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MEDIA

Movie Musicals Flopped This Year. Is The Genre Dead?

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

A Bunch Of Public Radio Stations Are About To Get Additional Frequencies

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

Do We Need To Save Journalism Or Reinvent It?

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

Lessons From Hollywood’s Digital Transition

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

Why Did The New “West Side Story” Movie Make The Tomboy Character Trans? Because Maybe Ze Was The Whole Time

"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

The Problem With Media Consolidation

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

China’s Government Has A Flock Of Foreign YouTubers Making Videos About How Great The Place Is

" new social media personalities … paint cheery portraits of life as foreigners in China — and also hit back at criticisms of Beijing's authoritarian governance, its policies toward ethnic minorities and its handling of the coronavirus." - The New York Times

Ho-Hum: Golden Globe Nominations Are Out, But Few Seem To Care

There were no press releases sent en masse with statements thanking the HFPA and saluting co-stars and filmmakers. Also absent were the emotional reaction calls between journalists and nominees, still recovering from their shock at the big news. - Variety

Spain’s Most Un-Francoist Filmmaker Finally Takes On The Franco Era

Pedro Almodóvar's Parallel Mothers starts out with a very Almodóvar situation, two single women about to give birth, but the movie’s really about the ongoing fallout from the many extrajudicial murders committed by Franco's regime, a topic most Spaniards have spent decades avoiding. - The New York Times Magazine

Doesn’t Seem Like It After 20 Years, But Peter Jackson’s “Lord Of The Rings” Films Were A Massive Gamble

He'd made some comedy-horror mashups and one arthouse hit when he set to work on the Tolkien adaptations, so he wasn't someone you'd think of giving nine-figure budgets to. The bet paid off, of course: the films took in $3 billion. Here's how they came together. - Variety

Why Podcasting Might Be A Passing Fad For Media Companies

For several years, a mixture of denial and deep optimism have kept up the facade. News outlet leaders believe that, since others are perceived to have success with podcasting, their payoff must be right around the corner. - NiemanLab

Australian Artist’s Instagram Account Was @Metaverse. Then Facebook Booted Her Off

Early that morning, when she tried to log in to Instagram, she found that the account had been disabled. A message on the screen read: “Your account has been blocked for pretending to be someone else.” - The New York Times

“Belfast”, “The Power Of The Dog”, “Succession”, “Ted Lasso”, “The Morning Show” Lead Golden Globe Nominations

In the film categories, Belfast and The Power of the Dog got seven nominations each; on the television side, Succession received five nods, with four each for Ted Lasso and The Morning Show. - CNN

The Politics Of Big Bird (And Sesame Street)

It is political not in a partisan sense but because the way we teach and protect children — and choose which children to teach and protect — is inevitably bound up in politicized ideas. - The New York Times

Peloton Wins The Internet With Viral Ad Featuring Mr. Big

Peloton bounced back in a big way: It resurrected Mr. Big for a commercial featuring none other than Peter Noth and Peloton instructor Jessica King. The dramatic advertisement quickly blew up online, amassing more than 45,000 likes on Twitter and spurring a slew of headlines. - Los Angeles Times

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