Category: media

The Primetime Emmy nominations were announced this morning in Hollywood, and as expected, HBO’s just-wrapped mob drama The Sopranos led the pack, with 15 noms, including best drama, best actor, and best actress. Other prominent nominees include the Fox medical drama, House, NBC’s Heroes, and workplace comedies The Office and Ugly Betty.

Last month a Dutch TV show was said to be offering a kidney as a prize. “The Big Donor Show was revealed to be a hoax as the fake donor was apparently about to reveal her choice of patient. But Dutch media say the number of people registering as organ donors has jumped since the hoax. The usual monthly figure is just 3-4,000.” In the past month that has jumped to 12,000.

The BBC says it will suspend all phone-in contests and interactive quizzes after an investigation exposed several rigged competitions.

America’s TV critics are bracing for what might be the worst collection of prime time programming ever. “This year the shows are so hellishly bad that it makes you think that they’re almost trying to make them that way.”

Summer blockbuster movies traditionally do their best business in the first week after their release, so a falloff in ticket sales usually isn’t anything to get exercised about. But “this summer is proving the apotheosis of the one-week blockbuster… The blockbuster onslaught has been driven partly by a shift in the way studios and theater chains divide up box office receipts.”

Pennsylvania lawmakers have approved a new package of tax credits designed to lure Hollywood filmmakers to the state. “The bills provide for a $75 million tax credit program to lure large productions to the state and $5 million in grants to attract smaller ones.”

Aaron Sorkin: “I don’t know how to emphasize this enough that I’m not disappointed or upset with anyone but myself. There are only two possible reasons for ‘Studio 60’ failing — it was either my fault or it was just one of those things. On some shows, you can make mistakes and still survive. But with this one, I made too many mistakes for it to survive.”

“Studios told writers they could either agree to a three-year study on how to share revenue from digital distribution or accept a deal that delays payment until producers have recouped their costs. Producers also dismissed writers’ demands for a bigger share of digital revenue, saying such a system ‘would impose unreasonable costs and Draconian restrictions’.”

“Hamas television, which was criticized for a Mickey Mouse-like character named Farfur who spouted anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish nostrums at children, has replaced the mouse with a bee named Nahoul, who says he is Farfur’s cousin. Farfur was beaten to death by an Israeli who wanted his land on the previous episode of the children’s show ‘Tomorrow’s Pioneers.'”

“The rise of cable is hardly a new story. The network audience share has been less than 50 percent for some time now, and much of that has to do with big improvement on the cable side. But superb content in the upper regions of your dial has not corresponded, exactly, with a decrease in quality network fare. That’s too simple. Until, possibly, this fall. Though a handful of upcoming freshman shows on the broadcast networks hold promise, there are intriguing options all over the cable landscape. The disparity hasn’t been this wide in years.”