The Business

Does winning an Emmy matter to you, to me, to the business?  And, the Television Academy puts TV legends on-line.  Plus after 72 years, Guiding Light gets snuffed.

The summer box office broke records, but was blockbuster season really all that? Plus, what does the Leno prime-time experiment mean for the TV business?

Disney buys Marvel Entertainment for $4 billion. Is it a super deal or super dud?  Plus, the division and drama continues in Hollywood's labor unions, and two top TV producers and their money-making program they call the "total engagement experience." Programming note: This program will be not air on KCRW as it will be pre-empted by special Labor Day programming. It will be available as a podcast and on demand, and will be archived online.

The producers of the hit show Ghost Whisperer on making great TV…and a successful marriage.  Plus, we talk to the newly-elected president of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences.

India's Reliance Big just made a major investment in Steven Spielberg's DreamWorks. Has another sucker landed on our shores, or has Hollywood finally met its match? And while India is coming to Hollywood, one Hollywood production went to India –  tales from Bombay with the producers of Bollywood Hero.

Documentaries used to be relegated to PBS and college classrooms, but these days, they're just as liable to come to theater near you.  We talk to Sheila Nevins, who's had a big part in growing of the nonfiction business as head of HBO Docs for the past three decades. Plus, we revisit our session with Hollywood therapist Dennis Palumbo.

This week, we look at the arcane, historical, fantastical and off-color jargon of the movie set.  Plus, when good executives recut bad films...inside the mind of a cinematic scissorhands. 

This week, The Business goes to "The Con," the annual nerd-fest know as Comic-Con that’s become a major marketing stop for Hollywood.  Plus, a new documentary looks at Ozploitation...

Twilight gave a faltering new movie studio an extreme makeover. We talk with Rob Friedman, the chief of Summit Entertainment.

From Michigan to New Mexico, the production tax incentives derby is on in a big, big way.  We talk to one of the producers of Clint Eastwood’s Gran Torino, which moved from Minnesota to Michigan because of incentives, and two state legislators on opposite sides of the incentives debate.