Category: media

The UK is on pace to lead the world in adopting digital TV. “Around 95% of UK households will have digital TV, compared to 66% in the US and 50% in Germany, according to market analyst Datamonitor.”

“Tower Records has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, its second such filing in less than three years. … The company admits ‘intense’ competition has hurt its business. ‘The brick-and-mortar specialty music retail industry has suffered substantial deterioration recently,’ Tower said in court papers. Industry observers say the chain could have a tough time finding a buyer willing to keep its stores operating in an industry increasingly dominated by online music purveyors and big-box retailers.”

“The unhappy divorce of the top U.S. Spanish-language network, Univision Communications Inc., and Latin America’s biggest producer of hit shows, Grupo Televisa SA, was a plot lifted directly from the telenovelas that made both wildly successful. Now Telemundo, once relegated to a supporting-actor role, is trying to win over viewers and emerge ahead of bigger rival Univision. U.S. Spanish-language programming is a market that has grown to more than 35 million Hispanics who make up at least 14 percent of the U.S. population and are driving the nation’s population growth.”

“After attracting millions of eyeballs with video clips of dancing cats and lip-syncing coeds, YouTube hopes to cash in on its popularity with online infomercials. Starting today, the video-sharing site plans to let advertisers create ‘channels’ filled with clips they produce themselves — and then in turn sell sponsorships to other advertisers. Among the first: a channel created by Warner Bros. Records devoted to Paris Hilton’s new album…. Fox Broadcasting Co. will advertise on the Paris Hilton Channel to promote the fall season of the television show ‘Prison Break.'”

Warner says it is launching a new division that will produce movies directly for DVD, skipping theatres. “The new division, called Warner Premiere, annually will produce up to 15 original titles made by well-known filmmakers, starring recognized actors and, in some cases, based on earlier feature films that played in movie houses.”

“KZLA’s sudden and unannounced demise leaves America’s two most populous cities, Los Angeles and New York, without country music stations. In Los Angeles, longtime country fans and station employees wondered at the logic of ending country radio in their city, which ranks in the top two for album sales and where concerts for big-name country artists repeatedly sell out.”

“Future Cinema is about approaching film in a multi-faceted way, treating it like music, which has always been paired with performance art and live theatrics. Fabien Riggall’s view is that if bands get to take their gigs out of stadiums and into bars, clubs and galleries playing alongside other kinds of artists, why shouldn’t films?”

There’s been a lot of chatter lately about whether movie critics still matter and whether they have any impact on movie box-office success. But “no critic in his/her right mind believes that a bad review will have any major impact on the box office performance of a motion picture whose introduction to thousands of theaters has been preceded by months of entertainment coverage and marketing promotions. We don’t assume that readers look to reviews for an absolute gladiatorial go-ahead, either. Most of us have heard of the Internet and are aware of the phenomenon of word-of-mouth.”

“Writers of live-action features get royalties when their work is repackaged and sold. But writers of animation don’t. Their ‘ancillary profit participation,’ as it’s known, is paid in multiples of zero.” That means “live-action” writers can get rich, while writers for animation don’t. Now the animation writers want a share…

“YouTube (slogan: ‘Broadcast Yourself’) isn’t the Internet’s only video-sharing service. But it’s the reigning brand, the talked-about phenomenon, and a mighty good example of the multiple roles now greeting yesterday’s couch potato. These are get-up-and-do-something roles as artist, journalist, pundit, self-promoter, exhibitionist, prankster, weirdo and wag. Now you, too, can be a TV producer and a TV programmer.”