“With NBCUniversal’s help, the struggling social media giant preps more than a dozen original series for its 188 million users as it muscles into a crowded market. … But its slate won’t be ripped from the Netflix playbook. All Snapchat scripted series will average about five minutes an episode and be released daily in the signature vertical video format.”
Category: AUDIENCE
New York City Will Pay To Make Small Theaters More Accessible To Visually- And Hearing-Impaired
“[The city government] will give grants to Off Broadway and other small theaters to install software that allows patrons to follow along with low-light smartphones and tablets. … The software, using voice recognition, can provide closed captioning of the spoken word, or audio description of stage action, on users’ mobile devices.”
This One Neat Trick Helps Russia Suppress Box Office For Foreign Films
“[A new study] suggests that the Russian government has been indirectly restricting Hollywood and foreign films for the last four years by assigning them tight age restrictions. … As families and teenagers constitute a large proportion of moviegoers in Russia, industry sources say tighter age restrictions could cost foreign releases a significant share of potential box office gross, which could reach 15 percent-20 percent.”
This Theatre Runs A Name-Your-Own-Price Subscription Model, And It Works (So Far)
For its first five seasons, the Ubuntu Theater Project in Oakland sold tickets at $15 to $45 a seat, with some pay-what-you-wish seats available for low-income audience members at the door. “But all that wasn’t inclusive — or radical — enough for Ubuntu. So last summer, the theatre adopted a pay-as-you-can subscription model, guaranteeing tickets to its seven shows for a single amount named by the ticketholder.” Says marketing director Simone Finney, “This is what we’re about as a company, and if we were gonna fail, we should fail on things that are ideologically exciting.”
E-Tickets, Drinks At Your Seat, And Phone Booths Turned Into Listening Stations: What The Milwaukee Symphony’s New Hall Will Offer Its Audience
“Construction crews are working prestissimo on converting the former Warner Grand Theatre into a state-of-the-art performance venue for symphonic music [to open in September 2020]. … [And] management is using the fresh start to plan future user experiences. Experiences-plural is deliberate: They plan to appeal both to concertgoers who want to leave the outside world behind and immerse themselves in music, as well as folks who wants to stay wired and connected.”
Inside The Capital Of Toddler YouTube (Oh Yes, It’s A Thing)
“Sesame Street has more than 5 billion views on YouTube … but ChuChu has more than 19 billion. Sesame Street‘s main feed has 4 million subscribers; the original ChuChu TV channel has 19 million — placing it among the top 25 most watched YouTube channels in the world.” Alexis Madrigal travels to ChuChu headquarters in Chennai to find out how they do it — and talks to a scholar of children’s media about the pluses and pitfalls of their style of video.
Our Admission Prices Are Not Exorbitant, Says Director Of V&A
Tristram Hunt: “They have risen. Have they risen more than cinema prices? I doubt it. Have they risen more than train prices? I very much doubt it. … If people are willing to pay hundreds and hundreds of pounds on football season tickets then seeking to have a fair price for a work of great curatorial excellence does not seem to me wrong.”
How A Cheap Ticket Scheme Changed London’s West End Theatre
At a time when internet bookings were beginning to become more popular, here was a way to get people to come to the theatre box office to buy tickets. Who doesn’t like a queue outside the theatre to make a show look popular? Also, having people arrive early in the day to buy tickets helps you shift a few extra when you’re not quite as busy as you would like. Many’s the time a box office will sell beyond the allocation of day seats to fill a draughty stalls.
The Rise Of Cancel Culture
With roots in Black Twitter, cancel culture is an unavoidable mainstay of our infotainment age. In an era of too much everything—TV, opinions, news—we’ve come to rely on a vocabulary of consolidation: likes, tweets, emoji. Cancel culture is one of these argots—a governor, a self-regulatory device I have come to wield with pride (if infrequent recklessness). In the collective, the gesture is absolute: we can’t. We’re done. And so we asphyxiate support from a notable cause or figure.
The Most-Popular Publishers On Facebook Make For A Revealing List
The firm’s most recent rankings, published in September, showed that the top publisher on Facebook in August 2018 was not CNN, Fox News, the BBC, or BuzzFeed—but a Manchester, U.K.–based site called LADbible. Fourth was one called Unilad, also based in Manchester. Fifth, London-based tabloid the Daily Mail. Trusted sources, indeed. The New York Times’ John Herrman and Kevin Roose highlighted another NewsWhip list that showed LADbible had three of the 10 most popular stories on Facebook in the first week of September.