Innocent Data Entry Error Triples Reported College-Student Movie Piracy Numbers; MPAA Apologizes For Previous Call To Have All Universities Burned To The Ground
· Whoopsies! The MPAA admits that a 2005 study "incorrectly concluded" that movie piracy by college students is responsible for 44 percent of the industry's domestic losses, claiming that a "data entry" error ever so slightly inflated the actual "key number" of 15 percent. [THR]
· Fox and The CW have joined CBS in announcing a more "targeted" approach to the strike-abbreviated pilot season, taking an opportunity to dump projects the networks either can't or don't want to make whenever the WGA and AMPTP reach a new deal. Additionally, ABC is threatening to lighten its script load by 30 percent. [Variety]
[After the jump: Idol crushes rivals (again); studio speciality divisions dominate Oscar noms; Jericho finds a basic cable home.]
· Though the number was down 10 percent from the same time last year, American Idol's 29.1 million viewers were more than enough to steamroll any doomed schedule-filler its network competition bothered to run against the Nielsen juggernaut™ [Variety]
· The Oscar season success of specialty units like Paramount Vantage, Miramax and Fox Searchlight seems to indicate that their major-studio parents have given up the burden of making "good" movies, conceding quality, awards-attracting filmmaking to their quirkier, lower-budgeted divisions. [Variety]
· The Sci Fi Channel has picked up the rights to Jericho reruns, demonstrating a willingness to weather the peanut-shipping wrath of the show's hard-core fanbase should the network ever decide to pull the series from its schedule. [THR]