"You know, I think I'm committed to doing this show until its 50th anniversary, which is in three years," said Michaels, who'll be 80 that fall. "I'd like to see that through, and I have a feeling that'd be a really good time to leave." - The Hollywood Reporter
Why did several generations watch old Looney Tunes alongside new work and actually prefer the stuff made before they were born? It was partly a historical accident caused by television’s demand for endless material at a relatively high cost. - The Walrus
The 88-year-old Abenaki filmmaker Alanis Obomsawin says Canada's commitment to making First Nations stories has grown tremendously. From where she began to now, she says, "to see our people being treated ... like human beings. It's such a big change." - CBC
They have the actors to suit any Hollywood twistedness or despair. And, let's face it, "There is clearly a very strong appetite for bleak nuance in current American entertainment." - The Observer (UK)
The third movie in the Tom Holland Spider-Man universe busted records, reaching the third biggest opening ever, not just during the pandemic. What does this mean for movie theatres as the omicron variant threatens Christmas showings? - Baltimore Sun
It's about money, of course, but subscribers - especially sports fans - may not care about the reasons. "The outage came during an ESPN broadcast of a Lakers-Minnesota Timberwolves game, upsetting some basketball fans." - Los Angeles Times
"As a movie star, George Clooney is a happy warrior, always ready with a thoughtful quote or charming anecdote, and he’s the rare celebrity whose political acumen matches his outspokenness." But his directorial career is "bereft of personality and devoid of substance." - Slate
"The Cinerama Dome first opened in 1963. The venue survived a demolition scare in 1998, when a proposal by Pacific Theatres would have stripped the dome and replaced it with restaurants and a movie multiplex" - and now, too, the pandemic. - Los Angeles Times
Studio executives and box-office pundits expected audiences to show up for In the Heights, Dear Evan Hansen and West Side Story, and not just fans of the movie musical but general audiences, as well. After a year without movies, audiences would crave the spectacle. It didn’t happen. - The Guardian
This fall FCC offered a rare opportunity to apply for new non-commercial signals. Public radio networks in New England, the South, and especially the Intermountain West plan to use the new frequencies to expand coverage in rural areas they haven't yet reached. - Current
Platforms like Google and Facebook have transformed the way we consume and share news, but the digital revolution hasn’t yet revealed an equivalent breakthrough in the way the media makes money. This is a paradoxical reality at a time of unprecedented innovation. - The Walrus
While digital transformation was creating abundance in the scarce resources that had previously defined market power, it was also creating a new scarce resource, and therefore a new source of competitive advantage: customer attention. - Harvard Business Review
"In this milieu, a Cold War culture dedicated to conformity and shot through with Freudian panic about emasculation, audiences could glimpse Anybodys, a character who refuses to conform, refuses the ironclad terms of gender, in bold ways." So Tony Kushner and Stephen Sondheim went for it. - Slate
Today, the media industry has consolidated under fewer owners than ever before; its labour conditions have grown dire. The undeniable expertise of many journalists isn’t enough to restore public credibility in the press. The political problem will require a political, not merely a technical, fix. - Psyche
