Category: media

Video games are looking more and more like movies. But the game industry is also looking more like the movie business. “The entire industry is looking more and more like filmed entertainment. Soon a handful of hits will drive the entire industry. Video game executives say they have no choice if they want to make their $11 billion industry as mainstream as the movie business.”

Hollywood is awaiting the release of a new movie with high anticipation. It was filmed without any locations or sets, those supplied by computers. “If it becomes a hit, the implications for filmmaking are enormous. The action-filled adventure with spectacular special effects cost around £40 million – less than half the budget for a similar film made in conventional fashion. Because there were no sets to construct, it did away with the need for production designers, art directors and carpenters. It could be the most important cinematic breakthrough in years.”

UK TV and radio stations have discovered that non-white consumers have money. “A few years ago, businesses were obsessed with the pink pound and grey pound, launching charm offensives at gay and older consumers. Now, they’ve turned their attention to ethnic minorities and the brown pound, worth £32 billion according to a recent advertising industry report. The airwaves have changed as well. At last, it seems, black consumers are being taken seriously.”

Between politicians and Hollywood, there are a lot of people trying to scare us. “Is this the scariest summer ever? Cinematically, I mean. As the long movie season winds down, it’s hard to say. This year there do seem to be more movies than usual that, whether or not they intend to provoke fear, take fear as their subject.”

TV personality Regis Philben set a record this week: “The boisterous co-host of ‘Live with Regis and Kelly’ was officially recognized as the ‘Guinness Book of World Records’ champion for ‘Most Hours on Camera,’ reaching 15,188 hours at a taping. For those without a calculator, that’s like working 90 weeks solid – no breaks. Hugh Downs held the previous record: 10,511 hours, set in 1997.”

A US court has ruled that peer-to-peer file-sharing services Morpheus and Grokster are legal. “The decision is a blow for record labels and movie studios which sued the peer-to-peer operators claiming that the services should be held liable for the copyright infringement of their users.”

Public radio powerhouse Minnesota Public Radio buys small independendent community station KCAL, St. Olaf College’s tiny, freewheeling classical music station. “Within 48 hours, WCAL was inundated with hundreds of e-mails and calls. ‘There’s sadness. And people are expressing their personal relationship with this station and with the announcers. They felt like the announcers were friends.”

Radio ratings service Arbitron says it has “signed a new deal with Infinity Broadcasting, two months after Infinity shocked the industry by declining to renew its contract and saying it was looking for alternative ratings services.”

Last week, a Los Angeles theater owner canceled a planned screening of D.w. Griffith’s 1915 movie “The Birth of a Nation” after civil rights groups promised protests. But the movie ought to be screened, not suppressed, argues Renée Graham. “Much like Leni Riefenstahl’s 1934 Nazi propaganda documentary ‘Triumph of the Will,’ an equally acclaimed, equally troubling film, ‘The Birth of a Nation’ is a painful totem to our own intolerance and to how such ill feelings still vex us today.”

“State lawmakers have approved the first tax credit to benefit film and television productions in New York, and many in the industry say the incentive will help lure more film productions to the city and the state and counter the flight of film jobs to Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal. … In addition, the measure would permit New York City to contribute as much as an additional $12.5 million annually to the tax credit program.”