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Film And TV Productions Are Leaving California For Places With More Tax Incentives. Will California Lure Them Back?

"Reversing the slide will require a whole suite of changes to incentivize studios to return to California. … Some labor leaders tell TheWrap that to reverse the production exodus, California may need to triple the size of its (tax incentive) program and expand the types of productions that can apply." - TheWrap (MSN)

How “The Shawshank Redemption” Went From Box-Office Flop To Modern Classic

The Stephen King adaptation hit cinemas in the fall of 1994 amid a slew of hits competing for audiences. Yet it went on to become the most popular video rental of 1995. Love for the film hasn't waned; one poll found it the best movie never to have won an Oscar. - BBC

California Passes One-Click Unsubscribe Law

 Companies have been accused of signing people up for subscriptions without their consent, renewing their subscriptions without notice, and imposing a gantlet of obstacles to anyone seeking to unsubscribe. - Los Angeles Times

Hollywood Is Stuck In A Nostalgia Rut

The resurrection of dead franchises and the creation of new ones based on recognizable intellectual properties all target one core emotion: nostalgia. Hollywood is not facing a lack of ideas; rather, it's facing a nostalgia epidemic. - Highbrow Magazine

Venmo Is Actually A Social Network, Sort Of

Unless a user opts out, every profile is visible to the public and every transaction is shown in the feeds of a user's friends. So now — unlike video-focused TikTok and (increasingly) Instagram, or Facebook, dishing out political disinformation and "Shrimp Jesus" — Venmo feeds show what one's friends are up to. - The Atlantic (MSN)

Study: Why Public Media Needs More Stable Funding

The CSRL study says most local NPR stations lack the resources to systematically gather and report on local news, and in turn, spend too much of its limited resources covering issues that the wealthy care about. - Inside Radio

Lawyers Battle Over The Boundaries Of Copyright Law For AI

A DC Circuit panel struggled with both the idea of granting copyright protection for AI-produced works and a computer scientist’s framing of his case to do so during oral argument Thursday. - Bloomberg

The Era Of Sweeping Television Sagas Is Making A Bold Return

“Gorgeous production values, but with a particular court intrigue kind of momentum, punctuated by violence and driven by ambition. Very tangible, exciting stakes that are a perfect tasty mix of very serious, but also distant enough that they don’t feel like a bummer.” - Vulture (MSN)

Why Attending A Film Festival Is Worth All The Fuss, Celebrity Sighting Brouhaha, And Stinkers

True, "film festivals have become a crucial part of the industry’s infrastructure, which may work against what makes them valuable in the first place,” but still, there are perfect, brilliant surprises, even some of those movies never get a distributor. - Washington Post

US State Department Turns To Streaming As Global Influencer

“Film and television not only entertain, but they also provide a way to highlight issues, start conversations about difficult topics, and give voice to those whose stories we may not have heard.”  - Los Angeles Times

“Saturday Night Live” Turns 50, And Lorne Michaels Decides He Won’t Retire After All

Four years ago, Michaels, the series's founding producer, said that by the end of the 50th season, "I think I really deserve to wander off." Now that that landmark has arrived, he says that "as long as (the show is) important and I can be useful, I’ll stay." - The Hollywood Reporter

A Decade On, “The Babadook” Holds Up, And It’s Still A Gold Mine For Memes

"Fans were soon drawing (the) hokey monster against rainbow backdrops. They were bending his rhyming schemes to echo contemporary gay lingo (“BABAYAAAAAAAAASS!!!” one illustration read). They were photoshopping his face onto vintage photos of 1970s muscled men in short shorts." - Los Angeles Times (Yahoo!)

New UK Culture Minister Says New Regulations For Streaming Are Necessary

“There’s a choice ahead of us, whether we choose to be the last guardians of this chapter, or whether we choose to be the first pioneers of the next.” - The Hollywood Reporter

“The West Wing” At 25: The Politics Were Beside The Point, Says Aaron Sorkin

“I thought, ‘What if there were a show about our leaders where these people are as competent and committed as the doctors and nurses on a hospital show, the police officers on a cop show, the lawyers on a David Kelley show?’” - The New York Times

Hollywood’s Film And TV Business Is In Sharp Decline. What To Do?

Despite differences over solutions, there is a consensus on the problem: California is simply not competitive with many other states and countries that offer more generous incentives to entice film crews. - Los Angeles Times

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