Category: media

Sunday’s Oscars TV broadcast attracted only 39 million viewers, the second lowest on record. “Except for the 2003 count of 33 million viewers — when “Chicago” took the best-picture award — the Oscars hadn’t dipped below 40 million viewers since 1987, Nielsen said.”

A dispute about producer credits for the movie “Crash” highlights the difficulty in giving credits for producing modern movies. “Those four slighted “Crash” producers say the film’s multiple producing credits are not the result of any personal vanity but instead underscore the frantic mechanics of making movies outside the studio system.”

The connection between box office hits and quality movies that win Oscars has never been strong. But this year there’s a particularly big disconnect. “Together, these movies have taken in $228 million – by far the smallest total in recent Oscar history. By contrast, “Revenge of the Sith,” 2005’s top-grossing film, has made $380 million domestically.”

What’s the cause of Hollywood’s declining audiences? “There are digital personal video recorders, iPods, on-demand music and video, 500 TV channels, billions of Web pages catering to every obscure subculture — endless choices spinning the hamster wheel that is our attention spans.”

A new study says TV isn’t bad for you. But Virginia Heffernan doesn’t believe it. “Television, after all, is the only art form reviewed in this newspaper that is also regarded as a public health hazard; maybe this news will help to clear its name and win it some respect. But I wouldn’t count on it. Study after anti-television study has failed to pinpoint the exact perils that viewers are prone to, and yet the idea that television is dangerous persists as an article of faith.”

“Big Hollywood increasingly finds it difficult to make the kinds of high-profile movies that the industry likes to honor with its most important awards. You don’t have to have followed all the reports of a box-office slump last year to know that Hollywood is in trouble. To judge by how executives at major studios often talk about their business, in their discussions about closing windows, new platforms and emergent technologies, the movies themselves barely count. What counts is when you can watch a film on your cellphone, not if there is something worth losing your eyesight over.”

The new generation of high definition DVD formats is about to come to market. “As consumers, we have merely been spectators to the three-year fight over the next generation of DVDs. But very soon we will be right in the middle of the fray as high definition discs and decks finally arrive in shops.”

Washington DC’s TV stations are now using Nielsen’s Local People Meter to measure viewership. The system is said to be much more accurate than the old system. But the LPM has measured some alarming audience declines. “Some of the steepest declines were in the early-morning period, when four local stations air competing two-hour newscasts at 5 a.m. — a time slot that reflected growing viewership prior to LPM ratings.”

Who are these Oscar voters, anyway? “It’s become something of an annual sport to deride them for being too conservative or simply too enamoured of spectacle for spectacle’s sake to recognise the more understated, more subversive sides of cinematic endeavour. And yet, the Academy’s choices often end up saying a surprising amount about the times we live in.”

Online parodies of “Brokeback Mountain” are proliferating. “If they’re well made, the parodies can presumably serve as a calling card for those who sign their work; some of them are viewed hundreds of thousands of times. Generally, though, the “Brokeback” spoofs are nothing but labors of love, or gay panic, or both.”