Category: media

Why Are Streaming Companies Paying Hundreds Of Millions Of Dollars For Old TV Shows?

These pricey deals for what is essentially digital reruns have, like the Seinfeld syndication deal two decades ago, raised eyebrows. Why are streaming companies willing to pay so much for shows of nostalgic value? And as numerous companies prepare to launch their own streaming services – HBO Max and Peacock, not to mention the forthcoming Apple TV+ – why bet on the appeal of legacy TV shows? – The Guardian

Mayhem At New York’s WBAI: Network Fires Staff And Locks Offices As Staffers Go To Court

The city’s Pacifica Radio station, which for six decades has aired leftist-leaning news coverage and alternative programming, has been in chronic turmoil for the past several years, with constant financial crises, heavy employee layoffs, frequent management turnover, and vicious battles over governance. (Not to mention shrinking listenership.) Things came to a head early Monday morning, when, without warning, Pacifica changed the locks, fired the staff and volunteers by email, and started broadcasting a feed from its California stations. Staffers got a judge to block the shutdown and reopen the station, but Pacifica did not comply. (So staffers broke the new locks.) – Gothamist

The Problem With Critics Who Worry That The New ‘Joker’ Movie Will Goad Crazy Incels Into Shooting People

Dan Brooks: “Ostensibly too sophisticated for superhero stories, our critics have accepted the Joker’s power to corrupt the masses in real life, on a more literal level than the most addled comic-book fan ever would. That’s a failure to maintain critical distance, but it’s being projected onto an audience that critics imagine to be more suggestible than themselves — insanely more suggestible, almost comically so.” – The New York Times Magazine

Nancy Drew Is Still Alive At 90, And Also Still 16 Years Old

How, why, and why is Nancy so hard to adapt to the screen? “Never out of print, she has appeared in more than 250 books and counting, in movies, on television shows, in CD-ROM games. She has been reinvented, in ways that fans have not always embraced, for seemingly every era.” (And she’s being reinvented now, again, for a new series.) – The New York Times

The First Black Woman To Direct In Hollywood Says That Industry Thought She Was ‘Too Black’

Euzhan Palcy’s A Dry White Season earned Marlon Brando an Oscar nomination, but that didn’t impress Hollywood executives, she says. When she pitched other films with black leads, “‘They were very matter of fact: they’d ask: ‘Can’t the lead be white?’’ she said. ‘I was pitching a story about a black freedom fighter and they asked me if he could be white. Incredible things like that.'” – The Guardian (UK)