Quick Takes: R.E.M. bids fans goodbye

After 31 years in the business and 15 albums, R.E.M., the Southern rock band hailing from Athens, Ga., announced on its website Wednesday that it is calling it quits.

“As R.E.M., and as lifelong friends and co-conspirators, we have decided to call it a day as a band,” R.E.M. members Mike Mills, Peter Buck, Michael Stipe and Bill Rieflin said. “We walk away with a great sense of gratitude, of finality, and of astonishment at all we have accomplished. To anyone who ever felt touched by our music, our deepest thanks for listening.”

In a statement on his own, Mills said, “We’ve made this decision together, amicably and with each other’s best interests at heart. The time just feels right.”

In other words, it’s the end of the band as they know it, and they feel fine.

—Margaret Wappler

Economists get shortchanged?

Economists aren’t necessarily the first in line at cable news networks when someone is needed to talk about economic issues.

The watchdog group Media Matters for America said in a report Wednesday that only 4% of the people brought on to talk about the debt-ceiling issue on CNN, Fox News Channel and MSNBC this summer were actual economists.

Most were politicians. Media Matters said that’s understandable, given that Congress and the president decided the issue, but noted that it was important to include in the debate people with an expertise in the economy.

—Associated Press

Guns N’ Roses to tour the U.S.

Guns N’ Roses will embark on its first U.S. tour in five years, the band announced Wednesday.

Axl Rose and Co. will hit more than 30 cities on the trek, which kicks off Oct. 28 at Orlando’s Amway Center Arena. The full itinerary has yet to be announced, including what will presumably be an L.A or Orange County date.

GNR spent most of 2010 touring internationally, performing 71 shows in more than 30 countries.

—Gerrick D. Kennedy

‘New Girl’ is hot, but ‘Glee’ is not

It was the revenge of the nerds for Fox on Tuesday night as Zooey Deschanel’s new sitcom, “New Girl,” topped the ratings. But the “Glee” phenomenon is showing signs of fading.

“New Girl,” which has bespectacled alt-goddess Deschanel playing a geeky young woman who moves in with three men after she catches her live-in boyfriend cheating, opened to a relatively modest 10.1 million total viewers, according to early data from Nielsen. But the comedy was the top-rated program of the night among viewers ages 18 to 49, the demographic most sought by advertisers.

The bad news for Fox is that “Glee’s” passionate fan base seemed to be missing in action. The high school musical drew only 8.9 million viewers and lost nearly one- third of its 18 to 49 audience compared with last year’s Season 2 rollout. At 10 p.m., CBS looked solid with the premiere of “Unforgettable,” its new crime show inspired by news stories about people who can remember every moment from their lives. The drama dominated the hour with an average of

14 million viewers.

—Scott Collins

A Liz Taylor fashion auction

Designer clothes owned by Hollywood legend and fashion icon Elizabeth Taylor, including haute couture by Chanel, Yves St. Laurent and Dior, will be sold at auction in New York, Christie’s said Wednesday.

The silk chiffon dress that the Academy Award-winning actress wore for her first wedding to actor Richard Burton will be among the nearly 400 items available in the four-day series of sales in December that includes jewelry, fine art and memorabilia. Taylor died in March.

—reuters

Lucian Freud exhibition set

London’s National Portrait Gallery will stage a major Lucian Freud exhibition next spring that the artist collaborated on until his death in July.

“Lucian Freud Portraits,” opening Feb. 9, will include more than 100 works, including Freud’s final painting, “Portrait of the Hound 2011.”

Curator Sarah Howgate said the unfinished painting, depicting Freud’s studio assistant and friend David Dawson and his dog Eli, had been left in the artist’s studio after he died at the age of 88.

—Reuters

Finally

Honors: Filmmaker Steven Spielberg will be the recipient of the 2012 David O. Selznick Achievement Award in Motion Pictures when the Producers Guild of America hands out its annual awards Jan. 21 at the Beverly Hilton.