Category: media

“TV audiences across the Balkans, the Gulf, and the Middle East are soaking up Turkish soaps by the dozen, and to the tune of more than $100 million per year in sales. … The soaps not only communicate Turkish culture to the outside world, they market it.”

“There have never been more good TV shows available — perfectly edible series, mini-series and one-shots, tasty and in many cases nutritious — but we can’t choke them down as fast as they’re being produced. We need a Television Adjustment Act of 2013.”

“Apparently Rio de Janeiro is not satisfied with being chosen as the site of the 2016 Summer Olympics and the host of the championship game of next year’s World Cup of soccer. Now Brazil’s most effervescent city also wants Woody Allen to make a movie there.”

Sony Pictures Television is “a largely hidden operation that has at times felt like a second-class citizen inside its own conglomerate and in Hollywood broadly, with the spotlight going instead to the movie division” – but it has four potential hits in the pipeline this fall.

“Our heroine transformed into an It Girl, demonstrating vocal exercises on Conan and doing an interview for The New Yorker in a sauna. Along the way, she’s inspiring a generation of women to stop talking like sexy babies, and raising the percentage of films directed by women a few precious points.”

Exec: “That more than justifies all our livelihoods. People are loving television. It’s a dynamic time for television.”

“Greater access to TV programs benefits the most popular programs the most.”

Yeah, that’d be New Zealand – for Lord of the Rings, The Piano, The Hobbit, and now Top of the Lake.

“As people remain fitter and more vigorous in their later years, these physical obstacles may be less relevant than they once were. A more pertinent concern is the growing insularity of many rich directors.”

“The divide between toys and video games has, in recent years, been defined by the presence of a screen: If something had one, it was a video game. If it didn’t, it was a toy. That distinction has eroded as video game screens have extended themselves into our living rooms.”