Category: media

Nielsen Media Research says preliminary ratings for the 80th annual Academy Awards telecast are 14 percent lower than the least-watched ceremony ever.

“Feature films squeezed into iPods and the like represent a technical triumph. They are also an oxymoron bordering on a travesty for those of us who’ve grown up going to movies in theaters, where, in the company of others, we’ve been taken out of ourselves by images vastly bigger than real life.”

“The programs replayed on this video-on-demand service would include advertising sold by the network as well as by local ABC stations, but the total number of commercials in the shows would be far less than the over-the-air broadcast version of the show.”

A new survey shows that “nearly 70 years after it was made, the Civil War classic “Gone with the Wind” ranked No. 1, just ahead of science-fiction space adventure “Star Wars,” in the Harris poll of people’s favorite films that stand the test of time.

Regulators on Friday fined 13 Fox TV stations $7,000 each for a 2003 episode of “Married by America” that included graphic scenes from bachelor and bachelorette parties.

Think it’s tough to win an Oscar? Not really. There really is a formula…

“For the past 75 years or so, the thought of making it big in Hollywood has created a gold-rush mentality in aspiring scriptwriters typing away – or ‘schmucks with Underwoods’, as the legendary studio boss Jack Warner called them. Yet, for many people in the entertainment industry, the 80th Annual Academy Awards have the whiff of a last hurrah.”

“It’s inherently inoffensive; it has to be to be approved by stars who often take themselves very seriously. But patter is a necessary award show evil dreamed up by comedy scribes who would probably rather be writing their spec script, delivered by performers who often resent having to say it, and received by an audience that just wants to get on to the acceptance speech.”

“The Corporation has decided to postpone its transmission until a later date following the suicide of a 17th teenager in Bridgend, South Wales, since the beginning of last year.”

The BBC is selling episodes of its programming online for download. But the cost is more than twice what Americans pay for US TV programs. This from a public broadcaster?