Category: media

Canadian regulators delay hearings on media consolidation policy, but allow consideration of some major media deals to continue in the meantime. “The current wave of consolidation in the Canadian broadcasting industry, and the possibility of more major transactions in the future, raises important questions relating to the diversity of voices in Canada.”

“The coalition, which includes Microsoft and Google, wants regulators to allow idle TV channels, known as white space, to be used to beam the Internet into homes and offices. But the Federal Communications Commission first must be convinced that such traffic would not bleed outside its designated channels and interfere with existing broadcasts.”

American movie theatre operators have a glut of potential hits to choose from this summer. With so many strong movies lined up for this summer, the big question is: “Will the hits start to cannibalize each other? Typically, if a movie is making money, nobody is going to want to pull it off the screen, unless something even bigger comes along. It will be interesting to see how that plays out this summer.”

The questions on the new generation of game shows are easy by comparison with yesteryear. “Many of the quiz shows that riveted the nation in the 1950s were positively Einsteinian compared with today’s. It was a different era, of course. TV was a new medium, and trying very hard to prove it was respectable, even educational. So shows such as “The $64,000 Question,” “Dotto” and “Twenty-One” rewarded those with encyclopedic knowledge in such categories as opera, science and Shakespeare.”

“Bolstering the nearly giddy mood on the convention floor are recent Motion Picture Assn. of America findings that worldwide box-office sales jumped 11% in 2006, to $25.8 billion, and that 63% of moviegoers say they prefer viewing films in theaters rather than in their living rooms.”

Why has there neve been a successful TV drama series with a black male lead? “There is a feeling that the vast majority of the audience is not black, and having a black lead dominating the show makes most viewers feel shut out since they don’t work with an African-American in a dominant position in their daily life.”

“Viacom claims that the more than 160,000 unauthorized video clips from its cable networks, which also include Comedy Central, VH1 and Nickelodeon, have been available on the popular video-sharing Web site.”

“Days after Pope Benedict XVI criticized the media for its ‘destructive’ influence, the Vatican on Monday announced plans to launch its first television network by the end of the year. H2O will broadcast news and original entertainment programming worldwide in seven languages….”

The Iraq war has plummeted in popularity, but the war movie “300” is a hit. “The problem is that our popular culture doesn’t want to talk about the consequences of war. We have reality TV but it doesn’t serve up in-depth coverage of the three struggles that are going very badly for the United States: the raging war in Iraq, the chronic war in Afghanistan and the still-diplomatic war with Iran over that state’s nuclear ambitions. War in the abstract is entertaining, though.”

Are video games art? And if they are, should they collected, studied, and organized into some sort of canon? Henry Lowood believes so…