Android operating systems dominate sales both in North America and overseas.

The BlackBerry 10 operating system will now slug it out with Microsoft's Windows 8 platform to secure the No. 3 spot in the market.

But by most accounts BlackBerry has a tough fight ahead. It not only has to win back the hearts and minds of consumers, but the timing is hardly ideal, with the Samsung Galaxy S4, expected to go on sale by the end of April, generating a lot of buzz.

"We believe BlackBerry's launch in the strategically important U.S. market will run into intense competition as Samsung, Apple, HTC and Nokia refresh their line-ups," Raymond James analyst Steven Li said in a note to clients on Friday.

Despite the buzz around other devices, some expect the Z10 to do well in the United States.

Best Buy's head of mobile sales, Scott Anderson, said the retailer has been able to gauge demand for the Z10 based on sales at Best Buy stores in Canada.

"We have fairly consistently increased the allocation of it to our stores as it has got more and more buzz. Even though we aren't releasing any numbers, we do put this in the realm of a serious iconic launch," he said, adding that BlackBerry has a window of opportunity over the next month before the new HTC and Samsung smartphones hit store shelves in the United States.

U.S. DELAY

The Canadian company was forced to delay the Z10's launch in the U.S. market because testing by telecommunications carriers there took longer than expected.

"We've been working very intensely for the last two months with the carriers and partners to ensure the retail experience will be great for customers," BlackBerry Chief Marketing Officer Frank Boulben said in an interview with Reuters.

The launch, though, appeared to be low-key at AT&T stores in New York, where there was no sign of posters or other marketing to highlight the launch day. An AT&T sales associate at one of its stores said the store had sold several of the devices early in the day.

The device went on sale at AT&T Inc stores across the country early on Friday, while Verizon Inc is set to begin selling the device in its stores on March 28.

Carriers in the United States allowed customers to pre-order or pre-register for the devices earlier this month.

"Relative to the population, we are on the same trajectory as we were in Canada with respect to pre-registration, and as you know we've had a very solid performance in Canada during the first six weeks," Boulben said.

BlackBerry has yet to release hard numbers on initial sales of the Z10 in major markets such as Britain and Canada, where it went on sales soon after the introduction.

The company is expected to provide a first reading on the Z10's popularity when it releases its quarterly results on March 28. BlackBerry's shares surged last week, however, after it said one of its partners had placed an order for 1 million BlackBerry 10 smartphones, the largest single purchase order in the company's history.

BlackBerry's volatile shares were down 8 percent at $14.82 on Friday afternoon on the Nasdaq, while its Toronto-listed shares were trading at C$15.09.

The BlackBerry Q10 model, which has a traditional physical keyboard that's likely to appeal to professionals who are heavy email users, is expected to go on sale next month. It won't reach U.S. store shelves until May or June. The company also plans to launch lower-end versions of the devices this year.

"I really expect a great start from the Z10 in the United States and that will be amplified by the Q10," Boulben said.

(Reporting by Euan Rocha; Editing by Frank McGurty, Peter Galloway and Nick Zieminski)

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A 61-year-old French man was arrested at Philadelphia International Airport and charged with impersonating a pilot after airline officials found him in the cockpit of a plane scheduled for takeoff, police said Friday.

The crew of a US Airways flight bound for West Palm Beach, Fla., found Philippe Jernnard of La Rochelle, France, in the jump seat behind the pilot on Wednesday evening, removing him after he was unable to produce valid credentials and became argumentative, police said.

Jernnard, who was a ticketed passenger, was wearing a white shirt with an Air France logo and had a black jacket with epaulets on the shoulders, police said. Officer Christine O'Brien said police found him in possession of a counterfeit Air France crew member ID card.

Air France said Jernnard is not one of its employees and was not wearing the airline's uniform.

It's not clear how Jernnard got into the cockpit, but one security expert said he didn't view it as a breach.

Pilots can typically ride for free in the jump seat of another airline, but they must make arrangements ahead of time and their presence would be noted on a passenger manifest. That manifest is reviewed by the pilot before takeoff meaning that Jernnard didn't have a chance of remaining, said Douglas Laird, former security director for Northwest Airlines.

"The guy can't do any harm sitting up there. He has no access to the controls sitting there. I think the system worked," said Laird, who now runs an airline security consultancy in Reno, Nev.

Police said there's no indication Jernnard meant any harm. A US Airways spokeswoman referred questions to the FBI, which confirmed it is investigating but declined to comment Friday.

O'Brien said Jernnard initially became upset at the gate when he asked to be upgraded to business class.

"The (US Airways) employee gate agent told the male there was no space left in business class. He became irate," O'Brien said.

Jernnard then boarded the plane and made his way to the jump seat.

He was charged with criminal trespass, forgery, records tampering, false impersonation of a person privately employed, and providing false identification to law enforcement. He was jailed on $1 million bail pending a preliminary hearing scheduled for April 5. Federal charges are also expected.

Jernnard is represented by the Philadelphia public defender's office, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In France, police in La Rochelle as well as the national police declined to comment, saying they are not allowed to disclose information about individuals.

Jernnard's stunt mirrored one by con man Frank Abagnale Jr., whose exploits were chronicled in the 2002 hit film "Catch Me If You Can." In the movie, Abagnale, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, is able to make his way into a plane's cockpit, bluffing his way past security and distracting the FBI by donning a pilot's uniform.

Laird said he can recall a few other cases before the Sept. 11 attacks in which civilians talked their way into the cockpit and were not discovered until the planes had actually taken off.

"If you are civilian, you can't pass yourself off as an Air France pilot because within about 30 seconds the pilots go, 'This guy has not a clue,'" Laird said. "It would be like you and I passing ourselves off as surgeons."

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Rubinkam reported from northeastern Pennsylvania. Associated Press Writer Greg Keller in Paris contributed to this report.

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NEW ORLEANS (AP) John Besh has cooked for thousands in his restaurants. He has cooked for millions on TV. But he recently realized he'd lost sight of cooking for the most important diners of all his family.

Besh, who owns eight restaurants in south Louisiana and one in San Antonio, said that for years he was working to feed the public but "wasn't feeding the people as a father I was called to feed, and my wife called me out on it."

The husband and father of four said his family was the inspiration for his new cooking show, "Chef John Besh's Family Table."

In the new 26-part series, Besh creates family-friendly meals and gives tips on how to get the most use out of ingredients for economic value. Besh said he hopes the show will inspire families to gather around the supper table.

"We've lost sight of that family table, which has always been that glue that holds our culture together," said Besh, who with his wife of 20 years, Jenifer, has four sons ranging in age from 17 to 8. "The family table is where we communicate and learn how to communicate and negotiate."

Besh said his family also was the inspiration for his latest cookbook, "My Family Table: A Passionate Plea for Home Cooking." Recipes from the book will be made on the show, which was filmed in Besh's kitchen at his 10-acre Bayou Liberty home near Slidell, La.

Besh said he grew up hunting and fishing with his father and grandfather. Cooking and eating together as a family was a part of his upbringing, he said.

"If we went fishing for speckled trout, we'd come home and have trout meuniere for dinner," he said. With four boys who all play sports, "we live at the ball field, and I'm amazed at how many kids are being raised on food from the bag."

The show will air in parts of the Gulf Coast region on WYES-TV beginning April 6, and it will be distributed nationwide through American Public Television. WYES produced cooking shows for Louisiana chefs Justin Wilson and Paul Prudhomme.

"To be a chef in New Orleans, you're a steward of a great tradition and one of many who will pass it on," he said. "Maybe I'm inspiring the next generation of Louisiana chefs."

This will be Besh's second show produced by WYES. "Chef John Besh's New Orleans" has been airing for the past two years.

Besh said that because viewers in other parts of the country had trouble getting some of the local ingredients he used in the first series, such as andouille sausage and soft-shell crabs, he used more accessible foods such as chicken and pork roasts in the new series.

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Online:

John Besh, http://www.chefjohnbesh.com/restaurants.html

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By Foo Yun Chee

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - EU antitrust regulators are looking into possible anticompetitive issues involving distribution of Apple's iPhone and its iPad tablets because of what sources said were informal complaints from several telecoms operators.

The complaints to the European Commission underscore the broader battle between the telecoms industry and content providers, such as Apple and Google, which provide new digital services that run over telecoms systems.

A Commission spokesman on Friday said that the EU competition regulators had been informed about concerns over the world's most valuable technology company and its distribution practices for iPhone and iPad.

"There have been no formal complaints, though," Antoine Colombani told a regular Commission briefing.

"Generally, we are actively monitoring developments in this market. We will, of course, intervene if there are indications of anticompetitive behavior to the detriment of consumers."

Three people familiar with the matter said that several telecoms companies had aired their grievances to the Commission.

Their concerns focused on the commercial terms in contracts with Apple, said one of the sources, who declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter.

"Apple insists on a certain level of subsidies and marketing for the iPhone," said the source, who declined to identify the companies that had approached the Commission.

Apple's iPhone accounts for half of its revenue.

A second source said that the companies expressed their concerns to the Commission late last year.

Apple spokeswoman Natalie Kerris said: "Our contracts fully comply with local laws wherever we do business, including the EU."

It is not the first time Apple has come under the scrutiny of the EU antitrust regulators. The company was the target of an investigation nearly three years ago over its iPhone business practices.

It subsequently allowed cross-border repair services and eased restrictions on applications for the iPhone, which resulted in the Commission dropping its investigation.

(Additional reporting by Leila Abboud in Paris; Editing by Rex Merrifield and David Goodman)

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By Ben Blanchard

BEIJING (Reuters) - With a smile on her face, dressed in a simple black peacoat and carrying an elegant unbranded bag, China's new first lady, Peng Liyuan, stepped into the international limelight on Friday and became an instant internet sensation back home.

Stepping off the aircraft in Moscow - the first stop of President Xi Jinping's maiden foreign trip since assuming office - Peng's glamorous appearance and obvious affection for her portly husband caused Chinese microbloggers to swoon.

"So beautiful, Peng Liyuan, so beautiful! How composed, how magnanimous," wrote one user on China's popular Twitter-like service Sina Weibo.

"Who could not love such a lady as this and be insanely happy with her?" wrote another.

Taobao, an online shopping site similar to eBay and Amazon, quickly began offering for sale coats in the same style of Peng's, advertising it as "the same style as the first lady's".

Others wondered what brand her bag and shoes were.

"Her shoes are really classic, and who designed her bag?" wrote a third Weibo user.

Peng is best known in China as a singer, and for many years was arguably better known and certainly more popular than her husband.

People who have met her and know her say that Peng is vivacious and fun to be around, though she was ordered to take a back seat after Xi became vice president in 2008 as he was being groomed for state power.

But she is expected to be given high-profile events of her own to attend on Xi's sweep through Russia, Tanzania, South Africa and the Republic of Congo on a week-long trip, as the government tries to soften the image of China abroad.

Peng has won praise for her advocacy for pet causes, most notably for children living with HIV/AIDS, and may visit charities related to this while abroad.

Unlike the baby-kissing politicians of the West, China's Communist Party works hard to keep its top leaders from appearing too human - to the point that for many, even their official birthdates and the names of their children are regarded as a state secret.

Xi and Peng are different. Their romance has been the subject of dozens of glowing reports and pictorials in state media.

"When he comes home, I've never thought of it as though there's some leader in the house. In my eyes, he's just my husband," Peng gushed in an interview with a state-run magazine in 2007, describing Xi as frugal, hardworking and down-to-earth.

Peng is Xi's second wife, and the two have a daughter studying at Harvard under an assumed name. Xi divorced his first wife, the daughter of a diplomat.

Chinese first wives have traditionally kept a low profile over the past few decades, because of the experience of Jiang Qing, the widow of the founder of Communist China, Mao Zedong.

Jiang was the leader of the "Gang of Four" that wielded supreme power during the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution. She was given a suspended death sentence in 1981 for the deaths of tens of thousands during that period of chaos.

(This story corrects the year Xi became vice president to 2008)

(Additional reporting by Megha Rajagopalan and Beijing newsroom, and Anita Li in SHANGHAI; Editing by Nick Macfie)

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SYDNEY (AP) Ellen DeGeneres is so excited to be Down Under, she's even tweeting that way.

The talk show host's Twitter account had an upside-down message Friday saying, "I made it to Australia!"

She's visiting Sydney and Melbourne on her six-day trip to the country for segments being filmed for her popular U.S. television show.

DeGeneres and wife Portia de Rossi greeted fans at the Sydney airport upon arrival. Photos posted on the show's website and social media accounts showed the couple in front of the Sydney Opera House and DeGeneres looking at kaolas and a giraffe at Sydney's Taronga Zoo.

"The Ellen DeGeneres Show" is in its 10th season. DeGeneres was honored with the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor last year.

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LOS ANGELES (AP) A Los Angeles judge set the stage Thursday for trial of a civil suit by Michael Jackson's mother against concert giant AEG Live.

Katherine Jackson claims the company negligently hired the doctor later convicted of involuntary manslaughter in the singer's death and failed to oversee him. She and the singer's two eldest children are expected to testify about the singer's last days.

Legal rulings by Superior Court Judge Yvette Palazuelos anticipated a three-month trial that will revisit events preceding the singer's death from an anesthetic overdose in 2009.

Dr. Conrad Murray, who was convicted of manslaughter for administering the drug propofol, is not named in the lawsuit. But the judge agreed to allow him to be brought to court from jail to testify outside the jury's presence. He has said he would invoke his Fifth Amendment right not to testify. But lawyers said he could possibly talk about non-criminal issues.

The judge said jury selection would begin April 2 and attorneys estimated the search for a panel could be long and difficult because of the notoriety of the parties and the estimated length of the trial.

The judge granted several plaintiff's motions and rejected a few.

She refused to bar AEG from raising the subject of child molestation charges against Jackson from years ago. Lawyers for his mother claim it's irrelevant because he was acquitted.

Katherine Jackson's attorney, Kevin Boyle, argued that "There is nothing more prejudicial than dropping that bomb in court, mentioning child molestation."

But Palazuelos said she would allow testimony that Jackson became despondent and reliant on drugs because of the charges.

She refused to approve inquiry into the finances of Jackson's siblings and barred any testimony about a claim that Katherine Jackson was kidnapped by family members and taken to Arizona last year.

She wouldn't permit AEG lawyers to ask questions about possible discord in the marriage of Katherine and Joe Jackson and she barred any inquiry into the identity of the biological parents of Jackson's three children.

Katherine Jackson's suit seeks hundreds of millions of dollars from AEG including $200 million in non-economic damages, including emotional distress.

The case centers on whether AEG did an appropriate investigation of Murray and whether they controlled him while he was preparing Jackson for a series of concerts in London.

During arguments, the question arose of why Katherine Jackson did not sue Murray. Attorneys disclosed that Jackson's son Prince and his daughter, Paris, testified in depositions that they believed Murray was "a good person" and didn't want him sued. But Katherine Jackson, who had the decision, testified it was financial, they said.

The judge said AEG could have sued Murray as well.

"The same questions can be asked of you," she told AEG lawyers. "Why didn't you sue him?"

"Because we're not required to," attorney Marvin Putnam said.

The judge called the issue "a side show."

"He has no money and that's why they're not suing him," Putnam said.

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By Poornima Gupta and Ronald Grover

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Technology giants Apple, Google and Amazon are furiously maneuvering for position in the online music business and looking at ways to make streaming profitable, despite the fact that pioneer Pandora has never made a profit.

It has been more than a decade since the iPod heralded the revival of Apple and presaged the smartphone revolution, even as music-sharing site Napster was showing the disruptive power of the Internet in the music business.

Now Google, Amazon.com Inc and Apple are among the Silicon Valley powerhouses sounding out top recording industry executives, according to sources with knowledge of talks and media reports. Streaming service Pandora is spending freely and racking up losses to expand globally. Even social media stalwarts Facebook and Twitter are jumping on the bandwagon.

All of them see a viable music streaming and subscription service as crucial to growing their presence in an exploding mobile environment. For Google and Apple, it is critical in ensuring users remain loyal to their mobile products.

Music has been integral to the mobile experience since the early days of iTunes, which upended the old models with its 99-cent per song buying approach. Now, as smartphones and tablets supplant PCs and virtual storage replaces songs on devices, mobile players from handset makers to social networks realize they must stake out a place or risk ceding control of one of the largest components of mobile device usage.

About 48 percent of smartphone users listen to music on their device, making it the fourth most popular media-related activity after social networking, games and news, according to a ComScore survey of mobile behavior released in February. Users ranked a phone's music and video capability at 7.4 on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being most important purchase consideration factor, according to the study.

"Music is very strategic for the various electronic devices Samsung manufactures," said Daren Tsui, CEO and co-founder of streaming music service mSpot, which Samsung bought last year to create the Music Hub service now available on Galaxy smartphones in the United States and Europe.

"By owning it, we can absolutely customize the music experience and leverage the fact that it's not just a service but there's also a hardware component."

In January, Beats Electronics, the startup co-founded by recording supremo Jimmy Iovine and hip-hop performer-producer Dr. Dre, and backed by Universal and Warner Music, announced a new streaming-subscription service dubbed "Daisy" to take on Pandora and Spotify starting this summer.

Now, industry insiders expect Apple, Google and other technology titans to jump into the fray. Apple is talking with music labels about tacking a subscription service option onto iTunes, sources have said, while Google is said to be planning a YouTube subscription music service, according to media reports.

"There are some content creators that think they would benefit from a subscription revenue stream in addition to ads, so we're looking at that," a YouTube spokesperson said, but declined to comment on any specific negotiations.

Apple declined to comment.

Microsoft is already promoting its Xbox Music service. Their entry promises to catalyze an industry shake-up and propel music streaming further into the mainstream.

"ITunes was great but it needs a step forward," Iovine, chairman of Universal Music's Interscope-Geffen-A&M Records, told the AllThingsD conference in February. "There is an ocean of music out there that people want."

MOBILE MUSIC LOVERS

Music streaming, or playing songs over the Internet, has in recent years begun to come into its own as listeners increasingly choose to stream songs from apps like Pandora via their smartphones, rather than buy and store individual tracks.

The ad-free subscription model, where consumers pay a flat fee for near-unlimited listening time, is relatively new and quickly gaining popularity.

Pandora, one of the pioneers, is now trying to convert users of its free ad-supported radio service into subscribers. It says mobile users account for more than two thirds of its music, up from just 5 percent of listener-hours three years earlier.

Subscription services are expected to have crossed the 10 per cent mark as a share of total digital music revenues in 2012 for the first time, according to a recent report from the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, which represents the recording industry worldwide.

Consumers spent $5.6 billion worldwide for digital music in 2012, an increase of 9 percent, offsetting the decline in CDs and other physical ways to provide music. That gave the industry its best growth since 1998, albeit a miniscule 0.3 percent, according to the IFPI.

Pure buyers "have to spend hundreds of dollars a month on music, which most people can't afford to do," Spotify founder and CEO Daniel Ek told Reuters in an interview last week at South-by-Southwest Interactive. "It's pretty obvious that the access model or the subscription model is a much better proposition for most people."

U.S. consumers will stream an estimated 100 billion tracks this year, says David Bakula, senior vice-president for client development and analytics for Nielsen Entertainment.

"The big question is who has the business model to make it work," said Bakula, a former executive at Universal Music, one of the four major music labels. "The first ones in the market may not be the winners."

Apple CEO Tim Cook recently met with Iovine and other Beats executives to find out more about that business. It is unclear if Apple will join Beats' Project Daisy.

SHOW ME THE MONEY

Making money off music streaming is difficult. Leading players Pandora and Spotify, despite attracting hundreds of millions of dollars in financing and millions of subscribers, have never reported a cent of profit.

No less a personage than Steve Jobs himself was a skeptic.

"Never say never, but customers don't seem to be interested in it," the late Apple co-founder and online music visionary told Reuters in a 2007 interview. Apple's current executives have not publicly stated their views on streaming music.

Pandora, which went public in 2011, now has 67 million monthly listeners worldwide - a 41 percent jump from a year ago - together listening to more than 13 billion hours of music.

But its losses more than doubled to $38.1 million in the year to January 31, 2013, hurt by the high cost of standard streaming licenses that typically have a per-track royalty model. This has forced Pandora, which relies mainly on advertising for revenue, to cap free mobile listening at 40 hours per month.

It and other music services such as Clear Channel Communications' iHeartRadio are now urging lawmakers in the U.S. Congress to pass the "Internet Radio Fairness Act," which would set royalty rates for subscription music services using the same standard that has so far been applied to other forms of radio.

But a group of 125 musicians, including Billy Joel and Rihanna, are speaking up against it, arguing that the bill would cut by 85 percent the amount of money an artist receives when his or her songs are played over the Internet.

The issue of how recording labels and musicians will be paid is one of the biggest roadblocks to growth. Competition will almost certainly force a shakeout, with winners and losers.

That could accelerate once major technology companies like Amazon and Google flex their marketing muscles, not to mention Apple with its ability to leverage its enormous base of online music buyers. The California gadget giant is unlikely to cede its lead in selling music without a fight.

While streaming could undercut sales of music tracks, Apple has always maintained that if there is potential for cannibalization of its products, the gadget maker would rather be in charge than let others in on it.

Finally, Microsoft has a large audience of Windows and Xbox players to whom it can promote Xbox Music Pass, a $9.99 a month service it launched in October. The software giant has declined to talk about its future plans in this area.

Bring it on, says Ek from Spotify.

"It's rare that gigantic companies figure out a new way to do something peripheral," Ek said. "I don't believe the world will only be controlled by a Google or an Apple. It will be companies who are great at games like EA, at films like Netflix, or at music like Spotify."

(Additional reporting by Gerry Shih in San Francisco; Editing by Claudia Parsons)

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By Gerry Shih

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Online game publisher Zynga Inc relaunched its website on Thursday, allowing users to play its games without first signing on to Facebook, a significant step toward establishing its independence from Facebook Inc.

The relaunch of Zynga.com is the latest step in the slow dissolution of a special partnership that once bound two of the most influential players in the social Internet industry.

Tim Catlin, general manager of Zynga.com, told Reuters he believed Zynga's players wanted to create unique player names that were not tied to their Facebook accounts, which displays their real names.

"You had to use your Facebook account to play previously, but this is going to change going forward," said Catlin, who added that existing players will still be able to log in with their Facebook accounts.

New players, however, will be able to easily sign up without using Facebook credentials - long a hallmark of many Zynga games.

"We've been able to greatly streamline that process," Catlin said of the new Zynga.com website, which has been in the works for the past year.

Founded in 2007, Zynga achieved a searing growth rate in its early years by exclusively tapping Facebook's network to gain new users while offering games directly within Facebook.com web pages.

For several years the companies enjoyed a lucrative and symbiotic relationship, with Zynga deriving close to 90 percent of its revenues from Facebook games, while Facebook received roughly 15 percent of its income in the form of fees from Zynga.

But Zynga's competitive advantage on the world's largest social network gradually shrank as other publishers entered the market, and the company's leadership has been faulted for not diversifying away from Facebook's platform earlier.

Last year, Facebook and Zynga announced that they agreed to amend a longstanding deal that had given Zynga special privileges on the Facebook platform.

Rather than relying on Facebook's communications features, Zynga has focused on building out features of its own such as its "social stream," a bar that is displayed within games to connect players to each other.

Zynga shares were up less than 1 percent at $3.38 after hours.

(This story was fixed to correct name of Zynga general manager to Tim instead of Tom in third paragraph and to say Zynga and Facebook amended deal instead of that deal had expired in 10th paragraph )

(Reporting By Gerry Shih; Editing by David Gregorio)

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NEW YORK (AP) Veteran newsman Ted Koppel, who reports on Friday's "Rock Center" about young offenders in adult prisons, said NBC hasn't done Brian Williams and his young newsmagazine any favors with its scheduling shuffles.

The show debuted on Halloween 2011 and now airs on Friday after previously being on NBC's schedule for Monday, Tuesday and Thursday.

"Just when you think somebody might figure out when it's on and want to see it the next week, they move it to another place," said the former "Nightline" anchor. "That's not helpful, and I think Brian deserves more support than that."

He said Williams is "a powerhouse of a guy, and I think he's going to emerge triumphant in the end."

"Rock Center" has been averaging 3.8 million viewers a year this season, although it recorded less than 2.8 million last week in its Friday at 10 p.m. time slot, the Nielsen company said.

Koppel does about four or five stories a year for "Rock Center," in addition to some writing, work at National Public Radio and lecturing.

His story on Friday talks about thousands of youngsters placed in solitary confinement in adult prisons. They're sent to these prisons out of a public desire to see people who commit adult crimes punished like adults. To protect them against violence and sexual predators in prison, they're kept apart from the general population.

But being placed in solitary confinement creates its own set of problems, Koppel said. His story focuses on the experiences of Kevin Demott, a Michigan man with mental health issues who attempted armed robbery at age 13 and was kept in solitary for many months.

"I'd been interested in prison-related stories for a long time, and I had no idea we had so many kids in adult facilities," Koppel said.

Despite NBC's ratings problems, network TV still carries plenty of power to get the issue in front of people, he said.

"If a couple of million people end up seeing this piece on Friday night, and 1 percent may be moved to do something about it and say, 'this is crazy, we've got to get these children out of prison...,' then hallelujah, God bless the network."

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