Category: media

Nielsen Research released results of a test of its new people meters that show “increased viewership for many programs popular with blacks and Hispanics. The release of the results was intended to counter complaints that by adopting the electronic system, known as local people meters, Nielsen will undercount the viewership for programs watched by blacks and Hispanics.”

Filmmaker Michael Moore, who claimed recently that Disney CEO Michael Eisner had canceled a deal for Disney-owned Miramax to distribute Moore’s latest documentary, Fahrenheit 911, has struck a distribution deal with Miramax chiefs Harvey and Bob Weinstein. Under the terms of the agreement, the Weinsteins, who have already sunk $6 million into Fahrenheit 911, will distribute the film through a third party. The deal is similar to one the Weinsteins struck with Disney in releasing director Kevin Smith’s religious satire, Dogma, in 1999.

The Motion Picture Association of America has rejected a suggestion to give movies an adult rating if they feature people smoking. “The industry is facing political pressure, following research last year which suggested teenagers who watched smoking on screen were more likely to take up the habit. A further report in March, issued by the University of California, suggested smoking should be treated in the same way as swearing.”

“The Cannes International Film Festival, which usually counts on big-name stars and underdressed starlets to provide the excitement, will open on Wednesday under a cloud, as thousands of French actors and technicians prepare to carry a bitter dispute over unemployment benefits to this ritzy Côte d’Azur resort.”

The FCC’s crack down on “obscenity” should worry us all, writes Ira Glass. The rules are so arbitrary, and the enforcement even more so. And, “what’s craziest about this new indecency witch hunt is that it’s based on the premise that just one exposure to filthy words will damage a child.” What kind of policy is this?

The Parents Television Council spind out statistics about content on TV, and the FCC is listening. “Since the Super Bowl, the organization has taken to calling itself the nation’s most influential advocacy organization protecting children against sex, violence and profanity in entertainment.” But some say the PTC is ideologically tainted and that its data aren’t gathered scientifically. So why’s the FCC listening?

“For more than a decade now, a culture war has raged within public radio over whether public stations exist to serve the largest possible audience, or to serve smaller audiences whose desires are not fulfilled by commercial radio. The maximize-the-numbers crowd has won in most cities, accepting the view of public radio’s most influential consultant, David Giovannoni, that any station’s job is to attract the most listeners. Opponents argued that public radio should sound more like it did from the birth of FM through the 1980s, with a mix of news, talk, classical, jazz, folk and other kinds of music that you can’t otherwise hear on the radio. As government funding for public radio declined, Giovannoni won the day.”

Summer, for Hollywood, is usually the season of the big commercial blockbusters, the action movies that get the younger audiences out. But this summer promises to be different. “If it’s not the ‘revenge of the grown-ups,’ it’s certainly ‘the revenge of talent.’ Hollywood is starting to acknowledge the salability of quality.”

Hotels are setting the standard in luxurious mivie-watching experience. “The Covent Garden Hotel in London has a screening room with 53 stone-coloured leather seats crafted by the Italian company that upholsters Ferraris. You don’t have to stay the night (rooms start at £210) to use it. For £40 per person, groups of 10 or more can have either Champagne and canapés or a three-course dinner before or after a private screening. Having a cinema for your exclusive use must be one of the most luxurious ways of watching a film.”

A Canadian court has ruled that the province of Ontario’s ability to censor movies might be unconstitutional. “Not that the disappearance of the Ontario Film Review Board’s powers of censorship would be anything but welcome, wise and way overdue, just that the constant possibility of censorship — the very idea that you lived in a province where some anonymous citizen had the power to decide what you could and could not see — was a kind of galvanizing fact of life in those days.”