Satellite radio is predicated on the idea that listeners desperate for an escape from the bland sameness of corporate radio will be willing to pay for niche broadcasting aimed directly at them. And certainly, any radio service offering options as diverse as public radio exile Bob Edwards and shock jocks Opie & Anthony must be said to be making good on its claims of wide-ranging service. Currently, the two satellite services available in the U.S. have only 3.1 million subscribers between them, but XM’s subscriber rolls have jumped 19 percent in the months since Edwards was hired away from NPR, and many observers expect the numbers to continue to increase.
Tag: 10.04.04
Well, They Do Have The Word “Royal” In Their Names
London’s Royal Academy of Music and Royal College of Music are being accused of class bias after a study revealed that less than half of applicants from state-run public schools were accepted to the schools, despite a government benchmark of 88%. The schools complain that they cannot be expected to admit unqualified students, and that music education has been so devalued in the public schools that a generation of pupils has grown to university age without any high-level understanding of the subject.
Lightweight Architect, Heavyweight Award
“Frei Otto, the 79-year-old German architect and structural engineer whose work continues to inspire leading British architects such as Richard Rogers and Norman Foster, has won this year’s Royal Gold Medal for Architecture. Presented by the Royal Institute of British Architects, it is the world’s most prestigious architectural award. Born in Siegmar, Saxony, in 1925, Otto made his mark with a number of impressive ultra-modern and super-light tent-like structures using new materials, beginning with the West German pavilion, designed with Rolf Gutbrod, for the 1967 Montreal Expo.”
London Revival
London’s new fall theatre season is going a long way towards making everyone forget about last year’s dismal crop of plays, and the only major flop so far is the high-profile production shepharded by Hollywood’s Kevin Spacey. David Hare’s anti-Bush/Blair dramedy Stuff Happens is the runaway hit of the season, of course, but overall, London stages are featuring productions heavy on substance and long on buzz.
DaVinci Code Author Accused of Plagiarism
“Two writers are suing the publishers of The Da Vinci Code, the biggest-selling adult fiction book of all time, claiming it was copied from their 20-year-old book. They claim Dan Brown, the American author said to have earned $A350 million from the book that has sold 12 million, ‘lifted the whole architecture’ of research for their non-fiction Holy Blood, Holy Grail.” The earlier book actually makes an appearance in DaVinci, with one of the characters pulling a copy off a shelf and positing that its conclusions are sound.
Sony Abandons CD Locks
Sony, which pioneered a new copy-protected CD in 2002, is abandoning the technology, saying that the anti-piracy message being touted by the recording industry has sunk in sufficiently with consumers to make additional measures unnecessary. The statement appears to be somewhat at odds with the industry’s continued insistence that global music piracy is a serious threat to recording, and the decision to drop copy protection may have more to do with Sony’s expansion into the online music marketplace.
Cincy’s New Contract Has Serious Cuts
The Cincinnati Symphony has inked a new contract with its musicians, and the particulars are an ominous sign for musicians in a season in which most of the major American orchestras are negotiating. “It includes a two-year wage freeze, renegotiation of the orchestra’s health-care plan and a reduction through attrition in the number of full-time musicians from 99 to 92.”
We Get It! You’re Smart And Complicated! Go Away!
Rex Reed has had it with the new generation of supposedly brilliant young filmmakers, a “group of anarchists that includes Wes Anderson, Paul Thomas Anderson, Spike Jonze, freaky Todd Solondz and the dismally overrated non-writer Charlie Kaufman, who wins critical praise for writing incoherent movies about why he can’t write coherent movies.” The movies made by such arrogant youngsters are something of the Hollywood equivalent of the Washington politician who gets branded early on as a whiz kid, and spends the rest of his career insisting that he’s the smartest one in the room, rather than actually doing anything to justify the label.