“The Boston station said Thursday that it has acquired Public Radio International, the Minneapolis company that distributes some of the best-known public radio programs, including This American Life, to nearly 900 affiliates across the country and on satellite radio, reaching more than 16 million listeners.”
Tag: 07.26.12
Will Amazon Completely Destroy Newspapers (And Main Street) With Its New Moves?
“Amazon, of course, isn’t targeting newspaper revenues. It’s targeting customers — selling more to current ones and engaging new ones. Further hits to newspaper revenue are just another unintended consequence of accelerating disruption of all business as usual. The same-day push is built on strategies long in the making. Amazon knew its day of reckoning on its sales tax exemption would come. Like all big, smart companies with legions of lawyers and lobbyists, it delayed the inevitable, and with each delay, built market strength and cash.”
Sculptor Franz West, 65
“Encounters with West’s art are often occasions for laughter, though it is a laugh tinged with horror and disbelief. He could deflate the pomposity of the city square or the elegance of a park with his giant pink phalluses and lime-green sausages. Sitting on dignified plinths, his skewed and lumpy sculptures, often garishly painted, had a kind of idiot elegance.”
BAFTA To Award Separate Prizes For TV Comedy And Drama Writing
“BAFTA is to introduce separate prizes for comedy and drama writers at its annual craft awards, following pressure from the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain. Up until now, BAFTA has only awarded a best writer award at its television craft awards ceremony, meaning drama writers have been pitted against comedy creators.”
Actress Susanne Lothar Dead At 51
The much-admired German star, who “appeared in [Michael] Haneke films such as The White Ribbon and Funny Games as well as alongside Kate Winslet in The Reader, specialised in playing vulnerable, damaged women who found hidden reserves of strength. The Austrian director Haneke frequently looked to her to embody characters pushed to the limit.”
The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs 2.0: How The Show Has Changed Post-Scandal
“‘Why believe me? I’m a noted fabulist,’ says Mike Daisey, his honeyed voice all but dripping with sarcasm, eyes glinting with challenge. The audience at the Woolly Mammoth Theater … chuckles in sympathy.”
LA MoCA Pulls Out Of Joint Show Planned By Ex-Chief Curator
“The Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA), Los Angeles, has pulled out of a Richard Hamilton retrospective, after the abrupt departure of its long-standing chief curator, Paul Schimmel at the end of June. Schimmel is the co-curator of the Hamilton exhibition,” which is also planned for London’s Tate Modern, the Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
What’s Next For Global Super-Blockbusters? (What’s Even Left?)
“Back in 1991, Michael Eisner, then Disney chairman, described Hollywood’s future goal as ‘planetised entertainment’. We have now reached that point. This is your guide to the global super-movie, and where it might have left to go.”
Those Youngsters’ Pop Songs Today Really Do All Sound The Same
“Parents who find their children’s thumping stereos too much to bear will also be comforted to know that it isn’t just the effect of age: modern songs have also grown progressively louder over the past 50 years. … While loudness has steadily increased since the 1950s, the [research] team found that the variety of chords, melodies and types of sound being used by musicians has become ever smaller.”
Thou Shalt Not Criticize Thy Fellow Actors On Twitter
Following the first preview performance of Sondheim’s Into the Woods in Central Park, actress Morgan James (of the recently-closed Boradway revival of Godspell) tweeted, “HOW can you **** up Into the Woods?? I fear musicianship is dead in musical theatre. And acting, for that matter. #horrified.” Big mistake.