Category: media

Sure, novelists have crashed and burned in Hollywood – but some have been successful, and not only with the size of that scriptwriting paycheck.

UK box-office takings passed £1bn for the first time. The British Film Institute, publishing its 10th annual Statistical Yearbook yesterday, hailed 2011 as a year in which “British film thrived”.

“BAFTA is to introduce separate prizes for comedy and drama writers at its annual craft awards, following pressure from the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain. Up until now, BAFTA has only awarded a best writer award at its television craft awards ceremony, meaning drama writers have been pitted against comedy creators.”

“Back in 1991, Michael Eisner, then Disney chairman, described Hollywood’s future goal as ‘planetised entertainment’. We have now reached that point. This is your guide to the global super-movie, and where it might have left to go.”

“Kansas City tech leaders and the company itself have described Google Fiber as an experiment in civic innovation: Give a whole city super-high speed connections and see what they do with the bandwidth. But Google may also have more self-interested motivations.”

“The communications regulator Ofcom has called it the “biggest media event in history”, and says it has prompted a record demand for wireless spectrum to provide close-up pictures and high-quality sound for an expected global audience of over 4 billion.”

“A satellite channel run and hosted by fully-veiled presenters aims to break down the barriers for women in niqab who until the revolution that brought Islamists to power were shunned by Egypt’s lucrative television industry.”

“Facebook’s insistence on using a real identity and openness is certainly catching on, especially among those who have become weary of unsolicited messages from people they don’t know on [locally developed] sites like Mixi,” which forbids sharing of any personal information.

“It’s disappointing to me the value that people place on public broadcasting. In the same week where we were awarded 58 Emmys, the question of whether investment is appropriate is disappointing.”

“The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission ruled Friday that consumers should be able to subscribe to individual channels instead of expansive packages, a decision that hints at looser cable-TV subscription models. But there’s a catch – the fewer channels a subscriber signs up for, the more expensive each channel will be.”