Category: media

“President Bush quietly appointed television sitcom producer Warren Bell to the board of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting this week, overriding opposition from public broadcasting advocates who fear the outspoken conservative will politicize the post. Bell’s nomination had been stalled since September because of concerns about his qualifications.”

“The union representing 21,000 film, television and radio workers across Canada said early Thursday a major labour disruption could be a few days away. Talks between the Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists, or ACTRA, and the producers’ organization broke down late Wednesday… The union’s main contentions centre around wage increases and the use of performances on the internet.”

Brangelina jokes aside, Hollywood has done awfully well by Africa of late, shooting several hit movies there at cut-rate prices. And while some have accused the movie industry of exploiting poor Africans, some in the industry have attempted to return Africa’s hospitality with trusts, technology upgrades and other measures designed to combat the extreme poverty that plagues much of the continent.

Last weekend, NBC censors drew the line on a bawdy Saturday Night Live sketch, repeatedly bleeping a certain word as it went out over the air. It was hardly the first time SNL has gone up against the censors, but this time, the show’s creators had a Plan B. The sketch was immediately posted, sans bleeps, on NBC’s website, and on YouTube.com. “In the process, Saturday Night Live appears to have become the first scripted comedy on a broadcast network to use the Web to make an end-run around the prying eyes of both its internal censors and those of the Federal Communications Commission, whose jurisdiction over “Saturday Night Live” effectively ends at the Web frontier.”

“Sacha Baron Cohen’s antics as Borat may have made him and his backers the target of lawsuits and screening bans, but he’s going down very well in one rather unexpected place: Israel. That’s because Israeli film fans understand what the anti-semitic character is saying when he’s supposedly spouting Kazakh – Borat is actually speaking fluent Hebrew.”

25.5 million people a week listened to public radio in 2006, up 1% from the year before. That number becomes more significant when you take into account that radio as a whole has been losing listenership for years. In fact, terrestrial radio has lost 12% of its listeners in the last decade, while public radio has seen its fortunes rise steadily.

Most movie buffs don’t spend a lot of time tracking which Hollywood studios garner the most awards nominations each year, but you’d better believe that the studios themselves care a great deal. This year, a perennial also-ran, Paramount, is leading the awards race, causing no small amount of consternation within the industry.

“Networks, like serial killers, tend to develop patterns. At the moment ABC is the estrogen-pumping network, fixated on sex and swoony romance… But it turns out that blood, guts and sexual perversion also can be soothing and downright cozy.”

How do you ensure a hit movie in China? You make sure that all the cinemas are allowed only to play your movie…

“As of last week, 399 stations from Maine to Hawaii were playing Christmas tunes around the clock to bring in listeners and advertising dollars. Portland has two stations competing for holiday listeners, and some cities have as many as five or six.”