“As TV dramas get better and better, book publishers are hoping to convert binge TV watchers into binge readers. Serialized books have a long history in publishing — Charles Dickens famously released many his novels in serial form.”
Author: Douglas McLennan
Our Digital Expanses Have Made Us Confidently Arrogant. Where’s The Value In Humility?
“The internet and digital media have created the impression of limitless knowledge at our fingertips. But, by making us lazy, they have opened up a space that ignorance can fill.”
Cincinnati Ballet Hires An Executive Director
He’s Scott Altman, currently ED of Ballet West. “The executive director position has been vacant since Paul Kaine left the company in April 2008. Soon after, Victoria Morgan added the CEO role to her artistic responsibilities. In the course of one year, Morgan, working with staff and board, eliminated an $800,000 deficit. Since then, the company’s annual ticket revenue has grown more than 70 percent, while attendance has climbed nearly 30 percent. The company’s endowment, just $1 million when Morgan became CEO, is now $11 million.”
Musician Payments For Streaming Are A Mess. So Apple Has A Plan (But…)
“Apple recently made a proposal that could fundamentally transform the way streaming services pay songwriters and music publishers. As part of a government rate-setting process known as the Copyright Royalty Board tribunal (CRB), Apple recommended that services pay a fixed penny rate per stream. This structure is a major departure from the way streaming services have traditionally paid royalties. Moving to a penny rate would be a tremendous step toward transparency in music publishing. But be careful of the fine print.”
Prominent de Young Museum Board Chair Resigns Over Investigations Into Museum Spending
Dede Wilsey, longtime head of the board that runs the de Young Museum and Legion of Honor in San Francisco, is giving up her top spot after the museums paid a $2 million settlement to a former high-ranking executive who said Wilsey had her ousted for revealing alleged misspending of museum money.
Many Of Us Are Trying To Improve Ourselves. Scientists Wonder It It’s Possible…
“Each year, Americans spend billions of dollars on self-improvement books, CDs, seminars, coaching, and stress-management programs to become better, more sociable, effective, compassionate, and charismatic versions of themselves. But beneath theories on what drives people to change, there’s a more fundamental question debated by psychologists: Can personality even be changed in the first place?”
Libraries Are Changing Quickly. And To Be A Librarian These Days Is To Imagine A New Role
“Though the occupation is only expected to grow by 2 percent from 2014 to 2024, many librarians have forgone bookkeeping and cataloging for specializing in multimedia and taking on research- and technology-oriented projects such as digitizing archives.”
What Are The Most Popular Songs Right Now? It’s Increasingly Difficult To Tell
Stream, steal, or buy: Those are your choices. The premium streaming services represent just one batch of countless channels by which consumers can hear music. And so Billboard now bears the complex task of incorporating traffic from an ever-widening variety of platforms — YouTube, Vevo, Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal, Pandora, Vine, Twitter, etc. — into a standardized accounting that ranks all these songs together.
St. Louis Symphony Reports Rise In Ticket Sales And Attendance
Total ticket sales for all performances reached $6.87 million, up 3.8 percent compared with last season. Even though there are three fewer concerts this year, attendance rose more than 1 percent to 190,817, officials said.
US Tourist Mistakenly Locked On Roof Of Milan Cathedral Overnight
“Police said the 23-year-old man told them that he was in the bathroom when security made a final pass, and found himself locked inside the landmark cathedral when he went to leave on Monday night. He decided not to create alarm and spent the night on the spired rooftop, reporting himself to authorities when they reopened on Tuesday.”