TradeVine for Highlights of Entertainment News – week ending June 10th, 2011 with Catey Rudoy
Hello everybody, I’m Catey Rudoy of the Actors Reporter and welcome to the TradeVine. Danika Quinn is on assignment. The trades are filled with informative articles all about the entertainment industry. Because we know your time is important, we’ve selected just a few of the more interesting articles you shouldn’t miss. Our goal here at the TradeVine is to help you stay informed and to keep up with the trades, such as The Hollywood Reporter, Daily Variety, and Backstage.
The Hollywood Reporter, June 10th, 2011 – The article is entitled “How to make a $100 million dollar decision,” by Stephen Galloway. The article is really about CBS, the station that is struggling to stay alive, and its cash cow, which is Entertainment Tonight. Did you know that among entertainment news outlets, E. T. has twice the viewer-ship of any of its rivals? E.T. has about 5.8 million total viewers, while the Insider is next at 2.9 million, followed closely by Hollywood Access, TMZ, and Extra. And now, Entertainment Tonight will get a new co-host, Nancy O’Dell, the former Access Hollywood host. Nancy will be replacing the veteran Mary Hart. Whether or not audiences remember Nancy O’Dell will prove interesting. And, we’ll see how this impacts on E.T’s $100 million profits because all of this is happening in the midst of declining syndication business that has led to layoffs and cutbacks, reducing even E.T’s total budget. I guess we’ll just have to see how CBS and other networks like NBC and ABC fare when the public has cable television and the Internet as alternative choices.
Back Stage, June 2nd-3rd, 2011 – In the Spotlight on Comedy and Improv, the article is entitled “That something extra. To improvise or not to improvise, that is the question,” by Paul Haber. Although casting directors can’t ask anyone to improvise, because of the Screen Actors Guild rules, people expect actors to be able to do so. If someone is going for a commercial audition and perform exactly what was on the page and didn’t get the job, it might be because they didn’t go beyond the page into some improvisation. Or, maybe not. Ultimately, you have to find a way to make your audition stand out from everybody else’s, particularly for a commercial. One of the values of improve is to train you as an actor to come into an audition with 10 ideas instead of two, even in nonverbal scenarios. Having too many ideas is always better than having only one.
Daily Variety, Tuesday, June 7th, 2011 – In an article entitled “Mouse makes cuts,” by Marc Graser, explains that Disney is going to hand out about 200 pinkslips to its Walt Disney Studios workforce. Unemployment in the United States is at an all time high since we can remember and Walt Disney has not escaped this now two year downturn in the economy. Lowering overhead seems to be the aim of all studios and, in addition, Disney has already been reorganizing distribution to consolidate pictures rollout across theatrical, homevideo, and TV worldwide.
Well, that’s it for the TradeVine this week. I’m Catey Rudoy. Thank you very much for watching. And remember, You heard it through the Tradevine!