Category: media

“The Really Useful Group and Microsoft have signed a licensing agreement that will see Andrew Lloyd Webber’s extensive musical back catalogue expand in the digital entertainment sphere, through a karaoke-style game for the Xbox 360 computer games console.”

“The timing of the announcement was jarring to many because it came shortly after the council’s chief executive, John Woodward, had publicly touted the health and growth of the British film industry.”

“In an arrangement that has a long back story, radio has always paid royalties to songwriters, but not to performers. In the last year, pressure has been building in the financially pinched music industry to change that arrangement.”

“Who has the most watched news network in all the land? Fox News! And who has the oldest audience in all of cable? Fox News!”

“If Big 3 broadcasters were actual living, breathing TV viewers, they’d ignore themselves.
While the broadcast nets and advertisers still target the holy 18-49 grail, ABC, NBC and CBS are now all firmly out of the demo.

“A federal judge on Monday dismissed a copyright claim brought by a writer who claimed that a scene in last year’s Bruno was too similar to one in his original script called Himbos.”

“Some of the stirring oral histories recorded by the radio series StoryCorps are being transformed into animated television segments. The PBS program P.O.V. announced on Tuesday that the first of six animated shorts would be shown alongside its feature films starting on Aug. 17.” (Remember, this is how The Simpsons started on Tracey Ullman’s show.)

“In any case, little more than a month before $400 million-plus in owed debt and interest payments come due, this much is certain: Frustration has never been higher with the more than yearlong effort to heal the ailing Lion.”

“After a protracted drought, money is trickling back into the professional Web video industry. So-called branded entertainment deals like the one by Ikea are becoming more common, helping to nourish new programming. And venture capital firms are also paying new attention to the industry.”

“In a belated answer to Sacha Baron Cohen’s Borat: Cultural Learnings Of America To Make Benefit Glorious Nation Of Kazakhstan, a Kazakh filmmaker announced plans for an unofficial sequel that will present a more positive view of the Central Asian nation.”