Category: media

“PPM thus made obsolete many broadcasters’ ancient rituals: Incessant repetition of the station call letters, so Arbitron listeners couldn’t possibly forget where their dials were tuned. Or starting a contest at 7:25 a.m., so the station would get credit in the diary for both the 7:15 and the 7:30 quarter-hours.”

“For some reason, Godzilla has yet to make a detour to Halifax and Roland Emmerich has yet to drop an aircraft carrier on Medicine Hat. And when Canadian landmarks are destroyed on film, like Vancouver’s Lion’s Gate Bridge in the centerpiece action sequence of the upcoming Final Destination 5 or Toronto City Hall in Resident Evil: Apocalypse, they’re meant to be located either in the U.S. or in a fictional metropolis.”

“Overall, the center said, women accounted for 41% of all on-air characters — down from the record-high 43% the year before — and comprised 25% of the people working as series creators, producers, executive producers, directors, writers, editors and directors of photography, a decrease of two percentage points.”

“The report, published last week in The British Journal of Sports Medicine, says that every hour of television, after the age of 25, shortens the viewer’s life expectancy by 22 minutes. Adults who watch six hours a day may be cutting almost five years off their lives – almost as much as if they were lifelong smokers.”

“First, there is good news for traditional media types: It’s not true that social networking is killing traditional news and entertainment forums. As the TV networks have come to admit, social media are more ally than enemy. Second, contrary to a study released last week, watching TV won’t kill you.”

“Could it be that all this iPad enthusiasm, all this tablet excitement, is some sort of mass delusion? Or just plain bad group decision making?”

“The shelves of the two leading services, Netflix Instant and Hulu Plus, seem to be full of films you’ve never heard of, arranged in no particular order. The latest hits haven’t arrived yet, and there’s no one around to help you out except for the digital equivalent of the surly, underpaid clerk: those ‘recommended for you’ algorithms that pretend to know your taste but come up with the oddest suggestions imaginable.”

“No British youth subculture worth its drugs has gone unnoticed by film-makers, but the 90s rave culture has proved notoriously difficult to pin down with any degree of artistic or box-office success.”

“When WDUQ-FM (90.5), now known as Essential Public Radio, dropped jazz in favor of an all-news format on July 1, many jazz fans threatened to tune out. In the first Arbitron ratings period since the format switch, it looks as though they have.”

“As the CBC reaches its 75th birthday, it seems to have reverted to the giddiness of teenage tastes and inclination. Pop music, yes, the arts, no.”