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  • IRON MAN IS MARVELOUS FOR MARVEL,
  • MOVIEGOERS TURN IRON INTO GOLD,
  • APPLE TO SELL MOVIES ONLINE AT A LOSS,
  • HEAVY METAL PLAYS WELL AT BOX OFFICE -- IRON,
  • SEX SCANDAL MAY INTERFERE WITH SALE OF WEATHER CHANNEL,
  • IRON MAN WON'T BE A SPIDER-MAN, ANALYSTS PREDICT,
  • AUTO OUTPACES HOLLYWOOD BLOCKBUSTERS,
  • REPORT: WINEHOUSE OUT AS BOND THEME SINGER,
  • IMAX BUILDING BOOM WILL SEE DIGITAL SWITCH,
  • STUDIOS WIN $111 MILLION FROM BITTORRENT SITE,
  • CALL IN THE CLONES,
  • ARE ONLINE TV SHOWS A MIRAGE?,
  • SWEEPS SWEPT BY LOW RATINGS,
  • BOND MOVIE TO BE ADAPTED FOR RADIO,
  • BROKAW HAS NO COMPLAINTS ABOUT KIDS GETTING NEWS FROM STEWART,
  • DISNEY INDICATES STRIKE CUT COSTS, SPURRED PROFITS,
  • NBC, WEINSTEINS WRANGLE OVER PROJECT RUNWAY,
  • NETWORKS LOSE ONE OUT OF FIVE VIEWERS,
  • WARNER BROS. TO BE FETED AT CANNES,
  • AFTER SNUBBING IPODS, NBC EMBRACES ZUNES,
  • Top Stories
    Friday, May 9, 2008
    SAG CRIES FOUL
    Thursday, May 8 2008
    Their behind-closed-doors negotiations temporarily ended, the Screen Actors Guild and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers began sniping at one another Wednesday, suggesting that the issues dividing them are substantial and not easily untangled. SAG Executive Director Doug Allen told the Associated Press that the studios and networks "want us to give up the 50-year-old right actors have to give consent or not when someone wants to use a clip of their (more)

    AND THEN THERE WERE THREE
    Thursday, May 8 2008
    Jason Castro, whose exotic good looks and sweet personality -- rather than his vocal talent -- were often credited for keeping him in the American Idol running until the final four, was eliminated Wednesday night, as 22.4 million viewers tuned in (13.8 rating and a 21 share). (The remaining contestants are David Cook, David Archuleta and Syesha Mercado.) While it remained an unbeatable figure for the Fox show and gave the network another victory (more)

    More Headlines
    ARS GRACIA WHAT?
    09-May-08
    Just weeks after announcing that it is closing down its New Line Cinema unit, Time Warner said Thursday that it will also be shuttering Picturehouse, the art-house arm of New Line, and Warner Independent Pictures, Warner Bros.' own specialty unit. In an interview with today's (Friday) Los Angeles Times, Warner (more)

    MOVIE REVIEWS: WHAT HAPPENS IN VEGAS
    09-May-08
    What Happens in Vegas, starring Ashton Butcher and Cameron Diaz, shoots snake-eyes with critics. Some of their reactions: Rock Grown in the Toronto Globe and Mail: "What Happens in Vegas should damn well have stayed in Vegas." Joe Morgenstern in the Wall Street Journal: "What Happens in Vegas should have (more)

    MOVIE REVIEWS: SPEED RACER
    09-May-08
    Reviews of Speed Racer are likely to compound the nervousness of Warner Bros. execs over the Wachowski Brothers' expensive animated/live-action movie. Cheap horror films are often treated with greater critical kindness. Consider Joe Morgenstern's critique in the Wall Street Journal: "This toxic admixture of computer-generated frenzy and live-action torpor succeeds (more)

    RACING FOR SECOND
    09-May-08
    Few analysts expect Warner ” Bros.' Speed Racer to win the box-office race this weekend. The film -- likely to attract mostly families with small kids -- is expected to gross around $30-35 million. That's about a third of what Iron Man earned a week ago, so if that film (more)

    NBC COMPARES APPLES WITH APPLES
    09-May-08
    NBC, which last year, refused to continue providing television shows for sale on Apple's iTunes Store, has begun making full episodes of The Office and 30 Rock available to users of Apple's iPhone. The shows can only be viewed via a wireless connection; AT&T's Edge broadband service, the default service (more)

    DESPITE STORMY RELATIONS AT ABC, MCPHERSON TO REMAIN
    09-May-08
    Despite industry rumors that his relationship with Disney executives had deteriorated and that he was on the way out, ABC Entertainment President Steve McPherson on Thursday was reported to have signed a new four-year contract with the Disney-owned television network. Terms of his deal were not disclosed. McPherson is credited (more)

    FCC MAY PROBE MILITARY-ANALYST-GATE
    09-May-08
    FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said Thursday that the commission is "looking into" complaints that the television news networks violated FCC rules when they presented military analysts on their news programs who had ties to military contractors and who had received "talking points" from the Pentagon. Asked about a letter sent (more)

    INTERNET BECOMES SOAP BOX FOR SNL COMMENTS
    09-May-08
    Producers of NBC's Saturday Night Live are giving political satire, long a staple of the show, a home of its own on the Internet. Broadcasting & Cable reported on its website today (Friday) that NBC plans to gather a plethora of SNL sketches together to form a site where visitors (more)

    TONYS: ANOTHER REASON FOR MAKING WHOOPI
    09-May-08
    Whoopi Goldberg has been selected to host the 62nd annual Tony Awards -- Broadway's version of the Oscars -- at New York's Radio City Music Hall next month. Her selection ends a two-year experiment to streamline the awards ceremony by eliminating the hosts. Far from boosting ratings, however, the revamped (more)

    WARNER BROS. TO BE FETED AT CANNES
    08-May-08
    The Cannes Film Festival announced plans on Wednesday to pay tribute to Warner Bros. on the studio's 85th anniversary by screening a classic movie from the studio's archives during each night of the festival. The festival said that it will also premiere film critic Richard Schickel's documentary, You Must Remember (more)

    AUTO OUTPACES HOLLYWOOD BLOCKBUSTERS
    08-May-08
    In its first week in the stores, "Grand Theft Auto IV" took in more than $500 million, more than any movie in history has made in its first week. Opening-day sales of the game on April 29 came to $310 million, breaking the record of $300 million set by Microsoft's (more)

    STUDIOS WIN $111 MILLION FROM BITTORRENT SITE
    08-May-08
    The six major studios represented by the Motion Picture Association of America have won a copyright-infringement lawsuit against the file-sharing website TorrentSpy.com amounting to $111 million. The judgment awarded $30,000 to the studios for each of 3,699 illegal downloads. Faced with the legal burden of defending itself, TorrentSpy shut down (more)

    CALL IN THE CLONES
    08-May-08
    Anyone tuning in to a Turner Networks cable channel at 7:58 tonight (Thursday) will be able to view a two-minute trailer for Lucasfilm's animated Star Wars: The Clone Wars, which premieres theatrically on August 15. The trailer will air on the Cartoon Network, CNN, TNT, TBS and Boomerang. In a (more)

    WILMINGTON, NC TO BECOME GUINEA PIG FOR TV SWITCH
    08-May-08
    Wilmington, NC, population 96,000, has agreed to become the first city in the country to turn off its analog TV stations and switch to digital. The FCC said that the city will thereby become a test market on Sept. 8 to determine what problems, if any, the nation may experience (more)

    NEWS CORP'S PROFITS TRIPLE
    08-May-08
    Selling DirecTV to Liberty Media for $1.7 billion and acquiring the Wall Street Journal helped News Corp post third-quarter profits of $2.7 billion, nearly three times as much as those for the same quarter a year ago. The company also benefited from lower content costs for its TV operations as (more)

    In Other News
    ABC SETTING UP STUDENT BUREAUS
    08-May-08
    In what amounts to a significant expansion of its existing intern program for college students, ABC News is planning to open actual student-staffed bureaus next fall at five universities. ABC News President David Westin said in a statement Wednesday that the bureaus will not only allow aspiring TV journalists to (more)

    NBC PLANNING 24-HOUR LOCAL NEWS CHANNELS
    08-May-08
    NBC plans to launch a 24-hour news channel in New York to compete with the existing local news channel, New York 1, operated by Time Warner Cable, the New York Times reported today (Thursday). According to the newspaper, NBC's plan calls for a multimillion-dollar reconstruction of the newsroom at WNBC's (more)

    AFTRA BEGINS BARGAINING TALKS WITH AMPTP
    08-May-08
    The American Federation of Television and Radio Artists began independent negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers Wednesday, after rejecting a new plea by the Screen Actors Guild to hold joint talks. In a message to AFTRA members -- a majority of whom belong to both unions (more)

    INDIES' SUNDANCE CHANNEL IS SOLD
    07-May-08
    The Sundance Channel, a principal outlet for unsold independent feature films and documentaries, has been acquired by New York-based Cablevision Systems for $496 million in stock and cash. The channel had been a joint venture of NBC Universal, CBS Corp., and Robert Redford. Redford, founder of the Sundance Film Festival (more)

    DISNEY INDICATES STRIKE CUT COSTS, SPURRED PROFITS
    07-May-08
    The Walt Disney Co. is the latest media conglomerate to report stronger-than-expected quarterly results in the wake of the recent writers' strike. In fact, it said in its SEC filing Tuesday, net profit soared 22 percent from a year ago, coming in at $1.13 billion on revenue of $8.71 billion. (more)

    AMPTP BREAKS OFF TALKS WITH SAG
    07-May-08
    As expected, the Screen Actors Guild and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers ended their first round of bargaining talks on Tuesday without an agreement. However, although reports had previously described the negotiations as cordial, the latest ones said that they had ended on a bitter note, fueling (more)

    SEX SCANDAL MAY INTERFERE WITH SALE OF WEATHER CHANNEL
    07-May-08
    The Weather Channel, which reportedly is seeking to sell itself for around $5 billion, is attempting to keep secret an arbitration ruling in favor of a former anchorwoman who sued the channel and her former male co-anchor charging sexual harassment, the Smoking Gun website reported today (Wednesday). Hillary Andrews had (more)

    WALTERS SAYS SHE IDENTIFIES WITH COURIC
    07-May-08
    Barbara Walters says she can identify with the problems that Katie Couric is currently facing as anchor of the low-rated CBS Evening News. Like Couric, Walters left NBC's Today show to anchor an evening news program -- in her case, ABC's World News Tonight, where she shared the anchor desk (more)

    FCC ASKED TO PROBE 'MILITARY ANALYSTS'
    07-May-08
    Revelations by the New York Times of an apparent Pentagon propaganda program -- in which more than 75 former military officers were recruited to appear on TV shows to support the administration's policies in Iraq -- may receive the attention of the FCC. The April 20 Times report also disclosed (more)

    PUNDITS PONDER PRIMARIES
    07-May-08
    Hillary Clinton canceled media appearances and other engagements for the day in order to assess the results of Tuesday's primary results. With Barack Obama surpassing analysts' projections in North Carolina and losing in Indiana by only a few thousand votes, TV commentators were predicting that Clinton will issue a concession (more)

    FIRST A STRIKE, NOW RUNAWAY PRODUCTION
    07-May-08
    ABC-TV production crew members, already experiencing sleepless nights as they worry about the possibility of an actors' strike shutting down the industry this summer, now have new reason for concern. The Los Angeles Times reported today (Wednesday) that ABC Studios plans to move production of Ugly Betty to New York (more)

    SWEEPS SWEPT BY LOW RATINGS
    07-May-08
    It certainly didn't look like a sweeps week last week as many ordinarily top-rated television shows recorded some of their lowest ratings ever. Even the No. 1 show, American Idol, saw a worrisome drop in audience figures. The Associated Press observed that CBS's CSI: Miami had its smallest audience ever. (more)


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