Category: media

Is PBS becoming to politicized? Maybe, but Jack Shafer thinks the problem is publci financing. “The best remedy for this week’s public broadcasting crisis isn’t the dismantling of the “objectivity and balance” firewall but the abolishment of the CPB itself. Bureaucracies inevitably conform to the wishes of the ruling party, and as much as CPB would like to rise above politics, every federal appropriation comes laden with political baggage. No government—Republican, Democrat, or Socialist—will ever surrender control over media money it disburses.”

A new poll says Americans would like some warning about potentially offensive programming on TV. “About 90 percent strongly agreed or somewhat agreed that there should be advisories and ratings about potentially offensive content they may want to avoid. But while 48 percent either strongly or somewhat agreed that television stations should not air such shows, 50 percent either somewhat disagreed or strongly disagreed, it said.”

“Days before an expected public stock offering from the Warner Music Group, the rap-rock band Linkin Park demanded yesterday to be released from its recording contract with the company, saying internal cost cuts may have left the music giant ‘unable to compete in today’s global music marketplace’… The spat comes as a team of private investors, who purchased Warner Music from Time Warner last year for $2.6 billion, is preparing for an initial offering of shares that is expected to raise $750 million and is expected to take place in mid-May. Since taking charge last year, the investment team has restructured the company and cut about $250 million in costs through layoffs, cuts to the artist roster and consolidation of its international operations.”

“A study of Asian Americans in prime-time television, released Monday, shows that Asians, who make up 5 percent of the U.S. population, play 2.7 percent of regular characters. It also shows virtually no Asian actors are on situation comedies, and the characters they play in dramas tend to have less depth than most regulars, with minimal on-screen time and few romantic roles.”

“A study released on Monday shows that one in five films rated PG, or “parental guidance suggested” — with some material that may not be suitable for children — actually have more violent actions than the average for those listed as PG-13, or inappropriate for children under 13. It also found that one in 10 PG films had more violent acts than the average for those in the study that were rated R, or “Restricted” — meaning any viewer under 17 should be accompanied by an adult.”

The new chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is aggressively pushing PBS to provide more conservative political voices in its programming, citing what he believes is years of “liberal bias” in news programs and documentary series. PBS’s outgoing president is firing back, accusing CPB of interfering with the network in an inappropriate way. Others have noted that the new chairman appears to be driven by an obsessive and “vehement dislike of journalist Bill Moyers,” who recently left PBS, and that he actually hired outside consultants to monitor the political leanings of guests on Moyers’s news/interview program, Now.

“From a powerhouse that churned out 300 movies a year and had box office takings of more than a billion Hong Kong dollars annually in the mid-1990s, the industry is now just a shade of its past glory. In 2004, Hong Kong produced a measly 64 features and took $57 million at the box office.”

When National Public Radio unceremoniously dumped longtime Morning Edition host Bob Edwards last year, fans shrieked and critics almost universally blasted the move as unnecessary and insensitive. One year later, Joanne Ostrow is ready to admit she was wrong. “The revamped show wakes up fresher these days. Getting the anchors out of the studio and on location, something Edwards resisted for years, has paid off… The long-perceived East Coast bias is diminished. Arts coverage has grown in depth. The globe-trotting hosts have delivered amazing reportage.” And if numbers are your thing, listenership to the program is up 7% since Edwards was sent packing.

Horror movies aren’t supposed to be particularly good. After all, the camp value in a slasher flick is often more of a draw than the thrills and chills. But in the last few years, horror has become an upmarket genre in Hollywood, with high-profile actors and actresses clamoring for a fright pic of their very own. Not only that, there’s been a demographic shift in the audience for horror: young women, traditionally used as cheap sexual props and helpless victims in the blood-‘n-gore fests of old, are an increasingly enthusiastic percentage of ticketbuyers.

The CBC says it will invest $33 million to add 100 more hours of Canadian drama and entertainment programming. “Everything from high-impact drama — the miniseries we do now — traditional series, comedies, soap operas, movies of the week, the lot. We would like CBC Television to be overwhelmingly the place that you go for Canadian entertainment programming.”