Category: media

“The movie industry is vowing this week to fight back after Internet users last week staged what has been termed a ‘cyber-riot’ over industry efforts to remove Web postings relating to a 32-character code that could crack copy-protection schemes on HD-DVD discs.”

American media executives blast a proposal by the FCC to regulate violence on TV. “This is an example of government intrusiveness at nearly its worse. There are a lot of things we can do to regulate content in this world but I’m not sure there are many Americans who really believe that government’s the right place to do that.”

“Nearly every large movie studio and many smaller ones have at least one or two 3-D titles in production, though most release dates have not been announced. Digital 3-D, pioneered by a Beverly Hills company called Real D, still requires moviegoers to wear geeky glasses, but the left- and right-eye images are calibrated so finely that most viewers experience no headache or eyestrain.”

A Hollywood studio has banned previews of its movies from being shown in Canada. “Warner Bros will halt all ‘promotional and word-of-mouth screenings’ of new releases, says the Hollywood Reporter. The studio blamed the failure of the Canadian government to make camcording – videotaping a film directly off the cinema screen – an illegal practice.”

“For many families, apparently, it is never too early to watch television. Researchers reported yesterday that 40 percent of infants are regular viewers of television or videos by age 3 months, and 90 percent are watching regularly by age 2.”

“As boomers enter their 50s and 60s, the allure they once held for marketers has faded. The advertisers who spend about $70 billion a year advertising on broadcast, cable and local channels would rather chase the young, and they pay handsomely for the privilege.”

“Everyone — network executives, major advertisers, ordinary folk answering poll questions — seems to agree, or at least say they agree, that network television needs more shows about families, for families. And yet that’s not what’s on during prime time these days, as cable TV and the Internet keep carving up viewers into smaller and smaller niche audiences.”

Spiderman opened in 107 countries this weekend. That’s 47 percent more countries than the previous record. “Spider-Man 3 crushed the North American record with an estimated three-day total of $148 million in the U.S. and Canada, topping last summer’s Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest. And it piled up unprecedented opening numbers in Japan, South Korea, India, Russia, Italy, Mexico, Brazil and elsewhere since its Tuesday launch in many territories.”

The world’s most famous film festival wasn’t always the glittery affair it is now. “Technical mishaps provoked great power spats. Eleventh-hour crisis management narrowly averted meltdown. Even for a gathering of film people, there was more than the usual complement of hustlers and chancers in attendance. Worse, the public were invited.”

“While short, multiepisode cellphone series are growing in popularity, the lucrative advertising dollars prevalent in other entertainment segments — and which studios rely on for profit — have been slow to migrate to the supersmall screen.”