Category: media

The internet has been kind to porn, and the industry has blossomed. “This recession is a little different, though. It’s been extremely challenging for adult filmmakers, who are not only wrestling with anemic consumer spending, they’re also competing with a nearly infinite supply of free, amateur videos from countless user-generated sites, not to mention a glut of traditional inventory.”

“The leaders of Chicago Public Radio believe they are inventing the future of public radio and that it is called Vocalo. There are WBEZ staffers who don’t think so. They are reluctant to be quoted saying so, but they are not reluctant to say so.”

In an e-mail to The Associated Press, Ebert said Disney-ABC Domestic Television, which owns At the Movies With Ebert and Roeper, has decided to take the program in a new direction. “I will no longer be associated with it,” Ebert said.

“With digital distribution of entertainment as the focal point, the TV/film and music industries are embroiled in several disputes between those who create the content and those who distribute it. But while those disputes in Hollywood are well-documented — with powerful unions like the Writers Guild of America and the Screen Actors Guild staging high-profile negotiations and, in some cases, strikes — the perception in the music industry is that artists are largely left to themselves to fight for whatever they can get on their own.”

“Most digital media today is stored on an individual computer and then synched to one device or another or streamed through a home network to an entertainment system or other appliance. The drawback with such a system is that all files will be lost should the hard drive crash, and it’s very difficult to synchronize files across multiple computers, devices and users without overlap. By contrast, a home server acts as a central storage hub for all the content in the home, and multiple devices can link to it in order to stream or otherwise access music, video or other content.”

“Four years after the first HD radio receivers hit the U.S. market and two years after RadioShack became the first retailer to start rolling them out nationwide, sales are still miniscule compared with the broader terrestrial radio market. In addition, consumer awareness continues to lag and such competitive options as satellite and Internet radio are complicating efforts to make the digital radio standard a mass-market phenomenon.”

Chicago Sun-Times columnist Richard Roeper announced Sunday he is leaving the nationally syndicated show “At the Movies with Ebert & Roeper” after eight seasons.

Studio Macbeth, which does 3-D visualizations for advertiser and science illustration, has misplaced truth in history and missed the line between history and art. Macbeth of Kingston, N.Y., has produced “new” photos of Abraham Lincoln in what it calls “the first time an historic figure has been re-created digitally with photographic results that now make possible an unlimited library of images.” They’re talking videos.

Even though it happened out of the usual order, “High School Musical” has quickly managed to do what Disney behemoths from “The Little Mermaid” to “Beauty and the Beast” were bred to do — it’s pretty much taken over the world. In just 30 months, “High School Musical” has spawned a sequel and morphed into a stage musical, concert tour, ice tour, best-selling book series, video game, a reality TV series and, next, a theatrical film opening Oct. 24.

“The fall 2008 TV season has been decimated by the writers strike. Audiences are shrinking. The most honored dramas are on cable. Some predict nearly half of all TV watching will be done on the Internet in five years. While advertisers are still willing to pony up, the writers’ strike so seriously damaged production schedules that viewers won’t see much that’s new until January. The posture of the traditional TV industry is decidedly defensive. What can they do to save themselves?”