Category: media

Movie industry officials say the US movie industry is healthy. “2004’s U.S. and Canadian ticket sales reached $9.54 billion, marking the third straight year they topped $9 billion. Admissions in the United States and Canada, or the number of people purchasing tickets, dipped slightly to 1.54 billion, but 2004 was the third consecutive year admissions topped 1.5 billion — a number unseen since 1959. ‘The bottom line is the industry is healthy. It’s not radical growth, but the trends are positive’.”

The FCC rules unanimously that a “steamy introductory segment to ABC’s “Monday Night Football” featuring actress Nicollette Sheridan jumping into the arms of football player Terrell Owens” last fall was not indecent. “Although the scene apparently is intended to be titillating, it simply is not graphic or explicit enough to be indecent under our standard.”

Is TV over the internet the next big thing? “Now that broadband networks are bedding down, and it is becoming essential for millions, the big telcos are keen to start shooting video down the line. Software giant Microsoft thinks IPTV – Internet Protocol TV – is the future of television, and it sits neatly with its vision of the connected entertainment experience.”

A Christian group wants to take the BBC to court after the broadcaster’s January airing of Jerry Springer, The Opera. “The Christian Institute says the programme breached the BBC’s charter and broke the Human Rights Act by discriminating against Christians.”

Carole Taylor has resigned as chair of the CBC, a post she has held since 2001. “During her term, she introduced new conflict of interest guidelines for members of the CBC board and put through a new policy on whistleblowers. In her statement, Taylor said the public broadcaster needs improved and stable funding to produce quality work.”

In a reversal of the way these things usually go, Cincinnati’s all-classical public radio station, WGUC, has purchased WVXU, the city’s powerful public news and information station, along with the three-state network it was attached to. The merger has the potential to make WGUC a major force in the increasingly ratings-driven world of public radio, but unlike in so many other markets, where classical stations have been eliminated or converted to news/talk, the consolidation would seem to strengthen the place of classical music on Cincinnati’s air.

“As the music industry confronts declining sales, the Warner Music Group said yesterday that it had filed to sell up to $750 million of stock in an initial public offering. The company, which is the smallest of the world’s four major record conglomerates by market share, said it expected to sell its stock on either the New York Stock Exchange or the Nasdaq. It did not detail the number of shares it planned to offer or their expected price range.”

“According to insiders at Miramax, the Weinsteins envision a new company, with a net worth of about $2 billion, with its own theatrical distribution and home video label. The Weinsteins want to raise a deep war chest so that they do not have to hustle for money and presell foreign territories to raise production coin. They hope to lure employees by promising to share the wealth when the company goes public within five years. But raising money is one thing. Structuring a new company in a way that satisfies investors is another.”

The Himalayan country of Bhutan didn’t get television until 1999. Now its residents are hooked. “Residents of the capital, Thimphu, now say they are glued to the telly for several hours a day. Long-running and popular Indian soap operas beamed from across the border are hot favourites. Thimphu residents animatedly discuss the serials and follow the fortunes of their characters.”

“Virtually all the major studios now have an inhouse facility producing computer-generated (CG) feature films, from Sony’s Imageworks to Fox’s Blue Sky Studios, which created “Robots.” Not surprisingly, the film-release calender for 2005 is filling up with CG films. Dreamworks has “Madagascar,” a tale of zoo animals surviving in the wild, due out Memorial Day weekend. “Chicken Little,” the first film to hatch from Disney’s new CG studios, arrives in November. But some observers wonder how long Hollywood can sustain the CG-film gold rush.”