Category: media

“PBS is at this point basically an upscale, government-funded, highbrow version of the mindset behind pretty much every major television network except for Fox News. You don’t have to be a declared enemy of the liberal establishment to have noticed this.”

Indianapolis’s Heartland Film Festival has found a growing niche in films that appeal to middle America. “Heartland’s rising profile hints that Tinseltown might be outgrowing its tin ear for middle America, a culture that’s both savvier and more proactive than the “Peoria” of old – and a bloc whose consumer clout keeps growing. Some 580 films were submitted to Heartland this year, up from 330 in 2004.”

As shock jock Howard Stern prepares to depart his longtime employer for satellite radio at the end of the year, the industry is waiting with bated breath to see if Stern can make good on his promise to be the first personality to successfully bring a large chunk of audience with him to pay radio. But an ominous sign is already making itself known in the Stern universe: this fall’s ratings book shows Stern with his lowest traditional radio ratings in years. At his Washington affiliate, “Stern’s share of radio’s most lucrative audience (adults age 25 to 54) fell by nearly one-third during the July-September period, bottoming out at 3.4 percent.” Ratings in Stern’s New York home base fell by 15%.

Television of the future will be radically different. “You’ll not only be able to watch every film, but also every TV program, news show, documentary, music video, and video blog, and all of it will be playable wherever you go. Great, you think: Thousands of channels, millions of choices, and still nothing worth watching. Nevertheless, “nonlinear TV”—watching the tube on our schedule, not the broadcasters’—is our destiny. The revolution will not be televised, however, until the companies that funnel the content into our homes figure out how to control it. The best advice for now: Study the music industry and do the exact opposite.”

Hollywood? Old news. Bollywood? Been there, done that. The newest frontier in film is emerging in the unlikeliest of places: Nigeria. “Buoyed by a voracious appetite among Nigerians (population: 128 million) for their own stories, and bolstered by the proliferation of video equipment — allowing for less expensive production costs — this developing nation’s burgeoning film business now produces a whopping 1,000 features a year.” The Nigerian scene (known, of course, as Nollywood) has risen astonishingly quickly from its beginnings in the 1970s, and it is beginning to produce huge stars whose profiles will soon be noticeable even from the cloistered U.S.

When it debuted in the late 1990s, Comedy Central’s animated hit, South Park, was mainly a “scare-the-horses” addition to the network’s lineup, relying on foul language (from the mouths of its seven-year-old stars, no less) and ever-grosser gags to attract the young male viewers so coveted by advertisers. But nine seasons on, South Park is a bona fide cultural phenomenon that has risen above its own raunch to become an up-to-the-minute social commentary on some of the most controversial issues of the day. Of course, much of the attraction is still in the show’s envelope-pushing antics, but wouldn’t we all be a bit tired of fart jokes by now if they weren’t folded into a fairly sophisticated satire?

Music is added to movies last, and changing it has always been difficult. But the composer of the much-anticipated remake of “King Kong” has been removed just weeks before the film opens. How? “New technology has meant that composers can now be asked to present their score in a demo form on synthesisers before its been properly recorded. They then ask test audiences what they think. It is like judging a film by having the cast shout out the script first. People have been taken off films on the basis of the results. It is not a particularly rational form of decision-making.”

Five Hollywood unions representing actors, writers and directors have called for negotiations with producers to make sure their members get a cut of revenue generated by the sale of TV shows on Apple’s iTunes software.

“Some critics have howled that, with Sprout, PBS has crossed a line, giving up any claim to being a safe, noncommercial haven. But PBS supporters say the public TV system has to face reality in a time of uncertain federal funding and unprecedented competition. ‘Unfortunately, PBS has a really hard path to forge. They used to be the only game in town if you were looking for a channel that was safe for your kids. But commercial offerings are now so vast, that in order to have a level playing field, they have to end up doing some of the same things’.”

PBS has a new channel on the air – it’s called PBS Sprout and it’s aimed at kids. But it also has advertisements. “Three weeks after its launch, Sprout has only one sponsor, Kimberly-Clark, the maker of Huggies diapers. The ads are aimed at parents and don’t interrupt shows — though the shows last for only 15 minutes. But the mere idea of a PBS-branded product with ads hit like a bombshell in the public television world. And so far, many stations have refused to affiliate with the new service. Out of 177 licensees, only 90 have joined with Sprout for content and marketing arrangements.”