Category: media

“Venezuelan regulators are forcing a local TV station to show public service announcements as punishment for broadcasting “The Simpsons” during a time slot reserved for children’s programs.”

“While the second quarter of 2007 saw 4,368 complaints come into the agency, the following quarter logged a mere 368 — precisely 4,000 less. During the first quarter, nearly 150,000 complaints came in.”

“I am big. It’s the pictures that got small,” Norma Desmond famously griped in “Sunset Blvd.” Now the reverse appears to be the rule: The pictures have gotten oversized while the stars are shrinking.

Corporations of all sorts have long used focus groups and surveys to find out what their customers are thinking. With the Council of Stellar Management, CCP has taken that idea an unlikely step further: allowing its customers, the Eve players, to elect their own representatives to express concerns and suggestions directly to the company. CCP then flew the nine players here at its expense to wield the brickbats. The company plans to repeat the exercise every six months.

“For all the talk that critics are out of touch with mainstream moviegoers, critics and audiences are in agreement on one key thing: Nobody makes better movies than Pixar. This stratospheric level of quality has turned Pixar into movieland’s most reliable family brand.”

“The five broadcast nets’ average live median age (in other words, not including delayed DVR viewing) was 50 last season. That’s the oldest ever since Sternberg started analyzing median age more than a decade ago — and the first time the nets’ median age was outside of the vaunted 18-49 demo.”

“It’s become a fact of life for New York moviegoers: If we’re catching a blockbuster on opening night, then we should probably buy our tickets before even hopping on the subway. Today, in the lobbies of most Manhattan multiplexes, the longest lines are not those of people waiting to purchase tickets, but those of people waiting to pick up prepurchased tickets from computer kiosks.”

“Some are questioning whether viewers should be better informed when broadcasters are paid to feature a brand in a TV show. The Federal Communications Commission said Thursday it will look into the blurring of the line between content and commerce.”

“Increasingly movies – including two out next month – are banking on a level of 3-D depth that promises to go beyond gimmicky and become a new way of storytelling.”

“The contract between the Screen Actors Guild and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers expires Monday, and negotiations have dragged on for weeks with no apparent headway.”