“A 2018 study … revealed that for the top 100 fictional films at the box office every year from 2007 to 2017, only 16 female composers were hired, compared with more than 1,200 men.” And yet, says composer Laura Karpman, a governor of the Motion Picture Academy, “The numbers are bleak, but the landscape isn’t. People are reaching out in a way that I’ve never seen it my whole career.” Reporter Tim Greiving meets a few of the women trying to break this particular glass ceiling. — The New York Times
Category: media
Did Tony Soprano Die? The Two Guys Who Wrote ‘The Sopranos Sessions’ Hash It Out
Matt Zoller Seitz and Alan Sepinwall, who were the TV critics at Tony’s hometown paper (The Star-Ledger) when the series ran on HBO and who have just released a major book about the show for its 20th anniversary, lay their arguments over this subject on the line. — Vulture
Public TV Network In Oklahoma Cuts Ties With Foundation That Raises Money For It
“Yesterday, in a unanimous vote, the Oklahoma Educational Television Authority (OETA), a PBS affiliate, elected to cut ties with its thirty-year independent charitable fundraising partner, the OETA Foundation. … Their relationship has soured in a public enough fashion that the foundation believed it could take its case to court, suing OETA, its birth parent, over control of the foundation.” — Nonprofit Quarterly
This One Nifty Chart Shows The Danger Facing Netflix
The problem: “most viewership on Netflix gravitates toward audience favorites that first aired on other networks, which Netflix itself doesn’t own” — which means it could lose the right to stream them. — Vox
‘The Favourite’ Leads BAFTA Nominations
“Yorgos Lanthimos’s raucous period romp about a high-stakes love triangle in the court of Queen Anne [received] 12 nominations … Meanwhile Vice, the Dick Cheney biopic …, came away with six nominations. Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman has five, and Green Book and Pawel Pawlikowski’s Cold War have four each.” — The Guardian
There Were Brilliant Documentaries In 2018, And Docs Did Great Box Office. Too Bad They Weren’t The Same Films
“Go to festivals like Sundance or True/False and it feels like we’re living through a golden era of nonfiction film; turn up at your local art-house theater and you’d think the medium was nothing but celebrity-driven hagiography and cheap provocation.” — Slate
NBC Says It Will Reduce Ads In Prime Time By 20 Percent
Why? Increasingly, viewers are resistant to ads cluttering programming. TV is competing for its life with streaming services and other entertainment options. And NBC is experimenting with something called “prime pods” – slots that the broadcaster believes are more effective. – Axios
The Village Voice May Be Gone, But Its Annual Film Critics’ Poll Doesn’t Have To Be
“The [Voice] film poll was a fun and useful snapshot of the year in cinema from a healthy roster of film critics, and it’s one feature that a grieving fan desperately trying to duck family members over the holidays could theoretically replicate.” So that’s what Mike D’Angelo did. Here’s what he found. — Slate
Leisure Gap: Men Are Watching More TV On Average Than Women
According to the government’s American Time Use Survey (ATUS), which tracks how people spend their days, men on average are watching three hours of TV or movies per day, while women average two hours and 34 minutes. – The Atlantic
For The First Time, A Woman Will Run CBS News
Susan Zirinsky will become CBS News President in March after years as the executive producer of “48 Hours.” She’s taking the reins after CBS has been rocked – and perhaps changed – by reports of massive sexual harassment at many levels, including the very top. – Los Angeles Times