Category: media

“The more closely you examine the justifications for this crackdown, the clearer it becomes that the ban on broadcast indecency either goes too far or does not go far enough.”

President Bush has signed a bill that increases fines for broadcast “indecency” by a factor of ten. “The law is a victory for advocacy groups who argue that over-the-air broadcast TV and radio programming has become too coarse in recent years. Cable and satellite channels are not covered by the FCC’s indecency regulations.”

In a sign of the growth of the viewship of portable video, Nielsen says it will begin tracking usage of video. “Anytime Anywhere Media Measurement is a multistep initiative to ‘follow the video’ and adapt to the new and variable ways people are watching TV, the U.S.-based company said Wednesday.”

An appropriations committee in the Republican-dominated U.S. House of Representatives has voted to slash public television funding immediately, eliminate all federal funds for PBS’s transition to digital broadcasting, and to zero out all PBS funding by 2009. The plan, which is unlikely to get through Congress in its current form, is similar to past Republican efforts to eliminate subsidies for public broadcasting.

This summer Hollywood studios are turning to new websites. “Some of these studios are enjoying massive exposure by placing marketing materials on smaller, cutting-edge sites that emphasize on-demand and user-generated content, as well as video sharing. While still promoting their films through standard ad buys on big-reach portals like Yahoo!, MSN and AOL, many studios are seeding their content on smaller venues and banking on their fans to form their own distribution channels.”

“Once upon a time, when television operated in a more stable environment, executives yapped endlessly about diversity. But has a litany of more pressing concerns today — multi-platform delivery, audience fragmentation, online competition — pushed the issue of representation into the shadows?”

Two controversial new Arab films are stirring discussion in Egypt and Morocco about the values and policies of governments and religious leaders in the region. “With internal and external pressure on the Arab world to liberalize, movies are becoming a key outlet of free expression and a format for examining evolving mores. Like activists, journalists, and bloggers who have been testing the boundaries, movie directors are also pushing the limits of openness and influence.”

PBS has hired the chief content officer at San Francisco public broadcaster KQED to fill a newly created position at the network. “[John] Boland, who starts in September, will oversee television programming, new media, education and promotion. As part of a restructuring, PBS will close its small Los Angeles office… Boland’s appointment is one of the first strategic moves by Paula A. Kerger, who took over as PBS’s president and chief executive officer in March.”

“Radio listening in this country remains high. Nine out of every 10 people listen, mostly through radios but, increasingly, through satellite television, computers, phones. You may have stumped up £100 to buy a digital radio three years ago, but a decade from now, that radio is going to be an antique. Programmes will still be coming out of it and you will still look fondly on its familiar face but, as today’s digital dawn becomes tomorrow’s digital day, be prepared for climate change.”

What’s with all this chatter about whether critics matter? “The notion that a critic’s job begins and ends with our power to help films become hits is a specious one nurtured by marketing executives, and I’m always astonished when critics themselves buy into it. Consider the comparable situation with, say, political pundits. Should an editorial columnist who was stauchly against the Iraq war, and had no discernible influence on either the Congress or political opinion at large, be considered ‘irrelevant’? Was the war itself ‘columnist-proof’?”