Category: media

Comic book heroes are hot in Hollywood these days. “Hollywood is finally recognizing comics as literary material in their own right. That’s why we’ve got deals happening for things that may not be franchises like ‘Spider-Man’ or ‘Batman’ but are books that may sell only a few thousand copies a month. Still, these books tell a great story that will resonate with a wider audience.”

Radio giant Clear Channel is cutting back on ads on some of its stations. “This is not because CC has become community-minded. It’s because, like a lot of mainstream media (including newspapers), they’re losing customers, especially younger ones, to ‘new media’ – cable and satellite television, the Internet, MP3, satellite radio, iPod.”

“Members of the Screen Actors Guild have begun legal action against the executive director of their union, Robert Pisano, saying his membership on the board of an online DVD rental company creates a conflict of interest that makes him unable to negotiate on their behalf in critical coming labor talks.”

More than 100 movie theatres in the UK are showing their movies with subtitles. New laws coming into force in October, “require businesses to offer an equal level of service to disabled people.”

Kuwait has banned Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11. The kingdom says the movie is “insulting to the Saudi Arabian royal family. Authorities in Kuwait, a US ally, also objected to the film’s criticism of America’s invasion of Iraq. ‘We have a law that prohibits insulting friendly nations’.”

The BBC is working for reauthorization and answering charges it has dumbed down – especially in its arts coverage. “It was a lot easier decades ago to capture an audience. There was an absence of choice. People look back at a golden age, but if you look at audience numbers and the overall amount of cultural coverage, it doesn’t compare with today. But programmes such as Civilisation loom larger in people’s memories because there wasn’t much choice. Today it is harder to draw people’s attention to things. There is a much greater range of programmes now than in the age of Dallas and Dynasty, which were peak-time American imports – and they aren’t there any more. There has also been a much greater fragmentation in the arts and music.”

For years, Chicagoans have rolled their eyes while viewing films purported to be taking place in their home city, but clearly filmed elsewhere (usually in Toronto.) But the fact is that plenty of movies have been shot in Chicago – it’s just that those movies are usually supposed to take place in New York. Or Cincinnati. Or East Berlin.

The critics are nearly unanimous: Fox’s Arrested Development is the best thing to happen to sitcoms since The Simpsons, and the show is so well-written, well-acted, and refreshing that it could revitalize the entire genre. Now, if only someone other than the critics would watch it.

Peter Aspden is exasperated by the BBC’s culture of high-minded talk and middlebrow action. “It is admirably well-meaning, and there is a striking sense of solidarity about the place, the kind of feeling that found expression following the abrupt departure of its former director-general Greg Dyke in the aftermath of the Hutton inquiry. But there is also… something scarily bland in the air.” Lately, though, the BBC had been fighting back against those who claim the company has been dumbing down its cultural coverage, and while some claim that the timing is awfully convenient, it’s hard to deny that many of those assaulting the BBC have a bit of a class-fed elitist bent.

Consumer advocacy groups have been asking Congress to look into why cable companies won’t let subscribers pick the channels they want in their subscription packages instead of being forced into accepting dozens of channels they may never watch while still paying for them.” Cable companies say such a system would wreck the econbomics of the current TV business. The FCC seems skeptical…