Category: media

In the 1970s at the BBC, the director of the new The Hollow Crown says, was “an ageing producer who had been ‘put out to grass’ with the brief to televise the complete works of Shakespeare. ‘The result was a catastrophe, because…'”

“Singin’ in the Rain continues to strike a chord, not just because it’s Hollywood’s best film about Hollywood, depicting itself with a combination of reverence and biting satire, but because it’s a story about second chances.”

A series of tubes, of course. Or rather a series of fiber-optic cables, and here’s a fascinating world map to show them.

“Squirrels are little chewing machines, and they love to chew right through whatever is in their way, even if it’s a critical fiber-optic cable or (bad news for the squirrel) a live power line.”

“When customers who are, in many cases, already paying a lot for cable TV find out that they can’t watch The Daily Show or Breaking Bad because of a fee dispute between their cable company and the content provider, do they sit around researching the issues to figure out who should get the blame? Or do they simply assume that it’s more of everybody on every side sticking it to the regular guy, and that with the amount of money they’re paying, they both ought to be able to work it out?”

“All TV shows are stalked by the shark of irrelevance and staleness, and the trick of avoiding being eaten by the shark without jumping it is a deft one indeed.
Change a program too radically and viewers turn off in disgust. Fail to change enough and they turn off in boredom.”

“Halfway through 2012, Chinese box-office revenues have totaled more than $1.25 billion, with the final tally projected by blogger Robert Cain of chinafilmbiz to surpass $3 billion. That would represent a surge of about $1 billion from 2011’s Chinese revenues of about $2.06 billion.”

“Back in the day, music was expensive and books were cheap. A cassette (ahem) ran almost $15 and then a CD was at least $20. My books were (usually) paperbacks for less than $10. The library was also well-stocked with books that I wanted, while the music selection was less impressive.”

“By eliminating smoking in movies marketed to youth, an R rating for smoking would dramatically reduce exposure and lower adolescent smoking by as much as one-fifth.”

“China’s broadcasting and Internet regulators have told Internet video providers that they must prescreen all programs before making them available, tightening state censorship of increasingly popular online drama series and mini-movies.”