Category: media

The New York Times is investing heavily in beefing up its reporting of the entertainment business. That’s causing the LA Times to guard its turf. “Beneath the vaingloriousness of any caged match between media rivals lies the reality of their motives for fighting in the first place. And so the question has to be asked: Isn’t pouring all this money and militia into something as ultimately silly as show-biz coverage demeaning to both papers when there’s real news not being covered?”

The Chicago Tribune is looking for a new movie critic. It’d help if you’re a woman, reports the Chicago Reader. “Coverage of major film festivals is a key part of the job, as is writing larger expository pieces on developments in the industry. . . . This critic’s reviews should appeal to readers as great pieces of writing, beyond their crucial function in guiding readers’ moviegoing decisions.”

The making of an “Exorcist” prequel has been an extraordinary saga, involving “a series of wayward turns that had plagued ‘The Beginning’ since the beginning — a web of movie making, unmaking and remaking so infernally tangled as to give new meaning to the phrase ‘development hell’.”

This summer’s story at the movies has been adults. As in movies made for adults. “Beneath the marketing hype luring young filmgoers to the latest blockbuster, Hollywood is quietly targeting older audiences with a surprisingly broad array of movies.”

“This year is the 20th anniversary of those ubiquitous 28-minute feature-length TV ads, better known as infomercials. Every year, men and mostly women shell out more than a billion dollars buying up stain eliminators, hair removers, veggie choppers, fat reducers and more. If you include short-form spot ads that drive people to stores searching for “As Seen on TV” products, gross revenue for such infomercials rose to $154.1 billion last year. That’s almost an 81 percent jump in just six years. Combine TV, radio and Internet retailing, and it’s a staggering $256 billion industry.”

Downloading movies over the internet is becoming a viable and popular business. “A technological step beyond video rentals and pay-per-view cable movie channels, these online movie services provide a legal and reliable way to download and stream thousands of films, from recently released Hollywood blockbusters to vintage serials.”

Downloading movies over the internet is becoming a viable and popular business. “A technological step beyond video rentals and pay-per-view cable movie channels, these online movie services provide a legal and reliable way to download and stream thousands of films, from recently released Hollywood blockbusters to vintage serials.”

For the first time in Britain, subscription revenue from viewers has exceeded advertising revenue. More Britons are paying to watch TV – subscription revenue is up 63 percent since 1999. “There are fundamental economic shifts in the landscape with long-term significance.”

“Anime is everywhere. The global sales of Japanese animation and character goods, an astonishing 9 trillion yen ($80 billion) has grown to 10 times what it was a decade ago. Much of that growth has occurred in North America and Western Europe, where young people have embraced this distinctive style of popular culture, one which extends well beyond the wide-eyed beauties, cute animals, and giant robot battles anime represents for the most casual consumers.”

Australian TV is producing less drama. “The numbers are stark: the National Drama Production Survey, released last week by the Australian Film Commission, shows TV drama spending at its lowest level for 10 years; the number of hours of adult TV series being made is only just above the lowest annual figure for a decade, and the spending on foreign and co-produced TV dramas has plummeted an astonishing 78 per cent since 1998-99.”