Spielberg tapped for Cannes jury! Kaley Cuoco’s tweet draws heat.
After the coffee. Before seeing if Virgin will bump me to first class on my flight to D.C. just because I’m a good guy.
The Skinny: I know I’ve plugged it before but you really should be watching “Nashville.†Catch up now while the show is on a break for a few weeks! Thursday’s headlines include Steven Spielberg being tapped for a good kind of jury duty and the latest chapter in the spat between CBS and Dish Network.
Daily Dose: While most of Wall Street is cheering all the big deals Hollywood is doing with streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon, Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Todd Juenger has a new report out warning the TV industry about the potential pitfalls that come with this new revenue stream. Writes Juenger: “Very rarely in life can you have your cake and eat it too; even more rarely do you get something for nothing. Viewers streaming hours of SVOD (subscriptioin video-on-demand) content are almost certainly NOT watching hours of something else. If TV ratings decline, that leads immediately to loss of advertising revenues for the networks (and over the long-term, it could even impact affiliate fees).†This, he said, is a material risk for the industry.
Perfect fit. Hollywood loves product placement but some of its movies can prove to be a tough sell for companies that are nervous about the type of material their product appears in. Universal’s “Identity Thief,†a comedy starring Melissa McCarthey as a credit card thief, would seem to be one such example of a movie no company would want to be in. But one company -- LifeLock Inc. -- knows a good fit when it sees it. The Los Angeles Times on how and why LifeLock took a risk on “Identity Thief.â€
Jury duty. Steven Spielberg has been tapped for jury duty but we’re pretty sure he won’t be looking to get out of it. The jury he’ll be on is for the Cannes Film Festival and the director will also be the chair. The festival starts in May and once again I won’t be there. More on Spielberg’s appointment from the Hollywood Reporter.
Plan early. The Oscars just ended and ratings were up. But host Seth MacFarlane, who already said he has no interest in an encore, is getting beat up in some circles for jokes perceived to be sexist and racist. So who should do it next year? Variety wonders. Personally, I think it’s a little too soon to worry about who will host a show happening a year from now but hey, we all have to pump up Web traffic.
PR move. The movie and television industry are launching a public relations campaign designed to inform parents of all the different ways they can monitor what their kids are watching. This comes in the wake of several mass shootings which have led to calls for greater scrutiny of what, if any, role entertainment and video games may play. More on the campaign and the motivations behind it from the Los Angeles Times and New York Times.
Tweeting at the hand that feeds you. Kaley Cuoco, a star of the CBS sitcom “The Big Bang Theory,†may have gotten in hot water with her network after agreeing to tweet a paid endorsement for satellite broadcaster Dish Network’s new DVR called the Hopper, which makes it easier to skip commercials. CBS and the other networks are all suing Dish over its commercial-skipping feature. Dish thinks CBS got the tweet pulled. CBS said it did not. More on tweetgate from the Wrap and the Verge.
Chutzpah. CNBC’s new booking policy, which basically says that guests who appear on CNBC agree not to go on one of its competitors (Fox Business, Bloomberg TV) within 24 hours even applies to public officials. Politico reports that CNBC threatened to drop Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski from a show after learning he was also going on a rival. According to Politico, Genachowski acquiesced and canceled the other appearance. Got to give it to CNBC for having the chutzpah to risk annoying the man who oversees regulation of its industry. Still, that sounds shortsighted on their part.
Inside the Los Angeles Times: Norm Pattiz, a pioneering radio executive, has a new business. A look at the History Channel’s new dramatic series “Vikings.â€
Follow me on Twitter. There are people far more annoying than me on there. @JBFlint.
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