More than 50 percent of Britons have access to digital radio. “BBC digital radio made large gains – rock music station 6 Music now has 359,000 listeners, and comedy channel BBC7 has 621,000. Radio 2 maintains its position as the UK’s favourite station. However, its audience of 12.9 million is down by 389,000 on last year.”
Blog
Lloyd Webber: Playwrights Need To Take Risks
Andrew Lloyd Webber, testifying before the House of Lords, says playwrights need to take more risks. “We are not really seeing the young writers, or risks being taken in my particular area.” He also called for “the same sort of tax advantages that are given to film and television, to be extended to commercial theatre”.
CBC Buys Documentary Channel
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has bought majority interest in the Documentary Channel. “CBC bought the 53 per cent stake held by Corus Entertainment Inc., adding to the 29 per cent stake it already owned in the digital channel. The National Film Board of Canada holds another 14 per cent of the channel, which was launched in September 2001 in the first group of digital channels available in Canada.”
A Short History Of Booing
“The first written record comes from ancient Greece. At the annual Festival of Dionysia in Athens, playwrights competed to determine whose tragedy was the best. When the democratic reformer Cleisthenes came to power in the sixth century B.C., audience participation came to be regarded as a civic duty. The audience applauded to show its approval and shouted and whistled to show displeasure.”
Congress To Cap Smithsonian Salaries?
A US Congressional committee has amended an appropriations bill to cap salaries at the Smithsonian. “There are 28 people at the Smithsonian that are paid more than Cabinet secretaries. There are 22 people at the Smithsonian that are paid more than the vice president [$212,000]. If you count pay and bonuses, there are six people making more than the president of the United States.”
Mothers To Their Art
“Any working mother or mother-to-be knows how challenging it can be to balance family and work. But women in the performing arts face unique challenges during pregnancy — and after.”
Small Screen Dancing…
“There is clearly a growing market for dance films and videos, the latest technological delivery system being the DVD. Walk into any store with a healthy selection of performing-arts DVD’s, and those on dance seem to burst from the shelves (or the virtual shelves, if you’re looking online).”
Seoul Building Nam June Paik Museum
“According to the government-run Gyeonggi Cultural Foundation, the museum will feature 67 of Paik’s works, three of his personal belongings and a video archive of his 2,285 studies.”
Karel Appel, 85
“With several colleagues, including the Danish artist Asger Jorn and the Belgian artist known as Corneille, Mr. Appel founded Cobra in 1948 at an international conference in Paris. The movement’s original name was Reflex, but it came to be called Cobra, an acronym for Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam, the cities from which its founders came. The Cobra aesthetic — abstract, spontaneous, expressionistic, riotous with color — was a shot across the bow of de Stijl, which then dominated Dutch art with its rigid insistence on geometric form. It was also a reaction against the hegemony of French Surrealism.”
Frey Admits More Fabrications
In an author’s note in his sequel to his best-selling (but discredited) “A Million Little Pieces,” james Frey now acknowledges that “significant” parts of “My Friend Leonard,” a best-selling story about his friendship with a gangster, were also invented.