Category: media

Many factors contribute to why art theaters resemble evacuation zones. Among them: a seasonal releasing pattern, an oversupply of movies, and what Tom Bernard, copresident of Sony Pictures Classics, calls “a periodic market adjustment.”

“Theaters that exhibited the November 2007 release “Beowulf” in 3-D saw a 65% sales increase in total boxoffice over comparable theaters that exhibited it in 2-D, according to a new study from the Nielsen Co.’s Nielsen PreView.”

“All winter and spring, people in the independent-film business have been murmuring politely behind their hands and pretending not to see the 800-pound walrus in the corner of the room: The indie industry is undergoing a sudden and largely unexpected meltdown. It hasn’t turned out to be a sensible investment. Mark Gill calculates the odds of losing all your money on an independent film at 99.95 percent.” On the other hand…

“On Monday, the recording industry sent the National Association of Broadcasters — the trade group representing the $16 billion a year AM-FM broadcasting business — a can of herring to underscore that it believes its arguments against paying royalties are a red herring. The NAB says its members should not pay royalties because AM-FM radio “promotes” the music industry.”

“In filming a sequel to a 2000 series about Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, ABC News producers found that reality television had changed how they could present reality on television.”

“It’s easier and cheaper than ever for individuals to produce their own work and put it up for global audiences – on sites like YouTube, Revver, Veoh and My Damn Channel – but it’s almost impossible to make a living outside of the established TV and film industry. While media analysts agree that the future of television will be online – the number of viewers who access video via the Web is expected to nearly quadruple by 2013 to at least 1 billion, according to a new study from ABI Research – no one knows what form Internet TV will take or how it will make money.”

“Distributors and publicists are now increasingly trying to stop newspaper reviewers from seeing certain movies before the public does. These embargoes prevent daily critics (whose pieces traditionally appear on Thursday or Friday mornings) from noticing the films at all and force weekend writers to rush to multiplexes at lunchtime before their usual Friday night deadlines.”

“Two years ago, it seemed impossible that the internet could ever replace the television as the hub of home entertainment. Now it’s common to see groups of youths gathered round YouTube, or swapping viral clips from Big Brother rather than bothering with the whole tawdry televised affair. Cheap and easy broadband has made internet TV possible.”

Italian movies placed high at Cannes this spring. Now some are wondering if Italian films are coming into another Golden Age…

More signs of the Internet apocalypse for TV’s old guard: U.S. Web surfers viewed some 11 billion online videos in April, a gain of 33% from the same month last year.