I was at my parents’ house recently, going through some of my grandfather’s memorobilia, and I came across some letters that he had written back in 1928-1929. He worked for the Journal Star (in one of its incarnations) most of his life, starting as a paperboy in the early 1920s and retiring in 1974 as their National Advertising Manager.

But when he was 19 years old, he took a job at Columbia Records in Seattle, Washington. During the year he worked there, he wrote home to his folks, and they kept his letters. One particularly interesting passage was this one, from a letter he wrote April 14, 1929, a little over a month before his 20th birthday:

I’m glad you got to see the show, Mother. Take Dad to one of the all-talkings sometime. I think he’ll like it. They are just like vaudeville. Mr. Kilgore is just like Dad. He doesn’t care for moving pictures. I’ll bet within ten years there won’t be any vaudeville shows. They will all be talking pictures. Even the big shows in Seattle are doing away with vaudeville.

And how right he was! I get a kick out of his prescience every time I read it. It’s also interesting to me that even though technologies change, people’s reactions remain the same. His dad was reluctant to embrace the new “talking pictures” technology. I remember hearing this same reluctance from some people when computers replaced typewriters and CDs replaced vinyl records. Pretty soon it will be iPods and egocasting replacing radio and IP-VOD replacing cable TV.

And somewhere, some 20-year-old will probably write an e-mail or instant message to his mom saying, “tell Dad to try these new IP-VOD movies — I bet within ten years there won’t be any cable TV….” But his grandkids will never read his wise words, because the technology on which it was written will be obsolete by then.

I always heard that the reason there weren’t more family-friendly movies out there was because sex and violence sell and mamby-pamby G-rated flicks are big money losers.

But now there’s a new report out by the Dove Foundation called Profitability Study of MPAA-Rated Movies, and their findings are fascinating. I encourage you to click the link and check out the whole report (it’s only 12 pages), but here’s the bottom line:

While the movie industry produced nearly 12 times more R-rated films than G-rated from 1989 – 2003 (1,533 and 123 respectively), the average G-rated film produced 11 times greater profit than its R-rated counterpart ($78,982,000 and $6,939,000 respectively).

G-rated films also produced an average rate of return on investment (ROI) three times greater than R-rated films (94.5% vs. 28.7%).

Between 2000 and 2003, Hollywood produced nearly four times as many PG-13 films as PG (75 vs. 21). During that same time, the average PG film produced $33 million greater profit than a PG-13 film ($78.8 million vs. $45.6 million).

G-rated films were identified overall as most lucrative in all of the following categories:

-Net profit per film
-Theatrical box office per film
-Video revenue per film
-Rate of return per film

Films with a PG rating consistently report higher profits and rates of return than PG-13 and R-rated films.

So, it appears the conventional wisdom is off-target. If it’s all about the money, the theaters should be flooded with G- and PG-rated fare. So one wonders, why aren’t there more family-friendly movies?

Hi everyone — sorry I haven’t been around lately. I just peeked out of my bomb shelter today after being holed up since last night’s council meeting. You can understand why. Listening to Chuck Grayeb talk about what would happen if the city didn’t buy the water company had me scared nearly to death. I was expecting the evil German IAWC troops to be at my door any minute, forcing filthy water down my family’s throats and robbing us of all our worldly possessions while the ICC looked on with approval. When the due diligence measure went down to defeat, I knew I had to act fast. I got all the bottled water I could find (Evian, bottled in France, ironically) and headed into the bunker. Surely, I thought, Armageddon was soon to start.

Imagine my surprise when I found out the sun still came out today! And, I’ll be darned if I didn’t hear birds singing. I looked out the window and there were even children playing! We were still able to wash our dishes and do our laundry just like always. Things didn’t seem to change at all, actually. How did this happen?

Okay, enough snide comments. I’m not celebrating much because I know it’s all coming up again (like a bad lunch) in a few short years. Water-buyout advocates won’t let this little setback stop them. Start preparing now for Water Buyout ’07.

There’s a series of articles in the Journal Star this week focusing on gas and oil prices. Yesterday’s was pretty good. It talked about the reasons oil prices are going up: increased demand due to China’s industrialization and America’s insatiable consumption, plus the lack of new oil drilling or other measures that could increase supply. It even explained “peak oil.”

One thing it failed to mention about consumption, however, is how city planning contributes to Americans’ need to drive everywhere. As I mentioned in a previous post, Peoria has grown from just over 13 square miles to about 44 square miles in the past fifty years, with very little population growth. If you look at how that new area is organized, you’ll find that it’s split up by type of zoning. For the most part, residential houses are grouped together, office parks are grouped together, and retail is set off by itself, with roads connecting all these pockets.

If you want to get anywhere, you have to drive. If you want to go to the store, it’s a five- to ten-minute drive. Doctor’s office — same thing. Heck, if you’re already at the Shoppes at Grand Prairie — let’s say you’re eating at Famous Dave’s — and you want to see a movie at Rave, you have to get in your car and drive across the parking lot!

If kids want to spend some of their allowance, can they just hop on their bikes and go to the mall? Not without taking their lives in their hands. Nope, Mom or Dad has to drive them. If elderly people who can’t drive anymore, but can walk just fine want to go out to a movie or something, can they get there without someone driving them? No.

Our city is not unique. Sprawl is the rule in America. And it’s a big reason why there’s so much consumption of gasoline. If cities were denser, with more mixed use, we could cut down on a lot of consumption. It’s not something that can be accomplished overnight, but there are steps that can be taken.

In Peoria, the Duany “Heart of Peoria” plan is an excellent example of what can be done to make city life less dependent on automobiles — or at least less dependent on long car rides to basic services like groceries.

The community values recently adopted by the City Council is “modeled after an initiative in Fresno, Calif.,” according to the Journal Star. So I did some searching on the Internet to see if I could find out more about the Fresno initiative. There, the group who put together the values is called Fresno Citizens for Good Government (FCGG), and their values are strikingly similar to the ones adopted by Peoria. I guess we have a lot in common with Fresno. For instance, we both believe in the “art of the possible thinking” (*eyes roll*).

The FCGG’s missions statement is “to provide a powerful, non-partisan voice for citizens who wish to encourage our elected officials to exercise community stewardship in pursuit of solutions that are in the best interests of the totality of our community.” One of the ways they carry out their mission is through a political action committee called C-PAC. C-PAC endorses candidates for public office (council, school board, etc.) who adhere to the community values and raises funds to financially support such candidates. It appears that average Joes and the major newspaper in Fresno have bought into the community values enough that FCGG can bring political pressure to bear on candidates through these efforts; that is, being blackballed by the FCGG heaps a heavy load of negative publicity on your candidacy.

So, considering Peoria’s initiative is modeled on Fresno’s, is a similar PAC in our future from the Peoria Coalition of Concerned Citizens? And how will that affect Peoria politics? Is the adoption of seemingly innocuous community values a veiled and measured attempt to gain political power over time?

I noticed that one of the items on the agenda for tomorrow night’s council meeting is a request to hire an attorney to negotiate a new cable franchise agreement. I learned from CableFAX’s Cable World website how Insight is positioning itself for the renewal process:

Insight presents its customer service improvements–as well as details of its rebuilt cable plant and new service–as proof to city officials that it is living up to the commitments in its franchise agreement, which is coming up for renewal in 2006. Randy Ray, the Peoria city attorney who handles the franchise renewal negotiations, says it’s too early to tell if there are any demands the city might have. He is looking for more input from the community in city council meetings leading up to the negotiations. He expects the franchise term will be shorter than the 20-year agreement that expires at the end of this year. “This is the city’s first opportunity to even really look at this,” Ray says.

Relations between Insight and the city of Peoria are “relatively trouble free,” he says. “I hesitate to comment on plant or any other infrastructure issues because…we haven’t really addressed them yet. But I know when I go home and turn my TV on, I have cable.”

Kim Sheetz, Insight’s Peoria district community and public affairs manager, is gearing up for several other franchise renewal meetings this year in communities outside of Peoria proper. She’s not expecting to field angry demands at any of the meetings.

“With all the advanced services, they are pretty willing to agree to new franchises,” Sheetz says.

Specifically, Peoria’s franchise agreement with Insight expires April 15, 2006. The article doesn’t say how short Ray would like the new franchise agreement to be, but Galesburg’s most recent franchise renewal with Insight in May 2002 was for only five years. One fee in particular the city would like to avoid is mentioned in the request for council action: The city currently pays $32,000 per year to broadcast the city council meetings on Insight’s public access channel. In the new franchise agreement, the city wants to eliminate that fee.

I wonder what else could be included in the franchise agreement that would benefit Peoria.

Back in February of this year, the FCC rejected proposals that would have required cable companies to provide (a) enough space for broadcast stations’ analog and digital channels during the transition to digital television (“dual must-carry”), and (b) enough space for multiple signals from each broadcaster (“multi-cast must-carry”). Could or should the new franchise agreement in Peoria require dual or multi-cast must-carry provisions?

What about television decency? Could or should there be a provision in the new franchise agreement that the cable company provide a family-friendly package lineup for basic cable subscribers?

One of the provisions in the city’s municipal code calls for public, educational, and governmental access channels, and that these channels be “available for all forms of public expression, community information and debate of public issues.” They also are required to provide facilities for producing public access programs. Should the new agreement include a requirement that sound and video be upgraded in these facilities? Public access programs have notoriously poor sound and video quality.

Another provision in the city’s municipal code allows the city to buy the cable company and own/operate it itself. Since the city is trying to get into the water business, should the city try to get into the cable broadcasting business, too, for the sake of saving Peorians money and having another revenue stream? (Okay, that question was tongue-in-cheek, if you couldn’t tell.)

According to the Cable World article, Randy Ray is “looking for more input from the community” regarding the new franchise agreement. So, what do you all think? Let me know and I’ll pass your serious comments on to Mr. Ray.