Category: media

Economist Charles Kenny “says that a village getting satellite or cable TV ‘goes along with higher girls’ school enrollment rates and increased female autonomy.'” Evidence also suggests “that strong female [TV] characters help women … begin to challenge the power relations between men and women.”

“BBC Television [has] announced … it is reviving the series, which originally ran on rival network ITV, along with one of its creators and stars, Jean Marsh. Eileen Atkins, who created the series with Marsh, will be hired for the new show. The public broadcaster said the drama will be relaunched with two 90-minute films in 2010 and will be set in 1936. A series may follow in 2011 but that has not been decided yet.”

“Leading actors, writers and directors – including Reginald Perrin creator David Nobbs and playwright Tim Fountain – are working with production company Made in Manchester to develop a new range of audio dramas that can be downloaded online in order to bypass the ‘closed shop’ of the radio commissioning process.”

“Des Moines, population 200,000, is dealing with a nasty hangover. A lavish tax-incentive program that brought Hollywood to its doorstep has come to a halt amid allegations of faulty oversight, poor record-keeping and potentially criminal abuse.”

Universal Pictures, which foisted the movie on the world, “did catch a break, however.” A volunteer public-health group’s threat “that the studio found to be the biggest smoking offender would be publicly shamed on nearby billboards” was foiled when “billboard vendors throughout Los Angeles … refused to run the ad.”

Shazam, the iPhone app whose raison d’être is song identification, “creates a spectrogram for each song in its database–a graph that plots three dimensions of music: frequency vs. amplitude vs. time. The algorithm then picks out just those points that represent the peaks of the graph….”

“Proper candidate must have solid Capitol Hill contacts, be able to multitask and have great people skills. Position reports to quarrelsome entertainment executives at six global media conglomerates who often have conflicting agendas and can be somewhat mercurial. … Key issues include piracy, or as we now call it, ‘content protection.'”

The departure of MPAA head Dan Glickman, who succeeded Jack Valenti in 2004, “was not unexpected given the behind-the-scenes expressions of discontent with him in Hollywood. It now formally opens one of Washington’s most-high profile and coveted lobbying posts.”

“The idea is to use great artworks from the Tate collection to inspire children aged five to 11 to contribute their ideas to the film. They will then create every aspect of the animation, from drawing the characters to devising the plot and sound effects.”

“The latest shock to the industry is a plan by the city to charge the largest fees in the nation for filming in its buildings. The Mayor’s film office is also drawing up plans to charge for its famous free permits. Even more troubling, the city’s tax incentive program is out of money….”