Archives for December 2020

Ms. Houston majored in urban studies at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, in Geneva, N.Y., but was expelled for tripping fire alarms and tipping over vending machines. “I went out big,” she told Mr. Arthur on his podcast. “I was in the wrong place.”

She worked as a waitress before finding work as a D.J. at Westchester Community College’s radio station, then at another station in Mount Kisco, N.Y., for $7 an hour. She left for a job at ABC Radio as an engineer, and worked with the sports journalist Howard Cosell and the talk show host Sally Jessy Raphael. The pay was far better than her low-wage radio jobs, but she missed being on the air. In 1989 she was back behind a microphone at WZFM in White Plains.

“Someone said to me, ‘I want to introduce you to the voice of God,’” said Paul Cavalconte, who, as the WZFM program director, hired Ms. Houston. “She was so engaging and charismatic, which worked on the radio and in personal appearances.” (WZFM is now WXPK.)

When WZFM’s format shifted from adult album alternative to modern rock in 1993, Ms. Houston was told that she had to adopt on-air name with an X in it. She became Harley Foxx. But, seeking more diversity in the format, she sought refuge a year later at WFUV, of which she had been a fan for some time.

“I just called the station and was, like, ‘Hey, can I work here, please?’” she told Mr. Arthur.

She started hosting the midday show in 1994, then stepped away from it after a few years to become the full-time music director. She returned to the air in 2001 to host “The Whole Wide World.”

In addition to her wife, she is survived by her sister, Debra Baglio, and her brothers, Richard and Robert. Another brother, William Jr., died in October.

Ms. Houston recorded her final show from home on Dec. 5, with Mr. Cavalconte, also a D.J. at WFUV, as the co-host. It was broadcast three days after she died.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/30/obituaries/rita-houston-dead.html

Podcasts have been exploding in popularity, with nearly a third of Americans saying at the beginning of 2019 that they listened to at least one monthly. They offer media companies a fast-growing medium and an opportunity to build out their offerings without having to go through powerful interests, like publishers and labels, when licensing music, and studios when licensing films.

Efforts to turn podcasting into its own celebrity universe have attracted the likes of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry. Wondery’s founder, Hernan Lopez, a former Fox executive, has added Hollywood treatment to its podcasts, replete with tag lines, trailers and billboards. “Dr. Death” is set to be developed into a television series on NBCUniversal’s Peacock streaming service.

Mr. Lopez told The New York Times last year that he had “set out to create a company that could build on bringing to podcasting the skill set of television and movies, both in storytelling and production, as well as marketing.”

Mr. Lopez will step down as chief executive when the deal with Amazon closes, and Jen Sargent, Wondery’s chief operating officer, will take over management, according to an Amazon spokeswoman. In April, Mr. Lopez pleaded not guilty to federal charges accusing him of bribing soccer officials in South America in exchange for broadcasting rights when he was an executive at Fox Sports.

Amazon would not “predict” when the Wondery deal was expected to close, the Amazon spokeswoman said, noting it is subject to “customary closing conditions.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/30/business/dealbook/wondery-amazon-podcasts.html

The end of December usually brings a flurry of big releases and a blizzard of Oscar speculation. But with the Academy Awards postponed and many theaters shuttered or half-empty, this movie year closes with a shiver of existential anxiety in Hollywood and beyond. In 2020, Netflix expanded its reach, and two of the surviving legacy studios — Warner Bros. and Disney — beefed up their streaming platforms, the latest sign of a shift in business strategy that is likely to outlast the pandemic. As 2021 approaches, our critics examine the film industry in crisis, and wonder what the future might hold.

A.O. SCOTT Is this the end of moviegoing as we have known it? You and I are not in the business of making predictions, and since we are students of film history we know that the death of movies is old, fake news. Premature obituaries have been filed every decade or so, at least since the arrival of sound. The art form has been changing constantly, and so have the ways we consume it: “as we have known it” includes movie palaces, drive-ins, grindhouses and multiplexes; and also network television Movies of the Week, VHS, Blu-ray, and now streaming.

Still, the situation right now feels different, perhaps more cataclysmic. I don’t doubt that people will want to go back to movie theaters after the pandemic, as they will to restaurants, nightclubs, concert halls and bowling alleys. But a shift in the industry that was already underway before Covid-19 seems to have accelerated. We’ve sometimes used “the studios” as a slightly anachronistic synonym for Hollywood. Are we entering the age of “the platforms”?

MANOHLA DARGIS Well, good morning, sunshine! I’m hesitant to offer any grand divinations, but we know that the movies or, rather, the American film industry is in a state of perpetual crisis. In the past, the industry has always found a way of circumventing the latest calamity, often by taking advantage of (or even absorbing) perceived threats, like with television. The threat posed by streaming is on another order of magnitude: i.e., the internet changed everything, including how people watch entertainment. The rest is history, and another couple of gazillion bucks for Jeff Bezos.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/30/movies/film-industry-future-streaming-2020.html