Category: media

“Video cassette recorders, the most successful consumer electronic devices ever besides TVs, are now an endangered species, selling for as little as $20 at some retailers – the same price as some low-end DVD players that have far, far better picture quality.”

Members of the Ontario (Canada) film industry rally to pressure the government to increase film subsidies. Film production has declined dramatically in the province in the past two years. “My income is down to about a quarter of what it was last year, and I’ve seen it plummeting in the last three years. I’m one of the lucky ones, you know? There are actors I know who are losing their homes, (and) there are families breaking up.”

Why is Tavis Smiley quitting his NPR show? He says that his audience on NPR is not high enough and that NPR needs to do more to reach out to minority audiences. “The show, carried by 87 public stations nationwide, was created by NPR with the African-American Public Radio Consortium, in response to a campaign by public radio stations at historically black colleges for more programs aimed at minority audiences. Mr. Smiley’s show reached just under 900,000 listeners a week, according to NPR, many of them young and African-American.” But the show has built audience steadily, beginning with an audience of only 300,000 two years ago.

“An estimated 100 trucks and trailers are expected to circle Queen’s Park in Toronto today as more than 5,000 workers in the Ontario film industry descend on the provincial legislature to demand increased tax credits to help revive the industry’s flagging fortunes… The demonstration — involving a united front of studios, unions, equipment suppliers and service companies called the Keep Ontario Cameras Rolling Coalition — is the latest step to pressure the Ontario government to raise the tax credit for domestic film and TV shoots to 33 per cent from 20 per cent and, most crucially, the credit for non-Canadian producers using Ontario labour, to 16 per cent from 11.”

Greek lawyers who had threatened to sue to keep the movie “Alexander” from being shown in Greece (because it depicted Alexander as gay) have withdrawn the threat. “The lawyers have withrawn their demand to have the film’s opening on Friday delayed, so they can watch a preview screening of it.”

A movie made by French and shot in France has been declared not French by a Paris court. “The film, which lands in theatres in North America on Friday, was shot in France using French actors and a French crew. However, the administrative court ruled that the film does not qualify as Gallic because the production company behind A Very Long Engagement, 2003 Productions, is backed by the Hollywood studio Warner Bros.”

So Tivo is finding ways to hit us with commercials, even as we fast-forward past them in programming. “TiVo officials contend that the new features will not be any more intrusive than the “thumbs-up” icons that already appear during some commercials and shows. But to some customers, the impending advertising changes smack of betrayal from the innovators whose hard drive-based gizmo lets TV viewers record programs, fast-forward through ads and pause at will.”

“Under a decades old system, Germany levies a fee of $21 a month on every household with a TV. The resulting $7 billion a year funds the largest public broadcasting system in Europe, encompassing film production, 22 TV channels, and more than 50 radio stations. The British Broadcasting Corp., by comparison, got $5.2 billion from taxpayers in the latest fiscal year. But Germans increasingly wonder whether they’re getting their money’s worth. In terms of substance there is hardly a difference anymore between the public and private stations.”

Hollywood is dividing up over which new standard for DVD’s should be adopted. “Privately, entertainment-industry executives say they can’t afford a format war and don’t want the confusion that slowed the early adoption of videocassette recorders when consumers were faced with choosing between Betamax and VHS.”

Should National Public Radio be privatized? Its listenership is big enough to compete with commercial radio. “`Morning Edition’ and `All Things Considered,’ NPR’s two signature news shows, are now the second and third most popular nationally distributed shows on U.S. radio (after Rush Limbaugh). Public radio is no longer in the business, or the anti-business, of serving minority tastes.”