Category: media

“To Hollywood executives, he’s public enemy number one. To film fans around the world, he’s a modern-day Robin Hood. As the internet’s most prolific pirate makes his 1,000th illegal film download available to the masses, Tim Walker investigates the mysterious figure known only as aXXo.”

“This year’s movie awards season has played out like Oscar night at Minsky’s. At least a dozen of the supposedly hottest contenders are being teased out to the public in peekaboo release patterns. That approach became especially common this year, as studios held many of their more serious movies until after the election.”

“The Asphalt Jungle, Sergeant York, In Cold Blood, The Pawnbroker, Deliverance and The Terminator are among the 25 films selected this year by the Library of Congress for inclusion in its National Film Registry. The Registry is designed to ensure that pics that are ‘culturally, historically or aesthetically’ significant will be preserved for all time.”

“‘I yam what I yam,’ declared Popeye. And just what that is is likely to become less clear as the copyright expires on the character who generates about £1.5 billion in annual sales. From January 1, the iconic sailor falls into the public domain in Britain under an EU law that restricts the rights of authors to 70 years after their death.”

“During the heart of last winter’s writers’ strike, the broadcast networks tried to play down the impact of the four-month walkout, insisting that the medium would suffer few long-term effects. Just the opposite has been true. With 2008 drawing to an end, broadcast is still suffering from strike hangover, and it may not get any better in 2009.”

“Through New Year’s Eve, 2008 domestic revenues are expected to come in just shy of 2007’s record of $9.7 billion, according to box-office tracker Media By Numbers. Factoring in inflation, the actual number of tickets sold in 2008 is running 5 percent behind last year’s, when admissions totaled 1.4 billion.”

“In the four months since the fresh-faced 27-year-old ‘movie dude’ for the E! Entertainment Network was installed to co-host a revamped version of the venerable movie review program “At the Movies,” he has gotten a resounding thumbs down from an angry mob of film bloggers, columnists, professional movie critics and fans of the show.”

“Live shows were once a staple of television. Ditto game shows and shows with sponsor products interwoven into the contents. Now the Spike TV cable channel is bringing all three genres back in one fell swoop. 120 Live, a game show sponsored by the Fusion line of shaving products sold by Gillette, is to appear on Spike six times on Monday and Tuesday. The title derives from the length of the show: two minutes.”

“Yes, traditional media are in the red, in large part because no one’s buying advertising. Except the companies that are. So who’s taking out print ads and making commercials, even now? Who’s left in lean times to sponsor what’s left of television, magazines and newspapers?”

“As more people shift away from their laptops as a primary device and toward their mobile devices, they will want to access content directly through such devices. This presents the content industry with a business opportunity. Before sharing music, movie and television files illegally among cellular phones becomes commonplace, as it has on wired and wireless computer networks, the industry should offer cellular subscribers the opportunity to access content on-demand for an add-on fee to their cell phone plan.”