After spending “months studying how to strike a balance between what people expect to watch free online and what they would be willing to pay for,” Hulu “is weighing plans to charge users to watch episodes of ’30 Rock,’ ‘Modern Family’ and ‘House.'”
Author: Laura Collins Hughes
YouTube Gets Into The Movie-Rental Biz
“Google Inc.’s YouTube announced Wednesday that it will make movies from the 2009 and 2010 Sundance film festivals available for online rental. It’s the first time that YouTube, which historically has offered its video free, will charge users.”
Opera Takes Over The Cinema
“In 2006, when the Metropolitan Opera announced its plans to show operas live in movie theaters, skeptics wondered who would actually pay to go. Plenty of people, as it turned out. … The Met is still the dominant player, but others have now gotten into the act, eager to claim a slice of this niche market for themselves.”
National Arts Index Confirms Drop In US Audience
“Straitened financial circumstances and audience drift are issues that have been festering for years, and the recent recession didn’t help. The analysts behind the index hope their data — taken between 1998 and 2008 — will clarify the predicament the arts find themselves in and provide a roadmap for new artistic and business models.”
Breathe, Bostonians; Renzo Piano Won’t Harm The Gardner
“[T]he preservationists should put away their torches and pitchforks. Mr. Piano’s design, dominated by a four-story copper-clad volume that encloses a 300-seat music hall and a temporary-exhibitions gallery, keeps a respectful distance from the Venetian dowager.” Indeed, it may hold Gardner’s memory “in too high regard.”
Piano’s Design Brings Major Changes To Gardner Museum
Renzo Piano’s $118 million expansion of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is a “glass and copper-clad wing that will fundamentally change the way visitors experience the museum.” Nonetheless, “Gardner’s original Venetian-style palazzo will remain almost untouched.”
In Arts Funding, Europe Is Learning American Ways
“Government patronage is no panacea in Europe, admirable and beautiful though it may be in principle and sometimes in reality. Private patronage, meanwhile, can have its distinct advantages. True, strings are usually attached. But a variety of donors tend to allow an institution more independence and flexibility, more lightness on its feet.”
When Pop Stars Thwart Classical Publicity
“It’s pretty standard that when an artist” — Sting, say, or Alec Baldwin — “accepts a date” with an orchestra, “he or she accepts some of the responsibility for selling the house by doing publicity. When the house isn’t sold out, observers tend to blame orchestra management,” but sometimes the fault belongs to an interview-shunning star.
Philadelphia Orchestra-Philly Pops Merger Imperiled
“The Philadelphia Orchestra and Peter Nero and the Philly Pops … have been sparring in recent months over a deal brokered less than five years ago – with the help of now-incarcerated State Sen. Vincent J. Fumo – that was to expand the groups’ donor base, increase the shared budget, and lead to economies by eliminating overlapping functions.”
Is Second-Guessing Curators The Job Of An Art Critic?
“I find most exhibitions quite interesting, but often wonder if they could have been done another way, or used a different theme instead. If critics actually expressed these feelings, very few exhibitions would get positive reviews. But wait a minute: I’m a critic and it’s my job to express my doubts – isn’t it?”