Category: media

So if one of the benefits of podcasting was that they made good money, why are companies like BuzzFeed shutting down or downsizing their operations? One obvious answer is a glut of supply—in 2015, a list of the “must listen” podcasts was 200 items long. At some point, even podcasting aficionados started to wonder who had time to to listen to all those podcasts. A similar thing happened with video, after everyone pivoted to short-form video because Facebook said it wanted as much as possible.

Steven Eastwood shot his feature film Island in a hospice on England’s Isle of Wight, where four patients allowed him to capture their final days and (actual) final breaths. “What’s interesting is there isn’t an image. You can’t see the dying. I think that’s fascinating, because to talk about how the film shows you the moment of death, I don’t know when that moment is. I’ve watched it over and over.”

Copying just a few words might be a copyright breach, and merely putting TV sets in hotel rooms or spas requires a license. That is true also with regard to rights holders’ ability to object to or control certain acts of linking to their content. The law already requires any business that links to copyrighted content, including the website of a newspaper, to make sure the content linked to is and remains legal, in order to not be exposed to liability. However, the new article might require businesses to secure a license before displaying titles of news articles and relevant snippets.

“According to a new set of draft rules released Thursday, Beijing regulators will outlaw the broadcast of foreign TV shows during prime time and limit the volume of imported content that streams on China’s fast-growing video platforms. As justification for the rules, regulators cited the ‘protection of social stability’ and the need to guard against content that ‘deviates from core socialist values.'”

“As we have always said, Bert and Ernie are best friends,” the company said in a statement Tuesday. “They were created to teach preschoolers that people can be good friends with those who are very different from themselves. Even though they are identified as male characters and possess many human traits and characteristics (as most Sesame Street Muppets do), they remain puppets, and do not have a sexual orientation.”

“Women have been on the cinematic front lines from the start. While men took most of the credit for building the movie industry, women — on camera and off, in the executives suites and far from Hollywood — were busily, thrillingly, building it, too. That’s the reason for our list of Movie Women You Should Know, which is not a canon or a pantheon but a celebration and an invitation to further discovery. Here are some of the art’s other pioneers — its independents and entrepreneurs, auteurs and artisans.”

It’s easy to understand why awards shows would rather praise the art of making entertainment than risk alienating viewers who are tired of reality. Hollywood is an escapism factory at its core. But the impulse to look away from the ugly parts, to conveniently ignore certain elements and focus instead on the glamour and the ratings (ratings being inextricably associated with money), is what allowed Cosby and Weinstein and so many others to get away with so egregiously abusing their power for so long.

BBC chief Tony Hall warned Tuesday that repeated cost-cutting and the growing might of global giants such as Netflix and Amazon were endangering the world’s most prestigious public broadcaster, saying it was doubtful that “what we currently do is sustainable with the resources we have.”