Category: media

Why is arts programming such a difficult sell for TV? “For the commercial broadcasters, the problem is manifold: arts TV is expensive to do properly, it’s difficult to schedule and it attracts only niche advertising and niche viewing. In short, it’s a lot of effort for little return. For the BBC, the problem is different: if you run a minority channel and a highbrow digital channel as well, why would you want arts bunging up your main service?”

Members of the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists have been voting on whether to merge their unions. Ballots were “due Monday and will be counted Tuesday. The consolidation must be approved by 60 percent of the voting members of each union.”

The typical Hollywood movie studio is looking more like a high-tech company than a traditional movie maker these days. “Hollywood companies will spend roughly $500 million on data storage in 2003, and expenditures will increase about 70 percent each year. By 2006, the annual storage needs of film studios, video and television production companies, and distribution outfits will reach 740 petabytes, or 740 million gigabytes. These trends are forcing spending on information technology tremendously up,”

Translating plays from one language to another is always a difficult task. Translating Shakespeare, whose constant use of puns and linguistic tricks was uniquely English, is nigh onto impossible, particularly when the language needed is as far afield from the original as Japanese. There have been many Japanese translations of the Bard’s works, of course, but many have made the mistake of trying too hard to stick faithfully to the original dialogue. The resulting mish-mash of words and sounds can be grating on a Japanese audience’s ears, says Miki Takashima, but a new Tokyo production of Hamlet seems to have risen above the usual awkwardness.

“It’s an easy fact to overlook; with low budgets, modest publicity and limited distribution, documentaries remain the widely ignored stepchildren of the film business. Yet while Hollywood studio films dominate our multiplex screens, cinemagoers are increasingly seeking out documentaries, on the correct assumption that they offer something more substantial.”

There’s been speculation for some time now about whether the movie musical might return. To get an idea of the Golden Age of the movie musical, take a look at the work of Arthur Freed, a producer of musicals for MGM and “a producer of a type that no longer exists. No movie executive today can tap the wealth of talent that Freed had under contract at MGM, backed up by all the costumers, carpenters, electricians and painters he might need…”

Australian TV is having a crisis of quality. It’s getting worse. “Without doubt, the commercial television industry is undergoing the biggest corporate shake-out of its 47-year history. The battle for profits has seen a generation of higher-placed executives recently cut loose. Proprietors have upped the pressure on the new guard to turn around a historic slump in advertising spending and cut costs even harder than their predecessors. They must boost ratings to attract more advertising dollars and make the network look better than its competitors.”

Where are the women TV directors? A new study reports that “for the third consecutive year, white males directed more than 80% of episodes of the top 40 series. During the 2002-03 season, 13 of those shows did not hire any minority directors, 10 did not hire women directors and three series — CBS’ ‘CSI: Miami’ and ‘Yes Dear’ and Fox’s ’24’ — hired neither women nor minority directors, the study contends.”

Television in the US is still more white than the population. “Hispanic characters received only 3 percent of screen time in fall 2002 programs on the six major networks, according to the study by the University of California, Los Angeles. Hispanics make up 13.5 percent of the U.S. population. Whites received 81 percent of screen time and blacks 15 percent, the study said – both disproportionate to their population.”

The BBC debuts its new TV arts series, but the cobwebs are showing. The BBC has become rusty when it comes to arts. “Over the past six years the BBC has all but abolished television arts coverage, scrapping The Late Show, Arena, Omnibus and one-off documentaries. Live performance also died, except at Proms time and Christmas. A corporation that once set the world standard for arts presentation resolved under director-general John Birt to dispense with art as an expensive nuisance. His successor Greg Dyke made a gestural restoration, employing the animal-lover Rolf Harris to enthuse about painting and recommissioning some live performance, though only for the minority channel, BBC4. It didn’t work.”