Category: media

“In theory, TVs and PCs were supposed to converge and spawn one hybrid media device. In practice, they touch on the couch without breeding. TiVo buffs up your TV with PC-style software that ends the pain of VCR programming. YouTube delivers a searchable trove of instant-play clips to your computer screen. But when you plunk down on the couch to relax, you probably don’t want to search YouTube with a remote wand.”

More and more, Hollywood is depending on foreign box office for its revenues. Why? Take a look at revenues for “The Da Vinci Code” this year: Domestic box office so far: $217 million. Foreign box office so far: $528 million.”

American business are looking hungrily at China and its huge market. Hollywood is right in there. “Following the remarkable worldwide success of the Ang Lee’s Chinese-language ‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’ in 2000, Hollywood has been anxiously trying to cultivate the Asian talent pool and market. A variety of American talent agencies and studios have recently set up outposts in China.”

A Hollywood movie might make tons of money, but whether it’s seen as a success or depends on whether the project beat expectations about it. “The process is similar to evaluating a football team’s performance not on the outcome of the game but on whether it beat the point spread set by oddsmakers. An amorphous group of Hollywood executives and box-office pundits mulls over how much a film should gross. Hollywood buzz then sets a line of demarcation defining success.”

“The Public Broadcasting Service has weathered recent criticism from free-speech advocates saying that the network is being overly cautious in a new policy to censor foul language in nonfiction programs by digitally obscuring the mouths of speakers. But the outcry has been dwarfed by the thousands of complaints, mostly from parents, over the PBS Kids Sprout network’s firing of Melanie Martinez, the host of ‘The Good Night Show,’ after learning that she appeared years ago in two videos spoofing public service announcements advocating teenage sexual abstinence.”

A filmmaker who made a movie about the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan takes his movie back to the scene of the crime to show local people, many of whom had never before seen a movie, the story of the destruction.

Before a movie or TV show gets to paying customers, it is extensively tested with audiences. “The graph tells the story the clients want to know – who likes what (actors, relationships, dialogue, setting, etc). Within two minutes, more than two-thirds of the women in the group had changed the channel. Most of the men, however, hung in to the bitter end. Not surprisingly, women in bathing suits score higher with men. Women’s scores, by contrast, tend to rise when characters develop relationships (because women like to watch that sort of interaction).”

“Shah Rukh Khan (also known as “King Khan”) has been in more than 50 Hindi films and has won 13 Filmfare awards, regarded as the “Bollywood Oscars”. He is the biggest star in Hindi cinema and this means billions of fans (Bollywood has a global audience of 3.6 billion; Hollywood has 2.5 billion).”

“It’s tempting to believe that government regulation of the Internet would be more consumer-friendly; history and economics suggest otherwise. The reason is simple: a regulated industry has a far larger stake in regulatory decisions than any other group in society. As a result, regulated companies spend lavishly on lobbyists and lawyers and, over time, turn the regulatory process to their advantage.”

“YouTube, the popular but unprofitable video-sharing site, is going after the big ad dollars. The Internet phenom has inked deals with major advertisers from Hollywood studios to sneaker makers and is busy lining up more in a bid to become a viable business.”