Publishers Putting Out Too Many Books
NEW YORK - The publishing industry continues to put out more books than the public is prepared to buy, according to a report issued Monday by the Book Industry Study Group.
The number of books sold dropped by nearly 44 million between 2003 and 2004, even as the annual number of books published approaches 175,000.
"People are reading less, so what you're seeing is the same phenomenon that has hit magazines and newspapers, a massive shift toward home video, DVD, internet and cable," said Albert N. Greco, an industry consultant and a professor of business at the graduate school of Fordham University.
The Book Industry Study Group, a nonprofit research organization, reported estimated sales of 2.295 billion books in 2004, compared to an estimated 2.339 billion the previous year. Higher prices enabled net revenues to increase 2.8 percent, to $28.6 billion, but also drove many readers, especially students, to buy used books, Greco said.
The BISG anticipates a better year in 2005, thanks to the new Harry Potter book, "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," and to a surge in high school and elementary textbook sales, with many states due to order new editions.
"We see that as a temporary spike," Greco said.
After 2005, the BISG expects a flat market for the following four years. Religious titles are an exception, with both dollar sales and the number of actual books sold expected to average more than 6 percent annual growth into 2009.
"The key isn't so much Bibles and prayer books, it's what we call `other' religious books," says Greco, citing such multimillion sellers as Rick Warren's "The Purpose Driven Life" and the "Left Behind" novels of Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins.
An especially troubled area, Greco says, is college textbooks. While no hard statistics have been compiled, many believe that students are increasingly turned off by prices for new books and instead buying used editions. The BISG anticipates a steady drop in sales for new works, from 68 million in 2004 to 64.4 million in 2009.
"It's an unbelievably sophisticated business," Greco said of the used textbook market. "You get people visiting campuses and sending students e-mails, encouraging them to sell their books once they're done with them. You have instructors selling their exam copies of textbooks so that students have used editions within a very short time after a new book comes out.
"Another problem is online piracy from abroad, kids downloading texts from Web sites in Asia and other places. I had one student come in and show me the book he was using for my class. It looked exactly like the textbook I assigned, except the illustrations were in black and white."
Sony Unveils New PlayStation 3 Consoles
LOS ANGELES - Sony Corp. unveiled three flavors of its new PlayStation 3 video game machine Monday in what is likely a new round of console wars with rivals Microsoft Corp. and Nintendo Co.
The new machine, set for release in the spring of 2006, is about the same size as the current generation PlayStation 2 but has a more rounded look. Besides black, the PS3 will be available in silver and white.
Sony officials said the PS3's new processor technology — called Cell — will offer high performance for movie-like realism in games, high-definition movies and other features.
"The PS3 is truly is a system to be placed in the center of the living room," said Ken Kutaragi, creator of the original PlayStation console as well as the more recent PlayStation Portable handheld.
Prices or a specific lineup of games that will be available were not were not provided, though Sony showed off numerous demonstrations of games in development.
The PS3 will use the Blu-ray disc format, capable of holding 50 gigabytes of information, which is about six times the capacity of existing DVDs, as well as slots for memory cards, a detachable hard drive and Bluetooth wireless for up to seven wireless controllers.
The PS3 also will be able to run the thousands of games available for the older PS2 and PS1, officials said.
One demonstration PS3 game showed a fiery battle between a soldier and a robot in an intricately detailed futuristic city. Individual tattoos and bits of blood could be seen on the warrior's face, while shafts of light beamed down from the rafters of a metallic corridor.
The announcement comes two days ahead of the Electronic Entertainment Expo, an annual industry gathering in Los Angeles.
Last week, Microsoft showcased its new Xbox 360 in a 30-minute special on MTV.
Microsoft said it would begin selling Xbox 360 in North America around Thanksgiving, and Europe and Asia by the end of the year.
No pricing details have been announced on any of the systems.
Nintendo will discuss its new console, code-named Revolution, further on Tuesday morning.
In 2004, Sony's older PlayStation 2 led the U.S. console wars with 43 percent of the market, according to Jupiter Research. The original Xbox was a distant No. 2 with 19 percent, followed by Nintendo's GameCube at 14 percent. The remainder included handheld game systems.
But by 2010, Xbox 360 would grab the lead with 38 percent of the market, followed by Sony with 32 percent and Nintendo with 22 percent, Jupiter forecasts.
Microsoft is taking an entertainment hub approach with Xbox 360.
The curvy, white machine plays DVD movies and lets users listen to music, view photos and do real-time video chats with friends and relatives around the world.
The Xbox 360 features three processors, a removable 20-gigabyte hard drive, a custom graphics chip and built-in wireless for cable-free access to the company's Xbox Live online multiplayer service.
Last 'Raymond' Displays Some Tenderness
NEW YORK - Holy crap! Raymond nearly died. Well, not really. But while Raymond was having his adenoids removed, the nurse told his family he was having trouble waking from the anesthesia. A few moments later, the doctor reported that he was fine. But this momentary close call got everybody agitated over what it would be like to actually lose Raymond.
"For 30 seconds, you all thought I might be dead," he said later when his family had told him what happened. A sly smile crept across his face as he prepared to take full advantage of their momentary scare. "What did everybody do?"
So went Monday's funny finale of "Everybody Loves Raymond," which, in its own indirect way, addressed viewers, too, who now are losing Raymond after 210 episodes.
It was a typical outing, with just a little farewell tenderness — in Raymond's throat after the surgery, which he was nursing with ice cream, and in the hearts of the usually bickering Barones.
But just a little. "Raymond" was a series that, even at the end, wouldn't think of going soft on the domestic tensions that bonded Raymond (Ray Romano) with his wife Debra (Patricia Heaton), his meddling parents Frank and Marie (Peter Boyle and Doris Roberts), and his sad-sack brother Robert (Brad Garrett).
As usual, Raymond played his long-suffering wife against his over-adoring mother.
"You'll just have to have it done," Debra said when he told her he would need to have the surgery.
"Is that it? That's your attitude?" Raymond replied, indignant that she wasn't more upset.
Marie, by contrast, had a fit.
"They want to take a piece of my Raymond away," she wailed.
And although on this particular episode Frank didn't utter his trademark "Holy crap!," he was as crusty and uninformed as ever. Downplaying Raymond's operation early on, he advises, "Just go in, drop your drawers, bing-bang-boom!"
Nine years ago this month, "Everybody Loves Raymond" was announced as part of CBS' new fall lineup. But when the series was first shown to advertisers at Carnegie Hall, its star, then a little-known standup comedian, cracked up the gathering by bidding them farewell.
"This is going to be my last year on the show," he quipped. "We said it all in the pilot."
After an uncertain start in 1996 on Friday night, "Raymond" caught fire with its move a few months later to Monday, where it became a viewing ritual for millions.
Clearly, the audience found its simple concept not only funny but highly relatable.
The "Raymond" pilot set the tone from which the show never varied. When Ray bought his parents a Fruit of the Month Club subscription, his good turn inevitably backfired. His agitated parents demanded: How could he do this to them? All the pressure of eating a year's worth of fruit! And besides, was this "club" some kind of cult?
"Like we don't have enough problems!" Frank grumped.
The departure of the show — TV's only top 10 comedy — follows by a year the exits of other beloved, long-running comedies: "Friends," "Frasier" and "Sex and the City."
With no recent sitcoms making a splash (only CBS' "Two and a Half Men" is in the top 20), "Raymond's" goodbye had viewers wondering (and not for the first time): Is the sitcom dead?
A chaotic final kitchen scene showed the whole brood at full throttle. But before that, Ray and Debra had a rare moment alone.
"You like me," he told her with a sheepish grin.
"You like me, too," she replied.
They ended up in bed, where Raymond had been recovering from his surgery.
"And after we get done," he said happily, a boy-man to the finish, "we get to have ice cream."