Category: media

Accusations of censorship have a long and mostly undistinguished history in the world of television, and two recent controversies have placed religious conservative activists in an odd situation. “The disputes, over [NBC’s] proposed broadcast of a Madonna concert that includes a crucifixion scene and over its cutting religious references from the animated children’s show ‘VeggieTales,’ have some critics charging that NBC maintains a double standard toward Christianity.”

As a rule, television is not known for its role in nurturing healthy, active children. So when a long-running PBS children’s show announced that it intended to do just that, a bit of skepticism was understandable. “Though TV has long been the whipping boy for society’s ills, skyrocketing childhood obesity rates have spurred many children’s shows to include – with varying degrees of success – healthy-living messages in their programs.”

YouTub has had phenomenal growth. More than 100 million videos are viewed each day on the site. But Steve John suggests there might be rocky times ahead as copyright holders take aim…

“The average amount of time that U.S. households had a television set on each day during the yearlong 2005-06 TV season that ended last week increased by three minutes from the year before, to a record of eight hours and 14 minutes, the report said.”

A US Senate Committee has pulled Warren Bell from a nomination hearing to consider his appointement to the board of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. “The selection of the outspoken conservative disquieted many public broadcasting officials, who were troubled by partisan comments Bell has posted on the website of the conservative National Review magazine. His sharp opinions caused some broadcasters to fear that Bell would rekindle the fierce political debate that engulfed the corporation last year under the leadership of former Chairman Kenneth Y. Tomlinson.”

NPR president and CEO Kevin Klose will step down as CEO. Ken Stern will replace him. “Klose has held the top job at NPR since late 1998, and has presided over strong growth in NPR’s annual funding, as well as increases in its audience and newsroom staff. During that time, the number of people listening to NPR’s programs doubled, to about 26 million per week, and its annual budget more than doubled, to $167 million.”

Major American TV netowkrs have told the FCC that its new “indecency” policy could kill all live broadcasts. “In papers filed late Thursday at the FCC, Fox, CBS, NBC and Telemundo argued that the government policy already has forced TV writers and producers to alter scripts and has caused network affiliates to avoid airing controversial programs or broadcast them on late at night.”

“Time Warner is betting quicker releases and prices as low as 15 yuan ($1.89) for movies such as ‘The Aviator’ will lure Chinese consumers away from illegal copies. The company is trying to recoup some of the $1.2 billion the Motion Picture Association estimates the world’s six biggest studios, including Time Warner and Walt Disney Co., lose in Asia a year because of pirated DVDs.”

Los Angeles’s only full-time jazz radio station, which was in danger of leaving the air, has gotten a reprieve courtesy of the California foundation which created it two decades ago. KKJZ is one of only two remaining full-time “classic jazz” stations in the U.S.

Saturday Night Live has been forced to drop five of its sixteen cast members by NBC, with some of the biggest names among those leaving the show. The onetime jewel in NBC’s crown has lost audience in recent years, and the network as a whole has plummeted in the ratings, precipitating budget cuts across the board.