Every so often one can feel a perceptible shift in the center of the artworld. “And it is, so the received wisdom has it, about to happen all over again; for there is a country that can – and does – boast 3,000 years of culture, dizzying rates of economic growth and a long-suppressed determination to engage the outside world in its inexorable rise as a global power. Little wonder that all eyes were on China…”
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Death Of The Adult Movie? (Blame The Studios)
“When it comes to DVD consumers, the studios are confident that if they build a strong adult movie, the audience will come. That feeling does not extend to theatergoers. For that, the studios have only themselves to blame. They’re driving that ever-loyal viewer home to watch HBO or DVDs by not keeping the moviegoing habit going with strong movies aimed at adults. The movie business is pushing them away, making them look for other things, like renting all the seasons of ‘Six Feet Under’.”
US House Panel Votes 25 Percent Cut In Public Broadcasting Money
“The US House Appropriations Committee approved a bill on Thursday that would cut funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting by $100 million, or 25 percent, starting in October.”
Comics A Natural Online…
The comic business is thriving (even if the revenue model isn’t clear yet). “Even though revenue models remain fuzzy, increasing numbers of artists are using the Internet to reach readers directly and break into a business that historically has been limited to the lucky few who get syndicated in newspapers or picked up by comic book publishers.”
Fortress Munch
No one will be stealing anything from Oslo’s Munch Museum again. “When the museum reopened Friday after a 10-month security overhaul, several hundred invited guests waited up to a half-hour each to pass through two airport-style metal detectors, an X-ray machine, an optical ticket reader, a turnstile and a double set of one-way security doors. Inside, all of Munch’s pictures were framed behind glass and bolted to the wall. The most significant ones were further protected by an 11-foot-tall partition of thick glass panels positioned 24 inches from the wall and overseen by security cameras and guards. The online version of the newspaper Aftenposten rechristened the museum ‘Fortress Munch’.”
Power To (By) The People
“The nearly 1 billion people online worldwide — along with their shared knowledge, social contacts, online reputations, computing power, and more — are rapidly becoming a collective force of unprecedented power. For the first time in human history, mass cooperation across time and space is suddenly economical. ‘There’s a fundamental shift in power happening. Everywhere, people are getting together and, using the Internet, disrupting whatever activities they’re involved in’.”
Family Returns Book To Libray (It Was 78 Years Overdue)
A man has returned a book to the Oakland Public Library 78 years after it was due. “The hardback copy of Rudyard Kipling’s “Kim” was due back on Aug. 29, 1927, but no one in Jim Pavon’s family realized that it was an overdue library book. ‘It’s classic — we all read it. It sat on a shelf or in a box for years. But I guess no one ever noticed that there was a little library card and sleeve on the back cover that said when it was due’.”
TV Ratings War – How To Measure?
The Nielsen TV ratings company is starting to roll out “people meters” to measure viewing in local markets across America. But some in the idustry are complaining about the shifts in ratings compared to the old method of measuring viewership. A Nielsen exec say that the more accurate meters show an increae in viewer time in front of their TV’s…
Public Broadcasting Chairman Comes Under Fire In US Senate
Prominent Democratic Senators question the direction of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting under chairman Kenneth Tomlinson. “Tomlinson, appointed to the CPB board by President Bill Clinton and to the top job by President Bush, has made ideological balance on PBS and National Public Radio a central theme of his tenure at a time when broadcasters in the field are primarily occupied with possible large cuts in federal funding. The House Appropriations Committee on Thursday approved a 25 percent cut in the CPB’s budget for next year.”
Can Music Change The World?
That’s the hope of Bob Geldof and his amazing international music fest. But is this kind of concert activism of any use? “He is in danger of becoming one of the leaders of Compassion Lite, where people in the West, especially young people in the West, get to announce their compassion very cheaply, for the price of a wristband or a concert ticket or a plastic cup, without any meaningful demand on them to change their lives or look into their hearts.”