Edward Jay Epstein writes in the LA Times that the TV biz now rules Hollywood:

“Suddenly it seems TV is running the movies.

“Last week, Robert Iger, former head of ABC, got Michael Eisner’s spot at Disney. This week, Gail Berman left Fox TV to join another new refugee from television, Brad Grey (former head of Brillstein Grey Entertainment) at Paramount. And the co-president of Paramount’s parent, Viacom, is Tom Freston, onetime head of MTV. The story is similar at Sony, Fox and Time Warner Entertainment & Networks Group, where former TV executives have taken over top jobs.

“No one should be surprised, because the key to understanding the New Hollywood is this: What used to be a business centered in movie houses has been transformed into a business centered at your house. The humble home-entertainment business outpaces the glitter and glamour of red carpets and movie stars.

“In Old Hollywood, prior to 1948, the studios owned or controlled movie houses. In New Hollywood, studios or their corporate parents own or control the main television conduits. Indeed, the major studios’ corporate parents now own all six broadcast networks — NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox, UPN and WB. They also own nearly all the principal cable networks, including ESPN, HBO and CNN.

” Underlying this transformation is a singular reality: The adult population no longer goes to the movies on a regular basis. In 1948, more than two-thirds of Americans went to the movies weekly. Now barely 10% of Americans go in a typical week — and most of them are teenagers.

“Where is today’s mass audience? On any given night, more than 90% of the population is at home watching something on a television set. So Hollywood followed its audience home.

“The six major studios go to great lengths to conceal the different components of their revenue streams from the public and even from financial analysts. The rationale given by one top executive is “to avoid showing Wall Street how volatile the movie business is and how tricky are its profit margins.” They may also want to keep agents and stars in the dark about where they should be demanding the highest participations.”

LOW POWER RADIO UPDATE

From the Prometheus Radio Project, the folks driving the low power radio movement:

“Radio lovers and community activists from Tennessee and beyond will converge in Nashville on the weekend of April 1-3 to raise the antenna of Radio Free Nashville (WFRN), the city’s first and only community-run radio station. The “barnraising” is the seventh such community effort that Prometheus Radio Project has sponsored in collaboration with startup Low Power Radio stations across the country.”

WHITE HOUSE WANTS MORE “BLOOD” FROM CBS

The NY Observer reports that the White House is pleased with the Dan Rather’s resignation at CBS News but Administration media managers there are pushing for more changes to their liking. This is scary because it shows how political pressures creates a climate that leads to bullying, intimidation, and self-censorship

Question: Is there a Rove connection? The NY Times quotation of the day today raises that possibility:
“All roads lead to Karl.”
– KENNETH J. DUBERSTEIN, a Republican lobbyist, on Karl Rove’s policy and
political roles in the White House.

A BLAST FROM THE PAST

CBS has other critics among those that believe it covered up for the government in the aftermath of the Kennedy Assassination. I have written about media coverage of Kennedys killing in my book News Dissector and explored the issue in my film Beyond JFF/ Now a reader passes along information about a more detailed presentation by a JFK assassination researcher. I have only seen part of it, but it is intriguing. Warning: it is long and can only be viewed with a broadband connection.

http://members.aol.com/yesinmylife/index.html

BLOGGERS AT RISK

Bloggers narrowly dodge federal crackdown
By Declan McCullagh

“Political bloggers and other online commentators narrowly avoided being slammed with a sweeping set of Internet regulations this week.

When the Federal Election Commission kicked off the process of extending campaign finance rules to the Internet on Thursday, the public document was substantially altered from one prepared just two weeks earlier and reviewed by CNET News.com.

The 44-page document, prepared by the FEC general counsel’s office and dated March 10, took a radically different approach and would have imposed decades-old rules designed for federal campaigns on many political Web sites and bloggers.

According to the March 10 document, political Web sites would be regulated by default unless they were password-protected and read by fewer than 500 people in a 30-day period. Many of those Web sites would have been required to post government-mandated notices or risk violating campaign finance laws.

The explanation for the dramatic changes during the last two weeks, according to one FEC official familiar with the events, is the unusual public outcry that followed a public alarm that Commissioner Bradley Smith sounded about a pending government crackdown on bloggers. After Smith’s warning, an army of bloggers mobilized to oppose intrusive regulations and prominent members of Congress warned the commission not to be overly aggressive.”