Category: media

“Censorship of wilful new movies by Iran cast a cloud over the Venice Film Festival after one director was blocked from leaving the Islamic republic and another had his film seized… In [Babak Payami’s] latest movie, a Taliban soldier is ordered to have sex with a woman who is sentenced to death because she is still a virgin, and according to the Taliban interpretation of Islam, a virgin would automatically get into paradise.” Organizers in Venice had made a deliberate attempt to include Middle Eastern voices in this year’s festival, despite the inherent risk involved for participating directors from restricted societies like Iran.

With the increasing popularity of film festivals and indie flicks across North America, the movies being screened at the Toronto International Film Festival have taken on a new significance for Hollywood. In a culture so fragmented as ours, where there seems to be a TV channel for every subdivision of humanity, the entertainment industry has learned the value of niche marketing, and even Hollywood’s biggest studios take notice of the more successful entries in festivals like Toronto’s.

2003 is officially the Year of the Gay TV Show. Game shows, sitcoms, reality shows, and makeover shows centered around gay characters have sprung up across the television landscape, and many of them are drawing surprisingly wide audiences. But do a few campy TV shows really make the average American any more tolerant of real-life homosexuals? According to a new study of 200 rural Midwesterns teens, the answer is yes.

Customers love Tivo. But it’s not catching on with consumers – they’re not buying it. “I can’t think of any product that has had the satisfaction levels it has had but has been as sluggish in terms of the growth of the market. It’s certainly unusual for a product to have this kind of enthusiasm from the community that’s using it without being able to tip over and really become a mass-market phenomenon.”

There are lessons to be learned from this summer’s movie season. “The main conclusions? Big-budget sequels, previously considered a sure draw for fans of franchise films and the antidote to unpredictable studio profits, proved vulnerable.”

The movie industry is in danger of being cannibalized by pirates. And, say some obervers, the industry isn’t doing nearly enough to protect itself. “Already as many as 600,000 movie files are shared each day on peer-to-peer file-sharing networks such as Morpheus and Grokster, according to the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). That number is likely to soar as more households get broadband internet and compression technology cuts download time.”

US cable channels are beating traditional network broadcast channels for viewers. “As August draws to a close, early projections released Wednesday by Turner Entertainment Group showed the 60-plus cable networks enjoyed a record 18-point lead in summer audience share over the seven broadcasters. Despite more first-run programing on the Big Four broadcast networks than ever before this summer, the absence of a megahit such as ‘Survivor’ or ‘American Idol’ kept broadcasters collectively from posting year-to-year gains during the summer months.”

Despite what many critics have called a disappointing summer for movies, America’s theatres have scored a record summer at the box office. “The summer gross is expected to total $3.9bn – up 2% from last summer’s previous record figure, according to box office monitor Exhibitor Relations. But because of a rise in admission prices, the number of tickets sold will actually be down about 2% on last year – the first decline in three years.”

The BBC is planning to “digitise and offer for download, for free, as much of its back catalogue of programmes that it can legally do, from the earliest radio reels to nature documentaries to educational programmes. Anyone will be allowed to re-use, re-edit and mix this material with their own, provided it’s for non-commercial use.” But why? Because it is in the public broadcaster’s interests…

A pay-TV service that has built its success on televising football and Hollywood movies, has bought a 50 percent stake in the UK Artsworld channel. Artsworld had been struggling financially for some time. “There is definitely room for growth. This deal will help us accelerate. We expect to go on to cable next year. We don’t propose to change the mix and we won’t dumb down. We retain editorial control, Rupert Murdoch won’t be ringing up demanding this or that ballet. In fact, so far our principal effect has been to spur the BBC into reviving its arts coverage.”