Category: media

“Charlie Sheen, who plays a wealthy, womanizing bachelor on the top-rated sitcom “Two and a Half Men,” made more than any other TV actor this year with earnings of $825,000 per episode, including money from his ownership rights in the show.”

“The average consumer will spend $1,078 on media in 2012, up 26.6% from last year, according to the forecast based on data licensed from PQ Media. About 41% of that will go to cable and satellite TV providers, up from 39% in 2007. But more money doesn’t translate into proportionately more media usage: The typical person will spend 3,496 hours with media in 2012, up just half of 1%.”

In a reversal of a ruling that favored film and TV studios, Cablevision may now introduce its contested digital video recorder. The new model stores programs on the company’s servers, instead of in a customer’s set, eliminating expensive hardware. “The ruling could have a huge impact on the relationship between pay-TV operators and programmers, who are concerned that cheaper DVR functionality will lead to accelerating advertising viewership losses.”

“While some of the film deals are expected to derive from new stories in Time Inc. mags, the architects also hope to leverage the conglom’s historical assets through archived articles and photos from Time and Life that date back to 1923, including some of the most famous photographs of the last century. The company publishes 120 magazines globally and generates up to 3,000 articles each month; the venture gets a first look at all of those articles.”

But not for long: Web ads are hot on the heels of broadcast television. “Internet advertising will boast an 18.9% compound annual growth rate from 2007-12, compared with 2.6% for broadcast TV and negative 2.8% for newspapers,” according to a study.

“The film industry, weary of paying $20m (£10m) salaries to Matt Damon, Nicole Kidman and their A-list chums, is waking up to the value of a generation of cut-price alternatives from across the Atlantic. In an attempt to cope with falling domestic box-office sales and the after-effects of the writers’ strike, major Hollywood studios are hiring up-and-coming actors such as James McAvoy and Jim Sturgess to front productions that would traditionally feature major US stars.”

Since the 1980s, teen culture has become familiar fodder for Hollywood, and the flood of teen films aimed at adults has hardly slowed. But rarely do such films attempt to convey the actual reality of teenage life. “Try as one might to carefully slot teenagers, and adolescence, into designated cubbyholes, some part of the whole is too messy, too real, to fit.”

“It should come as no surprise that ‘Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog,’ Joss Whedon’s 42-minute online musical, has been greeted like the second coming of, well, ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’… But is it worth all the attention?”

“The uncertainty of a SAG deal has engendered a mix of weariness and anxiety in Hollywood… The slow-going negotiations (actors have continued working without a contract since June) have exposed not only labor’s distrust of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers but fissures among performers themselves.”