Category: media

If ever there was an argument for just leaving creative people alone and letting them work on their own terms, NBC’s critically acclaimed but frequently ratings-challenged sitcom, Scrubs may be it. Now in its fifth season, the show’s creators have always faced tremendous network pressure to add a laugh track, give up the single-camera technique, and just generally make a sitcom more like every other sitcom on every other American network. It may be formulaic, say the network brass, but viewers like it, and the numbers prove it. But Scrubs has hung on to become quite popular, and even as they defy TV conventions, its creators are also embracing every new technology they can get their hands on in an effort to connect with viewers.

It’s become a usual occurrence for a Hollywood studio to refuse to screen a new movie for critics if they think it is unlikely to get good reviews, and in many cases, critics have actually been “disinvited” – told specifically not to review a given film. That was supposed to be the case with Sony’s new comedy, The Benchwarmers – only someone forgot to tell a few critics in Florida, who gave the Rob Schneider vehicle the blistering reviews it probably deserved. Sony’s response was to accuse the critics of “sneaking” into the film (and into a roped-off row marked “press,” as one critic points out) and lie to other newspapers about the reviews.

Commercial radio has plenty of detractors, of course, and no shortage of critics who call it soulless, corporate, and gimmicky. But what about those who work on the inside? “Working for commercial radio, certainly my experience of it, was, I suspect, a lot like being in a cult.”

Podcasting has been a godsend for many public radio shows, allowing them a way to distribute their product far more widely than traditional radio allows. But the phenomenon may be hurting America’s public radio stations – after all, when a listener gets used to hearing his favorite shows through downloadable audio, he’s no longer listening to his local public station, which puts him out of range of the dreaded pledge drives.

A New York movie theatre has stopped showing a trailer for an upcoming movie “United 93,” which chronicles the hijacked United Airlines flight that crashed in Pennsylvania on Sept. 11. “I don’t think people are ready for this. One lady was crying. She was saying that we shouldn’t have played the trailer. That this was wrong.”

The online movie company Netflix is accusing Blockbuster of stealing its ideas. “The complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, focuses largely on the online wish lists that prioritize the DVD desires of about 5.4 million people who subscribe to either Netflix or Blockbuster’s Internet service. Netflix also believes its patents cover perhaps its most popular feature — the option of renting a DVD for an unlimited time without incurring late fees.”

Hollywood movie studios rae increasingly shutting critics out of advance screenings of their movies. “The practice does not sit well with critics, who either must do without or scramble to catch the movie on opening day and dash something off if their outlets want to have a review over opening weekend. But it makes business sense for studios, which may presume the drawbacks outweigh the benefits if critics are likely to hate a movie.”

“A new study suggests that youths who are exposed to sexually explicit media when they are 12 to 14 are more likely to have sex before they hit 16.”

“Researchers at the University of Michigan Health System found that a 3-year-old kid exposed to two hours or more of TV a day was nearly three times more likely to be overweight than a child who watched fewer than two hours. That stands to reason: If a kid is watching TV, he’s not burning off fat. Once again, however, TV is being blamed for society’s ills, rather than society being blamed for its own problems.”

The creators of Sesame Street are producing a new series of shows for kids as young as six months. This has some child development experts upset. “There is no evidence that screen media is beneficial for babies and growing evidence it may be harmful. ‘Sesame Beginnings’ will encourage babies’ devotion to TV characters that have been licensed to promote hundreds of other products’.”