January 2015 Chit Chat

http://variety.com/2015/film/news/broken-hollywood-the-bizs-top-players-call-out-ways-industry-needs-to-change-1201416866/



Broken Hollywood: The Biz’s Top Players Call Out Ways Industry Needs to Change

Talk to any top executive or producer in the movie, television and digital businesses today and they will tell you that the challenges they face are more severe and confounding than ever. Industryites are grappling with profound concerns that cut to the heart of the traditional models to which Hollywood has adhered for decades.
SEE MORE: From the January 28, 2015 issue of Variety
Variety feels it best that our readers hear what’s on the minds of the media business’s best and brightest in their own words. We’ve put the phrase “Broken Hollywood” on our cover to reflect the candor with which the 22 luminaries we interviewed spoke. They weren’t shy about addressing the industry’s most pressing problems, which run the gamut from a declining movie audience — particularly among the vital younger demographic — and falling ratings in broadcast and cable TV, to an unacceptable lack of diversity in the creative ranks and executive suites, and inadequate audience measurement across platforms.
See the links below to read how Hollywood’s top execs feel the industry needs to change.
Shane Smith, Vice Media CEO: I think the biggest issue for legacy media — both TV and film — is that it just costs too much money to develop a TV series or movie. And most of them don’t work. Then the one that works has to pay for the rest. | Read More
Harvey Weinstein, The Weinstein Co. co-chairman: Every day we face new technology challenges. We have to look at our models — the theatrical model, the VOD model. We have to think about what we do with the lack of a DVD business.  | Read More
Joe Roth, producer, “Maleficent”: I think maybe Tom Hanks and Leonardo DiCaprio are the last versions of movie stars. Put them in a movie, and people want to come see them. What we have now is what I call “conditional movie stars,” because they have not been given broader roles. | Read More
Peter Chernin, Chernin Group chairman and CEO: The thing that concerns me most, and is something I see partly as a threat and partly as an opportunity, is the transition of the television business. | Read More
Mark Pedowitz, CW president: Despite a lot of discussion about the measurement issue, I do not see change moving fast enough for all of us in the industry. Progress toward accurate measurement needs to happen as quickly as possible. Whether it’s one company or a combination of a lot of companies, measurement needs to get sorted out soon. | Read More
John Fithian, National Assn. of Theatre Owners president and CEO: In 2011, we had the biggest public food fight ever on the issue of windows. We came out of that pretty strong on the topic as exhibitors, but nevertheless sullied as an industry by the public fight. | Read More
Susan Wojcicki, YouTube CEO: The reality is you can look at YouTube and traditional media, and say they’re both video; they’re really the same. And there are things about them that are the same. As traditional media begins to use YouTube in different ways, it’s time for creators to embrace that format to complement the businesses they’re in. | Read More
Chris McGurk, Cinedigm chairman and CEO: Hollywood needs to wake up to the idea that there’s been a permanent change in viewing habits by younger audiences or the economic model for movie studios and broadcasters is going to be at risk. Kids have grown up accustomed to viewing content differently than their parents and grandparents did. | Read More
Ron Meyer, NBCUniversal vice chairman: Marketing costs have always been a challenge, and they continue to escalate. The cost of production is a major, major issue that has to be dealt with. We have to be in a business where we are profitable, and if you spend more than you make, you can’t be profitable. | Read More
Nina Jacobson, producer, “The Hunger Games”: There is a shortage of opportunity for young people, and a resulting shortage of fresh blood. There are so few jobs and so few junior-level jobs. People who have jobs stay in them longer. Consequently, there aren’t as many opportunities as there used to be for people to get their foot in the door and for the business to be energized by youth. | Read More
Chris Albrecht, Starz CEO: There’s a demographic shift that has been occurring in the U.S. Millennials are now the largest segment of the population, Hispanics are the fastest-growing, and those two groups form the nexus of the next consumer generation. | Read More
Dick Costolo, Twitter CEO: There’s so much choice for consumers regarding where they get content. First it was Netflix and Amazon, now there’s HBO and CBS (which are launching direct-to-consumer subscription video services). I think it will be interesting to see how that explosion unfolds. | Read More
Gary Newman, Fox Television Group chairman-CEO: We have an advertising model that is pretty challenged. There are so many commercials inside an hour of television that we’re beginning to train people to use the DVR to skip through them. | Read More
Anthony Anderson, “Black-ish” executive producer and star: They talk about the blackout at the Oscars. Let’s look at the blackout that’s been on network television. Why is that? |Read More

John Landgraf, FX Networks and FX Prods. CEO: I spend a lot of my time thinking about a whole host of challenges and transformations that the industry is going through: piracy; the digital transition; non-commercial alternatives, including the DVR; and fragmentation. | Read More
Chris Dodd, MPAA chairman and CEO: Two million people get up every morning in all 50 states to go to work in good-paying jobs. Few will ever walk a red carpet, but their jobs are in jeopardy because of piracy. | Read More
Nancy Dubuc, A+E Networks president and CEO: It’s hard for me to accept the argument that millennials are not watching TV. I’m not one to believe that our culture of TV consumption is changing dramatically. It’s just how we consume and where we consume it that’s changing. | Read More
Alan Horn, Walt Disney Studios chairman: I’ve long been a believer in the power of tentpoles to drive our business, but there’s a special place in my heart for smart, emotional films on a smaller scale. | Read More
Robert L. Johnson, RLJ Companies founder and chairman: Technology as it interfaces with the conventional television set has eliminated, to a certain extent, the traditional gatekeeper model that has allowed very few strategic players to reach consumers. | Read More
Jim Gianopulos, Fox Filmed Entertainment chairman and CEO: It’s a convenient trope to say Hollywood keeps doing sequels and repeating itself. I think it’s really easy to say we are doing the same old thing. But a good sequel is not the same old thing. | Read More
Leslie Moonves, CBS Corp. president and CEO: We have so many new words in our vocabulary these days. “Over the top” is a phrase spoken often. Cord-cutters, cord-nevers, broadband-only — these are words we didn’t mention two years ago; now they’re so much a part of our daily dialogue. | Read More
Kevin Tsujihara, Warner Bros. Entertainment chairman and CEO: I don’t think our business models are keeping pace with the changes taking place in consumer behavior. | Read More

PigPen wrote:

Nicky80 wrote:I hope you are all safe. Heard in the news that this will be a crazy storm.

You heard about it in Germany??????????????????   Got well over 2 feet of snow. Two towns over, they got 3 feet of snow.  More snow tomorrow ( not much) and more again on Monday.  Homes on the coast line were destroyed.  One gentleman living on the coast line was trying to secure a picture window when the waves broke over the rock wall, came crashing through the house- the window hit him in the face.  Multiple facial sutures.  We've had more snow than this, but wind was up to 75 miles per hour.

e


PigPen hope you are doing well. Have you dug out yet? Over 2 feet - that's incredible!
The forecasters really got the forecast wrong for NY and Philly though. but they were spot on for New England.

I saw that news story on TV about the man whose face got all cut up by a wave that hit him. He looked a mess but luckily that was the worse of injuries.

Okay, peeps, I've cleared my deck for the rest of the evening. Got in a good bit of writing today, the house and dishes are clean, the dog is walked, and since I have my granddaughter for the night, she's fed and clean and ready for bed. So I'm ready for the return of Scandal -- I admit I want to know what happened to Olivia, even if I don't stick around for the rest of the season.

But instead of How to Get Away with Murder, I'll be collapsed in a puddle of tears watching the series finale of Parenthood, one of the best-ever family dramas. God, I already miss the Bravermans.

And, yes, I'm a Luddite with no DVR or even a more primitive way to record programs.

I prefer recording my favourite dramas on our commercial networks.....I can fast fwd through
all the repetitive adverts.
Even on the BBC there are repetitive adverts now 
for forthcoming events that they're showing.

Happy TV watching Way 2. Keep the tissues handy. Sounds like you're gonna need them.

Italian article
ABOUT INTERNET


http://www.internazionale.it/opinione/giovanni-de-mauro/2015/01/30/tempo-4


(added my comments here and there)


When it comes to internet you should always remember that around the world people who use the net are a minority: exactly the 39 percent, according to estimates of the International telecommunication union.


In Italy the latest report of Istat says that 22 million people have never used the internet. Is 38.3 per cent of the population, up 74.8 percent even among Italians aged 65 years and older. 





In Europe there are countries close to saturation (Netherlands, Luxembourg, Sweden, Denmark), where almost everyone uses the network, while Italy is the antepenultimate spot. Alongside Greece and shortly before Bulgaria.


 


And always speaking of the internet we should also remember that the web does not contain everything, and what there is tends to disappear over time. Jill Lepore on the New Yorker explains that the average life of a web page is about 100 days.










Web pages disappear because they are deleted, changed, or because the companies that host close, fail, are sold. A study conducted in the United States in 2013 has found that within six years, 50 percent of the link cited by judges and lawyers in trials and in documents presented in court no longer works, i.e. the web page they point to is no longer online.






really? 


The instability and precariousness of the web can be a problem in the case of evidence, but can be a real fortune for the nonsense.







This article was published on page 3 of January 30, 2015 international, under the title "time".

Donnamarie wrote:

PigPen wrote:

Nicky80 wrote:I hope you are all safe. Heard in the news that this will be a crazy storm.

You heard about it in Germany??????????????????   Got well over 2 feet of snow. Two towns over, they got 3 feet of snow.  More snow tomorrow ( not much) and more again on Monday.  Homes on the coast line were destroyed.  One gentleman living on the coast line was trying to secure a picture window when the waves broke over the rock wall, came crashing through the house- the window hit him in the face.  Multiple facial sutures.  We've had more snow than this, but wind was up to 75 miles per hour.

e


PigPen hope you are doing well.  Have you dug out yet?  Over 2 feet - that's incredible!
The forecasters really got the forecast wrong for NY and Philly though.  but they were spot on for New England.

I saw that news story on TV about the man whose face got all cut up by a wave that hit him.  He looked a mess but luckily that was the worse of injuries.

It was like the Perfect Storm, only with snow.  That was a fun storm as well.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/oscar-nominated-songwriter-rod-mckuen-dies-at-81/ar-AA8Kgks?ocid=ansVariety11


Oscar-Nominated Songwriter Rod McKuen Dies at 81
Variety
Variety
Kevin Noonan 18 hrs ago
© Provided by Variety

Poet, songwriter, composer and singer Rod McKuen died Thursday in Beverly Hills after suffering from pneumonia, friend and producer Jim Pierson told the L.A. Times. McKuen was 81.

McKuen was twice-nominated for Oscars, first for the song “Jean” from the film “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” in 1970, which won him a Golden Globe, and then again in 1971 for his work on the animated film “A Boy Named Charlie Brown”; he also received a Grammy nomination for his work with the team that included Vince Guaraldi.

Born in Oakland, McKuen moved to Paris in the 1960s, where he wrote poetry before returning to the U.S. where he worked as a poet, singer and film composer in the late 60s and throughout the 70s. His hit songs “If You Go Away” and “Seasons in the Sun” (performed by Terry Jacks) was based on a Jacques Brel song and he also translated other French songwriters into English.

His composing work also included “Joanna,” “Scandalous John,” “Emily” and the TV movies “Lisa, Bright and Dark” and “The Borrowers.” His work continued to be used through the years in major productions, appearing in film and television series including “Cheers,” “Better Off Dead…” and “Zodiac.”

McKuen was also a prolific songwriter, working with artists including Johnny Cash, Barbara Streisand and Frank Sinatra; Sinatra recorded an album of McKuen’s songs and poems in 1969, “A Man Alone: The Words and Music of Rod McKuen,” which included one McKuen’s most popular hits, “Love’s Been Good to Me.”

He published 30 books of poetry including “Listen to the Warm,” which sold millions of copies and won a spoken word Grammy for “Lonesome Cities.”

I've got a book of poems by Rod McKuen and also
the Sinatra album of his songs and poems, which is very moving to listen to.The trouble is it's on vynal stored away with many other vynal albums.
I'll have to search for it on CD now !

Thanks PP for the article and reminding me of him
and his wonderful work.

Next weekend I will visit my friend in Munich and she has a 18 month old Girl and I'm the godmother. As i don't see her very often I want to buy a nice present so she knows i'm cooler then her mum


Any suggestions what I can buy for a 18 month old Girl? I compete with crazy grandparents who see her more often and buy her always something nice 

Get your god daughter a cardboard cutout of George,
so she will always remember you as 
"My Zany Godmother"  ?  LOL

I didn't know my step grand daughters until they were older than 18 months, so I don't have any experience 
of them at that age. 
Something for her bedroom....a pretty mirror or a
picture that she'll grow into enjoying ?

Jill Lepore on the New Yorker explains that the average life of a web page is about 100 days.

Web pages disappear because they are deleted, changed, or because the companies that host close, fail, are sold. A study conducted in the United States in 2013 has found that within six years, 50 percent of the link cited by judges and lawyers in trials and in documents presented in court no longer works, i.e. the web page they point to is no longer online.

This is why - if I can be allowed to be boring for a minute, folks - I always ask you guys to post the entire article and not just the links!

This site is already four years old and I'd like to think it'll go on for years yet. Imagine the frustration when you find a really interesting discussion here from four months ago but you've no idea what everyone's talking about because the link doesn't work.

And, how many times have articles "changed" in what they have written.  That is also frustrating if the original article hasn't been posted and the whole meaning of the article changed.

 damn
never though about it


oh shame!!!

Re Tom Jones and his hair !




http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/showbiz/feature/a575258/john-slattery-tom-jones-matt-leblanc-silver-fox-or-grey-hound.html#~p2Zi1F4dmWJRgF






Number 5


Tom Jones admitted that he gave up the hair dye, just like that, about five years ago. The Voice mentor revealed that he wanted a change and more natural look ahead of his international tour back in 2009, and he looks so much better for it.




Number 7 is George .....







Read more: http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/showbiz/feature/a575258/john-slattery-tom-jones-matt-leblanc-silver-fox-or-grey-hound.html#~p2Zi1F4dmWJRgF#ixzz3QRR174FG 

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