Word: formatting
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...pilot episode that goes through ludicrous contortions to set up the situation, it may turn out to be a passably entertaining look at manhunting in the Big Apple. But the blatant gimmickry of its premise is symptomatic of the malaise that has descended on TV's most venerable format, the situation comedy...
...promptly recommended that it be dissolved. Within a year it was gone, folded into the budget office. This year, when Rogers showed up for a stint as the head of the budget office, officials there rolled out the red carpet and solicited her advice on devising a new format for budget documents...
Every summer needs an oddball movie, muttering happily to itself in a forgotten corner of the superplex while the megabudget pictures bat each other silly. So welcome to SLACKER, a parade of all-American weirdos. Writer- director Richard Linklater has borrowed the format of La Ronde -- one character talking to a second, the second to a third and so on -- and populated it with dozens of layabouts (slackers) in Austin. These motor-mouth dropouts have decided on a life of independent study: of the Kennedy assassination, or the space program (we've been on Mars since 1962, colonizing the galaxy...
...unauthorized records was a marginal activity that musicians tolerated and even encouraged as a form of tribute by their fans. But the bootlegging of albums has now become a full-blown, underground industry with millions of dollars in profits and royalties at stake. Tape cassettes remain the bootleggers' format of choice, since the duplicating equipment is relatively cheap, but digital compact discs are gaining ground. "CD is the pirate medium of the future," says Mark Kingston, spokesman for the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry...
Infomercials may be on the verge of going big time. Several major companies are experimenting with the format. General Motors, for example, recently introduced an infomercial to tout its new line of Saturn cars. AT&T is reportedly exploring the format as well. (Time-Life Music currently runs pitches for collections of hits from the Big Band era and the rock-'n'-roll years.) They will never supplant The Simpsons or Entertainment Tonight, but in fringe time periods, infomercials could become Madison Avenue's next hot format. Half an hour with the Ziploc finger: now that would be amazing...