Category: media

Fox TV, which has stacked its future heavily on reality shows, is having a terrible year. “The network has lost about 8 percent of its viewers from a year ago (8.5 million, down from 9.2 million), but Fox, like NBC and ABC, cares most about viewers between ages 18 and 49 because advertisers pay a premium to reach that group. There, Fox is off even more: 11 percent, dropping to a 3.3 rating from 3.7. A rating point in the 18-to-49 category is worth about 1.3 million viewers. In reality (and that word cuts several ways in Fox’s case), the picture is considerably worse.”

There were shortages of some popular movies at Blockbuster Video this past weekend, as the company eliminated late fees. That means renters can be more leisurely about returning movies. “The Texas-based megafirm eliminated all late fees for rentals, effective Saturday, despite the estimated $250 million to $300 million in revenues they would have generated for Blockbuster in 2005.”

Communities of movie bootleggers have their own community websites in which they trade praose and information about their latest scores. “On the top sites, on those really private sites, the sport is about the next film and the next game. They score even more points if they do it before the release date.”

“A handful of new and soon-to-be-released devices enable music listeners to automatically record tracks from satellite radio broadcasts onto hard drives or portable music players such as the iPod. While the recording industry has publicly decried such activities for terrestrial radio, analysts say it has a financial reason for remaining silent about satellite radio recording.”

“San Francisco’s film industry is suffering. Cutbacks at postproduction facilities owned by local luminaries Francis Ford Coppola and Saul Zaentz have illuminated the struggles of the Bay Area to reassert itself as a filmmaking hub.”

Hollywood might have had a record year at the box office in 2004, but the holiday period was weak. “Ticket sales for the period from Labor Day through Christmas weekend fell more than 6 percent to $2.52 billion, according to data from the tracking company Exhibitor Relations. The company said attendance during the period fell 9 percent.”

How do you promote your movie’s Oscar prospects? Ads are good. TV promotions too. But the classy approach is to hold an event to talk about the movie. And if a few of the stars stop by to make a contribution…

American radio has been stagnant for a few years. So how to revive? “The nation’s biggest radio companies are responding to a grousing and mercurial audience by cutting the number of commercials per hour, expanding the range of music played on the air and experimenting with new formats.”

A number of big splashy epic historical dramas have done poorly at the box office. That’s causing Hollywood’s interest in the genre to wane…

“As the parade of special-interest TV networks marches on, the trick for programmers is to be both broad enough and narrow enough to stay afloat. Too general and they lose the benefit of selling a targeted audience to advertisers. Too narrow and there isn’t the interest level to support their product. If you can pinpoint an audience of 10-15 million households who do not have enough programming choices, you can pitch a network for them.”