“I reach up and shakily remove the Samsung Gear VR headset. As though emerging from a vivid nightmare, I am abruptly back in Manhattan, blinking against the bright summer light streaming into an airy third-floor apartment, where I’m seated on the edge of a chaise lounge. “
Category: media
Surprise: TV Industry Posts A Good Quarter Amid The Doom And Gloom
“Domestic TV ad sales and MVPD video subscriber rates were, generally speaking, better than forecast. More surprisingly, the positive signs in these arenas were driven by companies most considered to be dinosaurs of the digital age: broadcast networks and Big Cable operators.”
Building A Full-Fledged Hollywood-Style Studio (Complete With Theme Park And Hollywood Sign), From Scratch, In China
When Wanda Studios Qingdao opens in the spring of 2017, “it will be one of the largest and most technologically advanced feature-film-production facilities in the world, encompassing 30 soundstages; an enormous temperature-controlled underwater stage; a green-screen-equipped outdoor stage that’s still larger, at 56,000 square feet; a permanent facsimile of a New York City street; and much more.” (Not to mention the theme park, resort hotel, yacht marina, and hospital.)
Should TV Networks Pull Sensitive Shows After A Tragedy?
“We should not be surprised that extremists excoriate pop entertainment and its liberties, that they attack cartoonists and concertgoers at a rock show. Even the frothiest expressions of art have something to say. We should know that; the murderers plainly do.”
Why TV Ratings Still Matter, Even Though They’re Becoming Less Accurate And More Meaningless
Nielsen’s figures include few of the people who watch a show in the days after it airs, and none at all who watch on a phone, a tablet, or Netflix. “If almost nothing is a hit anymore, why shouldn’t a hit be whatever we say it is? But that ‘we’ is exactly the problem.”
Sesame Street To Concentrate Less On Puppets, Pop Culture
“Parents watching the show may notice fewer pop culture references in future episodes. That’s because, as humorous as they are to grownups, such references are typically lost on the preschoolers who watch the show. And as it turns out, fewer parents are watching Sesame Street these days, compared to when the show first aired.”
Networks Are Starting To Negotiate With Netflix For Branding Rights
“As networks struggle to keep their brands relevant, making sure viewers know the origins of a show and where to go for fresh episodes is paramount. Also, if the network is identified, the hope is that users will eventually be able to search Netflix by network for content instead of just by show titles and actors.”
CBS Pulls Two ‘Terrorism-Themed’ Episodes From Lineup After Paris Attacks
“The network had originally slated the Supergirl episode ‘How Does She Do It?’ for Monday night. However, the plot for the hour revolves around ‘a series of bombings’ that strike National City. This will now be replaced with a Thanksgiving-pegged episode.”
How (& Why) Did ‘Law & Order’ Producer Dick Wolf Take His TV Empire To Chicago?
“‘Chicago embodies unapologetic, old-fashioned values of right and wrong and how you should act,’ he says. Or, in the language of NBC’s ads, it’s a ‘city of heroes’ defined by ‘the people who protect, serve and heal.’ Tales of the urban heartland are tailor-made for the broad audience of network television, a medium that itself can seem old-fashioned in the new world of niche dramas on cable and streaming TV.”
When The Only Visibility For Actors Of Color Means Characters Who Suffer
“Actors of color who already have visibility in the mainstream want to maintain their platform. For Hollywood, these select few become representatives for diversity; they are able to play lead roles outside the usual tropes for people of color, while the rest as Viola Davis pointed out on Oprah’s Next Chapter, are on “crisis mode” competing over a “piece of cheese.” Competition is the implicit consequence of the narrow and reductive roles available. What choice do actors of color have except to play the game and start running for a seat?”