Category: media

There are a few reasons. A presidential budget is essentially a messaging tool these days, a way to show your supporters that you’re addressing their priorities; Congress has to actually decide where real money will go. Just about every member of Congress has a public radio or TV station in his or her district; any transition from rhetoric to reality would be felt back home. But it’s also because public broadcasting is actually pretty popular and pretty trusted by Americans. – NiemenLab

As Fox’s film and television operations (not including Fox News and Sports, or the lot itself) prepare to go to Disney, “The Los Angeles Times spoke to dozens of actors, executives and other Fox veterans to reminisce about the studio’s 106-year legacy, its family atmosphere, its moguls, its filmmakers and the magic they made.” – Los Angeles Times

In what seems a twist worthy of season 65 of the Netflix show The Crown, the BBC has started mocking the numbers, or rather lack of numbers, Netflix shares about one of its most expensive shows. The Beeb’s director general acknowledged that Netflix had a huge budget compared to the BBC, and also urged the BBC to get ready for people never to watch live TV. – The Guardian (UK)

Duh, right? Captain Marvel had the seventh-highest opening for a Marvel movie and by far the highest debut for a film fronted by a woman. (Also, Marvel, perhaps because of its internal and external experience, was ready for the trolls.) – Quartz

It’s TikTok (you might know that already) – but what is TikTok? Whew: “A free-for-all. It’s easy to make a video on TikTok, not just because of the tools it gives users, but because of extensive reasons and prompts it provides for you. You can select from an enormous range of sounds, from popular song clips to short moments from TV shows, YouTube videos or other TikToks. You can join a dare-like challenge, or participate in a dance meme, or make a joke. Or you can make fun of all of these things.”  The New York Times

No, not with director’s cuts, but with literal remakes of their own earlier movies. “For the studio heads tasked with squeezing as much money out of the project as possible, it’s a can’t-fail proposition even safer than sanding off all of a foreign hit’s edges to prep it for Stateside viewers.” – The Guardian (UK)

Soderbergh has made a feature for Netflix and released his work in all sorts of ways; he says “I really don’t care how people see my movies, as long as they see them.” Spielberg is trying to ban Netflix from the Oscars and says that “movie theaters need to be around forever.” Critic Ann Hornaday writes that the root of Spielberg’s anxieties is something that Soderbergh understands. – The Washington Post

It’s still obvious to even the most casual viewer that Netflix hates movies, because they won’t offer their viewers something that theaters, LaserDiscs, videotapes, DVDs, Blu-rays, and even Mutoscopes offered as a matter of course: the ability to watch a film from the first frame to the last.  – Slate