Showbiz Sandbox 597: Audiobooks Are Changing Our Reading Habits
October 11, 2022
Audiobooks have slowly gained enough market share in the publishing industry that the medium now rivals print and ebooks in terms of sales and consumption. How audiobooks are changing the way we read is a question Karl Berglund of Uppsala University in Sweden set out to answer through a study analyzing a large amount of quantitative data from Swedish readers for his upcoming book “Reading Audio Readers: Book Consumption in the Streaming Age.” Berglund joins us to discuss his findings and what they could mean for the publishing industry.
Netflix has certainly changed viewing habits with all of its original programming streaming directly into homes. However, after striking a new deal with some of the world’s largest movie theater chains, the company will distribute the sequel to “Knives Out” for a single week in over 600 cinemas a full month before releasing the title on its own platform.
Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment headlines including how titles from four different streaming platforms all hit more than a billion minutes of viewing in the same week, what productions to see in London’s West End and Pink Floyd’s back catalog is up for sale.
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Showbiz Sandbox 596: The Compact Disc Turns 40 Years Old
October 4, 2022
It’s hard to believe that the compact disc format was first launched forty years ago this week. Billboard has a great oral history about the launch of the CD format and how it initially faced stiff resistance from record labels before kicking off a boom in music sales that lasted until digital MP3s took over 20 years later. We discuss our own
Meanwhile, the Washington Post has a very lengthy, multi-media feature about the search for the best sound in music, and whether that means lossless audio digital files, a newly remastered album on 180-gram vinyl or maybe, or just maybe, an old LP you find for $10 in a record store.
Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment headlines including how Netflix plans to license comedy specials rather than own them outright, Trevor Noah steps down as host of “The Daily Show” and why September was the worst month at the domestic box office in 26 years.
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