Category: media

Why does Los Angeles need a film festival? “So many people in L.A. are, quite frankly, ground down by life in the industry. We want to remind them why they came here in the first place. We want to remind them that it was for a love of film.” Oh, right, film. The stuff that came before the designer gowns, competitive canapes and celebrity pregnancy countdowns.”

” ‘I cannot think of two types of programming that are more at odds with each other. It’s a terrible decision, I think it’s a wrong decision. It seriously diminishes . . . the spirit and letter of the public broadcaster. It’s almost as if the CBC is at war with itself’. CBC’s new programming team, led by executive vice-president Richard Stursberg, has made no bones about the need to shake up a public network that has seen ratings slide the past couple of years as audiences bailed in droves.”

Japan and Korea have launched free broadcast TV to mobile devices, and they’re a hit. “According to analysts Informa Telecoms and Media, more than 210 million people across the world will be watching TV on mobile devices by 2011. Asia-Pacific will lead the way in mobile TV growth. Informa forecasts more than 95 million subscribers in the region by 2011.”

The Federal Communications Commission says it will reconsider media ownership consolidation rules. “The rules are of great concern to giant media companies in an era of mergers and convergence of print and broadcast media inside individual companies. But they also affect every American through their impact on the credibility of news outlets, on the quality of public debate and on ‘whether TV and radio offer entertainment that is creative, uplifting and local or degrading, banal and homogenized’.”

CBS president Les Moonves says the network might get into the movie business. “He said the television and radio broadcaster would be interested in producing six to eight movies a year on smaller budgets of $20 million to $30 million. We could get in a small way, doing six to eight movies a year in a risk-free way’.”

The new PBS policy includes blurring peoples’ mouths to prevent viewers from seeing the “obscenity”. “PBS officials and filmmakers say they’ve long taken care to ensure that their shows don’t use swear words gratuitously. But cursing is sometimes necessary, in service of the truth, said Ken Burns , the veteran documentarian.”

Canada’s CBC is bumping its nightly network news broadcast one night a week in the fall for… an American reality show. “The CBC, which unveiled its upcoming season last week, is rumbling through a populist reinvention. New executives have been strapped into the sputtering rocketship as the network attempts to modify its trajectory to avoid more crash landings on Planet Yawn.”

“The Senate transport and communications committee is to unanimously recommend that Ottawa pay closer attention to media consolidation. The report will pay particular attention to proposed deals that would allow a single company to gain a dominant, multimedia position in an individual geographic market, particularly in smaller communities where there are fewer editorial voices.”

“Reinvigorating the moviegoing experience, realigning exhibition windows, proactively responding to new consumer behaviors and demands and making creativity a top priority are things the film industry has within its reach to capitalize on a digital interactive marketplace. Although recent consumer surveys and research underscore the need for such measures, industry players have made little progress making necessary and sometimes radical changes to mine the new realities of movie patronage. And the longer they wait, the more they stand to lose.”