Category: media

Al Sharpton has urged the FCC to crack down on radio stations that have anything to do with gangsta rap violence. “He encouraged the agency to hold field hearings to investigate violence involving radio stations, bar artists from the air for 90 days if linked to violence, and consider such incidents when deciding whether to renew broadcast licenses. Some stations were double-booking rival music artists and gossiping about competing musicians on the air just before they arrived which led to fights, Sharpton said.”

The Canadian government says it will change copyright law to clarify some copyright issues. “According to the announcement, the changes would “clarify that the unauthorized posting or the peer-to-peer file-sharing of material on the Internet will constitute an infringement of copyright. It will also be made clear that private copies of sound recordings cannot be uploaded or further distributed.”

Hyundai has announced that it will become the first automaker to equip all its U.S.-distributed cars with satellite radios, beginning with 2006 models. The Korean auto company will install XM-ready receivers in 500,000 cars in the first year alone, a significant potential audience for the XM folks, who currently boast 3.2 million subscribers. Hyundai owners would still be responsible for XM’s $12.95 monthly subscription fee.

Nielsen Media Research, the company responsible for measuring the all-important ratings by which television networks set their advertising rates, is making some subtle but significant changes to its viewer-monitoring system. The changes are designed to combat the problem of minority underrepresentation.

Advocacy groups are finding new voices with Hollywood producers. “Although funding pressures have recently caused several advocacy groups to scale back their efforts or completely shut down, all the buzz over branded entertainment is prompting a growing number of nonprofits to take a closer look at working with Hollywood to get their messages out.”

Cuts in staff at the BBC are bigger than previously predicted. “The 2,050 job cuts – including 424 announced in December – take total job losses at the BBC to 3,780, saving £355m a year to reinvest in programmes. They are part of director general Mark Thompson’s plans to streamline the BBC. He told staff it was “the toughest period any of us can remember”. The National Union of Journalists said the cuts would “rip the heart out” of the corporation.

TV news shows continue to lose audience. But just as NPR has seen a rise in its audience, so has CBS Sunday Morning. “The leisurely paced Sunday Morning averages 5 million viewers each week, up slightly over last year and at its highest point in a decade. That’s about a million more than for the Sunday Today on NBC, with CBS’s lead more than doubling in the past year, according to Nielsen Media Research. The increase comes despite ABC’s relaunch of Good Morning America on Sunday over the past year. (It is seen by 1.9 million people a week).”

French Canadian movies dominated the prizes at this year’s Genie Awards. “The bitter irony of the night is that English Canada’s most ardent film buffs have likely never heard — let alone seen — many of the francophone winners, which are hugely popular in Quebec but virtually ignored in the rest of Canada. Ma vie en cinemascope and Mémoires affectives, for instance, don’t even have release dates yet in English Canada.”

“When you visit a well-stocked video store these days, it seems the full history of commercial cinema awaits your perusal, either on DVD or VHS. But this plenitude is illusory, a kind of cinematic Potemkin village. Indeed, in the United States, which has churned out the most movies of any nation over the past 100 years, it’s estimated that 50 per cent of the features produced there before 1950 have disappeared, a result of the effects of technological obsolescence, neglect, financial hardship and inadequate archiving. For films produced before 1920, the figure is 80 per cent.”

As much as 20 percent of BBC staff are expected to be laid off in director general Mark Thompson’s radical remake of the venerable public broadcaster. That includes “the loss of 1,500 jobs in programme-making divisions such as news and sport. Initial estimates of up to 5,000 job cuts are being hastily revised upwards by broadcasting unions, which are threatening strike action if compulsory redundancies are enforced. Including jobs that will be lost as a result of redundancies, the outsourcing of some roles and the sell-off of commercial divisions such as BBC Broadcast and BBC Resources, up to 6,000 jobs are now expected to go in the biggest ever cull of staff at the corporation.”