Category: Business

BBC announces plan to share archives
The BBC has launched a massive program to share its film, audio and document archives with other arts institutions in Britain, marking a new direction for the public broadcaster.
Alan Yentob, the BBC’s creative director, announced Saturday the new initiative will provide archival access, historic materials and even technical assistance in collaboration with the Tate art gallery, the British Film Institute and the British Library.
“As an organization we have to make the most of the downturn by responding to it Ö the BBC has an obligation to share what we have got,” he told the Guardian newspaper. Yentob said the corporation was also in talks with the Royal Opera House and the National Theatre.
“I see the BBC as a broker in these times,” responded Yentob. “It is the next stage for us. We must make sure culture remains confident in this country.”
Yentob’s news also has the BBC signing a three-year agreement with the Arts Council of England, which will provide wider access to the arts and support young talent.
The broadcaster is also expanding its collaboration with the British Museum, which is already working with BBC Radio on a 100-part series titled A History of the World in One Hundred Objects, presented by the museum’s director, Neil MacGregor.
Yentob’s announcement comes only a day after British media had a field day listing the spending practices of BBC executives, including Yentob who was revealed to have spent £1,500 ( $2,700) on a staff Christmas dinner.
Other executives were also exposed, spending hundreds of pounds on sending flowers to talent, lunches with colleagues or actors and presenters, or sending cases of Champagne to television stars.

Billy Joel drummer files NY lawsuit over royalties
NEW YORK ñ A former drummer for Billy Joel claims the Grammy Award-winning singer of hits including “Uptown Girl” and “Movin’ Out” has stiffed him out of royalties for years.
Liberty DeVitto has filed a lawsuit in Manhattan’s state Supreme Court demanding Joel pay him overdue royalties. The 58-year-old says he was Joel’s drummer from 1975 to 2005 and helped the piano man craft some of his biggest albums.
DeVitto’s lawyer says he doesn’t know how much his client is owed. He says Joel’s sales are subject to an audit.
DeVitto says he’s working as a studio musician and teaching to support his family, including three children.
Joel has sold more than 100 million records worldwide. His spokeswoman hasn’t returned a telephone message seeking comment.

Actor’s union board endorses deal with studios
LOS ANGELES ñ The Screen Actors Guild’s board of directors has voted to recommend that members approve a deal reached with Hollywood studios on movie and prime-time TV show productions.
The Guild says in a statement that the plan approved by board members Sunday would give members a 3 percent wage increase upon ratification and a 3.5 percent increase in the two-year agreement’s second year. Members would also get a 0.5 percent pension and health contribution increase.
The new deal follows the Internet provisions earlier agreed to by writers, directors and another actors union. The Guild had waged a yearlong battle for better Internet compensation.
The Guild’s interim national executive director David White says in the statement that the union is eager to get members back to work.

Global box office hits record $28 billion in ’08
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) ñ The global movie box office rose 5 percent to a record $28.1 billion in 2008 as fans sought to escape tough economic times through the triumphs of superheroes in films like “The Dark Knight,” and “Iron Man.”
The Motion Picture Association of America on Tuesday said domestic ticket sales in the United States and Canada reached $9.8 billion, up 1.7 percent from 2007, and accounted for 35 percent of the worldwide total.
The box office in international markets, excluding Canada, climbed to a record $18.3 billion, up 7 percent from 2007, and accounted for 65 percent of the global total.
“Movies can still be counted on to boost people’s spirits as well as the economy,” said Dan Glickman, the chairman and chief executive of the movie trade group, in prepared comments for ShoWest, an annual convention held in Las Vegas.
Glickman said the domestic box office has remained strong in 2009, surging 11 percent in the first 10 weeks of the year.
David Miller, analyst with Caris & Co, said the lineup for the U.S. summer movie season looks exceptional with many big titles set for release, including “X-Men Origins: Wolverine,” “Star Trek” and the newest “Harry Potter” installment.
“We believe the Street now has (a) little more comfort with the summer…lineup out of the studio system, which looks outstanding,” Miller said in a report.
But strong ticket sales have not always helped Hollywood.
Citing strong box office trends, lawmakers recently stripped from the $900 billion U.S. economic stimulus plan a provision to provide $246 million in tax breaks for movie makers that would help fund production.
In his statement, Glickman said it was not only in Hollywood’s interest, but in the U.S. interest, to have constructive policies that protect intellectual property and encourage the economic growth the industry can deliver.
“When folks talk about how well the box office is doing, it’s nothing to apologize for,” Glickman said in a statement.
“Whether we build cars or make movies shouldn’t matter. What matters is getting folks back to work and reviving our economy,” he said.
Unlike previous years, the MPAA did not provide data on the average cost to make and market films — figures that mostly have been on the rise and have offset solid box office.
In last year’s report, the MPAA said the average cost to make and market a film grew to $106.6 million in 2007 for the major studios, up 6.3 percent from $100.3 million in 2006.
An MPAA spokeswoman said the group did not track these figures in 2008 due to an evolving marketplace.
“The industry, the wide diversity of films produced, the labels used for distribution and a host of other factors are all changing so rapidly that year-to-year average cost comparisons are relatively useless and misleading,” said the spokeswoman.
While domestic admissions fell slightly to 1.4 billion in all of 2008, they remained relatively equal to recent years, with the exception being 2002’s high of 1.6 billion admissions.
Admissions rose 7 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008 and eight percent in the first 10 weeks of 2009, the MPAA said.
The rise underscores an old rule in Hollywood that in tough times, people go to the movies for escape.
Average ticket prices in 2008 rose by about 30 cents to $7.18, a 4.4 percent increase roughly comparable to the consumer price index increase, the MPAA said.
The number of films released domestically in 2008 rose slightly from the previous year to 610 compared to 599 in 2007, but films produced in the U.S. dropped 20.7 percent in large part due to economic and labor issues, the MPAA said.
The MPAA said its major studio members released 27 fewer films, while non-MPAA-affiliated independent companies released 38 more new films in 2008, making up the difference.
The MPAA represents major studios like General Electric Co’s Universal Pictures, Time Warner Inc’s Warner Bros, Viacom Inc’s Paramount, which distributes DreamWorks films, News Corp’s Twentieth Century Fox, Sony Corp and Walt Disney Co.

Nirvana’s music a flop for firm
Nirvana’s music has proven to be a dud among advertisers and Hollywood studio executives – because few want to pay to use it in commercials and TV shows.
A company called Primary Wave Music Publishing bought a 50 per cent stake in Kurt Cobain’s music publiching rights from widow Courtney Love in 2006 – for a reported $50 million – but bosses have had little luck making their investment pay off.
Business website Portfolio.com reports plans to place Nirvana songs in TV commercials, video games, ad campaigns and movies have backfired, and, as the 15th anniversary of the rock star’s death approaches, Primary Wave chiefs have earned just over $2 million on their investment.
A source tells the website that one deal to license a number of Nirvana songs to TV bosses at CBS for an episode of CSI: Miami fell through when Love, Primary Wave bosses and Cobain’s former bandmates asked for “twice the industry standard” in licensing fees.
Cobain committed suicide at his home in Seattle, Washington on 8 April, 1994.

Hollywood’s happy, even without a record year
LOS ANGELES ñ Hollywood loves breaking box-office records, yet studio executives aren’t griping that their 2008 lineup will fall a bit shy of the all-time high set a year earlier.
With the overall economy in the pits, movie moguls are just glad to have weathered the year with faithful audiences that continued to crowd into theaters.
“Last year was the record of all time. The economy’s tough. Things are bad out there, and I think if we can have another record-breaking year or close to it, I figure we’ll all be happy,” said Dan Fellman, head of distribution for Warner Bros., which released the year’s biggest hit with “The Dark Knight” ($531 million).
Through New Year’s Eve, 2008 domestic revenues are expected to come in just shy of 2007’s record of $9.7 billion, according to box-office tracker Media By Numbers. Factoring in inflation, the actual number of tickets sold in 2008 is running 5 percent behind last year’s, when admissions totaled 1.4 billion.
Hollywood historically survives recessions better than many businesses because movies remain relatively cheap compared with sporting events, live theater and other forms of entertainment.
While consumer belt-tightening no doubt costs studios some cash, the list of 2008 blockbusters is a sign of a healthy business delivering the goods across every genre.
With a $158.4 million debut, the Batman sequel “The Dark Knight” shattered the record for best opening weekend and has put Heath Ledger on track for a possible posthumous Academy Award as the maniacal villain the Joker.
Paramount and Marvel Studios’ “Iron Man” was the superhero runner-up with a $318.3 million haul. Old-school hero Harrison Ford cracked his whip again as Paramount’s “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” followed closely with $317 million.
Among other smashes: Sony’s Will Smith adventure “Hancock” and James Bond thriller “Quantum of Solace”; Universal’s action tale “Wanted”; and a rush of animated comedies led by the Disney-Pixar charmer “WALL-E.”
While young males remained Hollywood’s core audience, girls and women flocked to theaters for the Warner Bros. comedy “Sex and the City”; Summit Entertainment’s vampire romance “Twilight”; Universal’s musical “Mamma Mia!”; and Disney’s “Hannah Montana” concert flick.
Quality-wise, the summer blockbusters came in a cut above the usual lineup of silly action and lowbrow comedy. Critics liked “Iron Man” and adored “WALL-E” and “The Dark Knight,” the latter heading toward Jan. 22 Oscar nominations with best-picture buzz.
The 2008 lineup showed that hit movies do not “have to be a mindless concept,” said Rob Moore, vice chairman of Paramount, whose 2008 successes also included the comedy “Tropic Thunder,” featuring fresh and wildly different performances from “Iron Man” star Robert Downey Jr. and Tom Cruise. “If you tell a compelling story, you can get an audience to show up.”
With a huge Christmas weekend, Hollywood continued to serve up must-see movies, from 20th Century Fox’s family tale “Marley & Me” to a surge of awards contenders such as “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” “Doubt,” “Revolutionary Road” and “Gran Torino.”
When they see films they like, audiences tend to come back for more. So the goodwill gained from recent successes should help carry the movie business into 2009 ó as long as the movies remain good, said Paul Dergarabedian, president of Media By Numbers.
“It’s vitally important now more than ever that movies deliver, because people are careful about what they’re spending their money on. So they have to be satisfied with the product,” Dergarabedian said. “When audiences use the movies as a retreat from their everyday troubles, that retreat had better make them feel good.”

It’s Tom Hanks vs. Mel Gibson as SAG Splits Into Strike Camps
Los Angeles (E! Online) ñ All work and no contract has made members of the Screen Actors Guild a surly bunch.
While support for an actors’ strike was already running thin thanks to the industry-wide burnout still being felt from the 100-day writers’ strike in 2007-08, the current state of the nation’s economyónot to mention the just-underway awards seasonóhas Hollywood up in arms over what could be another potentially disastrous work stoppage.
A select group of A-listers is in favor of authorizing a strike, should SAG leadership choose to go that route, but nearly 150 big-deal actors have now gone ahead and publicized their avowed opposition to such a move.
George Clooney, Tom Hanks, Alec Baldwin, Cameron Diaz, Steve Carell, Jennifer Garner, Charlize Theron, Matt Damon, Morgan Freeman and Eva Longoria Parker are among the boldfaced names found on a petition that was sent to SAG national president Alan Rosenberg asking the board to cancel a strike-authorization vote scheduled for Jan. 2.
“We feel very strongly that SAG members should not vote to authorize a strike at this time,” the petition read. “We don’t think that an authorization can be looked at as merely a bargaining tool. It must be looked at as what it isóan agreement to strike if negotiations fail.
“We support our union and we support the issues we’re fighting for, but we do not believe in all good conscience that now is the time to be putting people out of work.”
David Boreanaz, Ewan McGregor, Sally Field, Michael C. Hall, Felicity Huffman, Rob Lowe, Kevin Spacey, Josh Brolin, Pierce Brosnan, Glenn Close, Donald Sutherland, Billy Crystal, Ted Danson, Kelsey Grammer, Edward Norton, Tobey Maguire, Bradley Whitford and Helen Hunt also lent their signatures to the document.
Then again, plenty of A- and B-listers are in favor of authorizing a strike, having signed a “Statement of Support” for Rosenberg & Co.’s studio-fighting tactics.
Among the 30 prominent thesps who will stand by SAG if it chooses to play even harder ball are Mel Gibson, Ed Harris, Holly Hunter, Martin Sheen, Sandra Oh, Jerry O’Connell and Rob Morrow.
SAG’s contract with the studio-representing Alliance of Motion Picture and TV Producers expired June 30 and actors have been working under the terms of their own deal ever since.
As was the case with the Writers Guild of America, SAG continues to quibble over new-media residuals and other compensation-related issues.
The AMPTP’s response to SAG’s upcoming vote was as follows: “SAG members are going to be asked to bail out a failed negotiating strategy by going on strike during one of the worst economic crises in history. We hope that working actors will study our contract offer carefully and come to the conclusion that no strike can solve the problems that have been created by SAG’s own failed negotiation strategy.”

Actors Have Little Appetite for Potential SAG Strike
LOS ANGELES — When Hollywood writers began a strike a little more than a year ago, movie and TV stars went out of their way to show solidarity with the mostly unheralded scribes who craft their lines. Former “Seinfeld” star Julia Louis-Dreyfus lugged a picket sign. Jay Leno passed out doughnuts to writers outside studio gates. Dozens of actors shot brief but stylish black-and-white Internet films supporting the scriptwriters.
Now the Screen Actors Guild is pondering its own walkout, possibly as early as next month. But the deepening recession has dampened the militant pro-labor sentiments many celebrities freely espoused last year. With the entertainment business and its tens of thousands of workers still reeling from the three-month writers strike — and with the larger U.S. economy shedding more than half a million jobs last month alone — many top performers show little enthusiasm for another smackdown with the studios.
The chill was palpable as Hollywood celebrated the Golden Globe nominations Thursday, setting up the Oscar race for such contenders as “Revolutionary Road” and ” Frost/Nixon.” Earlier this year, with stars bailing on the ceremony in the depths of the writers strike, NBC offered a truncated, little-watched Globes telecast.
Actors Set Date to Vote on Strike
Next month’s Globes look safe to happen before any walkout could occur. But stars are nevertheless nervous about the long-term effects of a boomerang strike.
“You can’t ignore what’s happening in the economy,” David Duchovny, star of Showtime’s dark comedy ” Californication,” said Thursday after receiving a Globe nomination for best actor in a comedy or musical television series. Duchovny was one of many stars who showed up at picket lines last year to support writers. “Everyone wants to keep on working. Even with what little work there is, to have none would be disastrous.”
Jimmy Smits, a longtime TV star who headlined CBS’ since-canceled drama ” Cane,” said that an actors’ walkout would not be “prudent,” even though SAG and the studios are contending over “really serious” financial issues. “I don’t see it happening,” Smits said of a strike. “Middle America is going to have a hard time with a bunch of actors out there striking when there’s so much hurting going on.”
The A-listers’ shift could highlight a split within SAG’s 120,000-member union. For all their visibility, celebrity actors make up a tiny fraction of the union’s membership, the vast majority of whom do not have regular employment on union-contracted shows. Because these nonworking members do not face the prospect of a lost paycheck from a strike, they are generally more receptive than busy actors to anti-studio rhetoric from SAG’s leadership.
That rhetoric has ramped up in recent days. After months of negotiation, SAG and the studios have hit an impasse over a new deal that would cover such issues as residual payments for movies and TV shows streamed over the Internet. The union announced this week that it would mail out ballots to members Jan. 2 for a vote that would authorize a strike. Seventy-five percent of the membership must vote “yes” for a strike to proceed.
“SAG members understand that their futures as professional actors are at stake,” SAG President Alan Rosenberg said in a statement. “A yes vote sends a strong message that we are serious about fending off rollbacks and getting what is fair for actors in new media.”
To be sure, the recession hasn’t made all the leading performers strike-averse. Some actors express frustration with studio negotiators who they believe are trying to give performers a raw deal by cutting back on current compensation.
“How can you exploit people’s work and not pay them any money?,” said Melissa George, nominated for her work on HBO’s ” In Treatment.” “The myth is that we’re asking for more. We’re just asking to keep [the contract] as it is, not more. That’s not being greedy.”
Others are pro-labor on principle.
“I’m a union guy,” said Blair Underwood, likewise nominated for “In Treatment.” “So if the union decides to strike, I’m gonna have to be out there picketing. One or 2 percent of actors make a living in this game and we as union members need to be respected in terms of residuals and the ability to make a living.”
“At the end of the day I will support my union, whatever they decide,” said Anne Hathaway, an award contender this year for the film ” Rachel Getting Married.”
But top-tier performers are facing a much more awkward position than last year. Sympathizing with the writers during their walkout was relatively pain-free because the actors’ own economic position was not directly at stake.
That helped many actors to walk hand-in-hand with the striking writers. As British actor Tom Wilkinson said last December, “If actors can’t have solidarity with writers — the people who put the words in their mouths — then who can they have solidarity with?”
Now, however, the global economic meltdown has stoked fears that a SAG strike would deal a devastating financial blow not just to performers but also to everyday production workers still trying to recover from the work slowdown caused by the writers strike.
Indeed, with the stock market hammered and money from hedge funds and other private sources drying up, some worry that the survival of the entertainment industry, or at least a large portion of it, is at stake.
“The industry is in such a state of flux, because of the economy and because things are underperforming at the box office,” said Irish actor Colin Farrell, Globe-nominated for the comedy “In Bruges.” “A lot of films are falling apart … I have a lot of friends who are excited to go to work on certain things and the gigs are falling apart. Some pieces are falling apart very close to principal photography. Climate-wise, it’s a worrying time for the industry. I don’t know that a strike at this time wouldn’t be a counterproductive thing.”
Wilkinson, like many of his peers who threw their support behind the writers last year, sounds much more circumspect this time around.
“I don’t really know the ins and outs, since I’m over here in the U.K.,” he told The Times Thursday. “But I don’t think there’ll be a strike. Actors don’t like going on strike. And this financial climate will make it worse … Everyone is hoping for a solution.”

Hiring freeze, layoffs to come at CTV: memo
Layoffs, a hiring freeze and revisions or delays of new projects are in the cards at Canadian broadcaster CTV, according to a memo staff received Tuesday.
In the note, CTV CEO Ivan Fecan blamed both the global financial downturn and “the ongoing structural issues affecting conventional television” for the new operational plan.
Staff are slated to meet at a town hall with Fecan in Toronto on Wednesday to hear further details.
In the meantime, Fecan’s message outlined several cost-cutting measures that were put into place Tuesday.
“Across all TV properties, there will be a hiring freeze,” as well as a halt on travel and entertainment spending, he wrote.
“New projects, unspent capital plans will be revised, delayed or halted” and management has called on each department to “identify efficiencies ó unfortunately, this will result in some layoffs.”
However, organizational changes will not be the same across the board, he said.
“Each situation will be judged by its own circumstances Ö where there is strong revenue or competitive reasons, we may choose to add, not cut, resources.”
The news comes a week after media giant Canwest announced it is cutting five per cent of its workforce, including 210 broadcast and 350 publishing jobs.
Canwest president Leonard Asper partially attributed the decision to the current economic climate and the current pressures facing conventional TV operations.
In July, Statistics Canada reported that revenue for conventional television fell by 5.3 per cent, slipping to $1.267 billion in 2007 versus 2006. By comparison, pay television revenue in Canada rose by 13.5 per cent for the same period, hitting $547 million in 2007.
Both Fecan and Asper also blamed the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission’s recent rejection of carriage fees to help traditional broadcasters, such as CTV, Canwest’s Global television network and CBC-TV.
CTV Inc. owns and operates 27 conventional television stations across the country and has news bureaus across Canada and internationally, including in Washington, London and Beijing.
Its parent company, CTVglobemedia, also owns the Globe and Mail newspaper, 34 CHUM radio stations across the country, as well as TSN, Much Music, Bravo and more than two dozen other specialty TV channels.

Spielberg rejoins Universal in DreamWorks deal
LOS ANGELES – Steven Spielberg’s DreamWorks studio has signed on with Universal Pictures to distribute its films as his company parts ways with Paramount.
Under the seven-year deal, Universal will distribute up to six DreamWorks movies a year domestically and overseas, except for India, executives for both companies said Monday.
Spielberg made his early films, including “Jaws,” for Universal, and his Amblin Entertainment production company remained based on the Universal lot even after Paramount acquired DreamWorks in 2006.
“Universal has always been my home base so this agreement starts a new chapter in what has been a long and successful association,” Spielberg said in a news release. “While it feels great to come home again, it feels like I never left.”
Universal will handle distribution in exchange for an 8 percent fee on revenues.
The deal had been anticipated as DreamWorks broke off from Paramount, where there had been ongoing friction over the costs of keeping Spielberg and his outfit there.
In a partnership with Reliance Big Entertainment of India, DreamWorks has lined up $1.5 billion to finance its future film slate. Reliance is handling distribution of DreamWorks films in India.
Remaining in charge at DreamWorks is Stacey Snider, who became chief executive officer in 2006. Snider previously was chairwoman of Universal Pictures.
“I really feel like it is a homecoming for Steven and Stacey,” said Marc Shmuger, Universal Pictures chairman.
DreamWorks films already finished or nearing completion at Paramount, such as the dramas “The Soloist” and “The Lovely Bones” and next summer’s “Transformers” sequel, still will be distributed by Paramount.
About 30 other films in development while DreamWorks was at Paramount are being split between them. They will retain the option to co-finance and co-distribute those films.
David Geffen, who co-founded DreamWorks SKG with Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg in 1994, negotiated the deal but is not joining the new incarnation of DreamWorks.
The deal does not affect films from Katzenberg’s DreamWorks Animation, which was spun off as a public company in 2004. DreamWorks Animation’s distribution deal with Paramount runs through 2012.