By Brendan Farrington
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) --Florida's tourism marketing agency had a management shake-up Friday after Gov. Rick Scott asked for the CEO to step down for refusing to publicly disclose the agency had paid rapper Pitbull $1 million to promote the state.
Visit Florida CEO Will Seccombe "was in agreement" with the governor's call for leadership changes and he planned to work with the board on that, Visit Florida spokesman Tim DeClaire said in an email.
DeClaire also said that the chief financial officer and chief marketing officer positions "were eliminated" on Friday.
Scott also asked Visit Florida to begin publishing its spending, contracts, salaries, audits and other financial information.
"The notion that Visit Florida spending would not be transparent to the taxpayers is just ridiculous. We must have major reforms at Visit Florida in the weeks ahead that require new leadership," Scott said in a letter to William Talbert, who chairs the agencies board of directors.
The letter comes one day after Pitbull, whose real name is Armando Christian Perez, used Twitter to make his contract with Visit Florida public. House Speaker Richard Corcoran had sued two days earlier to have the contract released. Visit Florida had refused to disclose it, citing trade secrets.
Seccombe has led the agency since 2012 after serving as its chief marketing officer for nearly five years.
Pitbull filmed a video for his song "Sexy Beaches" as part of the contract and agreed to promote the hashtag #LOVEFL on his social media sites and at concerts.
The video features images of women frolicking in the surf and sand as well as pictures of iconic Florida hotels such as Miami Beach's Fontainebleau and the pink Don CeSar Hotel in St. Pete Beach. It ends with an image of #LOVEFL written in the sand.
Legislative leaders have criticized the agreement, but Scott's concern was more over the transparency — not the video or hiring Pitbull.
"I appreciate Pitbull and his devotion to our great state. His willingness to help promote tourism in Florida is a great example for other entertainers to follow," Scott wrote.
Sony reports healthy profits on strong sales of sensors and games
Sony's profit rose 69% in July-September from a year earlier on the back of strong sales of its image sensors, games, music and network services, the Japanese electronics and entertainment company said on Friday.
Quarterly profit was 338.5 billion yen ($2.2 billion), up from 200 billion yen in the year-earlier period, while consolidated quarterly sales edged up 3% year-on-year to 2.9 trillion yen ($19 billion).
Tokyo-based Sony's latest quarterly results were boosted by healthy demand around the world for image sensors used in mobile products.
Sales also held up in its video games division. During the latest quarter, 3.8 million PlayStation 5 game consoles were sold globally, compared with 4.9 million units sold the same period a year ago.
Demand remained strong for PS5 game software, according to Sony.
The top-selling music releases from Sony for the quarter included "SOS" by SZA, David Gilmour's "Luck and Strange" and Kenshi Yonezu's "Lost Corner."
One area where Sony's business suffered was its pictures division, including TV shows and movies, which was impacted by production delays caused by the strikes in Hollywood.
Among the recent hit films from Sony was "It Ends With Us," a romantic drama based on a novel.
Sony, which also makes digital cameras and TVs, maintained its 980-billion yen ($6.4 billion) profit forecast for the fiscal year through March 2025, up 1% from the previous fiscal year.
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