Author: Brian

Why TV Networks Don’t Need to Worry About Netflix and Hulu’s Original Programming

Brian

The Internet companies have mostly avoided hiring “Hollywood” executives to acquire and manage their original content, instead giving those responsibilities to those already at their companies who have no real experience in creating filmed entertainment. This is understandable: They know these established employees can be trusted, they speak the same language, and they are all comfortable with each other’s ugly clothes and sexlessness. But they don’t appear to be developing much on their own, just buying stuff from big-name producers. In my experience, this won’t work. I wish it did, since I’m a producer and would love nothing more than to eliminate the burden of having to deal with intrusive network executives.

http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2011/10/hulu_netflix_arrested_developm.html

Michelle Obama shifts into 2012 campaign mode

Brian

Humanizing the president is a traditional and nearly inevitable role for the first lady at campaign time, which tends to roll around after the shine has come off a president and supporters need a refresher on his likability.

But for all the refinement Michelle Obama can bring to the campaign, politics remains a dirty business. Part of the challenge for Team Obama in 2012 is how best to deploy her as a political asset without tarnishing her popularity.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1011/66188.html#ixzz1b7iIC1Lv

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1011/66188.html

Thomas Confirmation Hearings Had Ripple Effect

Brian

Thomas is not just a member of the conservative block of Supreme Court justices. He is, without doubt, the most conservative justice, willing to regularly strike down long-accepted case law that has been in place for decades, in some cases for as much as a century.

He is the only justice willing to allow states to establish an official religion; the only justice who believes teenagers have no free speech rights at all; the only justice who believes that it is unconstitutional to require campaign funders to disclose their identity; the only justice who believes that truthful tobacco advertising and other commercial speech may not be regulated, even when it is aimed at minors; the only justice who voted to strike down a key provision of the Voting Rights Act; the only justice to say that the court should invalidate a wide range of laws regulating business; and he is the only justice who voted to allow the president to hold American citizens in prison indefinitely without charge and without review by the courts.

http://www.npr.org/2011/10/11/141213260/thomas-confirmation-hearings-had-ripple-effect?sc=ipad&f=1001

Amazon Signs Up Authors, Writing Publishers Out of Deal

Brian

Amazon will publish 122 books this fall in an array of genres, in both physical and e-book form. It is a striking acceleration of the retailer’s fledging publishing program that will place Amazon squarely in competition with the New York houses that are also its most prominent suppliers.

It has set up a flagship line run by a publishing veteran, Laurence Kirshbaum, to bring out brand-name fiction and nonfiction. It signed its first deal with the self-help author Tim Ferriss. Last week it announced a memoir by the actress and director Penny Marshall, for which it paid $800,000, a person with direct knowledge of the deal said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/17/technology/amazon-rewrites-the-rules-of-book-publishing.html

MIPCOM: Fox TV Boss Kevin Reilly Says Social Media Key To Driving Through Clutter

Brian

Kevin Reilly, entertainment president of Fox Broadcasting Company, says that building awareness of new shows online before they premiere has become its new mantra. Reilly, giving the keynote this afternoon in Cannes, highlighted the new comedy New Girl as an example of how Fox uses social networks to build awareness. The networkpre-released an episode on iTunes and VOD before it even aired the pilot, and got 2 million downloads. Fox has given New Girlan early back-nine pickup after two highly rated airings, bringing the order for the Zooey Deschanel comedy to 24 episodes. Reilly said that Fox really started exploiting social media with Glee. The show was streamed on Hulu before its TV premiere, and songs were pre-released on iTunes to keep social media chatter going. Reilly said: “The series premiered as a bona fide hit, which I am certain would not have been the case had we marketed it in a more traditional way.” Here’s the full transcript of Reilly’s speech:

http://www.deadline.com/2011/10/mipcom-social-media-key-to-driving-through-clutter-says-fox-tv-boss/

Calling on Ray Allen: Time for Ochocinco Junk Food Intervention

Brian

 http://bleacherreport.com/articles/833466-calling-on-ray-allen-time-for-ochocinco-junk-food-intervention

Chad Ochocinco published a photo of his pre-game dinner on Twitter. It consists of two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on plain white bread, two packages of processed cupcakes, some Zingers and an energy drink.

This meal seems guaranteed to send Ochocinco into sugar shock, if not vamp up his razor sharp wit for another go-round with the punching bag media.

Where is Boston Celtics foodologist and junk food policeman Ray Allen? We’d even call on Shannon Allen, star of sports food TV.

Ray should be called immediately with an ambulance to rush Ochocinco to Shannon’s health food TV show. There she can force feed him green beans, broccoli and blended drinks of tofu and broccoli.

Read the full story here:  http://bleacherreport.com/articles/833466-calling-on-ray-allen-time-for-ochocinco-junk-food-intervention

 

 

 

Grabbing the spotlight with two hands: Sandwich lands Newton woman on Cooking Channel

Brian

NEWTON – Unlike many people who enter contests on national television with dreams of fame and fortune, Candy Gold had no such hopes when she sent her favorite sandwich recipe to the Cooking Channel.

But her star is rising. This weekend Gold will appear on the channel’s new interactive series, “The Perfect 3,’’ as a recipe contest winner for her Beef Brisket Bonanza sandwich. Gold, 54, is the producer and host of “Neighborhood Cooking With Candy Gold,’’ which was first broadcast on NewTV in August 2010 and now airs in nine Greater Boston communities. The show highlights local cooks. “Everybody is the star of their own kitchen, and everybody has food stories,’’ Gold says.

Read the full story:  http://articles.boston.com/2011-09-07/lifestyle/30123706_1_sandwich-cooking-channel-newton

In Tapes, Candid Talk by Young Kennedy Widow

Brian

The seven-part interview conducted in early 1964 — one of only three that Mrs. Kennedy gave after Mr. Kennedy’s assassination — is being published as a book and an audio recording. In it, the young widow speaks with Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., the historian and Kennedy aide, about her husband’s presidency, their marriage and her role in his political life. They do not discuss his death. The eight and a half hours of interviews had been kept private at the request of Mrs. Kennedy, who never spoke publicly about those years again before she died in 1994. The transcript and recording, obtained by The New York Times, offer an extraordinary immersion in the thoughts and feelings of one of the most enigmatic figures of the second half of the 20th century — the woman who, as much as anyone, helped shape a heroic narrative of the Kennedy years. Though the interviews seem unlikely to redraw the contours of Mr. Kennedy or his presidency, they are packed with intimate observations and insights of the sort that historians treasure.

 

Read the full article here:  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/12/us/12jackie.html?_r=1&emc=eta1