Stars at the NYC Time Warner Building (source: PENTAX Image, Creative Commons)

AT&T is the latest telecommunications giant to try for a merger with the media and entertainment industry as the ink dries on an $85 billion deal with Time Warner Inc. In merging with Time Warner, AT&T would create the largest entertainment company in the nation, surpassing the Walt Disney Co., which acquired ABC in 1995, and Comcast Corporation, who already owns NBCUniversal and Telemundo, and recently picked up DreamWorks Animation for $3.8 billion. Consolidation has been a popular strategy to compete with the growing number of competitors who provide streaming content like Apple and Netflix, but the merger will no doubt draw its fair share of critics. Of particular note is the 2014 deal between Time Warner Cable (a separate company from Time Warner Inc.) and Comcast that cost the two companies $5.5 million before Comcast pulled it off the table in the face of likely opposition from the Department of Justice. The failure of Time Warner’s merger with AOL in 2000 and a slew of other examples further demonstrate how combining telecom and media can be problematic. Given the resistance that the Comcast-Time Warner Cable deal inspired from federal regulators for limiting consumer choice, it’s hard to see an easy road ahead for the current merger, and the move is unlikely to cheer advocates for net neutrality given AT&T’s record on the issue.

Video Game Actors Seek Equal Pay. On October 16, representatives from SAG-AFTRA voted unanimously to strike after months of stalemate with key stakeholders in the rapidly growing video game industry. The labor union, which represents an increasing number of voiceover and motion-capture actors providing voices, vocal effects (like grunts and moans), and realistic body images for games, is calling for pay on par with that of motion picture and television actors. Unable to reach an agreement before SAG-AFTRA’s ultimatum, work stopped October 21 on projects put into production within the past eight months. The primary sticking point is residual pay; currently, video game actors received a flat fee while movie actors, for example, get bonus payments based on streaming, downloads and DVD sales. New union boss Gabrielle Carteris, best known for her role as West Beverly High’s academic all-star Andrea Zuckerman on Beverly Hills 90210, has been a surprisingly vocal leader and staunch supporter of the strike, joining the picket lines with SAG-AFTRA’s 160,000 video game actors. Effects of the strike remain to be seen, as gaming companies estimate that only 25% of the total actors working in the industry belong to the union.

The Battle of Bollywood. The seven-decade-long conflict between India and Pakistan has now extended to the small screen. Pakistan removed Indian shows from television and radio in response to a decision from the Indian Motion Picture Producers Association (IMPPA) to cease screening films with Pakistani casts; in addition, the popular Indian film director Karan Johar said he would no longer use Pakistani actors in his films. The moves come at a time of spiking tension between the two countries after a brutal attack on an Indian Army base in Kashmir that killed nearly 20 soldiers (for which Pakistan is blamed). Despite Bollywood’s immense popularity in Pakistan, a 1965 government restriction against Indian films was lifted less than 10 years ago in an effort to increase interest in Pakistani films across the border. While the IMPPA states that its ban is temporary, the organization’s leader has called for a permanent ban and the deportation of Pakistani actors and technicians working the the film industry in India.

Affordable Studio Space for London Artists. With real estate pressures putting a squeeze on artists in hub cities all over the world, London Mayor Sadiq Khan has made good on his promise to do something about it in the UK’s capital. Khan announced the formation of the Creative Land Trust, a pool of public and private funds providing loans to London artmakers who rent studio space and are looking to buy their buildings, among other activities. The move comes two years after the Artists’ Workspace Study, which predicted the loss of artist spaces and, consequently, an exodus of artists out of the country. With the Mayor’s support, the study prompted the formation of Studiomakers, a group of influential entrepreneurs that works with developers and landowners to preserve and create spaces for Londoners to conduct creative practices.

Chaos in the U.S. Copyright Office? Just a few weeks into her new post as Librarian of Congress, Dr. Carla Hayden removed Register of Copyrights Maria Pallante from the U.S. Copyright Office, assigning her to a new position as special advisor to the Library of Congress on digital strategy. Pallante declined the job and instead filed her letter of resignation. The shift is bringing a wave of concern to creatives, particularly in the music and film industries, who perceived Pallante as a champion for independent artists. Suspicions abound about the circumstances leading to Hayden’s decision to demote Pallante, including evidence that the Motion Picture Association of America aggressively lobbied the Copyright Office to protect its interests.

MUSICAL CHAIRS / COOL JOBS

• Billionaire financier David Rubenstein steps into the chairman position at the Smithsonian, adding to his roster of influential positions in Washington arts and culture.
• Croatia’s new Minister of Culture Nina Obuljen Koržinek is pressed to create a cultural sector highlighting inclusivity and diversity with the “Kulturnjaci 2016″ initiative.
• WolfBrown is looking for a full-time Audience Research Program Manager for its San Francisco office.

NEW RESEARCH OF NOTE

• The Humanities and Liberal Arts Assessment (HULA) project has developed a new methodology for researching the humanities.
• University of Texas at Dallas’ Professor Stan Liebowitz disputes the findings of a much-cited 2007 article in the Journal of Political Economy that claimed piracy doesn’t impact music sales, bringing specific attention to methodological and data analysis problems.
• New research out of Germany suggests that music training can reduce aggressive behavior in youth. Despite this positive news, a recent Norwegian study claims that musicians are twice as likely to use psychotropic medications, and three times more likely to experience negative mental health symptoms and seek psychotherapy compared to the general population. The effects of music training on the brain are thought to be different than that of dancing, according to a review in NeuroImage.
• Research inspired by Immanuel Kant suggests that while art imitates life, it is perceived differently from representations of reality in the brain.
• A study commissioned by Art Gallery of New South Wales supports the body of evidence recently detailed by Createquity that suggests art alleviates symptoms of dementia by reducing anxiety and increasing “in the moment pleasure.” Good news in light of news that individuals are never too old to experience the benefits of dance.
• Discounted music and theater tickets for disadvantaged children may aid academic performance and self-confidence according to a study by Emer Smyth, research professor at the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI). Smyth bases this claim on work by ESRI and The Arts Council of Ireland linking artistic engagement with academic self-image.
• Scotland’s a good place for art according to the Scotland Household Survey, which reported an all-time high of 92% of adults engaging with cultural activities in 2015. However, figures are significantly lower in low-income areas of the country.
• A recent study revealed that despite the diversity of the country, arts audiences in United Arab Emirates (UAE) are self-segregating. UAE is not the only country facing challenges expanding audience diversity. In the UK, a survey conducted by ArtsProfessional indicated that perceptions organizations make about their audiences can influence the diversity of the art they produce, further limiting the possibility of attracting diverse audiences.
• An extensive review of the literature on the creative process identified 14 components of creativity. Happiness wasn’t one of them, perhaps indicating that efforts to lead a happier life will not necessarily bolster creative output.
• The English Touring Opera recently conducted research investigating the the role of video content in marketing art. Results indicate that audiences use video content to support their ticket purchases after the fact, rather than motivating them to buy.
• A new report from the UK suggests that cinema broadcasts of plays and musicals could have a positive effect on live performances.

Artist at Work – photo by flickr user Graeme Rattray

As part of its 50th anniversary, the National Endowment for the Arts has launched Creativity Connects, a threefold leadership initiative designed to show “how the arts contribute to the nation’s creative ecosystem, investigate the ways in which the support systems for the artists are changing, and explore how the arts can connect with other sectors that want and utilize creativity.”  As part of Creativity Connects, the Center for Cultural Innovation and Helicon Collaborative are working on an infrastructure report that will examine the changes artists have experienced in the last decade and how to strengthen the landscape of support. The initiative will also produce an interactive digital graphic that maps how the arts intersects with other industries. Finally, the NEA has set up a pilot grant program to support partnerships with organizations from outside the arts. Creativity Connects is likely to be the major contribution of Jane Chu’s term as Chairman as the nation prepares for a change of administrations next year. To get involved, join the conversation at creativz.us, a new online platform to house the initiative that is currently making a push to ask what artists in the United States need to sustain and strengthen their careers. (If you’re feeling in the survey-taking or -distributing mood, the Mellon Foundation also has a survey out seeking “a better understanding of the current health and well-being among artists living and working in the United States.”)

New directions for the Barr Foundation. In May 2014, Jim Canales, former president and CEO of The James Irvine Foundation in California, moved East to join Boston’s Barr Foundation as its first ever president. Canales was tasked with developing a new strategic direction of the foundation, which was established in 1987 by Amos and Barbara Hostetter and is the largest funder in Boston, having given out some $710 million to date. Earlier this year, the foundation announced its new strategy, which doesn’t look like much of a departure on the surface: Barr remains committed to its three core issue areas—education, arts, and climate change, and plans to continue its concentration on the Boston area. At the edges, however, the signs of a funder that has vastly increased the scope of its ambition are apparent. With a fast-growing endowment and staff, Barr plans to increase its regional funding presence throughout Massachusetts and even make targeted grants nationally. Under the leadership of San San Wong, the foundation’s renamed Arts & Creativity program has been given a sharper focus, that of “elevating the arts and enabling creative expression to engage and inspire a dynamic, thriving Commonwealth.“  The foundation plans to pursue this goal through three strategies: advancing the field’s capacity to adapt, take risks, and engage changing audiences in new ways; fostering opportunities to connect the arts to other disciplines and sectors; and activating public support for the arts. The Barr Foundation is at the forefront of an exciting period of growth for the arts in Boston, what with Mayor Walsh’s Boston Creates, the Barr Klarman Arts Capacity Building Initiative, ArtPlace America initiatives and a new artist-in-residence program announced this month which will embed local artists inside city departments to promote creative thinking about municipal government.

Cannes and Ford Foundation tackle inequity. The Cannes Film Market, the business counterpart of the Cannes Film Festival launched in 1959, and the Ford Foundation’s five-year old JustFilms, a film financing, social awareness and education program, announced a two-year partnership this month to boost the profile, market networking and distribution of social justice documentary features at Cannes. The partnership will play out in several ways. First, Cannes Film Market’s “Doc Corner” will be significantly scaled up for the upcoming May 2016 festival, and both parties will increase their efforts to bring docu filmmakers, especially those from the world’s global south, to Cannes. Second, for the first time ever, Cannes Film Festival marquee events will focus on the docu-feature sector. For Cannes, this partnership is yet another example of the festival’s diversifying its offerings. For Ford, which announced last year that it would direct all of its resources to curbing global inequity, the partnership is a significant step towards this goal, and a logical next step for JustFilms, which has already supported some 80 films since its inception.

A Bechdel Test for race? In the years since Alison Bechdel coined the Bechdel-Wallace test in a 1985 comic strip from her comic Dykes to Watch Out For, “The Test” has become a yardstick for measuring gender equality in a work of fiction. For a work to pass, it must 1) have at least two women in it, who 2) talk to each other, about 3) something other than a man. (Some add that the female characters need be named.) Although some argue that the test is too simple to accurately assess gender parity, its widespread adoption is important. Having a quantitative metric for narrative diversity has proven useful, especially when so many works fail the test. This month, Manohla Dargis, chief film critic for The New York Times, took the Bechdel test one step further, proposing what she calls the “DuVernay test,” in honor of Ava DuVernay, the celebrated director of Selma. The racial analogue to the Bechdel test, the DuVernay test seeks to offer a simple, widely-applicable metric for examining the way we treat characters of color in film and media. While the proposal might need some further definition (Dargis’s metric of “fully realized lives” is quite a bit harder to implement in practice than Bechdel’s simple checklist), the idea has been well received, including by DuVernay herself. Though it has yet to be applied extensively, at least one channel is set up to pass with flying colors: the All Nations Network—a cable channel featuring TV programming created for and by native peoples–is set to launch soon in the United States.

And the nominee (for Librarian of Congress) is…President Obama nominated Carla Hayden to be the next  Librarian of Congress this month. If confirmed by the Senate, Ms. Hayden would be the 14th Librarian of Congress in the institution’s 214-year history. She would also be the first woman and the first African-American to hold the position, milestones that Obama has called “long overdue.” Hayden, who has led the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore since 1993, would also be just the third professional librarian to serve in the position. Hayden would succeed James Billington, who was appointed by President Reagan and served as Librarian of Congress for nearly three decades. Billington stepped down from his post on January 1 of this year amid criticism of library mismanagement and “digital neglect”. In response, last year President Obama signed into a law a ten year term limit for Librarians of Congress–though there is the option for renewal. The next Librarian of Congress will assume some serious responsibility, such as modernizing the Library’s digital infrastructure, and in her position overseeing the Copyright Office, could significantly shift the copyright conversation.

MUSICAL  CHAIRS / COOL JOBS

• Channing Dungey has been named president of ABC Entertainment Group, becoming the first African American to lead a major broadcast network.
• Betsy Fader, a leader in the philanthropic and social enterprise sectors, has been named Vice President of Programs at the Surdna Foundation.
• Dan Cardinali, currently president of Communities in Schools, has been appointed CEO of Independent Sector, a coalition of charities and foundations.
• In a surprise cabinet reshuffle, Audrey Azoulay, currently President François Hollande’s cultural advisor, has replaced Fleur Pellerin as France’s culture minister.
• Kelly Lee has been appointed Philadelphia’s Chief Cultural Officer, joining an office that was re-established by Mayor Michael Nutter in 2008.
• After working at Creative Time for eight years, Katie Hollander has been promoted to Executive Director.
• Lisa Lucas has been named executive director of the National Book Foundation.
• Two long-serving vice presidents were promoted at Slover Linett this month. Sarah Lee has been named president, taking over from the firm’s founder, Cheryl Slover-Linett, and Chloe Chittick Patton has been named chief operating officer, a newly created position.
• Malcolm White, who was executive director of the Mississippi Arts Commission from 2005-2012, will return as executive director this year after three years as the state’s tourism chief.
• Gimlet Media is hiring an Associate Producer, Family History Show. Posted February 16; no closing date.
• Pew Center for Arts & Heritage is hiring a Center Specialist in the visual arts. Posted February 24; no closing date.
• DataArts (formerly the Cultural Data Project) is hiring a Senior Research Advisor. No closing date.

NEW RESEARCH OF NOTE

• In light of this month’s contested Academy Awards, two new studies shed some light on the issue of diversity in the film industry. While a review from the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University found a significant rise in the number of women featured as protagonists in films in 2015, a wide-ranging study from USC’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism gave a failing diversity grade to every movie studio and most TV makers.
• Several reports out this month looked at philanthropic trends. One study looked at 24 countries and found there is no significant correlation between charitable giving, levels of taxation & government spending within a given country. Another report from the Atlas of Giving found that US charitable giving increased 4.6% in 2015, and is expected to grow 2.6% in 2016. A third suggested that US nonprofits missed out on some $6.5 billion due to mobile incompatibility in 2015. Related, a report from the Center for Effective Philanthropy finds that grantees think information about the substance of a foundation’s work is more important than disclosures about its finances or governance.
• “Art Under Threat,” released this month by Freemuse, shows that wordlwide attacks on artistic freedom almost doubled in 2015, and that most attacks were either politically or religiously motivated.
• Research out of Johns Hopkins University suggests that it’s not how much your practice, but how you practice that makes all the difference.
• The National Endowment for the Arts brought seventy experts together to talk about the role of the arts in healthy aging.
• The US and Britain released several studies looking at the economic impact of the arts. One study conducted a detailed empirical examination of the connection between arts organizations and key measures of neighborhood diversity and economic advantage or disadvantage in NYC. Britain commissioned a study of the arts’ contributions to the national GDP.  And looking ahead, beginning on 2016, the US Dept of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis will being to “produce statistics showing the role of arts and culture in the economies of all 50 states.” Related, a report out of Australia finds that producers struggle to find affordable venues as the Sydney’s expensive theaters remain underutilized, and a report from England found that London organizations receive almost twice as much arts funding as the rest of England combined, despite accounting for just a third of the country’s cultural offering.
• Researcher Orian Brook looked at the extent to which living near a cultural venue influences whether or not one attends, and found that indeed, proximity was very strongly positively associated with the likelihood of attendance.
• How happy is your state? A report released this month by the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index ranks wellbeing in the USA by state.