Media

McQueen’s Small Axe series is “unprecedented” for the BBC – it covers Black British life from what one might call the time period so far covered by The Crown, which is notably missing Black and Asian actors, to put it mildly. McQueen: “We are missing from the conversation. We are missing from the narrative. And to me that is weird. Not to see yourself or any aspects of ordinary life that reflect your experiences of growing up in Britain, that is just plain weird.” – The Observer (UK)

Instead, it’s turned us into separate – and sometimes extremely hostile – factions. “Particularly when we’re scared, we regress further into tribalism and tend to trust the information relayed to us by our tribe and not by others. Normally, that’s an evolutionary advantage. Trust leads to group cohesion, and it helps us survive.” Not so on social media. – Fast Company

Public radio has a problem. In 2019, NPR’s newsroom was more than 70 percent white. The same year, 83 percent of the voices heard on its national shows were white, too. According to the most recent State of the System report by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, in 2018, just 23 percent of people working at member stations identified as people of color. That’s almost a full percentage point decrease from the previous year. – Columbia Journalism Review

Baldwin launched his popular interview show, Here’s the Thing, at New York Public Radio (WNYC) in 2011 and is moving it to iHeartRadio as of January. He says that station management insisted that, for an interview with Allen that aired in June, Baldwin ask the director about Dylan Farrow’s accusation of child sexual abuse. “Once WNYC said, ‘We won’t air the interview unless you ask these questions’ and forced that editorial content on me like that, I knew I was out of there.” – Billboard

Kirk Miller: “Surviving 100 years is incredible. But I do wonder if it’ll make it through another 10, let alone 100. To get some outside perspective, I asked four people — two long-time DJs, a younger musician and a veteran music industry reporter — for their thoughts on commercial radio, both as it stands today and where it’s going.” – InsideHook

The BBC is just one piece of a bigger puzzle. The world has changed, and every broadcaster needs to change with it. So I’m taking a close look at the future of our entire public service broadcasting system. That includes ITV and Channels 4 and 5 – and S4C in Wales and STV in Scotland, both of which are important to those nations. – The Telegraph (UK)

“The video shows Americans from various backgrounds and hailing from different parts of the country holding empty golden picture frames to the tune of “America the Beautiful.” The video is a reference to O’Grady’s iconic 1983 performance “Art Is…” in Harlem, New York. In the performance, 15 performers, dressed all in white, carried empty gold picture frames during the annual African American Day Parade, inviting members of the community to pose as the subject of the artwork.” – Hyperallergic

China has now overtaken the U.S. as the world’s largest movie market. South Koreans watch more films per capita than any other nation (and they made Parasite). Vietnam has more than 100 million people, a growing industry, and (with COVID-19 largely contained) open theaters. Japan, of course, has had a vibrant cinema for decades and is a world leader in animation. Says one well-placed observer, “I don’t think [these] countries … even need to think about America now. They’re like the Bollywood film industry in India, in that they want to reach their own first. Any other success elsewhere is just gravy to them.” – BBC

Throughout much of the 20th Century, American pop culture warned us that something like the last four years could make the leap from cautionary fiction to all-consuming reality. In the early 1930s, the Great Depression led to a peculiar, pre-Roosevelt cycle of what became known as “the dictator craze” in American movies. – Chicago Tribune

In an essay for The Telegraph, Oliver Dowden asks, “Is [the BBC] keeping the British public’s confidence when it comes to its impartiality, and does it truly represent the nation?” and writes that a panel he is convening will be “asking really profound questions about the role these broadcasters have to play in the digital age – and indeed whether we need them at all.” – The Telegraph (UK)

Some of the dozens of tweets Netflix issued DMCA claims against used clips from the actual movie, TorrentFreak reports, in which case Netflix’s claims are understandable. However, many of the tweets in question shared the film’s trailer, which is widely and publicly available on YouTube for anyone to view or share. – Ars Technica

Hathway’s character had three fingers on one hand – and the film made that a stand-in for her character’s evil. “The disability community reacted to the now-streaming film with disappointment, sadness, and outrage.” – Los Angeles Times

Writer, director, and actor Marielle Heller, who’s starring in the new Netflix serial The Queen’s Gambit, thinks not. The director of Can You Ever Forgive Me? also says, “Writing, directing – it’s just torture every time and it doesn’t seem to get any easier. And yet I love them and I’m not going to stop doing them.” – The Guardian (UK)

Sometimes, in Hollywood, or Canadian media even, dreams do come true. Paul Sun-Hyung Lee, who plays the father on the excellent Canadian show Kim’s Convenience, has a life outside of theatre and screen. “Lee is an avid cosplayer, known for the intricate costumes and props he creates for characters from Star Wars and Ghostbusters films.” – CBC

Mahnola Dargis: “I looked to Hong Kong (the great Michelle Yeoh), French nonsense (“La Femme Nikita”) and American exploitation flicks (the indelible Pam Grier), where the punches were in service to braless jiggling. Only recently did I grasp that the behind-the-scenes videos I was looking at were showing women kicking and punching their way to different kinds of female representation.” – The New York Times

Warner Bros. is recasting the role of Grindelwald for its third movie in the franchise. The British court’s decision last week “came after a trial in which Depp and ex-wife Amber Heard, 34, presented scandalous conflicting testimony about their turbulent years together — testimony that included admissions of heavy drug use by Depp and allegations of violence on both sides.” – Los Angeles Times

He doesn’t even like cake. But that’s OK; he likes drawing – and now he has a team of four to help him with the fun illustrations that accompany the bakers’ plans. Emphasis on the plans. Since in-tent bakes don’t always work, the show now also sends the illustrator photos of practice bakes, which usually do work a little better. – BBC

One of the actors on Superstore: “I 100% feel that the lack of convenience throughout this entire process has created a far more nuanced and realistic story, both on a narrative level and on an emotional level. … I feel so guilty having a reason to be excited about a deadly pandemic, but in this one little tiny corner of the giant hellscape that is coronavirus, it just became so much fuller and richer and more interesting.” – Los Angeles Times

In a time of pandemics, wildfires, long election seasons, Brexit, and more, little can reassure a tired viewing audience, one that has seen every episode of The Great British Bake-Off (or The Great British Baking Show, in Netflix terms) and perhaps is jaded about the handshake. But then Britain comes through again with Full Bloom. – Los Angeles Times

“The footage was captured in Lyon, in 1897, by the Lumière brothers, who were among the world’s first filmmakers. It was originally black and white, of course, and herky-jerky because of the low frame rate. But this snowball fight has recently been colorized and smoothed, and the result is shockingly modern. The video shows 52 seconds of joyful carnage: a gaggle of antiquated French people hucking compacted snow at one another’s faces with terrifying ferocity.” – The New York Times Magazine

Back in 1970, the United Biscuits Network was created for workers mass-producing Jaffa Cakes and McVitie’s Digestives who had gotten fed up with the Muzak bosses piped to the factory floor. With daring programming inspired by the pirate radio stations that used to broadcast from ships offshore, UBN was the first legal non-BBC radio in the UK and the first to operate 24 hours a day. – The Guardian

“In 2020, the company [Advertising Analytics] sees nearly $247.5 million being spent between Jan. 1, 2019, and Election Day — marking a 200% increase over the prior record. … The dynamics are welcome ones for TV networks and stations, which [due to the pandemic] have seen advertisers claw back the usual commitments they make each year.” – Variety

Revealing a movie’s grosses is not something studios are obligated to do, and for decades, they didn’t. So why, in the late 1980s, did Hollywood start? Because it made for buzz within the industry and beyond to (some of) the audience; sometimes, worldwide headlines were made. But now that lockdowns have led to the release of even major blockbuster titles online, “studios get to rethink whether they want to continue sharing grosses on a 24/7 basis with rivals, analysts and the media.” – The Hollywood Reporter

The regulations put forth by the Liberal government today in a new bill focus on clarifying that online streaming platforms like Netflix and Spotify will fall under the Broadcasting Act through a new category called “online undertakings.” – CBC

The world’s largest exhibitor suffered a brutal 90.9% drop in revenues during the most recent earnings period, with sales clocking in at $119.5 million. Losses hit $905.8 million or $8.41 cents a share. In the prior-year quarter, a time when cinemas were open around the globe and world-altering pandemics were largely the stuff of Hollywood thrillers, AMC logged revenues of $1.3 billion on a net loss of $54.8 million or 53 cents a share. – Variety

Said crew members on one of the service’s original short-form series, “We were blindsided. We had just signed contracts and turned down other jobs to keep working on this show. … Our own execs had to constantly hound Quibi for further information.” – The Hollywood Reporter