Category: media

Buying movie tickets online has been slow to take off. “While online sales tripled over the last few years, they comprised just 2 percent to 4 percent of roughly $9 billion in movie-theater ticket revenue last year, or about $300 million. That will probably rise to $400 million this year. Buying [movie] tickets in advance is not something Americans do. It’s an entrenched consumer behavior to not plan that far in advance when you’re thinking about movies.”

Digital equipment is changing not just the technology of how films are made, but the styke in which they’re made. “You can take as many takes as you want, so you don’t have to force anything. We are seeing more and more of this ‘in-the-moment’ kind of thing. This technology offers a much more intimate kind of movie.” For one thing, new tiny digital cameras are so small they don’t intrude on or dominate scenes as they have.

The Golden Age of movies in the 70s, writes David Ansen, differed significantly from today’s movies in an important way. “The great thing about back then, when the likes of Coppola and Scorsese, Altman and Bogdanovich, Friedkin, Mazursky, Polanski, Ashby, Woody Allen and Peckinpah radically altered the American cinematic landscape, was the fact that their movies weren’t merely ‘product.’ They were rule-breaking personal visions that connected with the audience in ways studio movies had rarely attempted before. Instead of mere escapism, the audience wanted relevance.”

Americans bemoaning the lack of quality television programming often point to Canada as an example of a superior system of production and funding. But at the moment, the Canadian system is in a financial pinch, and perfectly good programs are getting killed off as a result. James Adams says it isn’t just the economic times that are to blame. His assessment: “The Canadian television industry is stupid.”

The problem with the Canadian TV funding system is that quality is almost never taken into account, says one of Canada’s highest-profile producers. Bernard Zukerman claims that funding is given to established shows rather than new ones, regardless of how old and tired the funded shows might be. Zukerman is demanding a meeting with Canada’s finance minister to discuss the industry’s problems.

Digital radio continues to struggle in the U.S., with few listeners being willing to pay for the subscription-based service, even to get hundreds of stations featuring a much wider range of music and talk than can be found on traditional radio. But in the U.K., digital radio seems to be taking off. Many radio stations have introduced digital incarnations of themselves, and the BBC has added several new digital-only networks, and listeners appear to be responding, especially since low-cost sets became available last year. 155,000 digital sets are known to have been sold, and estimates have that number growing to a million by the end of 2004.

In a surprise move, heirs of Jim Henson have bought back the Muppet creator’s company for the discount price of $78 million. “The Henson family decided only two weeks ago to bid for The Jim Henson Co., which they will buy for a fraction of what Munich-based EM.TV paid for it, according to Brian Henson, the son of the company’s late founder. Munich-based EM.TV bought the company, and the rights to characters such as Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy, in February 2000 for $680 million in cash and stock.”

Why doesn’t Hollywood make more quality movies? Do they really think we’re too stupid to appreciate them? Is the movie industry run by brain-damaged 6-year-olds? Are the studios being paid off by Adam Sandler and the guys from Jackass? Nope. Hollywood would love to make more good movies, truth be told. Trouble is, they almost never turn a profit.

“There was good news and bad news in the Canadian TV industry yesterday as the Canadian Television Fund announced the recipients of $64.5-million from its Equity Investment Program. The bad news was that dozens of comedies, dramas, specials, children’s shows and movies-of-the-week still won’t make it on air this fall. The good news was that some popular or critically acclaimed shows such as The Red Green Show, The Eleventh Hour and An American in Canada received adequate funding to go to air for the 2003-2004 season.”

A Colorado Springs country music station has suspended two DJs for playing the Dixie Chicks’ music, violating a station ban. “We pulled their music two months ago, and it’s been a difficult decision because how can you ignore the hottest group in country music,” station manager Jerry Grant said. “I gave them an alternative: stop it now and they’ll be on suspension, or they can continue playing them and when they come out of the studio they won’t have a job.”