Glee Talent Competition Premieres in June on Rival Network Channel, Oxygen

Courtesy of The Glee Project FB Page

As a “turned” Gleek, I was happy to hear that The Glee Project has officially been set to premiere in June 2011 on the Oxygen channel. The reality talent show will offer a seven-episode guest starring role on Season 3 of the hit show, Glee to the winner of the competition. Casting calls began back in March 2010 when Myspace announced an online casting call that drew about 28,000 video submissions from hopefuls across the U.S. Further in- person casting calls were held recently in Chicago (Dec. 18 & 19) and Dallas (Jan. 8 & 9). Judging by the videos I’ve seen of self-recorded auditions, this may prove to be tough competition and certainly an entertaining one.

However, I think it’s funny that the executive producers, Ryan Murphy and Dante Di Loreto would move their reality competition to a cable network that isn’t even affiliated with FOX Broadcasting or NewsCorp. Instead, Oxygen is part of the NBC Universal network. Does this signal potential cooperation in the future during rough times? Somehow, I highly doubt it. NewsCorp will still be getting a nice chunk of money out of this strange move as Oxygen has also bought the syndication rights to Glee and will begin a second season marathon on Feb.5.

When both producers were asked about the move, Di Loreto only stated that since 20th Century Fox is green-lighting The Glee Project, the studio has the right to place it on any network it deems fit. Taking a look at Oxygen’s target audience , there does appear to be good reason for moving. The cable channel attracts women ages 18-49, which encapsulates all women from college girls to women in the workforce. On the other hand, FOX Broadcasting is more prone to be associated with a bigger male audience, especially with its Sports division.

Seeing as Glee is that type of show which women can spend hours talking about but men will quickly deny ever having seen an episode, I feel the switch was made in good interest.

The Glee Project is slated for 10 episodes in June. Which high school stereotype would you most want to see portrayed by this new TBD actor/actress?

Personally, I could go for the skater dude/chick.

New Literary Blog 2011 Launch

I am collaborating in the new year with a good friend on a literary blog! Come check us out at

http://theliteraryrapport.wordpress.com

Thank you.

Internet Quickly Becomes Preferred News Source in America

The Pew Research Center released a report on Tuesday which indicated that the Internet is coming close to TV as the preferred news source for national and international news.

• 41% of Americans now cite the Internet as their main news source. This is a 17 point increase from 2007.
• Conversely, 66% still cite TV as their main news source, BUT this is a drop from 74% only 3 years back.

The Pew Center surveyed 1500 adults in early December and trends continue to show the rise of the Internet as a more popular form of communication than newspapers or television. Of course, this trend is most prevalent with the 18-29 year old age group, with our preference for the Internet almost doubling from 34% in 2007 to 65% now.

More can be gleaned from the report, but what I found interesting was the pattern that people who didn’t continue past a high school education were the ones who cited TV as their main news source and the lower the education history, the less likely one would cite the Internet as their primary news source. This pattern holds for household incomes as well with families making less citing TV as their primary news source.

I hadn’t ever seen statistics that broke it down this way before and I’m a little surprised by the fact that people with a high school education would rather watch TV than go on the Internet for news stories because most of our public schools (I speak for NYC at least) already encourage spending a lot of time doing homework that requires Internet use. So it can’t be that people don’t know how to and/ or are uncomfortable using the Internet.

The rest of the report doesn’t come as much as a surprise since I can admit that I’ve cut down on my own TV consumption too since starting college. I watch most of my TV shows online now as well because it’s just so convenient and online video ads are much shorter than TV commercials.

Just more bad news for cable and broadcast news stations…

 

Winklevoss Twins Return to Court to Seek More from Facebook

Happy New Year, everyone! As promised, I will continue to blog about media happenings in 2011 since I enjoyed doing this for a college course in 2010. Also, I will be  launching a NEW collaborative literary blog with a good friend in the coming week as part of my New Year’s resolution to be more ambitious in 2011. I invite you to check it out when I post up the link soon.

Now on to the main topic. As expressed in my bio, I am a frequent Facebook user and nothing seemed more appropriate than kicking off 2011 with some Facebook news. Unfortunately, it isn’t good news for Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg’s fellow Harvard alums, Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss are backing out of a previous lawsuit settlement made with Facebook in 2008 on the grounds that they were deceived about Facebook’s net worth.

Back in 2008, the Winklevoss twins agreed to a $65 million settlement to end a lawsuit that accused Zuckerberg for stealing their idea for what became today’s highly popular, Facebook. The settlement included $45 million in Facebook shares and $20 million in cash. Pretty sweet deal, right?

Not good enough for these twins though. They’re headed back to court this month to appeal for an undoing of the settlement so they can re-open the case against Zuckerberg to gain a better deal. They claim that Facebook had misled them about how much Facebook shares were worth when they accepted the $45 million. With Facebook’s estimated worth at $50 billion, they are looking at possibly a huge increase in shares if they are successful.

With Facebook’s soaring profitability, I’m not surprised that the Winklevoss twins are looking to gain more, but is it really about the vindication that they claim is the main reason for their choice to re-open this case? They certainly don’t “need” the money since both have moved on since their Connect U days. They’re Olympic rowers preparing for the 2012 London Olympics for pete’s sake.

So why not just let bygones be bygones? I see how they may feel cheated but constant dwelling on a subject that’s been previously settled seems rather petty, no? I don’t understand how trying to get more money out of it helps them seek the justice they so badly desire. If they successfully win a better deal, they get more shares but that doesn’t stop Zuckerberg or Facebook from continually becoming more popular.

More shares simply means they get to reap more profits as Facebook rises in worth but how is that vindication for being slighted? They reap profits for something they claim is originally theirs, which seems fair, but if it was really about the justice, they wouldn’t want shares in something that they now must support if they want their shares to be worth anything in the future.

I just dont’t buy the whole vindication claim, but that may just be me. If the twins decide to donate everything they win to a charity they support, maybe that would be a more useful handling of the settlement assets than having to support something that serves as a constant reminder of their misfortune (if they win more shares)?

Wishful thinking on my part there.

I leave you with a 60 minutes interview they recently did.

Short December Hiatus

For you fantastic readers,

I will be taking a short break from blogging since final exams are approaching and I am so backed up on reading. I’ve enjoyed blogging about the media and have every intention to continue after finals! What started out as a class assignment for my Online Journalism class has turned into a fun outlet for dispensing my first reactions to media related news.

Hopefully, you will join me again in 2011 when I continue my attempt at putting together the media puzzle!

Til then,

Nancy C.

P.S. If you have anything you’d like me to blog about, feel free to leave me a comment or send me an email (found in Pieces of Me) and I will be happy to share my thoughts on it in a blog post.

Murdoch Will Unveil the iPad’s First Exclusive Newspaper

At the end of this month , News Corp tycoon, Rupert Murdoch will be unveiling the first digital newspaper created exclusively for the iPad: The Daily. He will be joined by Steve Jobs, who has supported the flagship project since News Corp first began working on it a few months back. A full launch is planned for 2011.

I’d just like to take this moment to say one thing before going any further: Having read about Murdoch’s empire and how he began as a business man, I am extremely impressed with this man even if I don’t agree with many of the things he does. Even at his age, he is still as sharp as ever in pinpointing where News Corp needs to head next in order to continue as a media conglomerate.

With that said, I think News Corporation’s creation of The Daily is a logical and sensible venture, considering what the media landscape looks like right now since the release of the iPad. Publications have begun to develop apps for their content to be sold and viewed on the iPad and News Corp’s own Wall Street Journal app has been successful in the new format. Studies have also projected that by the end of 2011, there will be 40 million iPads in circulation. All this easily suggests that a daily iPad newspaper would certainly be profitable, right?

Source: Meme Burn

Well…not quite. The Daily currently is run by a staff of 100 journalists, drawn from other notable publications such as The New Yorker and New York Post. While every staff member has experience, it is not enough if the paper intends to be daily and publishes only original content. There will be some content drawn from FOX, but the majority is expected to be original reporting.

Also, it will not allow linkage in and out of its articles. This is certainly a huge problem because media consumers everywhere have grown accustomed to the variety of info that links can provide to enrich an article. Without them, it may feel strange to a consumer because there is no other way of interacting with the article aside from just reading it. You can’t write a comment, tweet it, like it (on FB), or share it with other people. In other words, blocking links will cripple the success of this new paper.

There are a multitude of reasons circulating right now about why this new digital paper will not work and rather than listing them all, I strongly invite you all to read Gawker’s post on “Why the iPad Newspaper is Doomed.” It does an excellent job of laying out all the reasons for optimism or pessimism regarding this new paper.

As for me, I refuse to even buy an iPad because I will always prefer the actual, tangible publication as opposed to an app version. The concreteness of a book, magazine, or newspaper just does “it” for me as strange as that may sound. However, I do hope News Corp and future publications can work out these kinks and would be happy to see digital newspapers succeed because that could mean more potential jobs for all our aspiring journalists!

Harry Potter Astounds with $330 Million Worldwide Box Office Total (with Good Reason)

The beginning of the end has finally arrived and  people across the globe rushed to theaters this past weekend to watch the highly anticipated first part of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. This easily allowed the movie to walk away with $330 million in box office ticket sales its opening weekend. As of Monday, the movie has already made $133 million in the U.S alone. Figures like these only further support my belief that Time Warner will not succeed in trying to replace this beloved franchise with a slew of comic superhero films.

Advertising for this movie trickled into the media a year in advance and all posters, trailers, and sneak peeks played up the darker element of this final installment in two parts. According to Warner’s president of domestic distribution, Dan Fellman, this ad campaign resulted in 25% of ticket buyers coming from the 18-34 demographic, which is notably the hardest demographic to target because we just don’t like to commit to anything. This is a huge improvement to the 10% the first movie earned from this demographic.

I did not see the movie myself until tonight and it absolutely deserved all the hype, ticket sales, and promotions that led up to the release! After the movie ended, I didn’t want to leave my seat and had every desire to just sit there for the next 8 months so I could be the first to see Part 2. The movie ends on such a ominous note that I’m just left with the need to know “What’s next?”

Source: Online Movie Hut

Yes, I’ve read all the books and clearly know how the story ends, but part of this fantastic movie experience is also seeing what creative changes/additions have been made. While many die-hard fans will insist on having the movies follow the books, I actually look forward to seeing what is different because movies aren’t books and if they followed Rowling’s writing down to the last detail, where  is the suspense in that?

David Yates’ last outing with Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was quite disappointing for my taste so to see him come back and completely perform above average was very pleasant to watch. The advertisers who worked on this campaign should highly be commended too for pinpointing the “darker element” as the aspect to sell without giving away just “how much” darker the film is. As I watched specific scenes unfold onscreen, I was surprisingly forced to recall the atmosphere of Nazi Germany. This is not something you get from the books and is wholly unique to Yates’ film.It doesn’t encapsulate the whole film either so that audiences leave disturbed. There were just the right amount of scenes to evoke this feeling and then continues on. Yates does an excellent job in weaving this feeling into Rowling’s story.

If you haven’t seen it by now, I highly recommend an IMAX showing because there are scenes that only have its full effect on you when you watch it in IMAX.

Warner Bros. Seeks Superhero Successors for Harry Potter Franchise

Edit: Check out my new literary blog at http://www.theliteraryrapport.wordpress.com. Thanks!

With the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 this past Friday, there is only 1 film left before Warner Brothers closes the door on its most successful movie franchise for the past 10 years. Facing this daunting reality , it is only logical to be thinking- What’s next?

According to Alan Horn, Warner Bros. president, the film studio will turn to DC Comics superheroes (i.e. the successful Batman films by Christopher Nolan),  Sherlock Holmes sequels, and two Hobbit prequels to fill the gap HP will be leaving.

“We’re doing our best to get the DC properties lined up like airplanes taking off from the runway,” added Horn, who hopes that the DC Comics superheroes will be the backbone of a slew of future franchises.

A simile like that begs one question: How successful will Warner Bros. be at creating this superhero franchise?

Source: Corona Coming Attractions

Most of us will probably share the film studio’s grief in seeing our beloved Hogwarts world disappear after Part 2 releases in July, but to try to mimic the success of Harry Potter with  fantasy superhero films seems hasty and unlikely to succeed.

For one, comic book superheroes have a niche audience; 12-24 year old males who are single, play video games, and have disposable income. This means that comic superheroes beyond the well-known Batman and Superman don’t have the mass audience appeal necessary to support a franchise of films. Take, for example, the upcoming Green Lantern film. I personally do not read comics so until someone showed me the trailer, I knew nothing about Green Lantern as a superhero. While Ryan Reynolds is sure to attract a female audience, even his casting can’t guarantee a hit film for a generally lesser-known superhero.

We have a perfect example of this in Jonah Hex, released in June 2010. It cost $47 million to make and only earned $10.9 million in worldwide box office sales.  Josh Brolin was cast as the title superhero, but unless you read the Western comic, you probably had no clue who Jonah Hex was. The Western genre certainly wasn’t enough to attract audiences who had just seen the trailer.

Secondly, while superheroes may have long story lives in comics, they have proven the exact opposite on the big screen. It would be extremely difficult to get a whole 8 film franchise out of any superhero because it is hard to keep the general audience who doesn’t read the comic interested past 3 films (i.e. Marvel’s Spiderman franchise).

A major reason why the Harry Potter franchise has endured is because the books do have an ever-growing readership and people will always want to see how the movie differs from the original book. Comic book superheroes can’t do this because their stories do not receive the same amount of attention as the “Boy Who Lived.”

Therefore, Warner Bros. is going to have to look a little further for their next franchises. I pluralize because they will certainly need several to fill the big shoes Harry Potter has left.

NYC Hosts Quidditch World Cup

New Yorkers got a real treat this year, a weekend before the much anticipated Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 release on November 19th, as the 4th International Quidditch World Cup took place this weekend at Clinton Dewitt Park.

NYC Badassilicks Quidditch team

An avid fan of J.K Rowling’s Harry Potter series, it was extremely exciting to witness Quidditch live after having seen multiple Youtube videos of the Muggle-adapted version. In videos, the sport comes off as just a lot of aimless running around. An agile male dressed in tight yellow clothes  makes a few laps around a college campus and then returns to the playing field to allow seekers to retrieve the ball in a sock that is attached to the rear of this yellow sprinter.

When witnessed live, I finally understood why this Muggle version is so popular: Muggle style Quidditch is very physical and there is a lot of contact! Games are limited to 30 minutes, but so much happens. As I watched the multiple games that took place on Saturday, I was amazed by the intricate rules set up by the International Quidditch Association to imitate real Quidditch as close as possible. For example, when a Chaser is hit with a Bludger (by a Beater), the Chaser must run back to his/her own goal post, tag it, and only then is allowed to resume play. This makes up for the time a wizard would use to get back on a flying broom.

Snitches this weekend provided a lot of amusement as well. There were multiple men and women snitches all weekend and everyone performed their role differently. Some made it easy for the seekers while others took their roles quite seriously and grappled with Seekers ferociously (which is allowed). Aside from being great runners, a number of the snitches had also wrestled back in high school or currently in college. This made for great entertainment when Seekers, who know nothing about wrestling, were tossed aside and taunted by their game Snitch.

Many of the referees also played Quidditch when they were in college, making them perfect for the job. However, when they missed something, other teams watching will gesture, signal, and yell immediately to try and get the referee to give a fair call. This was great to watch because with Muggle Quidditch being only 5 years old (began in 2005), all the Quidditch teams exhibited an overwhelming amount of good sportsmanship even though they are technically all competing for the same prize. There was a sense of camaraderie among all of them that is rarely seen in regular sports.

Vassar & Harvard hug after a Vassar victory.

Today, the Cup continued with elimination games that began at 10am. By 4pm, the last four teams remaining were from Vassar College, Tufts University, University of Pittsburgh, and Middlebury College (founder of Muggle Quidditch). After the semifinals were played, Tufts and Middlebury advanced to play in the Championship game at 5pm. After a grueling 25 minutes of play, Middlebury won the 4th World Cup after Tufts Seeker captured the Snitch, which did not give Tufts enough points to win. The score had been 100-50 Middlebury and the Snitch adds only 30 points, making the final game score 100 (Middlebury) to 80 (Tufts). Along with a trophy, Middlebury also wins a set of brooms from Cup sponsor, Alivan’s.

I can’t wait till the Quidditch World Cup returns to NYC because this weekend has made me a true Muggle Quidditch fan! Go Tufts Tufflepuffs! (unless Fordham University decides to start a team, of course.)

This weekend has also contributed greatly to the hype surrounding the new Harry Potter movie release in one important way: it puts the world of Harry Potter on the news a whole week earlier than usual. Harry Potter movie related news is often covered in excess after its release and the few days leading up to its release. The World Cup added an entire week, which is bound to mean history-making box office figures next weekend.

Green Mountain College vs.University of Minnesota

Minnesota Chaser is pursued by Green Mountain Beater.

A goal post is knocked down during the game.

Online Privacy Regulation “Might” Happen

Both the U.S Commerce Department and Federal Trade Commission are slated to release independent reports in the next few weeks regarding the regulation of privacy on the Web. This is coming after both Google and Facebook, two of the Web’s dominant players right now, faced criticism and/or investigation for privacy breach issues.

Currently, there are no laws governing consumer privacy online. The FTC steps in only when a “privacy-violating action is deemed deceptive or unfair.” Otherwise, self-regulation by Web companies is the model followed that leaves many users unsure of what personal information they are sharing each time they surf a website.

It feels like “regulation,” which tends to be the kiss of death for any Web company thriving on advertisers and an active user community, has been one of those concepts thrown around for a while, but never amounting to anything within the Internet business.  These two reports may not be much yet, but it does inch us closer to more concrete stipulations from U.S government rather than merely self-regulation (clearly not working).

The FTC report is suggesting a “privacy by design” method in which websites build in a privacy feature (i.e. don’t track tool) for the browser. It also intends to encourage more transparency for users if their info is being collected so that at least you know where your info is going. The basic outline of this sounds doable to me and I would not object to seeing a button I can click to not be tracked or have my info recorded. It definitely beats checking “I agree” privacy statements that are often too long to read through. No online user has the patience to sit through a 1 page list about a company’s privacy policies.

Source: Conoco Philips UK

The Commerce Department’s report seems much more conservative in that it wants to preserve the self-regulation model, but build more on the “user agreements” that ask the user to check a box to agree to abide by them (exactly what I hate doing.).

The full reports have yet to come out so these are only early summaries of parts of each report. Hopefully, by the time they each are released, there will be more good news for the online user.