Category: media

Repurcussions are mounting after the Janet Jackson Superbowl incident. “There is a growing consensus that CBS so egregiously abandoned its responsibility as media gatekeeper that it calls into question the entire realm of American broadcasting – from the way network ownership has changed in the last two decades, to the actions of the federal agency set up 70 years ago to ensure that it operated in the public interest.”

So the wildly successful animation studio Pixar is leaving its distribution deal with Disney. But why announce it now, when there’s still two years left to go in the deal? Perhaps it has something to do with the power struggles going on around Disney chairman Michael Eisner?

The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission called for an investigation of how Janet Jackson’s naked breast got on the Superbowl halftime broadcast Sunday. Jason Timberlake “blamed a ‘wardrobe malfunction,’ but Federal Communications Commission chief Michael Powell called it ‘a classless, crass and deplorable stunt’.”

“In the past decade studio budgets for special effects have exploded. Effects budgets have gone from $5 million a movie to $50 million. It’s now not uncommon for movies to cost $150 million, with effects accounting for a third of that budget. There’s barely any movie made today that doesn’t have digital clean-up, matte painting, wire removal or fixing something out of place, like bags under the eyes on a bad day. The cost increases result largely from the growing sophistication of special effects.”

The proliferation of TV channels has “brought about the tyranny of the largest minority. Because reality shows are hot right now, most networks throw them up willy-nilly, holding their noses all the way. And news, which networks used to treat more like a public trust in exchange for their licenses to operate over public airwaves, has become another profit center. Viewers bring profits, and because the people want Michael Jackson ‘news’ more than, say, foreign trade news, they get Michael Jackson news. But now rapidly burgeoning digital technology is threatening to narrow those audiences even further.”

After a somewhat rocky start, satellite radio has taken off in the US. “Over the holidays, an unprecedented number of subscribers signed with XM and Sirius, the Coke and Pepsi of orbital radio, for programming that plays through special car or indoor receivers and can be heard coast-to-coast. The services have entered into partnerships with NASCAR, NPR, Fox, Playboy and others to create content that has regular broadcasters feeling earthbound. It is a moment like the arrival of cable television, a novelty 30 years ago, and now a drain on traditional broadcasters’ audience and ad revenue.”

“Some of the BBC’s biggest names are considering quitting in protest at the attitude of its acting chairman and the greatest-ever threat to their journalistic independence. The corporation was on the brink of civil war last night as union leaders warned that Greg Dyke’s resignation as director-general had split the staff from the governors.”

Thom Yorke is disappointed by the Hutton Commission’s findings on the BBC. “Lord Hutton’s damning report of the BBC is a whitewash. The result will create fear at the Today programme, where there should be pride. As so many times before, they were there with a story that nobody else would touch. And I still cannot see why Gavyn Davies and Greg Dyke have had to resign. It flies in the face of reality, ripping all evidence to shreds.”

On his way out as director of the BBC, Greg Dyke lashed out at the Hutton report that severely criticized the BBC for its coverage of the Iraq war. “We were shocked that it was so black and white. We knew mistakes had been made by us but we didn’t believe they were only by us.”

A new report on movie and TV production in Canada warns that the industry is in danger of its first downturn in years. “The grim prognosis is due to a precipitous drop in homemade TV dramas, a slide in international financing, and increased competition from other countries’ production incentives.”