Category: media

The Writers Guild contract is up with Hollywood producers October 31, and some producers are already worrying about a strike. “Studios are said to be exploring the feasibility of moving the start of production of returning broadcast series from August to late May or early June, though no formal requests have been made.”

Seattle’s city government channel rebrands itself with arts programming. The channel will air “12 hours of arts-related programming airing (and live-streaming) from 8 p.m. to midnight Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays” and got a commitment from the city’s cable company to underwrite the effort

“The Canadian Television Fund and Canada’s “entire production industry has been thrown into crisis by threats from cable companies Shaw Communications and Vidéotron to pull the funding their licences require them to give to the CTF to help foster Canadian shows. In the 2006-07 fiscal year, $145-million is to come from the cable industry and $120.4-million from federal coffers.”

“They have deep pockets and issue-driven agendas. Rather than make high-class dramas that might carry some mild social message, these producers are turning out full-blown advocacy movies. Although their individual aims may be different, each has used a nonfiction film to shine a spotlight on social injustices, or government malfeasance, and even to recast history in the service of human uplift and national reconciliation.”

“In just two days, Smith’s demise consumed 21 percent of all programming monitored by PEJ on CNN, MSNBC and Fox News Channel for the week – including a mind-boggling 50 percent Thursday (the day she died) and Friday. Policy debate over Iraq and the ’08 presidential race came in second and third at 15 percent and 10 percent, respectively, over the week, according to PEJ’s News Coverage Index from Feb. 4 to 9.”

The movie about hockey great Maurice Richard won nine Genies. “The Rocket was the most valuable player of the evening by any name and its nine wins symbolically matched the No. 9 on the late Richard’s famous jersey.”

Movie and TV production in Toronto (Hollywood North) was down 23 percent last year. “The news comes at a particularly bad time for the city’s film and television industry, which peaked in 2001 with $928 million spent on film and television production. It’s been in decline ever since: $886 million in 2002, $863 million in 2003, $802 million in 2004 and so on.”

“The nation’s commercial radio stations have seen the future, and it is in, of all things, video. As a result, the stereotype of a silken-voiced jockey like Mr. Stryker, slumped and disheveled in the studio chair, may never be the same.”

The BBC’s Radio 4 offers program of real intellectual curiosity, writes Eric Rauchway. So why can’t America offer up even a couple of programs such as these?

“While most people know him as the man who’s interviewed everyone from Bill Clinton to Anna Nicole Smith, in my neck of the woods Larry King is famous for liking movies. In fact, if you’re a habitual reader of movie ads, you might say that CNN’s indefatigable talkmeister is famous for liking movies too much.”