25.5 million people a week listened to public radio in 2006, up 1% from the year before. That number becomes more significant when you take into account that radio as a whole has been losing listenership for years. In fact, terrestrial radio has lost 12% of its listeners in the last decade, while public radio has seen its fortunes rise steadily.
Tag: 12.20.06
Paramount Poised For A Big Awards Season
Most movie buffs don’t spend a lot of time tracking which Hollywood studios garner the most awards nominations each year, but you’d better believe that the studios themselves care a great deal. This year, a perennial also-ran, Paramount, is leading the awards race, causing no small amount of consternation within the industry.
Canada Signals Major Shift In Museum Funding
“For decades, the [Canadian] government has funded the operation of museums and art galleries in Ottawa only, and then doled out the meagre Museums Assistance Program support to help other levels of government keep the rest of the country’s heritage institutions up and running. Now the Harper government is changing how museums and art galleries will be funded: simultaneously trying to devolve responsibility for operational support to the private sector while at the same time contemplating creating or designating ‘national’ institutions outside of Ottawa.”
Making Peter Pan Pay
Peter Pan has been a staple of children’s literature for as long as anyone currently alive can remember, and the stage version of the story has been not only a popular attraction for families, but a crucial moneymaker for the UK hospital that was granted the royalties by author JM Barrie. But when the copyright to Peter Pan expired, and the royalties dried up, the hospital had to scramble. The answer? A sequel, of course.
Conductor Acquitted Of Involvement In Cult Deaths
“A French appeals court acquitted a Swiss orchestra conductor Wednesday of charges of criminal involvement in a doomsday cult that lost scores of members in ritual killings in France, Switzerland and Canada. The court in Grenoble upheld Michel Tabachnik’s 2001 acquittal by a lower court.”
Providence Ordered To Restore Arts Ed
Over the past five years, the city of Providence, Rhode Island, has been steadily eliminating arts education programs in its public schools in order to close budget gaps. As it turns out, that doesn’t sit well with the state commissioner of education, who this week ordered to city to restore art and music classes by next year. “Starting with the 2008 senior class, students will have to demonstrate their proficiency in a core curriculum that includes technology and the arts.”
Scotland To Launch Pilot Arts Projects
“A series of arts projects involving the very young, elderly, disadvantaged and isolated in Scotland has been launched to test the idea of ‘cultural entitlements’. The 13 schemes, which will be established with £1.2m of executive and local authority funding, will run for two years and follows the publication of Scotland’s first Culture Bill last week.”
Well Worn TV Drama Formula Still Grabs Ratings
“Networks, like serial killers, tend to develop patterns. At the moment ABC is the estrogen-pumping network, fixated on sex and swoony romance… But it turns out that blood, guts and sexual perversion also can be soothing and downright cozy.”
A Bookstore’s Death – The Culture Did It
Murder Ink, a bookstore in business for 34 years, is closing. A convergence of circumstances afflicting most independent bookstores in America, is responsible. “There are currently about 2,500 independent bookstores in the United States, not counting stores that deal only in used books… In 1993 the number stood at about 4,700.”