Category: media

“The biggest telecommunications legislation in a decade, approved 321-101, would make it easier for telephone companies to enter the subscription television market. A national franchise process would replace the current system where potential providers must negotiate contracts municipality by municipality, sometimes taking months and years.”

China has pulled showings of “The Da Vinci Code.” The movie, “which has been opposed by Christian groups because it suggests Jesus fathered children who continued his lineage, has made $13 million since its release on May 19. It was on its way to becoming one of the highest-earning foreign films in China.”

“On a party-line vote, the House Appropriations subcommittee that oversees health and education funding approved the cut to the budget for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which distributes money to the Public Broadcasting Service and National Public Radio. It would reduce the corporation’s budget by 23 percent next year, to $380 million, in a cut that Republicans said was necessary to rein in government spending.”

Two of Hollywood’s biggest talent agencies are moving out of Hollywood. Okay, the move is only a mile away. “To the uninitiated, that may seem like a paltry distance. But for the agency world, which for a decade and a half has been clustered along a narrow corridor of power and information on Wilshire Boulevard here, it is the end of something, and the beginning of a more diffuse and more corporate existence.”

The US Congress has hiked fines for “indecency” on TV networks. “The bill raising fines to $325,000 per violation, which Bush said he would sign, caps fines at $3 million for continuing violations. The U.S. House of Representatives approved the measure by a 379 to 35 vote on Wednesday, while the Senate passed the bill by unanimous consent last month.”

“People wishing to make their mark as movie critics must either be able to express opinions like ours better than we can, or else they must be in charge of a big idea, preferably one that can be dignified by being called a theory.”

“Some 400 filmmakers spread out simultaneously along the thoroughfare for one hour Tuesday to capture every block of Broadway, which runs almost the entire length of Manhattan and a section of the Bronx.”

The US House of Representatives is debating a bill that “would boost the top fines that the Federal Communications Commission could impose on broadcasters from the current $32,500 to $325,000 for each violation. A vote was scheduled for this afternoon. The legislation, expected to be signed by President Bush, is another outgrowth of Janet Jackson’s breast-revealing incident at the Super Bowl that has made the FCC more aggressive in cracking down on indecent and obscene material on TV and radio airwaves and in turn has prompted broadcasters to be more cautious in the material they air.”

“Two well-known talk-show names are going head-to-head starting next week with original, high quality, Web-only TV-type shows. Talk shows, specifically.”

The state is offering generous tax incentives. The state will have one of the more aggressive tax schemes in the country, with a refundable credit of 25% of direct production expenditures for feature films, television movies, episodic and miniseries television, video games and broadcast advertising production. Also being offered is an investment tax credit of 25% that can be claimed for investing in Wisconsin-based productions and a 15% state income tax credit for film, television and electronic game production businesses that make a capital investment by starting a business in Wisconsin.”