Category: media

“According to two sources familiar with the situation who spoke on condition of anonymity, by the end of negotiations, the amount that KCET and PBS differed on was only $750,000, a sum that could plausibly have been raised in a single pledge drive.”

“For the first four nights this week, KCET averaged a 0.3 household rating, according to the Nielsen Co. That’s a whopping 50% decline compared with the 0.6 rating recorded the same period last year, when KCET featured the familiar lineup of PBS programs. An average of 22,000 viewers tuned in to KCET during prime time this week; last year at this time, it was 41,000.”

“The formal review NPR completed this week and a list of proposed reforms, including a new ethics code, goes part of the way toward preserving the radio network’s place as a trusted news source. But a reach for greater diversity in its ranks, including ideologically, would put NPR on more solid ground going forward.”

Variously identified as “mumblecore,” “indie,” “neorealist” or even “neo-neorealist,” these are movies that have almost nothing in common with Hollywood spectacles and escapist star vehicles. Instead, they deliver a level of authenticity, immediacy and emotional transparency that are instantly recognizable to an audience that increasingly lives on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.

“When Exit Through the Gift Shop, the artistic conundrum of a documentary wrapped around the street artist Banksy, opened last year, it spawned more than a few critical essays’ worth of thorny, postmodern questions. … Joachim Levy had another question: Where’s my credit?”

“2012, Roland Emmerich’s gleefully comprehensive demolition job disaster movie, … was deemed the silliest and most scientifically flawed film at a conference in California.”

The actor/artist/grad student/soap opera meta-star/all-around it-boy plans to direct a film version of Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying this summer – and follow up with an adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian the following year.

“Overall production activity for on-location filming in the L.A. area rose 37% in December, compared with the same month a year earlier… The increase is the latest sign of recovery in a sector that has been hit hard by advertising cutbacks, studio belt-tightening and production flight from California.”

“Under pressure from viewers as well as movie-industry executives, the country’s theater chains are trying to win back moviegoers – with food. Audiences at a growing number of theaters can order such dishes as chinois chicken salad rolls or limoncello-tossed shrimp.”

“The proliferation of viewing devices — including a new generation of TV sets that connect to the Internet — could boost the chances that viewers will do what cable and satellite companies fear most: cancel their $70-a-month subscriptions in favor of cheaper Web options.”