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Role Reversal: Why TV Is Replacing Movies As Elite Entertainment

Sun, 13 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

The Hollywood Economist - By Edward Jay Epstein - May. 13 (News Analysis) - Once upon a time, over a generation ago, The television set was commonly called the “boob tube” and looked down on by elites as a purveyors of mind-numbing entertainment. Movie theaters, on the other hand, were considered a venue for, if not art, more sophisticated dramas and comedies. Not any more. The multiplexes are now primarily a venue for comic-book inspired action and fantasy movies, whereas television, especially the pay and cable channels, is increasingly becoming a venue for character-driven adult programs, such as The Wire, Mad Men, and Boardwalk Empire. This role reversal, rather than a momentary fluke, proceeds directly from the new economic realities of the entertainment business. Consider what happened to Pay-TV. Back in the 1970s, HBO provided something home viewers could not get elsewhere: movies uninterrupted by commercials. It was, as a HBO executive put it, “the only game in town,” so its subscribers paid a monthly fee, no matter how little or often they watch it, to their local cable provider who in turn forked over a share to HBO. As the cable systems grew, so did HBO. By 2010, it had (including its Cinemax unit) over 40 million subscribers, and just the monthly fees produced cash flow of over $1.5 billion a year. Getting new movies was no problem. HBO simply licensed them from a few major studios for an exclusive period (which began a few months after they were released on video and DVD) in so-called “output deals.” To continue to harvest this immense bounty, HBO had merely to stop subscribers from ending their service.

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Ladies of the nightly news

Thu, 30 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Salon - By Rebecca Traister - Oct. 30 (News Analysis) - It was perhaps galling that one of the smartest questions asked of Hillary Clinton in the past 18 months was posed after a presidential debate in which Clinton did not participate. But it was appropriate that it came from a journalist who understands as well as the New York senator that the path to gender parity is lined with potholes. "Why do you think Sarah Palin has an action figure, and you have a nutcracker?" asked CBS anchorwoman Katie Couric on her nightly webcast -- her so-called after party -- following the final presidential debate between Barack Obama and John McCain on Oct. 15. Of course, Clinton didn't answer the question fully -- by, say, launching into a discourse on how her brand of female power is based on authority and competence that made her appear threatening, like a potential harvester of testicles, while the Alaska governor's brand of female power is based on her ability to winkingly climb the political ladder while never disrupting the fantasy that she is only here to conform to traditional feminine norms that do not threaten testicular dominance. No. Clinton just let out a loud (just once, for old times' sake) cackle and said, "I don't have any idea, Katie."

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The 2008 presidential election as seen on daytime television

Thu, 09 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Salon - By Rebecca Traister - Oct. 09 (Special Report) - Strange as it may seem, daytime has historically provided some of the most progressive television in the nation. Long before prime-time TV made room for meaty female characters, soap operas were spinning out stories in which women were central characters. Soaps also provided many of television’s first groundbreaking story lines — Erica Kane’s 1971 abortion on “All My Children,” the introduction of a gay character, Hank Elliott, on “As the World Turns” in 1988, “General Hospital’s” Stone battling AIDS in the 1990s — made more powerful by the narrative intimacy afforded by the daily serial format.

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Journalism, Satire or Just Laughs? "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" Examined

Sat, 10 May 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Journalism.org - May. 10 (Special Report) - Stewart has always insisted that his show isn't journalism...But it's also true that [in choosing] satire over playing just for laughs...[it]performs a function that is close to journalistic in nature--getting people to think critically about the public square...a variation of the tradition of Russell Baker, Art Hoppe, Art Buchwald, H.L. Mencken and other satirists who once graced the pages of American newspapers.

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Fear & Favor: News, Journalism, and Power

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Common Dreams - By Janine Jackson - Mar. 27 (News Analysis) - Good journalism requires that reporters rigorously avoid attempts to influence coverage one way or another, from advertisers, government officials, PR agencies and even the boss's bosses, as in Lauer's case. But each year the media watchers at FAIR are able to collect example after vivid example of such influence for the annual report "Fear & Favor: How Power Shapes the News." The report, whose title comes from New York Times owner Adolph Ochs' 1896 pledge "to give the news impartially, without fear or favor," is far from comprehensive, and is intended only to remind audiences to maintain a critical attitude while reading and watching the news, not only about what might be left out of the story but about what's in it -- and why.

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ER Episode Impacts Viewers' Health Knowledge And Behavior

Thu, 20 Sep 2007 10:48:03 -0700

ScienceDaily - Sep. 20 (News Report) - Researchers found that a storyline on the primetime NBC network drama ER that dealt with teen obesity, hypertension and healthy eating habits had a positive impact on the attitudes and behaviors of viewers, particularly among men.

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Do They Have Your Numb3r?

Sun, 25 Mar 2007 10:45:01 -0700

Skeptical Inquirer - By Kendrick Frazier - Mar. 25 (Special Report) - Just as the trio of CSI dramatic programs has brought the importance of forensic science to the masses in the U.S. and abroad (SI May/June 2005; CBS says CSI: Miami is now the most watched television show in the world), Numb3rs is now demonstrating to millions of viewers each Friday night that mathematics can also have surprising relevance to everyday problems. And all the while providing quality entertainment. Mathematics is not just a sideshow in the popular television mystery series, which stars David Krumholtz as brilliant young mathematician Charlie Epps, who helps his FBI agent brother Don (Rob Morrow) tackle particularly puzzling cases. More often than not, it is Charlie, seeking mathematical patterns and applying novel mathematical concepts, who plays a central role solving the cases. Judd Hirsch plays Charlie's and Don's widowed father, a semi-retired city planner. The quirky Peter MacNicol also stars as Dr. Larry Fleinhardt, Charlie's physicist mentor and sounding board for new ideas and broader scientific thinking. Navi Rawat plays a former graduate student of Charlie's from CalSci (a close stand-in for Caltech) and as a bright and attractive woman provides some continuing love interest. Science, reason, and rational thinking play such a prominent role in the stories that the American Association for the Advancement of Science hosted an entire afternoon symposium at its 2006 annual meeting on the program's role in changing the public's perception of mathematics. Nobel laureate David Baltimore, the president of CalTech, took part, and I counted two other Nobel laureates in the audience. And this past spring, Numb3rs co-creators and executive producers, Cheryl Heuton and Nicolas Falacci, a husband-and-wife team, were honored with the Carl Sagan Award for the Public Understanding of Science. The award was presented by the Council of Scientific Society Presidents, honoring those who have become concurrently accomplished as researchers, educators, and magnifiers of the public's understanding of science.

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