Category: media

Nielsen says its new electronic viewer measuring devices show Americans are watching more TV than previously measured. “The new local-TV ratings system, which replaces a written paper-diary system with a remote-control-like device, showed an 18.6 percent in TV viewing in San Francisco, followed by a 9.1 percent gain in New York, 1.4 percent in Chicago and 0.5 percent in Los Angeles. Among TV watchers, the demographic that saw the biggest increase was men between the ages of 18 and 49, an audience that advertisers pay a premium to reach.”

Pakistan’s film industry is trying to get the country’s government to end a ban on showing Bollywood films. “The ban was imposed after the Indo-Pakistan war of 1965. The local film industry has proven itself to be completely unable to meet the demands of the local market.”

The controversial chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is pushing for a former co-chair of the Republican National Committee to be named president of CPB. Patricia de Stacy Harrison, who currently works in the State Department, has made statements concerning public broadcasting that are in line with CPB chairman Kenneth Tomlinson’s desire to bring more conservative voices to public television and radio. CPB’s 8-member board is “dominated by Republicans” at the moment, and Tomlinson has sparked a war of words in recent months with his appointment of an ombudsman tasked with tracking supposed liberal bias in PBS news programs.

As America’s corporate-dominated radio industry scrambles desperately to find and unveil the Next Big Thing (by which, of course, we mean the next highly profitable and easily compartmentalized format,) a not-so-subtle shift is occurring on-air. With stations and their advertisers eager to attract and hold the iPod generation, retro is in, but the classic format known as “oldies” is apparently being ridden out of town on a rail. “Many existing oldies stations are barely holding on, the victims of declining ratings and radio-industry apathy. ‘Golden oldies’ stations, home to artists like Frank Sinatra and Glenn Miller, are in even worse trouble. Ultimately, observers say, the radio industry simply doesn’t have much interest in baby boomers.”

“Last year record numbers of Australians stayed away from Australian films. In January, the Australian Film Commission released figures showing that in 2004 the local share of box office takings was just 1.3 per cent. A record low. In international terms, that’s appalling. In figures for 2003 quoted in April’s inside film magazine the US domestic film share of local box office was 95 per cent.”

“Over the next three months, Miramax Films, founded and operated by brothers Bob and Harvey Weinstein, will release at least 10 movies, including seven films that have been gathering dust on the studio’s shelves for up to four years. The backlog is so profound that the directors of three of those films have started, filmed and almost completed new movies with other studios in the time it has taken Disney-owned Miramax to bring their earlier films to theaters… The release of several of the Miramax movies was held up partially by the very public divorce of the Weinsteins and Disney, which bought the studio in 1993. With the Weinsteins set to leave Disney and Miramax on Sept. 30, the brothers say they are determined before their exit to supervise the debuts of movies they produced and purchased.”

How big a pop cultural phenomenon is The DaVinci Code? Well, here’s one indication: filming on the movie version of Dan Brown’s runaway bestseller hasn’t even begun (and Westminster Abbey has declined requests for parts of the film to be shot there,) and yet a preview for it is running in front of George Lucas’s latest Star Wars installment. The book has generated considerable controversy amongst Catholics, but the quibbling doesn’t appear to have hurt the book’s popularity, and Hollywood is salivating over the prospect of carving out a chunk of the franchise.

“Some outnumbered Republican entertainment workers not only yearn for equal access to filmmaking in famously left-leaning Hollywood but also consider themselves at war against a hostile left-wing majority, with battles being waged on the Internet, in books, at film festivals and even in nightclubs (hence a comedy troupe named the Right Stuff). They’re even — gasp! — organizing in groups like the Hollywood Congress of Republicans, which sponsors luncheons at which celebrities including Ben Stein and Morgan Brittany offer moral support to a like-minded political minority that is sick of being mocked by industry taste-setters.”

A study by a group that promotes family movies says that “G”-rated movies are more profitable than those rated “R”. “The study, released Tuesday by The Dove Foundation, showed that the average G-rated flick was 11 times more profitable than its R-rated counterpart, but the film industry made more than 12 times as many R-rated as G-rated movies from 1989-2003.”

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg tried to encourage the filming of TV shows in New York by giving tax breaks to producers. But the scheme has failed as none of the shows piloted in New York were picked up for the fall network schedule.