According to the Broadway League’s annual Demographics of the Broadway Audience report for 2018-19, admissions for the season hit an all-time high of 14.8 million, with attendees from outside the U.S. numbering 2.8 million and nonwhite audience members at 3.8 million (both records). – Playbill
Category: AUDIENCE
Americans Spent $25 Billion On Home Entertainment Last Year
The key point: Home entertainment has evolved into a true multiplatform business. Universal found that consumers are using around three platforms on average, the most common bundle being disc purchase, disc rental and subscription streaming. – Variety
Peaked: Record 532 Scripted TV Shows This Season. Too Many?
There were 532 scripted drama and comedy series in 2019 on broadcast, cable and streaming platforms, a 7 percent increase over 2018, John Landgraf told a TV critics meeting Thursday. When FX started its tracking in 2009 there were about 200 shows, with streaming services responsible for the lion’s share of the subsequent growth. – Washington Post
Worldwide Movie Box Office Breaks Record In 2019
This is the first time worldwide exceeds $42B and the first the international box office climbs past $30B. The results come in a year when domestic dipped by 4%. – Deadline
Why We’re Fascinated By How-To Videos
What are people looking to do? The most popular searches, by one analysis, range from the achingly prosaic to the exceedingly specific—from “how to kiss” to “how to make a rainbow-loom starburst bracelet.” You can learn how to boil water, field strip an AR-15 rifle, or fly a 747. But stories abound of people—usually kids—achieving impressive proficiency in everything from opera singing to dubstep dancing by simply copying what they have seen in YouTube videos. YouTube pedagogy has swept through—and virtually helped create—fields like competitive cubing (Rubik’s), where solve times have plummeted, aided largely by the transmission of techniques via YouTube. – Nautilus
How Dead-Musicians-Touring-As-Holograms Became Serious Business
Yes, classical music types have rolled their eyes at dead-Maria Callas and dead-Glenn Gould tours, but rock is another matter. Since the long-departed Tupac Shakur (re-)appeared at the 2012 Coachella Festival, the field has grown, with recent concerts by the images of Buddy Holly, Roy Orbison, and Frank Zappa posting impressive ticket sales and a full tour by a reanimated Whitney Houston coming this year. And with the acts that form the bedrock of the live music touring business made up of people now in their 60s and 70s, and with recently-dead stars like Prince and David Bowie still having legions of fans, the musical hologram business may soon be booming. Reporter Mark Binelli watches the hologram creators at work. – The New York Times Magazine
US State Department Details Disinformation Methods
“The messages conveyed through disinformation range from biased half-truths to conspiracy theories to outright lies. The intent is to manipulate popular opinion to sway policy or inhibit action by creating division and blurring the truth among the target population.Unfortunately, the most useful emotions to create such conditions – uncertainty, fear, and anger – are the very characteristics that increase the likelihood a message will go viral. Even when disinformation first appears on fringe sites outside of the mainstream media, mass coordinated action that takes advantage of platform business models reliant upon clicks and views helps ensure greater audience penetration.” – Weapons of Mass Distraction (US Department of State)
The End Of Public Opinion?
If disinformation in 2016 was characterized by Macedonian spammers pushing pro-Trump fake news and Russian trolls running rampant on platforms, 2020 is shaping up to be the year communications pros for hire provide sophisticated online propaganda operations to anyone willing to pay. Around the globe, politicians, parties, governments, and other clients hire what is known in the industry as “black PR” firms to spread lies and manipulate online discourse. – BuzzFeedNews
By The Numbers: What 2019 Looked Like In Classical Music
The site BachTrack tracks concerts internationally: “In 2019, we listed nearly 35,000 performances of concerts, opera and dance – more than ever before.” – BachTrack
In One Month, Twice As Many People Signed Up To Learn This Indigenous Language On An App As Actually Speak It At Home
“The Duolingo course [in Scots Gaelic], which was launched just before St. Andrew’s Day on 30 November and looks likely to be the company’s fastest-growing course ever, has garnered more than 127,000 sign-ups – 80% from Scotland itself – compared with just over 58,000 people who reported themselves as Gaelic speakers in the 2011 Scottish census.” And a similar revival is starting in the study of the country’s other indigenous language, Scots. – The Guardian