Category: media

“These digital auteurs aren’t interested in flash-in-the-pan viral hits or polished Web series with narratives — they create videos in their apartments on pocket-change budgets, post consistently, and turn their YouTube channels into fan magnets. “YouTubers,” as they call themselves, serve as director, producer, star, editor and marketing director and can earn six-figure salaries through their share of the ad revenue.”

“CBS, Fox and NBC each logged slightly more total viewers during the 2009-10 season than the previous one, according to Nielsen Co. data that count live plus DVR viewing up to a week after a program initially airs. (Despite the growing popularity of DVRs, 94% of all viewing during Prime-time was done so live last season, according to Nielsen for the 2009-10 season)”

“There’s no genre quite like episodic television. And no connection quite like the link between us and a show we’ve loved and lost. That’s because a TV series creates an ongoing and hauntingly plausible fictional world. It entices us to make a major emotional investment, it gradually and inexorably draws us in deeper and deeper, episode after episode — and then it turns around and dumps us, swiftly and coldly, with no right of appeal.”

“I had people say that fat people aren’t attractive and that nobody wants to see fat people on television,” he said. “I said, ‘Well, do you know anyone who is fat?’ ‘Oh yeah,’ they said, ‘my mother is, my sister and brother is.’ So, I told them that if everyone in this room knows someone who’s in that situation, isn’t that your audience?”

“Lionsgate and Mexican media conglomerate Televisa are joining forces to launch Pantelion Film, geared at Hispanic moviegoers in the U.S., the two companies announced on Tuesday. Lionsgate has made a mint targeting African-American audiences through its collaborations with Tyler Perry. The studio is clearly hoping that it will be able to find a Spanish-speaking answer to Madea.”

“China is on course to build a record number of cinemas this year in a burst of movie infrastructure development that is partly aimed at rivaling the ‘soft power’ of Hollywood. … [The] government is promoting a major push of film production and distribution.”

Apichatpong Weerasethakul “stunned the movie world in May by winning the Palme d’Or at Cannes for his latest film, Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives. … [Yet he’s] a polarizing figure at home. Not so much for his films, which until recently were barely known among the general public, but for his championing of antigovernment protesters and his critiques of the political establishment.”

“[He] is perhaps the person best suited to give 3-D a much-needed jolt of artistic credibility. If [Herzog] … is willing to embrace the medium, then maybe someday it might be recognized as having some benefit beyond helping Hollywood squeeze more money out of moviegoers with sky-high ticket prices.”

“Reality shows again dominated ratings this summer, especially among viewers whom the majority of networks consider most valuable, those 18 to 49. On broadcast television, 15 of the top 20 highest-rated programs among that younger adult group were reality or unscripted shows.”

“HBO had 28.6 million subscribers in the second quarter of 2010, according to newly released numbers from SNL Kagan, its lowest total in four years and the second of its first back-to-back quarterly declines in at least six years. So if HBO is so hot, how come its subscriber base is dwindling?”