Category: media

Andrew Cuomo “says his investigation will focus on whether Arbitron is properly measuring all listenership. He is asking Arbitron to supply all PPM-related records back to 2003. Arbitron has repeatedly said its PPM measurements reflect all communities accurately.”

A lawsuit claims Steven Spielberg, DreamWorks and Paramount Pictures Corp. ripped off “Rear Window” when they made the movie “Disturbia.”

Russia passed a 2006 law widening the definition of extremism to include “the abasement of national dignity” and “inciting religious and national hatred”, which backers say was needed to stem a wave of violence aimed at ethnic minorities.

“On Oscar night, the idea that indie was the new mainstream was confirmed, once again, as conventional wisdom. But by the time the Cannes Film Festival rolled around three months later, a new and diametrically opposite conventional wisdom was emerging. Indie film is dead! Again! Still! For real this time!”

“Propelled by growing mainstream acceptance and by the maturing of both the audience (the average age of today’s gamer is in the early 30s) and that audience’s tastes, games are enjoying a moment of creative possibility not seen since the early 1980s.”

“The Wrestler has won the coveted Golden Lion for best picture at the Venice film festival. The film stars Mickey Rourke as a has-been professional wrestler pitifully loath to throw in the towel… The Silver Lion for best director was won by Russia’s Alexei German Jr for Paper Soldier.”

The BBC’s summer reality TV program, Maestro, has attempted to teach celebrities how to properly conduct a symphony orchestra, and against all odds, says Rafael Behr, it actually appears to be doing so. “This system subverts a basic premise of most reality TV by abandoning any pretence that the public’s judgment is worth something… Is that elitism? Yes. Musical virtuosity is the province of an elite and there is nothing morally abhorrent about that.”

YouTube and other user-generated video sites have created a treasure trove of great audio/visual content from past and present, free and available to all. But the information on where a clip comes from is often quite spotty. Don’t “the people behind these mini-masterpieces deserve some recognition?”

“Politics — national, not studio, that is — is in surprisingly short supply [at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival,] given the imminence of a United States election and the festival’s past record.” So what’s filling the void? A dose of good, old-fashioned Hollywood fun.

“There was a time when CBC Stereo, as [Radio 2] was called then, led and did not condescend. Listeners tuned it in to hear what they could not readily hear anywhere else. Now the programmers are chasing after some imaginary ‘demographic.'”