Category: media

Everyone agrees that people are going to movies in the theatre less and less, and that this represents a challenge for Hollywood studios. But since much of the drop in ticket sales can be explained by the upward swing in DVD ownership and the wild success of services like NetFlix, does the ovie industry really have anything to worry about? More importantly, is the current uncertainty any different from the various other eras in which Hollywood has been forced by technology to change its business practices?

A court has ruled that Apple Computer did not violate a 1991 trademark agreement with The Beatles’ old Apple Corps recording label when it established the popular iTunes music download service. Apple Corps, which has clashed frequently with the computer company over copyright, claimed that a violation had occurred when Apple Computer moved into the music business. Lawyers for the computer giant insisted that iTunes is “primarily a data transmission service and permitted by the agreement,” and London’s High Court agreed.

There may be nothing on Earth more overexposed than The DaVinci Code, and that presented a unique marketing challenge for the folks behind the movie version of Dan Brown’s bestseller. How, after all, do you sell a suspense film when the entire world already knows what’s going to happen? The answer may be to abandon traditional marketing altogether, and court the controversy that seems to follow DaVinci around. “The fiendishly clever part? Convincing us the ensuing publicity is merely a series of random events.”

Congress cuts the Smithsonian’s budget by $5.3 million to protest an exclusive deal the Smithsonian made with Showtime Networks about filming the institution’s collections. “The Smithsonian says the contract requires commercial filmmakers who want to make extensive use of the institution’s collections to reach an agreement with Showtime. Smithsonian officials have refused to make the contract public, and members of Congress said they were surprised to learn of the deal through the media.”

CBS launches a new broadband channel. “The site, available on the CBS.com home page, is streaming three shows a day at first, at least one of them new each day. Material already shown will be archived and available for free to computer users. ‘We want our content to be all the places our viewers are — and they are certainly on the Internet’.”

Univision, the American Spanish-language TV network says its earnings are up 21 percent over last year. “Univision has become a tough competitor to ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox and regularly beats one of these four English-language networks in prime-time. As the Hispanic population continues to grow in size, we are confident that advertisers will see that reaching Hispanics through Univision Television, radio, music and online assets will be a key to their success.”

“After years of ever-rising star salaries, the prices for top talent are now coming down because the cost of making movies is going up, among other issues.”

US Senator Bill Frist is trying to push through a tough new version of indecency standards for US broadcasters through Congress. The new regulations would impose a tenfold increase on fines for indecent broadcasts…

For the first time, the movie industry has counted up what it says the costs of piracy are. “The MPAA released its first comprehensive study of movie piracy late Tuesday, estimating that the major studios lost $6.1 billion last year to bootlegging, illegal copying and Internet piracy.”

Sydney’s Anglican Church is showing a trailer in 250 movie theatres giving its side of the story on “The Da Vinci Code.” “The 20-second trailer depicts Jesus’s reaction to the book’s claim that the church lied about a secret bloodline. The Dan Brown novel explores the theme that Jesus has living descendants. The trailer tells cinema-goers about a special website which challenges the truth about the theories in The Da Vinci Code.”