“Critics debate whether we’ve passed the golden age of television defined by shows like The Sopranos and The Wire and if new TV dramas will live up to those classics. One thing is certain though: We are in a new age of sex on TV. TIME spoke to six of the showrunners who are taking sex seriously.” (includes video)
Category: media
A Brief History Of AOL (Now That Verizon’s About To Swallow It Whole)
A suggested reading list of journalism, ranging from the early days (1996), through the late ’90s “chat wars,” the failed experiment with Patch, and the disastrous merger with Time-Warner.
Satyajit Ray’s Great ‘Apu Trilogy,’ Restored And Returning To Movie Screens
“Now, a new generation of filmgoers has a chance to discover Ray’s humane genius in a rerelease of the [films]” – Pather Panchali, Aparajito, and The World of Apu – “first in New York, Philadelphia and Los Angeles in May, and then in selected theaters around the country, after a lengthy and painstaking restoration by the Criterion Collection in collaboration with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.”
ACLU Asks For Investigation Into Hollywood Hiring Practices Of Women
“Gender discrimination is illegal. And really Hollywood doesn’t get this free pass when it comes to civil rights and gender discrimination.”
NPR Launches Next Phase Of Plan To Become The Pandora Of News
“The announcement by National Public Radio that it’s opening access to an application program interface, or API, seemed like it should be of interest only to a relative handful of tech developers. In fact, it is a significant and smart next step in NPR’s strategy to become the Pandora of news.”
Crime Dramas Clean Up At British TV Awards
“Happy Valley on BBC One was a dark police drama set in West Yorkshire that some TV critics hailed as the best thing on British TV in 2014. Others were troubled by its scenes of violence.” (A list of all winners, including “Sherlock” and “True Detective,” is here.)
Thanks To ‘Jane The Virgin,’ TV Is Suddenly Soooooo Interested In Latina And Latino Storylines
“For years, executives at Spanish-language television networks complained that ad spending was not keeping pace with the fast rise of the Hispanic audience. But marketers have started opening their wallets to reach those viewers, and the broader English-language networks are eager for a cut of the cash.”
Cable TV Execs Don’t Really Know What To Do With This Streaming Thing That’s Eating Their Lunch
“‘We didn’t have to sell the value of television for a long time,’ said one top sales executive for a large cable network group who was not authorized to speak publicly. ‘Now you’re seeing the industry on the defensive because clients are enamored with toys under the Christmas tree.'”
Why Female Comic Book Superheroes Look Like Porn Stars
“Maybe it’s not possible to create reasonable female comic-book superheroes, since their origins are so tangled up with magazines for men. True, they’re not much more ridiculous than male superheroes. But they’re all ridiculous in the same way.”
Producers Turn To Indiegogo To Finance Completion Of Orson Welles’s Last Film
“Add a few more twists to the decades-long quest to release The Other Side of the Wind, the unfinished final film of Orson Welles.” Says Peter Bogdanovich, one of the film’s stars, “I think it would amuse Orson to have the fans able to contribute to the completion of the film. As you know, he didn’t like Hollywood very much.”