Showbiz Sandbox 622: Actors and Writers Agree That AI Ain’t So Smart
July 11, 2023
The Writers Guild of America members have been on strike for over two months now and might soon be joined by the Screen Actors Guild. When it comes to artificial intelligence however both guilds agree; when their members’ work is used to train AI, actors and writers should be paid. Some writers are now taking matters into their own hands and filing lawsuits against companies for training their A.I. models using their work without permission.
Meanwhile, we’ve known how big music streamers have become on a global level, but now the National Music Publishers Association announced it has cracked the code on figuring out how many subscribers each major service has in the United States.
Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment headlines including how a movie that Disney dumped five years ago beat out Indy 5 at the weekend box office, NBCUniversal promotes some senior executives and Elton John finally wraps up his farewell tour after earning $900 million.
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Showbiz Sandbox 558: Hollywood Workers Scrutinize Gains In New Contract
October 19, 2021
At the eleventh hour the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE), the union representing film and television production workers, negotiated a new contract with studios and networks. What is still unclear is whether workers are grateful about averting a strike or upset they didn’t gain more. Besides gaining wage increases, the union was aiming to clamp down on workplace conditions that lead to long, exhausting hours.
Meanwhile, across the entertainment business, the black hole of data is getting bigger. We don’t really know what streaming shows are popular, we can’t add up all the ways people consume music, TV producers are struggling to prove they’re reaching a lot of eyeballs and Broadway has stopped reporting grosses. Is this just annoying for journalists or a real problem for the industry as a whole?
Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment headlines including why the Grammys are booting Kacey Musgraves from the country music category, Elton John sets a new record on the music charts and Disney loses a key, veteran executive.
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Showbiz Sandbox 545: Writer Paul Rudnick On The Royals, Romance And Rudin
June 15, 2021
When multi-hyphenate Paul Rudnick isn’t writing hit movies or award winning plays he is working on Broadway musicals with the likes of Elton John or busy writing novels. Rudnick joins us for a detailed and humorous conversation about his work and his latest novel, “Playing the Palace.”
We’ll also take a look at the final ratings figures for the primetime television season. Only four network shows increased in total viewers out of over 120 programs that aired during primetime. The numbers for key demographics don’t look much better.
Of course we also cover some of the week’s top entertainment headlines including how Sony Music is changing up how they pay royalties to artists, country singer Morgan Wallen returns to radio and North Korea bans all things K-Pop.
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Showbiz Sandbox 474: YouTube and Facebook Curtail Their Streaming Subscriptions
December 30, 2019
Facebook and YouTube might be giants in technology and media, but they have both decided to sit out the streaming wars. Sure, they’re spending $1 billion per year producing original content but pales in comparison to what the Apples and Amazons and Peacocks and HBO Maxes of the world are shelling out for new content. So, Facebook and YouTube have decided to keep their video offerings free and ad-supported.
As 2019 comes to a close with one of the biggest movie-going weeks of the year it looks as if the industry will end a semi-happy note, with record international box office, perhaps a new worldwide box office record and the second biggest North American haul in history.
Meanwhile, China added another 8,800 movie screens this year, bringing the country’s grand total to a titch under 69,000 in all. And most of the hits playing on those screens are Chinese films and that’s just the way the government wants to keep it.
Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment headlines including why Universal Pictures may have released a new version of “Cats” after it was already in theaters, live news and sports dominates the year’s basic cable ratings and Spotify gets out of politcs.
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Showbiz Sandbox 457: The Biggest Touring Musical Acts Are Older Than Ever Before
July 29, 2019
Take a quick look at the top earning worldwide concert tours and you might be surprised to discover that half of the top ten acts are over 50-years-old. Heck, the number one tour of the year thus far is Elton John and he’s over 70. In fact, thanks to acts like Fleetwood Mac and Bob Seger, the average age of the top ten global touring acts has surpassed 50 for the first time anyone can remember.
Inversely, the age of the top ten recording artists of the year is getting younger, dropping below 30-years-old. This is due in large part to artists such as Ariana Grande, Post Malone, Travis Scott and Khalid who are all under 30 and in the case of Billie Eilish, under 20. We try to understand the age disparity between today’s biggest recording artists and those making their money on the road.
Meanwhile, in China, the burgeoning movie business has fallen on hard times. This is especially true in the cinema industry, where theater owners are contending with a drop in audiences flocking to the glut of new multiplexes that have opened in recent years. At the same time rents for theater locations have skyrocketed and the government imposed quota of foreign releases means many exhibitors are running out of content to show.
Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment headlines including the latest on the dispute between the Writers Guild and talent agencies, the Toronto and Venice Film Festivals announce their lineups and how Metallica got caught scalping their own concert tickets.
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Showbiz Sandbox 397: Thompson On The 2018 Oscar Nominations and Sundance Film Festival
January 29, 2018
Some of the biggest annual headline generators in the entertainment industry all happened to occur during the same week this year; the Grammy Awards were handed out, the Oscar Nominations were announced and the Sundance Film Festival came to a close. Anne Thompson, Indiewire’s editor at large, helps us break down the Oscar nominations while also telling us about the titles from Sundance that we can look forward to seeing in the year ahead.
As for the Grammy Awards, though hip-hop albums by Kendrick Lamar and Jay-Z were heavily favored to win top prizes, it was Bruno Mars who took home the nights biggest honors, including Album of the Year. And though the telecast of the ceremony was filled with performances by the biggest names in music, viewership plummeted to an all-time low.
Meanwhile, the movie ticket subscription service MoviePass caused a stir in Hollywood last week, though not necessarily in a good way. The company removed ten high-profile AMC theaters from its service claiming they were tired of being ignored by the cinema chain. But could the real reason be that MoviePass was simply losing too much money at those locations?
Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment news including why Neil Diamond and Elton John will stop touring, celebrities get caught out paying for social media followers and the story behind an open source, anonymous list of salaries for television writers and producers.
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Showbiz Sandbox 340: Bob Dylan Is A Poet and We Didn’t Know It
October 18, 2016
When Bob Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature last week there were cries of joy and jeers of contempt over the decision. Music Journalist Sal Nunziato joins us to ponder whether Dylan’s work is in fact literature. He explains why, out of all the musicians that could have received such an award, it had to be Dylan.
Nunziato explains who out of this year’s 19 nominees to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame should actually get in. Will Kraftwerk finally make the cut? Joan Baez seems like a no-brainer and nobody would be shocked if Pearl Jam makes it through on their first attempt, but what about bands like Depeche Mode and hip-hop stars such as Tupac Shakur?
Meanwhile, there’s never been more ways to listen to music thanks to streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music. Now Amazon has entered the world of music streaming and hopes that soon every song request begins with the word “Alexa.”
Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment news including an expansion of the latest Harry Potter franchise, Billy Bush reaches a settlement to depart “Today” and Netflix gives comedian Chris Rock a huge payday.
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Showbiz Sandbox 305: Should “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” Box Office Records Require An Asterisk?
December 21, 2015
The release of “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” shattered box office records the world over and became the biggest movie opening of all time by earning $529 million. We explain why in countries such as Japan and South Korea, the latest “Star Wars” not only didn’t win the weekend, but in some cases earned less than earlier installments of the franchise. We also look at the breakdown of which formats audiences favored when buying tickets.
George Lucas’ original “Star Wars” movie was released in 1977 and was added to the National Film Registry in 1989. We weigh in on the annual list of films added to the registry by the Library of Congress, charged with selecting new entrants. It always makes for a fascinating mix; we’ll discuss what made this year’s cut there and why. Hint: It’s not always artistry that counts… and no we’re not looking at you “Top Gun.”
In music news, it turns out online radio services such as Pandora will soon be paying more to license songs. Meanwhile, Adele is trying to prevent her fans from having to pay more to purchase tickets to see her in concert. We’ll tell you about the growing backlash against the secondary market for concert tickets and what some artists are doing about it.
Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment news including how “Star Wars” bumped Quentin Tarantino’s latest movie out of a historic movie theater, Howard Stern signs a new deal with SiriusXM and the list of this year’s inductees to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
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Showbiz Sandbox 198: One Flop Does Not A Studio Break
July 15, 2013
Though the media might like to focus on Hollywood’s failures whenever a big blockbuster tanks, the reality is most movie studios can weather a flop or two. Modern-day entertainment conglomerates include music, merchandising, consumer products and travel divisions of which the movie studio is much smaller part. Disney, for instance, made nine times as much revenue in 2012 on its television media holdings than it did with its movie studio.
Even so, without a pipeline of even modestly successful movies, an entertainment company’s entire operation can eventually suffer. That’s why even though mega-producer Jerry Bruckheimer is in a bit of a dry spell lately, (see “The Lone Ranger”) someone in Hollywood will always be willing to bet on his next project.
The past week also saw a seemingly endless supply of news stories concerning the health of celebrities. Placido Domingo was hospitalized with a pulmonary embolism, Randy Travis is in serious condition after suffering a stroke, Elton John canceled a tour after emergency surgery for appendicitis and it was all topped by the untimely death of “Glee” star Cory Monteith at age 31.
Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment news including the Meredith Vieira’s return to television, a Twitter storm over “Sharknado” and Joan Rivers’ dispute with the Writers Guild.
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Showbiz Sandbox 181: Why The Grammys Telecast Matters More Than Ever
February 11, 2013
While winning a Grammy Award can boost a musician’s record sales temporarily, a knockout performance during the widely viewed ceremony can launch a career. Simply ask Mumford & Sons who stole the show during the 2011 telecast and on Sunday took home the 2013 Grammy for Album of the Year. Will the Lumineers, who performed at this year’s ceremony, follow in their footsteps?
David Wild, a contributing editor for Rolling Stone magazine, helped write the Grammy telecast as he has for the past 12 years. He joins us to discuss how the show was put together, working with host LL Cool J and some of the elements that came off without a hitch (projecting images onto Carrie Underwood’s dress comes to mind). Wild even reveals John Mayer’s secret life as a joke writer.
Meanwhile, digital downloads are already outpacing physical sales in music and will surely do so with books and movies in the not too distant future. But what happens when you want to sell off all those media downloads in the now non-existent digital secondhand market? Amazon is trying to patent technology that will make such sales possible.
Of course we cover the week’s top entertainment headlines including how “The Walking Dead” continues to increase viewership, an end to Don Johnson’s lawsuit over “Nash Bridges” and why some concerts may be sold out before tickets ever go on sale.
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