Blog

AT&T’s $4 Billion Gamble On HBO Max

“The investment is the biggest bet to date made by AT&T to realize the promise of its $85.4 billion acquisition of Time Warner. … The hope is that HBO Max is built up over the next few years to be a multipurpose platform for the global distribution of WarnerMedia content as well as an engine for bundling subscriptions to AT&T’s wireless and data services. The fear is that an underwhelming HBO Max would tarnish or, worse, be a financial strain on HBO proper.” – Variety

First Guidelines For How Full Orchestras Can Perform Under Social Distancing Rules

“Scientists at the Charité in Berlin have issued a 13-page paper, at the request of seven Berlin orchestras [including the Philharmonic and the Staatskapelle], advising the distances to be observed in rehearsal and performance for the foreseeable future, and suggesting that orchestras might be able to meet again under the following conditions.” – The Strad

MoMA Gets Involved In Effort To Save Oslo’s Picasso Murals

Two concrete murals, designed by Picasso and sandblasted onto the walls by a Norwegian colleague, are part of a government building that was damaged by Anders Breivik‘s car bomb in 2011. For several years there’s been controversy over the government’s plan to demolish that building and relocate the murals — a controversy that two of the Museum of Modern Art’s chief curators have now stepped into. – The Art Newspaper

L.A. Phil Cancels Hollywood Bowl Season, Furloughs And Layoffs Follow

“The summer closure — the first in Bowl history — following the spring closure of Walt Disney Concert Hall has triggered the furloughing of the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra (65 musicians and staff) and 25% of the [Los Angeles Philharmonic’s] full-time, non-union workforce (about 50 people) through September. A total of 226 seasonal employees at the Hollywood Bowl have been laid off.” – Los Angeles Times

Opening Of Berlin’s Humboldt Forum Postponed For The Umpteenth Time

As if the cost overruns, scheduling snafus and controversy over its holdings weren’t enough (not to mention last month’s tar fire), the opening of the city’s $700 million ethnographic museum has now been put off from September to an undetermined date because the coronavirus epidemic has stopped foreign construction workers from returning to finish the building. (The restaurant and gift shop might open sometime this year, though.) – Artnet

Time To Do Away With The Meritocracy?

Meritocracy begins with the idea that people have to be measured on a scale of human value. So when we have decided that meritocracy is the way into higher education — or in particular into government, via higher education — it becomes an essential problem, because participation is then premised on the idea of achievement on a hierarchy of values which you may or may not have subscribed to in the first place. – Chronicle of Higher Education

Why We’re Still Crazy Over Old Rock Musicians

“There are many reasons why musicians continue to make music, both live and in the studio, right up until the end. In some cases it is out of financial necessity, and in other instances it is because of an addiction to the adrenaline rush of mass adulation, an experience rather harder to reproduce in the lavish surroundings of an exclusive retirement community. Even as we might good-naturedly mock and wince at what we see as the more absurd aspects of their careers, there is an enormous affection that exists between audience and act, especially if their fans have grown up with their favourites.” – The Critic

UK Festivals Say They Could Be Wiped Out

The Association of Independent Festivals (AIF), which represents 65 festivals in the UK, including Gloucestershire’s 2000trees, London’s Meltdown and Sheffield’s Tramlines, reports 92% of its members saying they face costs that could ruin their businesses as a result of cancelled events, with the vast majority (98.5%) not covered by insurance for cancellation related to Covid-19. – The Guardian