Category: media

“The networks were expected to be forced to sell smaller percentages of their prime-time inventories because of a lack of demand. But sales for most of the networks are expected to rise from last year, thanks to a combination of increased ad rates and advertisers’ willingness to buy more ad space earlier than last year.”

“Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty is defending the use of tax credits to help fund a controversial new movie about the sex lives of young Canadians. The movie, Young People Fucking, will be released Friday across Canada… McGuinty says it shouldn’t be up to politicians to decide the content of movies, even if they’re investing taxpayers’ money in the production.”

A Toronto TV station is pulling the plug on the city’s Speaker’s Corner, a street-corner video booth where, for the last 20 years, anyone could step in and rant on camera, with select commentaries airing on the channel. Everyone from Prime Minister Jean Chretien to the Barenaked Ladies (the band, not actual naked ladies) has utilized the corner’s unique public access.

“An unusually large number of classic characters for children are being freshened up and reintroduced — on store shelves, on the Internet and on television screens — as their corporate owners try to cater to parents’ nostalgia and children’s YouTube-era sensibilities.”

A Disney spokesman said the decision to stream movies for free marks an “evolution” in the company’s online strategy. Fox, Universal, Lionsgate and MGM have all previously placed titles on Hulu, the NBC Universal/News Corp.-owned site, while Disney has gone the pay route and kept its films, for the most part, on iTunes.

Driven by such franchises as Hannah Montana, “High School Musical,” “Cars” and Disney Princess, retail sales of merchandise licensed by the Walt Disney Co. are on track to rise 12% to a record $30 billion-plus globally this fiscal year, which ends September 30.

“With Hollywood on edge at the prospect of an actors strike, SAG’s negotiating committee has been accused of dragging its feet at the bargaining table in order to wage war against the American Federation of Television & Radio Artists.”

“Is there a stampede to knock off other hit TV shows, figuring that TV is to women what comic books are to men? You would hope, given the success of ‘Sex and the City,’ people will remember there is a huge female audience out there, and, judging by these numbers, they’re clearly starved, for the most part.”

The Big Five nets will get $9.23 billion in upfront commitments this year, up 1.2% from last year’s $9.12 billion.

“Steven Spielberg aims to raise more than $1 billion in third-party financing to reinvent DreamWorks as a separate company that once again owns the movies it makes.”