Originally posted Thursday, September 12, 2019 by RODNEY HO/rho@ajc.com on his AJC Radio & TV Talk blog
The third annual SCAD Animation Fest in Atlanta Sept. 26 to 28 will feature experts behind “Toy Story 4,” “The Simpsons,” “Frozen 2” and “Family Guy.”
There will be panels about the latest in virtual reality, motion graphics and design. It's open to the public and details are here.
SCAD has been offering an animation major (first identified as computer art) since 1991 and nearly 1,600 students worldwide now are enrolled in the animation program.
"Students have grown up with technology," said Leigh Seaman, senior executive director of SCADFILM. "Animation is the earliest art form exposed to you as a child and stays with you your entire life."
This effective spin-off the SCAD Savannah Film Festival and Atlanta-based aTVFest will include plenty of alums from Pixar, Disney and Atlanta-based studios such as Primal Screen and Floyd County ”Archer”). And Atlanta-based Adult Swim will naturally be represented.
She noted that animation jobs are not just available at these production studios. There are story-telling opportunities at corporations such as Home Depot and at gaming companies. “It’s not just entertainment,” she said. “It’s information. It’s how we communicate.”
The panel she thinks might be most popular will be the one featuring Mike Reiss, writer and producer for "The Simpsons." He will screen a couple of episodes and discuss them. "It will be such a great moment and will show how important it is to tour the cultural evolution of something this big."
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Credit: Guy D'Alema
Credit: Guy D'Alema
YouTube will gradually take down the premium paywall for the second season of its biggest show “Cobra Kai,” shot in metro Atlanta and released earlier this year. Previously, only the first episode of the season was free. Today, the second one is free as well and each week, another one will be available for all to see.
Season three is already in production.
Here are the first two episodes of season two:
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Fish 104.7 found itself in a rarified air for four straight months: No. 1 most listened to station in Atlanta, according to Nielsen rankings.
But the Christian op station tumbled to sixth place in August, its share dropping from 8.5 to 4.7, an unprecedented fall in the 10-year history of Atlanta people meter measurements, not counting Christmas season. (Such dropoffs have happened in the past in January after a station gets a Christmas lift, then goes back to normal programming.)
It’s unlikely this meant 45 percent of its listeners suddenly stopped listening. It may simply reveal the flaws in the methodology of Nielsen meters and limited sample sizes.
While stations such as B98.5 and Q100 rely more on large numbers of people listening relatively short amounts of time, Fish is more reliant on fewer people listening longer. So the chances of volatility for Fish are greater if a handful of what those in radio call P1 listeners drop off the panel in a given month.
And that’s what appeared to have happened. A 4.7 share is actually not out of the norm for Fish in recent years. The shares in the 7s and 8s from April through July were outliers.
Fish listeners didn’t necessarily venture to the new nationally syndicated K-Love format at 106.7, which in its second full month with heavy billboard advertising, saw its ratings double. That may sound impressive but it jumped from 0.2 to 0.4 share.
News/talk 95.5 WSB is back at No. 1 with a 7.6 share. It had been tops for more than two years in a row before Fish jumped to the top.
Kiss came in at No. 2, its ratings having rebounded since new program director Terri Avery took over earlier this year and a disappointing post-Tom Joyner 2018.
Not that V-103 or Majic are in bad shape. V-103 remains No. 1 among 18 to 34 year olds and is tied with Majic for 25 to 54 year olds. And Steve Harvey's syndicated show on Majic demolishes both local shows for Kiss and V-103 in those demographics, hitting double digits among 25 to 54 year olds.
Hot 107.9 had a bad month, finishing fifth among 18 to 34 year old after being No. 1 in that key demo earlier in the year.
In the pop world, B98.5 is the dominant station with a 6 share, easily beating the other three Q100, Star 94.1 and Power 96.1.
August was an especially rough month for Q100, which saw its worst share ever since Atlanta was introduced to people meter measurements in 2009: a 3.1 share and 13th place. Even the Bert Show, while No. 1 among 18 to 34, fell to an unusually low seventh place among 25 to 54 year olds.
On the other hand, 680/93.7 The Fan had its best month ever with a 2.5 share with Chuck & Chernoff in the top 10 among 25 to 54 year olds for three months in a row.
Rock 100.5’s morning show Bailey & Southside has also seen itself from great heights in a span of a fewmonths. It was No. 1 among 18 to 34 year olds in January with a 9.6 share, the first time it has ever landed so high. Now it’s 2.3, down to 17th. Again, the reality is probably somewhere in between.
Nielsen has always struggled to get decent sampling among young listeners so that means more volatility. Its overall morning ratings have fallen a more modest 3.6 (10th) to 2.2 (19th).
Rock 100.5, under a new program director, just recently shifted its music mix to include more modern active rock.
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