Big Media Earnings Set To ‘Decelerate Sharply’ In 2013 As TV Becomes A Zero-Sum Game

1. Digital platforms (like streaming) are hurting broadcast and cable networks:

As costs rise, TV producers can’t expect to keep generating more cash from licensing agreements with digital streaming providers such as Netflix and Amazon. “Netflix may become more conservative in pursuing future content deals” to steady itself — the company saw thousands of subscribers bolt following the decision in July to raise prices by 60% for those who want to continue to stream videos and rent DVDs. Even if streamers are willing to pay, programmers may want to back off. They’re starting to see evidence that digital platforms take viewers away from traditional broadcast and cable channels.

2. People are sick of paying for cable channels they don’t want:

Programmers also can’t count on cable and satellite distributors to bail them out with higher affiliate payments. They’re eager to maintain their own profit margins, and worry that if they pass higher costs along to consumers then it will drive away even more subscribers. That’s why they’re talking about dropping weak channels or offering customers low-cost packages that don’t include sports services. Owners of “must have” channels probably will still be able to get what they want[.]

And the only reason this bloodletting won’t occur until 2013 is due to the billions that will be spent on political advertising in 2012.

Bottom line: people are sick and tired of paying for programming they don’t watch and/or despise. Why am I paying for MSNBC? Why am I paying for LOGO, E!,  and OWN? I wouldn’t watch those channels on a bet. And to pay my satellite provider $50 a month just to watch Fox News and the occasional football game is outrageous.

My contract with Dish expires in 18 months. I intend to cancel it and get my entertainment from the Internet, Netflix Streaming, Blockbuster, and my embarrassingly large DVD collection. And if I have to wait a year to catch up on a season of “Mad Men” or another “zeitgeist” show, I’ll wait.

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Russell Brand:

These young people have no sense of community because they haven’t been given one. They have no stake in society because Cameron’s mentor Margaret Thatcher told us there’s no such thing.

If we don’t want our young people to tear apart our communities then don’t let people in power tear apart the values that hold our communities together.

As you have by now surely noticed, I don’t know enough about politics to ponder a solution and my hands are sticky with blood money from representing corporate interests through film, television and commercials, venerating, through my endorsements and celebrity, products and a lifestyle that contributes to the alienation of an increasingly dissatisfied underclass. But I know, as we all intuitively know, the solution is all around us and it isn’t political, it is spiritual. Gandhi said: “Be the change you want to see in the world.”

In this simple sentiment we can find hope, as we can in the efforts of those cleaning up the debris and ash in bonhomous, broom-wielding posses. If we want to live in a society where people feel included, we must include them, where they feel represented, we must represent them and where they feel love and compassion for their communities then we, the members of that community, must find love and compassion for them.

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As the title suggests, “Arthur” focuses on the life of one man. Unfortunately, that man is played by the unappealing British comedian Russell Brand, who’s desperate for laughs throughout the story. Brand replaces Dudley Moore, who was nominated for an Academy Award for the original film. Brand has little of the charm that made the original “Arthur” worth seeing and most of the supporting cast are wasted in this remake as well.

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Brand stars the titular rich playboy set to inherit millions of dollars from his family. He spends his days sleeping with beautiful women and generally wasting his life under the supervision of his nanny, Hobson (Helen Mirren). When his mother threatens to take away his inheritance unless he marries a corporate executive named Susan (Jennifer Garner), Arthur begrudgingly agrees. At the same time, Arthur meets and starts falling in love with Naomi (Greta Gerwig), a New York City tour guide who is known by the police for not getting the proper permits for her tours.

The whole remake feels like a platform to showcase Brand’s abilities as a comic actor and as a leading man. Unfortunately, he tries too hard with most of the story’s lame jokes. He always seems to be waiting for the audience to laugh but most of the things he says aren’t funny.

The story takes some wrong turns on its way to get to the few laughs it merits. One scene feels like it belongs on the show “24,” not in a comedy remake. Nick Nolte, appearing as Susan’s sadistic father, decides to threaten Arthur with a table saw. He says that the blade will stop moving when it senses liquid and he tests this theory by almost cutting Arthur’s tongue in half. Aside from that disgusting scene, the entire storyline about Arthur’s fiance Susan is more disturbing than delightful. Susan is an obnoxious business woman who wants to marry Arthur so she can run his family business, an unfortunate arrangement that Arthur’s family approves of.

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Ed. Note: Please welcome Kurt Loder to our growing family here at Big Hollywood. Thanks to our friends at Reason.com, we’ll be co-hosting Kurt’s terrific film reviews regularly, and as a lifelong admirer of The Voice of Intelligent Reason on MTV, this is an unqualified banner day.  — J.N.

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The most hysterical thing about the new Arthur (as opposed to the old Arthur, the 1981 movie starring Dudley Moore) is the instant wave of hatred it has drawn from the nation’s 10 million movie reviewers. Their objections are several. Many appear to feel that the new film sullies the memory of the first one—as if that agreeable entertainment were some sort of sacred text. Others find the picture formulaic (it’s a romantic comedy, a genre always high on critical hit lists) and decry the non-judgmental depiction of its titular multimillionaire in the midst of our current economic meltdown (as if the original Arthur had not itself been released on the cusp of a deepening recession—and as if Hollywood had never produced grand, sumptuous musicals in the pit of the Great Depression). There are also those indignant about the movie’s comedic view of alcoholism (as if William Powell’s martini-marinated Thin Man films had never bestrode the box office), and more yet who resent the presence here, in the old Dudley Moore role, of Russell Brand, a more-than-usually irritating English import, in their view, who’s being force-fed to the indiscriminate moviegoers of this great nation.

I must pronounce myself baffled. Walking out of the movie before I became aware of this monolithic vituperation, I thought it was a fresh and more-than-usually funny rom-com, and that the transformation of Brand from the amusingly addled rock star of Forgetting Sarah Marshall into a full-fledged romantic lead had here been completed. In addition, for a love interest he’s been engagingly paired with onetime indie queen Greta Gerwig (whose onetime admirers are now bewailing this Hollywood sell-out). I can’t imagine anyone who enjoys well-made romantic comedies not enjoying this one.

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I am sure that Congress has a lot more important things to do right now but when we get around to looking at immigration can we get an investigation into how an alleged comic named Russell Brand got a green card.

I’m no expert on immigration law but I think in order to come here to work you have to demonstrate you have some special skills or talent that no American has. This rule prevents big multi-national companies from bringing in a bunch of cheap unskilled labor to take American jobs. For example, let’s say you are a bricklayer and you live in Poland. You may be a good bricklayer but if you want to come to the United States to live you need to go through a long process and show you have some skill that no American bricklayer possesses — unless you are a person who can sneak across the southern border,  in which case you are welcome to come and take an American’s job and pick up some free health care and education. That’s another issue and I have been ADD-ing pretty badly recently so I need to get back to the topic at hand: (more…)

While people fixate on Kanye West’s drunken outburst at the VMA’s last night, remember that he wasn`t the only bozo in the room. The other was British comedian Russell Brand, and worse – he was sober. He had no excuse.

When he wasn’t talking about his genitals – Brand joked about the differences between Britain and the US, saying, “instead of letting people die in the street, we have free health care.”

Well, he’s right.

Britain doesn’t let people die in the street. It lets them die in the hospital.

According to a report from last January`s Nursing Times, NHS hospital patient deaths due to errors have soared 60% in a single year period. Even scarier, according the Telegraph, nine of ten preventable deaths under government care are not even reported. Of the roughly 72,000 deaths in the NHS each year, only 3,200 are noted by the National Patient Safety Agency. (more…)

Russell Brand is only on the first few ticks of his 15 minutes of fame, but he’s already a tough sell to conservative audiences. The British comic unleashed a crude anti-Bush tirade while hosting the MTV Video Music Awards last year, all the while begging viewers to vote for then-Sen. Barack Obama.

Brand proves he isn’t the Molotov cocktail-throwing comedian he appears to be in his new stand-up comedy DVD, “Russell Brand In New York City: Extended and Uncensored.”

He’s actually the male Kathy Griffin. (more…)