Category: media

Good question. A bleak new report “concludes that much of the income — past and future — that studios and writers have been fighting about has already gone to the biggest stars, directors and producers in the form of ballooning participation deals. A participation is a share in the gross revenue, not the profit, of a movie.”

“Analyzing the 132 pics distributed by the U.S. majors in 2006, it estimates a pre-tax operating loss of $1.9 billion. That compares with a profit of $2.2 million for all new studio releases in 2004.”

“Would a single satellite radio company produce more or less interesting and entertaining content? Would the menu of music, news, sports, comedy and talk programming get longer or shorter — and at what price? Wouldn’t reducing the satellite field to one company lead inevitably to service cuts and price increases?”

“MySpace will promote the show by serving 500 million Web pages that include ads for ‘quarterlife’. Widely thought to be the most expensive Web-only TV show yet, ‘quarterlife’ is financed by a combination of venture capitalists and advertisers.”

“Character actors may not get the big salaries, Airstream trailers and fluff- writing journalists following them on their trips to Africa. But in the recent past, it seems as if they’re routinely blowing away the leading men and women who get the bigger share of the glory.”

“It was NBC Universal’s ‘green week,’ in which almost every prime-time show was mandated by Chief Executive Jeff Zucker to include some sort of environmental theme. Unfortunately — or perhaps this was expertly plotted by sinister Big Media — the green initiative was completely overshadowed by the long-anticipated writers strike. Whoops!”

“Will audiences take to the concept of paying up to $15 for an upmarket moviegoing experience? You pay three extra bucks or so for the “V.I.P” seating and you get free popcorn, and extra-extra-wide seats.”

Advertisers are growing restless with TV networks about placement and ratings for their ads. “Through the first five weeks of the prime-time season, the live program ratings for the five broadcast networks are down nearly 10 percent overall, total viewers have slipped 8 percent, and 18-49 demo ratings are down 12 percent.”

“The invasion of Iraq, with its escalating anarchy and swift fall from public favour, is commonly compared to Vietnam. But the manner in which film-makers have handled Iraq, from no-budget documentary crews all the way up (or down) to Hollywood studios, couldn’t be more different.”

“Hundreds of short and cheaply produced video series populate the Web on sites that might not quite rank as household names… But if the strike extends into January and beyond, viewers might end up looking elsewhere for original entertainment, potentially giving Internet video producers the biggest traffic boost in their relatively short history.”