“The CRTC has mooted the idea of raising a $100-million Canadian content fund by slapping a levy on Internet service providers such as Bell and Telus, who own the pipes that all this content flows through. The Internet industry, to the surprise of exactly no one, doesn’t much like the sound of that.”
Tag: 02.27.09
TV’s New Obsession With Product Placement
“For some time now, characters in daytime dramas have been taking time from their normal activities, like having amnesia, to engage in animated discussions about the sponsors’ products. The ABC soap actors spent February talking about how Campbell’s soup and other assorted products are good for your heart. (And tasty, too!)”
Broadcast TV Revenues Crater – Some Reinvention Required
“The future for the networks, it seems, is more low-cost reality shows, more news and talk, and a greater effort to find new revenue streams, whether they be from receiving subscriber fees as cable channels do, or becoming cable networks themselves, an idea that has gained currency.”
Turin Art Show Prevented From Opening (Cruelty To Animals?)
“An exhibition of works by the French-Algerian artist Adel Abdessemed has been prevented from opening here while a prosecutor ponders whether it is illegal to display video clips showing animals being bludgeoned to death and fighting for sport in an arena.”
Qatar’s Brand New Orchestra Takes To The World Stage
“A new orchestra was forming from scratch. The catch was the location: Doha, Qatar, a place where few of the young professional musicians from Berlin and Vienna and Budapest and Moscow thought they would end up. But some 2,400 musicians from around the world auditioned, 101 were accepted, and lo, the Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra came into being last summer.”
Brandeis President: We’re Not Selling Art Now
Late Thursday, Jehuda Reinharz told alumni in an email: “The Rose is NOT going to close.” Instead, he said the university’s board had voted to keep it as a “teaching and exhibition gallery.” But others at the museum dispute Reinharz’s claim.
When All The Poets Are Brilliant
“The problem of neglect or insignificance evaporates in a situation in which, in spite of the vast numbers writing (800 to 1,000 books of poetry are published in the United States per year; thousands of other poets publish in journals and quarterlies), we have no minor poets. Everyone today, like those above-average children of Lake Wobegon, is brilliant and sui generis.”
New Hirshhorn Director: Lessons Learned When I Was Dumped
“Richard Koshalek says it still smarts that he got dumped as president of Pasadena’s Art Center College of Design, and that he intends to remain a networker par excellence in his new job as director of the Smithsonian Institution’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.”
Hirshhorn Picks Richard Koshalek As Director
For the past 10 years, Koshalek has been president of the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, Calif. Last year, Koshalek was released from the final year of his contract by the school’s board of trustees after protests by student, faculty and alumni over tuition increases and Koshalek’s plan to have a Frank Gehry-designed, $50 million library and research center.
CBC Suggests: Internet Providers (ISPs) Pay To Fund Canadian Content
“The best way to promote the production of Canadian content across all delivery platforms, including new-media ones, is to guarantee that the broadcasting system supports the involvement of conventional media, more specifically conventional broadcasters.”