Category: media

Tavis Smiley is ending his show and leaving National Public Radio. “After all that we’ve accomplished towards our goal of seeking a broader, more diverse and younger audience for public radio. NPR’s own research has confirmed that NPR has simply failed to meaningfully reach out to a broad spectrum of Americans who would benefit from public radio but simply don’t know it exists or what it offers.”

Increasingly, movie studios are using digital actors in movies. “The creation of a computer-generated digital person has been the Holy Grail of the digital effects industry. Digital Domain generated attention in this area as far back as 1997, when it populated the decks of the Titanic with digital passengers in its Academy Award-winning epic “Titanic.” More recently, Digital Domain and other effects houses have increasingly used digital characters for certain applications, including stunts where having an actor perform would be dangerous or simply impossible.”

Gone with the Wind is the most watched movie in UK history. The US civil war epic, based on Margaret Mitchell’s novel, has been seen by 35 million people. The most recent film in the top 10 was 1997’s Titanic, with 18.9m admissions.

Oliver Stone’s blockbuster “Alexander” is a bomb at the box office. “The swords and sandals blockbuster, rumoured to have cost more than $150m to make, earned just $13.5 over three days at the US box office.”

From the outside, CBC TV seems to be on the rebound (at least no one seems to be calling for its demise of late). But. “As often with CBC, it’s hard to match the visionary rhetoric with the pedestrian prime-time reality. In a world where viewer votes set CBC’s values, perhaps Mary Walsh sweating to the oldies really does represent the broadcaster’s best definition of greatness. If you can’t do insight, settle for incitement and see if anyone can tell the difference.”

“In economic impact, the [film] industry has brought $2.6 billion annually into Toronto’s economy — to say nothing of the bragging rights the city has enjoyed as a metropolis sparkling with Hollywood glitter. But in recent years that bloom has withered dramatically. A generous system of provincial tax credits that allowed both domestic and foreign film productions a rebate on labour expenses incurred while in production in Ontario has been duplicated — and in most cases, bettered — all over the world… That, combined with a rising dollar, an increasingly hard line in Los Angeles against ‘runaway productions’ and the lingering effects of last year’s SARS outbreak, has driven foreign production in Ontario down from $981.6 million in 2001 to $874.1 million in 2003.”

The downturn in Canadian film fortunes has had a very real impact on the people who make their living behind the scenes. Jobs are decidedly scarce for Toronto-based location managers, grips, and other crew members working for the TV and movie industries. Actors are having a rough time too, and many are wondering whether they can continue to make a living without moving south.

The media giant Viacom, which owns CBS, UPN, and Infinity Radio, among other properties, has agreed to pay $3.5 million to settle a raft of “indecency” charges brought by the newly prickly Federal Communications Commission. “The consent decree with the Federal Communications Commission resolves, among other things, complaints about shock jock Howard Stern and the radio team of Greg ‘Opie’ Hughes and Anthony Cumia.” More significant than the fine, which won’t hurt Viacom much at all, are the non-monetary elements of the consent decree, under which Viacom has agreed to install delay equipment in its radio stations, and to immediately suspend any employee the FCC accuses of indecency in the future.

A Hollywood actor has been fined $300,000 in a court case brought by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences after two “screeners” (preview copies of Oscar-nominated films sent to voters) he was given by the Academy turned up on the Internet. The lawsuit was filed last year by Warner Bros. against actor Carmine Caridi, whose distribution of the tapes initially led to the Academy’s short-lived ban on screeners.

“Since Nov. 2, the battle over indecency on the airwaves has been elevated to a level that suggests the issue was more than election-year pandering. The emphasis on values that helped re-elect President Bush is, to some, endorsement for a crusade that may eclipse the one against terrorism in Iraq. But so far, what’s most immoral is the spectacle of politicians and special-interest groups trying to hide all the contradictions inherent in deciding what’s too dirty for America and using it as a distraction to cover the bigger threat of media consolidation.”