Category: media

The internet is changing the way people make choices about what movies to see. “With the advent of the Internet, geography is history. Today, more than 90% of the target moviegoer demographic ages 13-34 go online to get their movie information.”

The video rental business has been on the decline. “Blockbuster will certainly not survive and it will certainly not be missed. It has been a precipitous fall. But pegging the habits of the video consumer has always been difficult.” What will be the preferred way to get videos?

France is considering a new law that would legalize file-sharing in return for flat-fee licensing. “The entertainment industry is preparing a massive lobby against the law, saying it would undo years of anti-piracy work and leave artists destitute.”

To take away the piracy threat, this year’s Oscar voters were sent special DVD players that could read specially encrypted discs. “In all, 13,000 of the DVD players manufactured by Dolby Laboratories were sent to all academy members, British Academy of Film and Television Arts members and some of the other awards-bestowing organizations, to play encrypted discs that cannot be copied and downloaded. The new machines take away the downloading option.”

American movie theatres, faced with declining audiences, are offering other fare like simulcast concerts. “Attendance for these shows varies widely. A pair of Phish performances in 2004, one at Coney Island and another in Vermont, drew more than 30,000 fans each for national simulcasts. A Prince tour attracted 25,000 fans at multiplexes across the country.”

But instead of making its shows available on iTunes, the network is selling them directly on its website. “CBS would be the first broadcast network to sell its shows via its own Internet storefront. The move signals that CBS Chief Executive Leslie Moonves believes the network is a potent enough brand that it can go it alone — without Apple Computer Inc.’s popular iTunes software and website — and thus not have to split the spoils.”

Fans of Howard Stern are pirating copies of his radio show, which is now available legally only on subscription-based Siruis satellite radio. “Although no one can know the total number of Stern stealers, it is clear that Stern is a runaway hit among file sharers. His shows are more popular than the TV show ‘Gilmore Girls’ and just behind Fox’s ‘The Simpsons.”

Okay, Brokeback Mountain is a good movie, but are those eight Oscar nominations for Ang Lee’s “gay cowboy” flick really about rewarding great filmmaking? Or is this just Hollywood’s way of thumbing its nose at the right-wingers who currently control America’s political system? Stephen Hunter says that Brokeback “makes an argument with images craftily employed to communicate ideas. Nothing in it is arbitrary… generally, the movie is cruel to family. It seems to think family is a bourgeois delusion” and that homosexuality is a natural reaction against the imprisonment of traditional American family life.

“In a year when blockbusters went bust in the United States and films fizzled in Europe, Britons flocked to the cinema — to see a teenage wizard, a magical wardrobe and a psychedelic chocolate factory. The U.S. box office slumped to its lowest level in almost a decade in 2005, dragged down by a slew of underperforming action films and lackluster sequels. Ticket sales also fell across much of Europe. But while a strong pound and an uncertain tax climate have fueled fears for the future of British filmmaking, British filmgoing is in great shape.”