Category: media

In only a few years on the market, TiVo has become one of those brand names, like Scotch tape or Kleenex tissues, that consumers use to refer to an entire industry, regardless of actual brand. But even as its name continues to be the industry gloss for digital video recorders (DVRs), TiVo is in danger of being pushed out of the top spot among DVR producers by a raft of competitors, including cable companies which can package their DVRs with attractive channel packages.

A new wave of marketing-driven web sites masquerading as actual businesses is causing consternation and confusion among consumers, but businesses insist that, with traditional advertising techniques losing their impact, the fake sites are nothing more than a new and savvy method for generating “buzz,” that all-important but difficult to quantify measure of cultural worth. From a fake genetic research company offering to clone your dead children (actually an ad for the new movie Godsend), to a guy in a chicken suit on a webcam who will do whatever you ask him to (brought to you by Burger King), it’s harder than ever to distinguish web reality from marketing fantasy.

Howard Stern, who has been at the center of the recent controversy over the FCC’s crackdown on broadcast obscenity, apparently isn’t hurting for listeners. The New York-based ‘shock jock,’ who has been dropped from several stations in the past few months, shot to the top of the Big Apple’s morning radio ratings in the latest Arbitron book.

“Comedies, documentaries, animated features and genre films join the usual art-house fare in this year’s Cannes International Film Festival, which has undergone a substantial overhaul following numerous complaints that last year’s selection was one of the worst in the festival’s history. After three years in the understudy role, Cannes artistic director Thierry Frémaux is completely in charge of the festival for the first time this year and he seems determined to shake off Cannes’s cobwebs, along with its reputation as a self-congratulatory club for a handful of admired but little-watched veteran directors surrounded by photo opportunities for many famous movie stars.”

FCC Chairman Michael Powell is hoping that he can convince Congress to give his commission authority over cable TV networks, as part of an ongoing effort to wipe everything that Powell finds indecent or obscene from the national media landscape. At the moment, the FCC has no power over cable, since such networks do not use the public airwaves and are a subscription-based service available only to those viewers who choose to pay for it. Joanne Ostrow finds Powell’s attempted power-grab alarming: “An activist FCC must not trample the free-speech provisions of the Constitution, even if Powell thinks he is a hero, saving America from itself.”

The BBC has been criticzed in a report that says viewers think the originality and creativity of TV has slipped. “The BBC was singled out by Ofcom yesterday and told to stop chasing ratings and making copycat television shows as the media regulator claimed current affairs, the arts and religious programmes were being pushed out of peak viewing hours on terrestrial channels.”

There’s talk of a remake of the 1980’s teen gross-out comedy “Porky’s. But that isn’t the news. The real news is that “Porky’s” is the Canadian movie box-office champ of all-time. “The hard things to remake are the ones that were good. But this one was terrible.”

FCC chairman Michael Powell says he doesn’t support a bill in Congress that would penalize broadcasters over “indecent” conent. “I don’t believe the First Amendment should change channels when it goes from seven to 107. I don’t want to defend that distinction because I don’t believe in it. I think the government should be exceedingly conservative about any regulation of content for anyone.”

In a world of human connections frequently reduced to brotherhoods of similar technological interests, the cult of Netflix is emerging as the new dorky connection point of the high-minded film buff. The online movie-rental service, which offers a nearly unfathomable catalog of foreign and independent films, is the hottest thing in movie rental, but can it be sustained in an industry so bent on constant reinvention?

“Despite being the year’s biggest blockbuster so far, The Passion Of The Christ seems unlikely to find a home on a U.S. network. Mel Gibson’s Icon Productions has been shopping the movie to TV. Only ABC has confirmed turning it down, but executives speaking on condition of anonymity said it was doubtful for CBS, NBC and Fox, too. The movie’s graphic scenes of Jesus Christ’s crucifixion were said to make broadcasters skittish, particularly in the post-Janet Jackson era when government officials are closely watching what goes on television.”