ArtsJournal: Arts, Culture, Ideas

AUDIENCE

COVID Broke The Habit Of Going To The Theatre

Can anything - musicals, serious plays, popular actors, dramatic cuts to staff, or great bundles of tickets - fix this issue? Who knows? "Audiences haven’t fundamentally changed since they started gathering at dramatic festivals in ancient Greece." - Los Angeles Times

TikTok Sells A Lot Of Books Through BookTok – And Maybe Now As A Publisher

"By tapping into TikTok’s ability to drive attention to books and its vast trove of user data, ByteDance could boost its own authors at the expense of others and make BookTok less organic and user-driven, a prospect that worries many TikTok users and authors." - The New York Times

Going Virtual During COVID Turned Into A Major Success For Dallas Black Dance Theatre

"(Executive director Zenetta) Drew said the theatre's (online) programming has continued to net six figures each year and has also brought in new audiences from across the world. Since 2020, DBDT has reached 38 states and 35 countries outside the U.S. with paid virtual content." - KERA (Dallas)

TKTS, Times Square’s Famous Half-Price Ticket Booth, Marks 50 Years

"Some 68.6 million tickets have been sold from the booth during its 50 years, with more than $2.6 billion going back to the shows. Despite the rise of ... apps hawking discounted theater tickets, lining up at the booth is as fundamental as cooing over the Statue of Liberty." - AP

How Streaming Platforms Guide Your Choices

Being able to control how long programmes are available to stream appears to give video-on-demand platforms significant power over what audiences watch. The longer fruit is dangled in front of a viewer, the likelier they are to grab it. - The Conversation

The Fight Is On To Preserve Denver’s Iconic Chicanx Murals

In the 1960s and 1970s, Denver's Chicana/o community painted murals partly because the city knew they were cheaper than removing graffiti. Now they're disappearing. "The National Trust named the Chicano/a/x Community Murals of Colorado to its 2022 list of America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places." - Hyperallergic

At A Time Of Urgency In The Creative Arts, Britain Is Dropping The Ball

But museums are trying their damnedest to pick it up. "This surely is the route through the coming AI storm: the digital age demands more, not less creativity in schools and families. It is through play and imagination that we can rise above the robots." - The Observer (UK)

Stoppp!: There’s Way Too Much Streaming

To the average consumer, streaming companies have maneuvered with what appears to be only rapid growth and blind excess in mind. Sure, we reap the fruits of that near-impossible ethic, but is it what we want—or even need? - Wired

If You Don’t Love 3D Screenings, You’re Far From Alone

"One of the places 3D seems to persist is in animated kids' movies, which is the last place it belongs. Why would you want to watch an explosively colorful world unfold while wearing sunglasses?" - NPR

Center Theatre’s Shocking Taper Announcement Reflects Wider Woes

Post COVID-19 shutdowns, theatres everywhere are "fighting to keep doors open despite dwindling ticket sales, increased production costs and hesitant, recession-wary donors. The result: drastic cuts to programming, layoffs, candid pleas to subscribers." And this disaster in L.A. - Los Angeles Times

What’s The Point Of ‘Diverse’ Retellings Of Jane Austen?

"Am I, a brown-skinned immigrant daughter who never got to read about or see characters like me in novels and films, simply reclaiming these beloved stories as my own? ... Or am I actually letting these stories off the hook, ignoring their oppressive aspects in their very recasting?" - LitHub

Online News: Fewer People Are Commenting On It, Or Even Reading It. They Prefer Video, Preferably Not Depressing.

"Facebook's exit from news tracks tracks with a move toward TikTok and YouTube, and a worldwide decrease in commenting on and sharing news articles. That's one of the findings from Oxford's Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism in its 2023 Digital News Report." - Nieman Lab

Metropolitan Opera Sold Two-Thirds Of Its Tickets This Past Season, But The Audience Is Getting Younger

"The Met sold 66% of tickets during the season that ended Saturday, up from 61% during the 2021-22 season. Sales were lower than budgeted because of a cyberattack in mid-December. … The average age of its single-ticket buyers, which comprise 75% of sales, decreased to 44 from 50." - AP

The New Piracy: Movies And TV Chopped Into Tiny Pieces On TikTok

Those millions of people are contributing to the billions of views on movies and films chopped up to fit the app's restrictive post limits, parcelled up and delivered to users in completely random order on its homepage. - CBC

Fewer People Are Following The News — Because It’s Depressing: Global Study

"A report by Oxford University's Reuters Institute says 48% of people around the world are very or extremely interested in the news — down from 63% in 2017. … More than a third of people (36%) worldwide say they sometimes or often actively avoid the news." - BBC

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