Category: media

The Oscars’ 30.1 rating in Nielsen Media Research’s 56 top markets was a slight 1 percent improvement over last year’s comparable number, and the highest-rated Academy Awards in the metered markets since 2000.

Newly authorized low-watt radio stations were supposed to be places where “low-income folks and communities of color – ‘new voices,’ in government parlance – could grab a tiny slice of a radio dial now dominated by conglomerates. These micro stations would be a programming rainbow, where Hawaiian music would lead into debates over the fate of the local landfill — a type of community-focused format rarely heard on big-city stations. But something unexpected happened on the way to the dial diversity the left thought it was getting: Low-power frequencies have been gobbled up by Christian organizations. Church groups make up roughly half the 344 applicants licensed by the Federal Communications Commission.”

This year’s Oscars telecast was pretty lame. “The Oscars are losing their status as a big national party and turning instead into de facto political conventions — and if there’s anything TV and the nation don’t need, it’s more of those. Chances are the ratings for this year’s Oscar show will not be especially high and might be especially low, unless Rock turns out to have been enough of a name to bring viewers back to their sets. More likely, the whole horrible mess will have to be rethought once again, and next year’s Oscarcast will be preceded by a fresh wave of hype about how new and improved it all is.”

“The massacres in Rwanda were real enough and there are, at present, no shortage of artists – film directors, novelists, script writers – engaged in the complicated process of trying to imagine exactly what happened over those 100 days in 1994, in all its desolating detail, and then recasting it in fiction. What is one to make of all this western interest in the unhappy central African state? Is there not something indecent in the haste with which non-African film-makers are competing with each other to be first with the cinematic news about the events of 1994? Is there not an element of atrocity tourism at work here – as well as a kind of stylised poetics of misery?”

“The days of promoting a TV show with a basic website are over. Network executives now are developing elaborate Web productions for many of their shows to create buzz, earn extra advertising dollars and, by strengthening viewer loyalty, keep ratings up. “Reality” shows blazed the trail by putting outtakes on the Web. Now producers of scripted prime-time dramas have joined the trend, bringing some interactivity to a historically one-way medium.”

“The comedy Sideways has dominated this year’s Independent Spirit Awards, winning all six of the awards for which it was nominated. It was named best film while Alexander Payne won best director and best screenplay, along with writing partner Jim Taylor. It also won acting awards for stars Paul Giamatti, Thomas Haden Church and Virginia Madsen… The awards, now in their 20th year, are given to films made outside the traditional studio system, and are traditionally held the day before the Oscars.”

All the Oscar hype surrounding the surprise hit film Sideways may be missing some significant disapproval from a rather large moviegoing demographic: namely, women. Sideways may be a great buddy film from a guy’s point of view, but the concept plays out like just one more variation on the endless Hollywood theme of disgusting men with no discernible social skills or sense of humor seducing beautiful women who they love and leave with no consequence. “Imagine, if you can, a movie about two unattractive, gross women slobs going on a week-long spree and ending up with Brad Pitt and Ben Affleck. Imagine that becoming a hit, nominated for five Academy Awards, acclaimed by critics.”

For the first time, sales of digital radio receivers have outpaced traditional analog sets in the UK, where the technology has taken firm hold and a complete changeover to digital broadcasting is expected to occur by the end of the decade. By contrast, digital radio receivers are nearly unheard of in the US.

Oscar night is of huge importance, not only to Hollywood, but to the entirety of human existence, at least according to Hollywood. But even if we concede that the Academy Awards are a valuable gauge of U.S. cultural sensibilities, one burning question remains: “How can something of such apparent importance be so incredibly tedious and trivial?”

“Paul Martin Hennessey really, really, really wants Josh Hartnett to star in his movie. Hennessey, a retired union executive who lives in a double-wide trailer on 40 acres outside the tiny Missouri town of Alton, is a budding screenwriter. He believes he has the hottest script this side of Hollywood, and he says it would be perfect for Hartnett.” So, after three years of being unable to get his script anywhere near his chosen leading man, Hennessey took a bizarre step, taking out a $990 half-page ad in City Pages, the alternative newsweekly of the Twin Cities, from whence Hartnett hails. The ad took the form of an open letter to Hartnett, explaining the reason for Hennessey’s unusual method of making contact, and begging the actor to have a look at the script.