The Politics-Is-Good-For-Television meme I brought up a couple of weeks ago takes it to the extreme:
On average, Obama’s 30-minute primetime infomercial managed to outperform usual broadcast network programming in the time period.
The Obama special was seen by 26.3 million viewers across broadcasters CBS, NBC and Fox, according to preliminary Nielsen ratings.
I don’t know what [...]

Box Office Weekly #137 (MP3 - 14 MB - 19 min)
In today’s show, Weekend Box Office Figures, TV Ratings and these stories:�Top-earning Dead Celebrities!… Donny And Marie will haunt you forever… and in this week’s commentary, politics is box office poison! All this and a story about politics, today on Box Office Weekly.
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 Box Office Weekly #137 [18:57m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

A couple of weeks ago I marveled at the huge splash that politics was making in TV ratings. The news channels are up, SNL is more watched than it’s been in years, people even watched the debates, for heaven’s sake. You got a media company, you can’t go wrong with politically-themed entertainment.
Except.
Except in the movies. Oliver Stone’s take on [...]

Bulletin! Via Daily Variety:
For his next directing effort, Steven Soderbergh is plotting a 3-D live-action rock ‘n’ roll musical about Cleopatra.
He is courting Catherine Zeta-Jones to play the Egyptian queen and Hugh Jackman to play her lover, Marc Antony.
The $30 million “Cleo” will be shopped for financing and distribution within the next two weeks. Greg [...]

Box Office Weekly #136 (MP3 - 16 MB - 22 min)
In today’s show, Weekend Box Office Figures, TV Ratings and these stories: Yahoo doesn’t have anything to yell its own name about… Universal gets its hooks back into Spielberg … and in this week’s commentary, a hyper-irrelevant look at roller-disco classic Xanadu! All this and [...]

 

 Box Office Weekly #136 [21:42m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Feeling a little under the weather on Friday, I declined to do my usual fruitless search for a date and instead opted for a cup of chamomile tea and a Hulu screening of XANADU. I wonder if there is a way to say that so it sounds less gay?
The digital revolution has had unexpected consequences, [...]

So I got home from work just a while ago and piped my computer through the bigscreen, the better to watch last night’s episode of THE DAILY SHOW. They’re on Hulu.com, free with about three minutes of commercials.
One of these commercials was for DirectTV, the satellite service.
Savvy marketing, dontcha think? Hulu is a terrific way [...]

This story almost made it onto the show: Barack Obama has bought virtual billboard space in a video game.
Last week we noted unconfirmed sightings of an “Obama for President” billboard in the Xbox 360 racing game Burnout Paradise. Today we’re able to report that it is, in fact, an official advertisement placed by the senator’s campaign team.
The post [...]

Box Office Weekly #135 (MP3 - 15 MB - 21 min)
In today’s show, Weekend Box Office Figures, TV Ratings and these stories: Leave Ringo Alone!… Poor poor pitiful Sumner Redstone… and in this week’s commentary, what I’m doing right now will never make me any money! All this and get ready for another dozen “Beverly [...]

 

 Box Office Weekly #135 [21:01m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

I think I’ve mentioned once or twice on the show that I’m taking a voice acting class. This weekend marked the end of the beginner course, and I’m confident that I’ll be invited back to the intermediate course in November. For one thing I’m pretty good; for another it means $550 into the pocket of [...]