“A poll of 1,700 people, suggests illegal music buying is widespread, with 43% claiming that they are illegally downloading tracks, rising from 36% last year and 40% in 2005. This year only 33% cited the risk of being prosecuted as a deterrent against unauthorised downloading, compared with 42% in 2006.”
Tag: 07.20.07
Why Publishers Pass On Masterpieces
“The real reason that publishers miss good books is no secret, and it is nothing to do with literary judgement, knowledge of first lines or acquaintance with the classics. It is the same reason that film companies miss great scripts and record labels fail to sign up the most interesting bands. It is the numbers game – the sheer volumes of paper (and now, worse still, the email attachments), that cross our desk every day. Every year 200,000 books are published. This is far too many, and really the first duty of every publisher should be to publish fewer, rather than more, new titles.”
Finally, A Reason To Love Steppenwolf Again
“In early July we have a block party on my street. One constant — along with the visit from a firetruck and the Weber grills in the middle of the street — is the kvetching of disgruntled Steppenwolf subscribers. For each of the three years I’ve attended our party, I’ve listened to neighbors complain, unsolicited, about Steppenwolf. … But this year, I had an answer for my block. Go see ‘August: Osage County.’ It will restore your faith….”
Historic British Film Images Found
“More than 5,000 historic images, dating from the 1930s to the 1970s, have been discovered in a vault at Pinewood Studios, Buckinghamshire. Two battered old metal filing cabinets, which had remained unopened for as long as anyone can remember, were found to be wedged full of images. Some of the photographs are so early, they are still on glass plates. Others appear on strips of negatives.”
Newspapers Are Abandoning Local TV Writing
“More and more papers are replacing homegrown TV writers with AP and Tribune Media Services copy. One critic jokes that Frazier Moore and David Bauder of the Associated Press are now ‘America’s critics,’ thanks to so many papers’ reliance on their work. TV Guide senior critic Matt Roush says the push for localism is logical, but silencing TV crix in the process is anything but.
South Coast Rep – An Innovative Theatre Gone Bland?
Is Southern California’s South Coast Repertory Theatre “losing its Midas touch as an incubator for important new plays? This isn’t just an idle critic’s rumination intended to fill space during the summer lull. I’ve been hearing a rising tide of criticism from the theater community – critics, longtime season-ticket subscribers, and artists who have worked at SCR – that lately, the theater’s roster of new scripts hasn’t measured up to its traditional standards.”
Toronto Buys Home For Innovative Theatre
Toronto’s city council has agreed to buy the home of Theatre Passe Muraille. “Theatre Passe Muraille will lease the space, which it has occupied since 1975, for a nominal $2 a year and pay $20,000 annually toward upkeep. Purchase of the building will allow it to wipe out a $500,000 deficit.”
Amateurs Are Ruining The Web!
“The Cult of the Amateur is a broadside attack on Web 2.0, a term we may hastily define here as that growing sector of the internet which serves mainly as a platform for user-generated content, including sites such as MySpace, Facebook, Typepad, Blogger and YouTube. The main thrust of his argument is that all this home-made content – blogs, podcasts, amateur videos and music – is an inadequate replacement for mainstream media. It may be a harmless, even occasionally enriching addition, but we can’t have both, because the former is swiftly killing off the latter.”
Chart-Toppers Too Young For Top 40?
Some of the biggest-selling music stars are being locked out of Top 40 radio. They’re current or former stars of the Disney Channel, and are “routinely mining gold, platinum and multi-platinum CD sales while being virtually locked out at Top 40.” Why? “That’s because mainstream radio, which targets a coveted 18-to-34 year-old demo, doesn’t want to risk alienating its older listeners.”
The BBC’s Rotten Theatre Record
The BBC’s over-the-top promotion of a new “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat” at the Adelphi is another example of how little the Beeb cares about theatre, writes Michael Billington. “Would the first night of a new play by Stoppard, Pinter, Ayckbourn or Hare get the same attention as Joseph? Of course not. With very rare exceptions on BBC4, the corporation doesn’t even bother to televise the key works of modern drama. As for the classics, forget it. You have as much chance of seeing a play by Shakespeare, Ibsen or Chekhov on BBC TV as of a cow jumping over the moon.”