There are thousands of music festivals every summer all around the world. Now I will try to give a summary of the most important ones and help you decide which one to visit if you ever get the opportunity to attend one of them.
US: Mostly American and Canadian acts.
Crossroads Guitar Festival: Held in 2004, 2007 and 2010. Location: Bridgeview, Illinois. Brings the world's best guitarist under one roof. Created by Eric Clapton. He picks the performers too. If you are a guitar enthusiast, it's your place to be. Personally, I would give away one of my kidneys to be there, or even both of them and put myself on bypass or whatever.
Lollapalooza: Word derives from the meaning: very impressive. Main genre: punk rock. First it was a travelling festival. Created in 1991 by Jane's Addiction singer Perry Farrell. Location: Chicago, Illinois. Held in various times. Probably the most energetic festival in America. It has helped many rock bands to achieve success. If you want to be part of a huge party, then this is your place to go.
Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival: Location: Indio, California. Duration: 3 days. Unique because it is held in a desert. Genres vary. Was already held this year in April. No single-day tickets from this year. This can be a downer, but otherwise it must be an experience to suffer through the circumstances of the desert to see your favorite bands.
UK: Mostly British acts.
Glastonbury Festival: Largest festival in the world at present. Held on last weekend of June. 3 days long. Supports artistic acts other than musicians. Location: Pilton, England. An interesting fact is that it was organized by a farmer. Unique because of its scenery and the Pyramid stage. Its only problem is the occasional flooding. Probably the most enjoyable festival for everyone in the world, because of its diversity, but really expensive as well. If I could choose one festival to go to, it would be this one.
Reading Festival: Oldest festival still in existence. Since 1971. Held at the end of August. Unique because of "bottling off", which means that many musicians have been sent off from the stage by being thrown bottles at them by the audience. Two sites: Leeds site and Reading Site. Major stages: main stage, NME stage, Festival Republic stage. Main genres: punk, rock, indie.
T in the Park: Since 1994. Scotland's biggest music festival. Held on second weekend of July (same time as Oxegen). Three-day festival. Camping available before the first day. Three major stages: main stage, NME stage, King Tut's Tent. Its line-up is usually the same as Oxegen's and does not change much from one year to another. Main genres: pop, indie.
I had the chance to visit it, and it felt much like Sziget, except it was smaller and the range of genres was not as wide. Similar to Glastonbury and the other British festivals.
Other:
Oxegen Festival: Location: County Kildare, Ireland. Ireland's biggest festival. Held on second weekend of July, same time as T in the Park. Voted best festival of Europe. First held in 2004, so it is just a baby, but it is already very popular. Genres vary, but the headliners' shows are always visually profound. Unique because, as its name suggests, it is a green festival.
Pinkpop Festival: Location: Landgraaf, Netherlands. Genre: rock. Held on Pentecost weekend. Duration: 3 days. Its name comes from the dutch word pop, which means doll, since its logo is a doll in a pink dress. It is unique because it is in the Netherlands. If you want to headbang with thousands of people and legally smoke marijuana, this is your place of destination.
Montreal International Jazz Festival: Biggest jazz festival in the world. Held when June turns into July. Annual attendance is about 2 million. Concerts are held all over Montreal. Held since 1980. The main genre is obviously jazz. If you love jazz, then there are no more questions. You should be there. I would give away my two kidneys to be there as well.
I hope all you readers can pick one place that you would visit. For me, those places would be Crossroads, Montreal and Glastonbury, because I like how the atmosphere mixes with the music. What each of you should do is make it your dream to go to one of these places. I am sure you will not regret it your dream actually comes true.
Since the internet has become the number one source of entertainment in the whole world, thus providing accessibility to everything from anywhere, the television industry could not just stand by watching its star fade away. It had to do something, and it did.
The first main innovation was to include television series into the iTunes Store and the creation of Hulu. These are sources from where you can download basically anything that has been shown on television in America. Of course, this service comes with a price, but that price is reasonable. Its only problem is that it is not accessible from everywhere. Due to "geobanning", most countries are excluded from these services. Hulu is only available in America, while this part of the iTunes store is accessible almost exclusively from the world-leading countries, such as the US, the UK, France, Germany, etc. Until this changes, the only opportunity that little European countries are left with are the use of torrent sites. This is not profitable for anyone included in the production process, so these companies should expand their area of services. They are under the illusion that there is not a big enough customer base for these kind of services yet, but based on my experiences, they are wrong.
Another path that the television industry tried to follow was the creation of webseries. These series are created exclusively for internet viewing. They can be original series, such as Take Me Back - the best try so far -, or Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog - a series by Neil Patrick Harris -, or they can be miniseries that somehow relate to the original series, such as Office, True Blood, or Rescue Me webisodes. TV channels may try to keep up the buzz and the hype of their shows throughout non-airing times as well by using the opportunities that the internet offers. Series such as Heroes or Lost invited their fans on investigative journeys by creating websites and tasks to complete each week. Or, in the case of Dexter, creators used the interactivity of the internet to advertise the game, which we can see in the video below:
One more interesting thing in the connection between the internet and television is the opposite of what we have seen so far. It is when the internet is trying to work its way into television. In the case of the webseries Quarterlife, NBC decided to do what no channel has ever done before: to broadcast it on national TV. The website Funny or Die, which is a site full of humorous videos, such as the Between Two Ferns series with Zach Galfianakis (below) has made it onto television just recently. It is very interesting to see how the internet and television are changing each other mutually. And, for sure, we haven't seen everything yet. I'm looking forward to what the future holds.
The Parents Television Council is an organization responsible for rating television series so that parents will know what their kids should and should not watch. This would actually be a respectable job if it wasn't completely pointless.
The way this organization works is that they record every show each evening on ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, ITV, UPN, and the WB, plus original programs on cable channels. So far this means that they have a lot of data, in fact, they are in possession of more research on the networks than the networks have on themselves. From their website, we can retrieve the information that in the last 20 years, they have recorded more than 100,000 hours of television programming on over 15,000 VHS tapes. Here is where it gets funny. Each day, analysts sit down before these shows and write down each curse word and the number of sex references they have heard, and, based on all that, they rate the shows into three categories: red, yellow, and green. What this means is clearly visible from this picture:
Also from their website, we can see that there is only one program in the whole week that achieved the green status. What is even more funny is how they refer to these analysts on their site: "These analysts are men and women with stomachs of steel." HAHAHA. All those millions of people who watch these shows every week have stomachs of steel too, don't they?
But that's not all. Each week they choose the most disgusting program on television. As if that wasn't enough already, they also archive their selections and justify why it is so disgusting. You can also search for TV shows individually (e.g. Fringe), and get to know why they are rated red, yellow or green, or what companies are sponsoring them(!!!) so that you can make sure not to buy their products again. I mean, that's just insane.
But here is where it gets even more obscure. They have stored their data on VHS so far. Now, they want to convert it to digital format. However, they don't want to simply put it on computers. No, they want to store it on DVDs!!! I'm just curious... do they think that those are irresistible? I'm not done yet. They want you to help them in this process. According to them, around two million dollars (WTF?) would be enough. If there are people who actually pay for this, then they deserve it. That's all I can say. I would really like to meet some members of this organization and do a CT on them. They must not be normal!
The writers' room is the place where the stories of our favorite TV shows are born. At first, it was only used in television comedy. Due to the rise in serialized stories, dramas' writers' rooms appeared in the 1980s. Until then, creators of TV dramas wrote each episode on their own. However, this practice would not have been suitable for high concept dramas like Lost or Prison Break. Although writing 22-24 episodes a season is not an easy task, a big table, a whiteboard and some clever co-workers can help to get the job done. These rooms can include anything from flipper machines to pool tables, or, when the showrunner wants the employees to concentrate, nothing at all. In the writing room of Weeds, the sweets were replaced with foods and the cellphones were banned to increase creativity. If you follow this link, you can read about the writers' room of several different shows, with pictures attached to them. Also, you can take a look at the writers' room of Lost below:
The showrunner is the leader of the group of writers. Basically he has authority over everything and he is the one who gets the last word. This group can consist of 3 to as much as 40 writers. In the case of American network shows, their number is closer to 40, while in Britain, the groups are usually small. Additionally, in America, these groups must include an outside employee for each season who is a WGA member. Once the storyline is clear, a writer takes it home to develop it into a script. His job involves writing the dialogues and the details. Once it's finished, the showrunner will review it and hopefully move things onto the next stage.
The showrunner is usually the person who came up with the idea of the show, although that's not always the case. Sometimes the networks hire a more experienced person to run the show, or even the creator might pass it onto someone else, because running a new show does not fit into his/her time. This happened in the case of Lost, where Carlton Cuse took over JJ Abrams's showrunner position, because he was busy making movies. This is a success story, which is very rare. Just take West Wing, Alias, or Gilmore Girls for an example. In these three cases, the ratings, as well as the quality has dropped once the creator had left the show. Therefore, the best thing is to let the creators carry on with their shows. This is the idea that most cable executives follow by putting a lot of authoritative power into the hands of the creators. For example, they do not tell the showrunners which order they want to air the episodes. These shows, especially if they're serialized, air in order of their production code number. Some people, such as Aaron Sorkin, David Lynch, Jerry Bruckheimer or Joss Whedon have a high enough reputation to be left alone by network executives as well. There is one thing that every showrunner has to fear though, and that is being cancelled.
There are cases when the thought of being cancelled doesn't even come to mind, but somehow things turn out differently than expected. Veronica Mars wasn't renewed for a fourth season despite the fact that the CW network would kill for the ratings it had in its third season. And of course there is the most famous cancellation, Twin Peaks's, which stroke abruptly. On the other hand, there are showrunners who never dreamed of a second season, but somehow their series kept being renewed for years to come. David Simon was one of these showrunners during The Wire era. Last, but not least, shows like Scrubs or FNL get cancelled but other networks save them from certain death.
This year and for the past couple of years, Heroes has been one of the shows that had to be afraid of cancellation, and if it wasn't showing on NBC, it'd be long dead by now. You can see the creativity problems its writers face if you click on this link. On the other hand, there are shows that are very easy to write and doesn't matter if they're repetitive or not. Entourage is just like that. You can watch a very funny sketch of its writers' room here:
One writer who doesn't have to be afraid of being cancelled any time soon is Kirt Sutter, the creator/showrunner of Sons of Anarchy. The show's ratings have been on the rise during its second season and the critiques praised every minute of it, so he must be doing something right. Thanks to his blog http://sutterink.blogspot.com, we can take a look at how he does his job and what makes his product so great.
He says that during the writing process, he gives more time to his writers and allows several drafts to be made. He says that he gives "shitty notes", but his vision of the tone of the series has to come first and has to lead the writing process; otherwise, the episodes wouldn't be held together and the seasons wouldn't feel like whole epic stories. After he receives the network's/studio's notes on his first draft, a production draft is generated and distributed to everyone involved in the production process. He likes to be ready with as many scripts as possible before shooting begins, because then he has to oversee everything and cannot concentrate that much on writing. That's why he is in the finishing stages of the third episode of the third season, even though he doesn't even know when the season will start to air.
While he was an exec. prod. on The Shield, he saw Shawn Ryan let the writers produce their episodes as well. He says he tries to follow this path too. He gives the writer of the particular episode the authority to go and help everyone understand what the story is like, and what it needs from the departments of props, casting, locations, etc. Before the shooting, Kirt sits down with the production crew and makes sure everyone understands the episode and what their job is. When the shooting is finished, the material goes through the hands of the editor, the director and the showrunner. This is a two week long process, the result of which is the studio/network cut. The network then gives notes and then the picture is locked. After all this comes the music-picking part, which is followed by special effect coordination (sounds and dialogs). The last stage is the preparation of the Final Mix. Sounds and pictures get mixed here and once the audio levels are determined and Mr. Sutter has given a green light, the episode is ready to air.
Based on this description of the writing and production process, it must be a tiring, but effective way of making a TV show. This is how you can achieve success: hard work and friendly working environment.
Nielsen is the company that measures TV audience ratings in the US. It collects data in two different ways: "Local Measurement" and "National Measurement."
National Measurement: so-called "Nielsen People Meters" are distributed to a number of households. When the viewer activates this device, it stores data on what channel is being watched and who is watching it. This way Nielsen can gather demographic information, which is useful for determining what kind of advertisements are profitable to insert into each show's commercial break. This data is transmitted to Nielsen Media Research's Operation Center every night. Then, based on this data, the "fast national" ratings are released the next morning; whereas, the "final national" ratings are released in the afternoon.
Local Measurement: used for tracking specific markets. About 25,000 households participate in this sample. These households are given another type of device, which can measure what channel is being watched, but cannot gather demographic information. This information is also transmitted to Nielsen that releases the "metered market" ratings the next morning.
A third, but not so important way of determining ratings on an every day basis is the paper diary. Paper diaries are filled out by viewers during the sweeps weeks in November, February, May and July. Ratings during the sweeps weeks outline the advertising schedule of the networks for the next couple of months; therefore, these times of the year the networks try to air episodes that have famous stars and celebrities as guest stars.
These measurements are often criticized for not being accurate, since they are only based on a narrow proportion of society. Yet, all the networks and ad agencies rely on them, and fans usually blame false ratings for the cancellation of their favorite shows. In order to extend the size of the monitored groups, Nielsen included DVR playbacks into its ratings, which appear in the next morning's "fast ratings" as well. However, ad agencies and networks do not take DVR viewers into consideration, because they can skip commercials, which makes them insignificant from a financial point of view.
This is all we should know about tracking audience data. Now let's make some sense out of an actual rating that appears in newspapers and on websites:
7th Heaven (4.4/8, #9; 18-49: 2.7, #T4)
This is a rating for the show called 7th Heaven. The first number, 4.4, shows the percentage of television-equipped households that tuned in to watch the show. Overall, there are approximately 114.9 million of such households in America, which means that at least 5,055,600 watched the show the night before, since there are at least one person in every household.
The second number, 8, shows us the percentage of households that watched the show out of all the households that were watching television that night. This number will always be bigger than the first one, since there cannot be more TV-watching households than TV-equipped ones.
18-49 is the main target group of advertisers, that's why it's important to measure their numbers separately. In fact, if a show has bad ratings overall, but it does good among its targeted viewers (e.g. Gossip Girl), the network might keep it on the schedule. On the contrary, if a show has good ratings overall, but do not attract enough adults between 18 and 49 (e.g. Without a Trace), the network might cancel it. The 2.7 part means that 2.7% of all adults (18-49) watched the show. There are about 132 million adults who fall into that category right now, so the 2.7% viewership counts for 3,564,000 viewers who belong to the target audience.
#9 and #T4 mean the rank it has achieved compared to other shows' ratings that night. The "T" means "tie".
This is a Grey's Anatomy rating from this week:
Grey’s Anatomy (ABC, 21.00) 7.6/12, #1; 18-49: (3.7, #2)
As we can see, it does much better than 7th Heaven did back in the day. The fact that it starts at 21.00 is important because when networks decide on whether to keep a show for next season or cancel it, they count in a number of different factors apart from the numbers themselves: how many viewers does it have compared to another network's show at the same time; when does it air; how many viewers can it keep from the previous show's viewers.
As we can see, Grey's Anatomy fans do not have to fear, because it meets all the requirements. It has won its timeline (21.00); in fact, it has won the whole night (#1). It airs at primetime, which is Thursday 21.00 in America, and it won. Since it is in primetime, it doesn't have to keep the previous show's viewers. Actually, it has twice as much viewers as FlashForward, the preceding show does at 20.00; as a result, FlashForward fans have a lot to fear.
Even though Grey's Anatomy has won the day, it has a relatively small number of viewers. Its average 11-12 million viewers cannot be compared to Seinfeld's or Cheers's average audience. The reason for that, and for the 100 million viewer finale of M.A.S.H. is that the number of channels available has multiplied several times in the last two decades. Also, people's taste has changed with the variety of programs offered nowadays. In the last five years, American Idol has consecutively won the title of highest average rating. Although television is getting ready for the revolution, conservative, or maybe just sane people like me can find joy in surprising miracles like Friends' 50 million and The Sopranos' 12 million series finale audiences that keep us hoping for more intelligent and entertaining shows to come.
