Category: media

Producers are starting to create shows for mobile phones. The producers of the hit TV show “24” have jumped in with a spin-off. “Each of the one-minute mobile episodes (referred to as mobisodes) is specially shot and edited for the small, small screen. ‘Conspiracy,’ produced by Twentieth Century Fox Television, a division of the News Corporation, is one of three original series making their debut on Verizon’s V Cast, a high-speed cellular phone network that delivers broadband Internet-quality video.”

“Back in the heyday of the Australian film industry – some 20 years ago now – Australian directors sweated out a solid slate of local films before going Stateside. Today, however, the film industry’s talent drain to the US has accelerated to an alarming degree. Directors make only one or two films here before being presented with creative opportunities that have them reaching for their passports.” The question is why?

Cell phone makers are incorporating music players into their new generations of phones. “Music is the next big thing in mobile multimedia. Mobile phone makers and networks are looking for ways to boost their revenue given difficulties finding new customers in saturated industrialized markets and even in some developing countries. Free voice calls over the Internet pose a further threat to revenues, forcing mobile operators to look to entertainment and data services for their future profitability.”

In Canada TV programs getting funding and air time must pass Canadian content rules that promote homegrown talent. But critics charge that the “process for determining whether projects are distinctively Canadian is “Orwellian,” and are incensed by what they call the subjective assessment of what Canadian audiences will watch. For example, a proposed film on Modigliani by acclaimed filmmaker Harry Rasky was rejected by the CTF on the grounds that it was insufficiently contextualized for Canadians.”

Critics are accusing PBS of becoming more politically driven and timid about what it programs. “We’re standing on the edge of a chasm. We are leaving what we have been and staring at a very different digital future. No one knows what that future is. We are trying to put the pieces of a strategy together that we believe will lead to the rebirth of public television in the U.S.”

Disney movies are an American mainstay, and since the advent of VCRs, collectors and fans have snapped up countless copies of Disney classics like Cinderella and Snow White. But there is one Disney film that has never made it to video: Song of the South, the lighthearted but supremely controversial story of Uncle Remus, Brer Rabbit, and life in America’s Deep South in the slave days of the 19th century. There’s very little question that the movie’s tone, which seems to portray slave life as an easygoing partnership between blacks and whites, is inaccurate at best and intentionally racist at worst. But still, there’s an argument to be made that the movie deserves to be made available with all its warts.

The furor over a controversial plot twist in Clint Eastwood’s new film, Million Dollar Baby, is just the latest example of shrill right-wing protestors trying to impose their own values system on everyone else, says Frank Rich. But who would ever have thought that Eastwood – a man’s man if ever Hollywood had one – would find himself targeted in such a manner? “What really makes these critics hate Million Dollar Baby is not its supposedly radical politics – which are nonexistent – but its lack of sentimentality. It is, indeed, no Rocky, and in our America that departure from the norm is itself a form of cultural radicalism. Always a sentimental country, we’re now living fulltime in the bathosphere.”

“Spending on Canadian programming rose by 5.8 per cent to $575.5 million in 2004. But the portion spent on comedy and drama — perennially a sensitive issue within the industry — fell by 13.2 per cent to $86.5 million.” But “compared to 2000 spending, the payout for dramatic and comedy programming is still up by $8 million, or 10.1 per cent, for an average annual increase over the period of 2.4 per cent. Overall spending increased for reality, musical/variety and news programming. In 2004, nearly 8,000 people were employed in the industry, accounting for more than $553 million in salaries.”

So organizers want the Oscars to zip along faster? Fine, writes Maureen Ryan. Just don’t cut the acceptance speeches. “There are so many other things that could be trimmed instead. How about taking out any and all musical numbers? That’s 20 minutes gone, easily. Lose the lifetime achievement awards, or make those presentations three minutes long, at most. As for the long montage of actors who’ve died, why not put that on Oscar.com? And do we need to see the accountants who tabulate the votes, listen to forced, unfunny “banter” from presenters or hear a speech from the head of the academy? No, no and no. But we do need to see actresses cry while wearing couture gowns.”

Washington DC classical music station WTEA is changing formats, dropping most of its music and airing news and public affairs. “By an overwhelming majority, the board approved a resolution to focus on news and public-affairs programming. A new lineup, with round-the-clock news, analysis and interview programs, will debut Feb. 28. Only the weekly broadcasts of the Metropolitan Opera and “Traditions With Mary Cliff,” a folk music program, will remain for music lovers.