Category: media

“Two episodes of 1960s TV comedy At Last The 1948 Show, which starred pre-Monty Python John Cleese and Graham Chapman, have been found after almost 50 years.”

“Frank Sivero says that The Simpsons ripped off the Frankie Carbone character he played in 1990’s Goodfellas and he wants to be paid for it. In a lawsuit filed today, the actor says he wants to be paid a lot – $250 million and more for the Springfield Mafia’s Louie.”

“Matters of time have never been simple for fans, enemies, and frenemies of S.N.L. It is one of the few TV programs that people care about long after they’ve stopped watching it. People still talk about John Belushi as though it’d all been crap since then. Younger people do that with Dana Carvey or Will Ferrell.”

“Even as local feature film production continued to fall, shoots for television programs jumped 31% in the third quarter compared to the same time a year ago, generating 5,363 production days, according to newly-released figures from FilmL.A. Inc.”

“Eventually cable will follow bunny ears into the basement of dead technology, and online TV will be called something else: plain old TV.”

“The new ratings, Nielsen says, can rank an online video next to a podcast next to an article. Unlike television or radio, the internet isn’t a medium that funnels just one format. The aim of Nielsen’s new ratings is to create a context to figure out what people care about online, regardless of what form it takes.”

“Fifty years ago, Marshall McLuhan published Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. Assessing all media that came before television and predicting all that would come after, he argued that we shape our tools and thereafter our tools shape us.” Yet, after half a century, lots of folks who spout the aphorism still know nothing of his work. (audio)

“Do I get Netflix, HBO, CBS and Showtime?”

“This framing embodies the magic of what was happening with Lillian at Bell Labs: it was science and art, instead of science or art. I heard many more stories from which followed the same pattern: brief conversations over lunch would lead to long collaborations, fruitful for both parties involved.”

“As audiences have fragmented, broadcasters are monitoring them in many ways, yet their core business—selling airtime to advertisers—is still tied to traditional ratings. The network or service that can unite all these pieces for a complete view of what everyone’s watching will hold the keys to the kingdom, because the answer determines where the money goes.”