Category: media

“The movie medium we have loved — huge motion pictures projected in dark chambers for large groups of people — faces fierce competition, and not just from its old bugbear TV. Now theatrical films must compete with such new media as Web movies, as well as the transmigration of TV programs and feature films to computer screens, iPods and telephones. The trend won’t be reversed in the foreseeable future.”

“Directors and producers are deploying new tactics to get spicy material into television shows. Exactly what network standards will allow is a particularly touchy subject this season, as broadcasters struggle to walk a fine line between the television audience’s growing appetite for steamy fare and the Federal Communications Commission and partisan watchdog groups’ shrinking tolerance for it.”

When the web-based TV show “quarterlife” got a chance at a prime time slot on NBC, but was canceled after one episode, some critics saw it as a clash between new and old media. But the show’s creator sees it differently: “we’re doing just fine on the Internet, thank you very much.”

“Sidney Kimmel Entertainment, the producer of an eclectic string of upscale movies including “Lars and the Real Girl” and “The Kite Runner” but not a single commercial hit, said on Friday that it was scaling back its ambitions. The company now plans to make two or three movies a year, instead of five or six, and laid off its marketing staff and other workers.”

“But not all TV channels fell, and, in general, people didn’t turn off their sets. They just switched to cable/satellite. More than 50 of 70 basic cable channels registered ratings increases. FX, the History Channel and Oxygen had their best February sweeps ratings ever, according to Media Life.”

“Ken Stern and the organization’s 17-member board had clashed repeatedly over several of Stern’s initiatives, including NPR’s expansion into new media. Those initiatives often riled station managers, who saw them coming at the expense of serving the hundreds of public stations that pay dues annually to NPR. NPR’s board, which includes 10 members from station groups, declined to renew Stern’s contract yesterday.”

Ken Stern, who spent 10 years with the company as chief operating officer and chief executive officer, is leaving by “mutual agreement,” the board said in a statement. Chairman Dennis L. Haarsager will serve as interim CEO while the board searches for a permanent replacement.

With unauthorized downloading still legal in Canada, a digital copyright bill remains indefinitely delayed. But there are myriad competing interests…

“The increasing sophistication with which television dramas have portrayed investigators in recent years nearly guarantees our disappointment when we encounter the real ones, who too often don’t display the intuitive or analytic genius of a Monk on ‘Monk’ or McNulty on ‘The Wire.’ ‘Crime 360’ unintentionally creates the suspicion that gadgetry has supplanted thinking.”

“Is this the year of the therapist in Hollywood? Sure, psychiatrists, psychoanalysts and psychologists have been fixtures in our popular entertainment through the ages. But often they’ve been silly caricatures on the sidelines… Suddenly, though, it seems the fictional therapist has hit center stage.”