Audio Video News

We've all seen the TV commercials: KFC's Colonel Sanders, Taco Bell's little sad-eyed Chihuahua, and a warrior princess from Pizza Hut fighting hordes of robot invaders from George Lucas' <I>The Phantom Menace</I>. But the blitzkrieg of clever <I>Star Wars</I>-theme ads for Tricom Global Restaurants, released just prior to the film's debut, has fallen flat. A marketing deal Tricom signed with <A HREF="http://www.lucasfilm.com/">Lucasfilm</A> has proven "surprisingly ineffective at driving sales," according to the company's chairman and CEO, Andrall E. Pearson.

Television broadcasters could soon legally own and operate multiple stations within one market, under regulations being considered by the <A HREF="http://www.fcc.gov/">Federal Communications Commission</A>. At present, FCC rules allow only one station per owner per market (a market being defined as a geographical area within transmitter range). The proposed changes were submitted for review by the FCC's Mass Media Bureau to the commissioners on Monday, July 19.

B<I>urt Lancaster, Paul Scofield, Jeanne Moreau. Directed by John Frankenheimer. Aspect ratio: 1.37:1 (black & white). Dolby Digital monaural. 133 minutes. 1964. MGM 907539. Not rated. $19.98.</I>

Last week, telecommunications provider <A HREF="http://www.sbc.com">SBC Communications</A> and <A HREF="http://www.directv.com">DirecTV</A> announced a marketing and distribution agreement that will allow SBC to make digital satellite television service available to its 18 million Southwestern Bell, Nevada Bell, and Pacific Bell residential customers. Specific details of the SBC/DirecTV service will be announced later.

After 20 years, one of the entertainment industry's most enduring management teams is calling it quits. On July 15, Robert A. Daly and Terry Semel, co-chairmen and co-CEOs of Warner Bros. film studio and Warner Bros. Music, informed <A HREF="http://www.pathfinder.com/corp/">Time Warner</A> chief Gerald Levin that they would not renew their employment contracts. The two said they wish to explore other opportunities as "entertainment entrepreneurs."

As <A HREF="http://www.guidetohometheater.com/shownews.cgi?465">reported last week</A>, more than 1.1 million DVD-Video players were shipped through the first half of 1999. Additional information released by the <A HREF="http://www.dvdvideogroup.com">DVD Video Group</A> puts these numbers in perspective: DVD-Video experienced 300% growth in the second quarter of 1999, when more than 730,000 hardware units were shipped (compared to 170,000 in the second quarter of 1998). Further, the Group says that shipments for the first six months of 1999 constitute an increase of 881,000 units over the same period in 1998, also representing more than 300% growth. (Over 1 million units shipped in the first half of 1999; in the first six months of 1998, slightly more than 260,000 units shipped.)

S<I>tar Wars&mdash;Episode 1: The Phantom Menace</I> might have grabbed all the attention as the first movie to be screened in the US from a digital source rather than a film print (see <A HREF="http://www.guidetohometheater.com/shownews.cgi?454">previous story</A>), but it's not the only one to use the new technology. With virtually no fanfare at all, <I>An Ideal Husband</I> is being shown from a digital source at Laemmle's Sunset 5 theater in Los Angeles through July 15, 1999.