Category: media

Australia’s Channel Nine is planning to count a New Zealand-produced drama as part of its Australian content quote. Aussie screenwriters are protesting. “After the High Court case the television stations had a tacit agreement that they wouldn’t go with New Zealand drama product. Something has changed. This is a fight for us: if one network gets away with it, what are the others going to do? We will be in the streets in February and March.”

It’s been a year since Sirius satellite radio bet its existence on Howard Stern, hiring him for millions. So was “the king of all media” worth the gamble? “Last week, Sirius announced it had just over 6 million subscribers, up from the 600,000 when the Stern deal was announced in 2004.”

Smoking is on the rise in Hollywood films, and public health advocates are appealing to the industry to cut it out. “60 per cent of [films released in 2006] depicted smoking, with more than 15 cigarette-related scenes an hour. This compares with only 10 scenes an hour for films of the 1950s.”

When Canadian TV distributor Alliance Atlantis put itself up for sale last month, many wondered what the impact would be on the country’s always-struggling entertainment industry. So far, there has been no shortage of suitors, but deciphering what the various potential deals would mean for Canadian viewers is a tough assignment.

Does the age of the multiplex have to mean the death of the classic old movie palace? The answer depends entirely on what city you live in. Some areas embrace the new with gusto and see the single-screen house as a charming but outdated feature of a bygone era. But others, notably the San Francisco Bay Area, see a distinct and lasting place in the urban environment for a cinema with all the frills and luxuries of yesteryear.

Broadway is tapping into the reality TV game, offering to let viewers choose the lead actors for a new revival of Grease, and known theatre commodities need not apply. But it’s a risky gambit: “Reality television producers and viewers still love the nobody from nowhere who wins it all; the first episode puts heavy (and at times, teary) emphasis on the contestants’ personal stories. But the winners also have to hold up a $10 million musical eight times a week for at least a year, a demanding feat for a total greenhorn.”

Tom Shales says that the idea of letting TV viewers cast a Broadway musical is a bad idea made worse by the hackneyed efforts of cynical Hollywood executives. “What a lot of trouble to go to, and how phony it all seems as it plods its ugly way along… To call this ‘reality television’ is truly stretching the term to the outer limit of meaninglessness. To call it ‘good television’ would be to risk being struck by lightning.”

XM Radio fails to meet its subscriber goals for 2006. “While satellite radio continues to be one the fastest growing new technologies, it has lost some of its luster among shoppers purchasing the devices at retail. In the fourth quarter XM added some 442,000 new net customers, less than half of its increase of nearly 900,000 in the same period in 2005.”

The head negotiator for Canadain TV and movie producers intheir talks with the country’s actors’ union ACTRA says the union’s threat of a strike “would be considered an illegal strike and would lead to an immediate court challenge.”

“Hollywood bounced back in 2006 as movie ticket sales hit $9.4 billion (all figures U.S.) – the second-highest single-year gross in domestic box office history, according to final numbers released Tuesday. Bolstered by a stellar New Year’s weekend at megaplexes, the year’s ticket revenue just missed the record $9.45 billion the industry took in during 2004.”