TiVo Sheds Subscribers Again, But Wall Street Is Impressed With Quarterly Results

TiVo reported a wider quarterly loss and shed more subscribers who ditched their brand-name boxes in favor of generic models, but financial results topped expectations and the stock rose as much as 8 percent after the closing bell Wednesday. TiVo lost 456,000 subscribers, ending its fiscal second quarter with 1.9 million, but for the first time in many quarters the company added subscribers through its partnerships with cable providers. The DVR pioneer has been losing subscribers ever since a relationship with DirecTV went south several years ago. It has since struck a new deal with DirecTV and added Comcast as a partner, but those partnerships have been stuck in neutral for years. Deals with smaller cable companies in the U.S and foreign markets, though, have begun to bear fruit. CEO Tom Rogers said Wednesday in TiVo's earnings release that DirecTV is "progressing towards launch" but he made no mention of Comcast. A spokeswoman said there was "just nothing to report." The company reported a loss of $20 million compared with a loss of $15 million in the year-ago quarter, though revenue advanced 19 percent to $61.2 million. TiVo ended the quarter with $628 million in cash, courtesy of a $300 million payment from Dish Network that settled a patent dispute in the prior quarter, and on Wednesday Rogers said TiVo will put some of that cash to use via a $100 million stock repurchase plan. Rogers said the stock -- which sunk 2 percent to $8.12 Wednesday -- is "trading at unusually depressed levels." Similar to the way it pursued Dish, Tivo is suing AT&T and Verizon for patent infringement. Related Topics

Katie Couric Talk Show Will Be Called 'Katie' (Photo)

The title of Katie Couric's new ABC talk show is Katie. Key art for the program hit the web Monday with the tagline, "The Opportunity Begins September 6th." Katie premieres on ABC in fall 2012 and is part of Couric's overall deal with the network that allows her to anchor specials, contribute interviews and participate in special events coverage across ABC's dayparts. Details on Couric's new syndicated talker are being held closely to the vest but Disney/ABC Television Group president Anne Sweeney told The Hollywood Reporter in June that the show would be "topical" and "capture the zeitgeist of what people are talking about." She continued, "It will be serious at times, obviously informative and fun. Really, a mixture of things we hope people will be interested in. It's not going to be a news show, but we'll be talking about the news and issues that I think people care about, whether it's bullying or the effect technology has on our kids. "It might be a profile of a navy seal after Osama Bin Laden has been killed; it might talk about women in the military and some of the stresses they experience in reentry with their families. Couric began her news career at ABC in 1979 as a desk assistant. ABC Katie Couric Anne Sweeney

What's Really Behind the Arguments Over 'The Help'?

The debate over 'The Help' is really getting ugly. Before the film's release a week ago, initial reviews generally praised the big-screen adaptation of Kathryn Stockett's novel for transforming a seldom-addressed facet of African-American life in the Jim Crow South -- the often humiliating experiences of black maids working for white families -- into well-crafted, even uplifting Hollywood entertainment. Then came a backlash of criticism of the film (and, implicitly, of the reviewers who praised it), arguing that the movie was, in fact, a racial whitewash, a perpetuation of old Mammy stereotypes and a trivialization of the actual struggles of black Civil Rights activists that occurred at the time, all filtered through the consciousness of a white heroine (and white filmmakers) and meant to relieve white audiences of their guilt over the racial injustices of the past while letting them off the hook for the persistence of milder forms of racism today. That's some serious backlash, but now comes the counterbacklash, arguments from essayists that 'The Help' is a lot subtler and more nuanced in its portrayal of race relations in 1963 Mississippi, and in its portrayal of the conflicted feelings of the maids toward their employers and their children, than the movie's detractors give it credit for; that the detractors are conditioned to see racism in any attempt by white writers and filmmakers to address the lives of black foik, especially in that strife-torn era; and that this close-minded, knee-jerk reaction to the film is, in fact, racist. There's a lot of baggage to unpack, then, in both the backlash and the counterbacklash. But what no one seems to be addressing is why the argument over 'The Help' has become so bitter and why the stakes seem so high. Now, I come neither to bury 'The Help' nor to praise it, but I think I know why everyone is so worked up, and the reason is something both sides of the debate can probably agree upon. Moviefone and Huffington Post Staffers Debate 'The Help' (Read more here) One of the difficult issues here is the centrality of Skeeter, the white writer portrayed by Emma Stone, who encourages the maids to tell her their stories, which she profits from by publishing them in a book. (Note the parallels with Stockett herself, not to mention screenwriter/director Tate Taylor and producer Brunson Green, all of them white Mississippians too young to remember the Civil Rights era firsthand, though not too young to have had black housemaids during their own childhoods.) To detractors of 'The Help,' Skeeter's presence reinforces the white-savior narrative, a common way for novels and movies to provide an entry point for stories of the plights of people of color. (So common, in fact, that it sparked criticism of 'Avatar,' where the people of color rescued by a white interloper happened to be blue.) The white-savior narrative is patronizing not just to the black characters (implying that they lack the wherewithal to save themselves) but also to white viewers (since it's assumed that they won't want to watch a story about black struggle unless there's a white face at the forefront to identify with). Another controversial question is whether the movie is exploitative or respectful toward the black women it depicts. The Association of Black Women Historians argued the former in a statement, calling the movie's maids a perpetuation of the Mammy stereotype, women who were "asexual, loyal, and contented caretakers of whites." I'm not sure this is fair, since the plot hinges on an outpouring of discontent and disloyalty from the maids, particularly Viola Davis' Aibileen and Octavia Spencer's Minny, the two most outspoken of the maids. Their acts of subversion may be small and done only behind their employers' backs, but there's clearly a difference between these quietly seething women and Hattie McDaniel's Mammy in 'Gone With the Wind' (the most notorious example of the stereotype), who does nothing to imply dissatisfaction with or dissent against the system that keeps her subservient. (It's not a difference in their personal dignity -- McDaniel gave Mammy so much of that that she became the first African-American to win an Oscar -- but in their willingness to assert that dignity, in the face of real danger.) Still, it's the small nature of those acts of rebellion that has prompted another criticism, that 'The Help' trivializes the actual struggles in the Civil Rights movement going on in Jackson, Miss. (and elsewhere) in 1963. The movie does acknowledge the assassination of Medgar Evers in Jackson that summer, but as Tulane professor Melissa Harris-Perry noted while discussing the movie last week on her Twitter feed and on MSNBC, it gives the Evers slaying as much screen time as Skeeter's date. To Harris-Perry, 'The Help' seemed to trivialize not only the Civil Rights struggles going on outside the frame, but also the hazards faced by the maids themselves, including threats of violence. Melissa Harris-Perry Discusses 'The Help' Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy This week's responses to such criticism include an essay by Entertainment Weekly's film critic Owen Gleiberman, who argues that 'The Help' is actually nuanced and complex in its treatment of the maids' lives (for instance, how they could rear white children with unreserved love while bristling under the indignities they endured at the hands of the children's parents). "This is one case where it may not be the film that's sanitizing the messy issues of race in America so much as the people who are overly eager to beat up on it," Glieberman writes, and to dismiss the movie as feel-good entertainment strictly for white viewers "is nothing short of profoundly racist." Indeed, some black viewers have embraced the film. One is Oprah Winfrey, who liked the novel as well. Another is linguist John McWhorter, who, in the New Republic, goes even further than Gleiberman, arguing that the movie's black critics are predisposed to see racism everywhere, that they're wedded to narratives that play up black suffering and victimization rather than black triumph (or black just-getting-through-the-day-like-everyone-else), and that "black pundits' reflexively hostile take on 'The Help' is a more articulate testament to the depredations of racism than anything in the movie itself." I think Gleiberman and McWhorter's criticism of the critics as racist is as over-the-top as the black scholars' view of the movie as a deliberate racial whitewash. But I can see where both sides are coming from. The historians complain that the movie isn't perfectly true to history; the film critic and the language expert reply that an unvarnished view of history would fail as a piece of dramatic art. The historians grouse about the use of a white-savior narrative; Gleiberman and McWhorter agree that white-savior narratives are bad but argue that this one doesn't fit the mold. 'The Help' - Trailer No. 1 That tiny seed of agreement, I think, leads to what the larger issue is here. Which is: there wouldn't be so much contention over this film if it weren't the only thing on the playing field addressing this particular topic. But mainstream movies rarely do address the Civil Rights era, and when they do, it's almost always through a white-savior narrative. The most egregious example is 'Mississippi Burning,' but there's also 'Ghosts of Mississippi,' or even movies as innocuous as 'To Kill a Mockingbird' or 'Intruder in the Dust.' There was also a forgotten movie about 20 years ago called 'The Long Walk Home,' very similar to 'The Help,' which tells the story of the Montgomery bus boycott not through Rosa Parks (who's not even a character in the film) but through a fictional white housewife ('The Help' co-star Sissy Spacek) who comes to sympathize with the hardships of her maid (Whoopi Goldberg) as she walks back and forth across the city to tend her employer's family and her own. So the historians come by their distrust of Civil Rights movies naturally; it's no wonder they didn't expect 'The Help' to be any better. Similarly, the pro-'Help' critics are aware of Hollywood's shameful history on this score, and it's no wonder they'd yearn for a movie that breaks the pattern. It seems like both the pessimists and the optimists saw in 'The Help' the movie they wanted to see. It's really not fair for 'The Help' to have to shoulder the burden of so many hopes and dreams all by itself. But the fact that 'The Help' is out there all alone is part of a larger problem in Hollywood, which shies away not just from movies that portray the struggle against racism fairly, but also from movies that portray African-American lives in all their richness and diversity. (To be sure, Hollywood doesn't play up the diversity of American experience for people of any race; when's the last time you saw a mainstream movie about white people who were poor or rural?) Everyone on both sides of 'The Help' debate agrees on the Oscar-worthy quality of Viola Davis' performance, ignoring the fact that she's likely to be one of the few black acting nominees this year. Last year there weren't any black nominees, not because there's any dearth of talented black stars, but because they weren't cast in the juicy dramatic roles that win Oscars. There are similarly few such roles this year -- except in 'The Help.' There would be a certain irony if Davis, a previous Oscar nominee for Best Supporting Actress for 'Doubt,' who's been so good in so many supporting roles, finally got a lead actor nomination for playing a maid like Hattie McDaniel did 72 years ago. "What kills me is that in 2011 Viola Davis is reduced to playing a maid," Harris-Perry said. I'm sure Davis and Spencer felt the same way, but if there were more dramas with roles for the likes of these two stars, their 'Help' roles would just be a blip on the résumé, part of a panoply of characters representing the diversity of experience, just as 'The Help' would be just one of many movies revealing all facets of life during an important period in recent history. (Really, it's a wonder that 'The Help' got made at all. I'm sure Davis and Spencer knew they'd get flak for playing maids; that Stockett, Taylor and Green knew they'd get flak for being white people telling a story about black lives; and that DreamWorks knew it could have a hard time attracting ticket-buyers to a touchy story about race with a predominantly female cast.) What's smart about 'The Help' is that it knows it's just telling one small part of the story of race relations in America. Like Skeeter, the filmmakers seem to know that this one small slice-of-life account isn't going to make all the difference in the world or end racism as we know it. It's just getting the ball rolling as a conversation-starter, not the last word. As long as we don't expect it to be the last word, as long as other movies take up the thread and keep us talking about a subject that's clearly not safely behind us but which remains a sore point, then 'The Help' will have done its job. Follow Gary Susman on Twitter @garysusman.

Montgomery, Bailey make 'Two'

Janet Montgomery ("Black Swan") and Brent Bailey are toplining the indie drama-comedy "The Republic of Two" from Freewater Films and Boxer Films. Republic," written and directed by Shaun Kosta, centers on heterosexual cohabitation in Los Angeles. Melanie Blair and Tim Bright are producing with John Clark of Boxer Films exec producing. The film, which recently began production in Los Angeles, also stars Stephanie Nicole Lemelin, Brandon Fobbs and Hallock Beals. Montgomery has a recurring role in "Entourage" and will be seen next in "Our Idiot Brother." Bailey's credits include NBC's "Life," Showtime's "Californication" and the feature "Going Down in LA-LA Land." Contact Dave McNary at dave.mcnary@variety.com

Stars fall into line for '8'

Anthony Edwards, Morgan Freeman, Christine Lahti, Take advantage of Reiner, Marisa Tomei, Cheyenne Jackson and Yeardley Cruz take presctiption tap to look within the one-evening-only Broadway reading through of Dustin Lance Black's play "8." Roles for that thesps haven't yet been introduced. Show focuses on Perry v. Schwarzenegger, the government situation filed through the American Foundation for Equal Privileges to overturn California's Proposition 8, which nixed same-sex marriage within the condition. Story is presented through the case's closing arguments as well as includes reenactments of memorable moments in the trial, according to transcripts, interviews and findings from the proceedings. Situation came to the conclusion using the judge finding Prop 8 unconstitutional, a ruling which has since been become a huge hit. Starry fundraising event for AFER and legit activist org Broadway Impact is helmed by Joe Mantello ("The Standard Heart"). Event is placed for Sept. 19 in the Eugene O'Neill Theater. Contact Gordon Cox at gordon.cox@variety.com

Food Network's Lisa Lillien, 'Glee' Exec to Be Honored at Project Angel Food's 'Angel Awards'

August isn't usually prime time for fundraisers, but Project Angel Food has been doing pretty well having its annual "Angel Awards" in late summer for the last 16 years. This year it's on Saturday, Aug. 20 in Hollywood. The concept is for 400 guests to drink and dine al fresco in the organization's parking lot (August is good for warm nights) while awards are given to the Food Network's Lisa Lillien and Glee executive producer Dante Di Loreto. The finalists from Oxygen's The Glee Project will perform. DreamWork's Chip Sullivan and the Center Theatre Group's Edward Rada are among the co-chairs. It's expected that the night will pay for 70,000 meals (the average cost for Project Angel Food to produce is $5) that are home-delivered to 1,300 clients with cancer, HIV/AIDS and other life-threatening illnesses in Los Angeles. Asked about the event by The Hollywood Reporter, Project Angel Food CEO Margaret Steele had this to say: The Hollywood Reporter: What makes this different from other fundraising dinners? Margaret Steele: What's powerful about this night is it's at our kitchen so the directness to our work is so visible on both a physical and emotional level. You're at a kitchen that cooks meals for the seriously ill. THR: You're serving the same type of meal a client would receive? Steele:Truthfully, we're probably adding a little more salt than we'd normally have for our clients. THR: Do you have a personal Project Angel Food favorite? Steele: I love the Moroccan chicken. THR: And will you be serving this Saturday? Steele: We're serving chicken with orzo and fresh vegetables. THR: Do you ever get requests for a menu change from the clients? Steele: Sometimes they say, "I want a piece of chocolate cake." We tell them, "We're not those people in your life." Related Topics

Angry Bird's Creator Rovio Set to Join Billionaire's Club

COLOGNE, Germany - Rovio, the company behind mobile phone gaming phenom Angry Birds is negotiating a funding deal that would value the company at around $1.2 billion, Bloomberg reports. Bloomberg quotes unnamed sources that claim Rovio is in talks with a "company in the entertainment business" interested in becoming a strategic investor in the Finnish firm. Bloomberg speculates that possible investors include Hollywood giants News Corp. and Walt Disney as well as gaming firms Electronic Arts or online giant Zynga, creator of FarmVille. All declined to comment.our editor recommends'Angry Birds' Developer Raises $42 millionAngry Birds to Be Turned Into TV, Web Show In it's first round of funding in March, Rovio raised $42 million, with Atomico Ventures, run by Skype founders Niklas Zennstromand Janus Friisand venture capital groups Accel Partners and Felicis Ventures its primary backers. Rovio has made no secret of its desire to expand its Angry Birds brand, which had a cameo appearance in R-rated comedy Horrible Bosses, beyond iPads and smartphones. Plans include an Angry Birds feature film and a major merchandising push. The company aims to put Angry Birds plush toys in some 200 retail stores in China, for example. The Angry Birds game became an instant global hit after its launch in December 2009 and has been downloaded by more than 300 million users worldwide. Related Topics International The Walt Disney Company News Corp. Zynga Horrible Bosses Rovio

Kathryn Bigelow Bin Laden Film Getting DC Scrutiny

UPDATE: Congressman Peter King has stated his reason for asking for an investigation. The letter appears below the original text. BREAKING: New York-based congressman Peter King has called for an investigation into the Obama Administration's cooperation with the untitled movie that The Hurt Locker's Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal are making about Navy SEAL Team 6's hunt and eventual kill of 9/11 terror mastermind Osama bin Laden. The request came after a New York Times column by Maureen Dowd reporting that the film -- which was acquired at auction by Sony Pictures before a script was completed -- received cooperation and help in describing a mission that was classified. The filmmakers have just released the following statement: Our upcoming film project about the decade long pursuit of Bin Laden has been in the works for many years and integrates the collective efforts of three administrations, including those of Presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama, as well as the cooperative strategies and implementation by the Department of Defense and the Central Intelligence Agency. Indeed, the dangerous work of finding the worlds most wanted man was carried out by individuals in the military and intelligence communities who put their lives at risk for the greater good without regard for political affiliation. This was an American triumph, both heroic, and non-partisan and there is no basis to suggest that our film will represent this enormous victory otherwise. Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal. The film is still casting up and Sony will release it Oct. 12, 2012, which falls smack in the middle of the Presidential election and likely has much to do with the complaint. The night that President Obama announced that bin Laden was killed, Deadline reported that Bigelow and Boal were already moving fast on a film that was being called Killing Bin Laden, one that focused on an earlier attempt by the Navy SEALs to finish off the Al-Qaeda leader. Deadline noted that they quite possibly had the hottest project in Hollywood, one that every studio in town was interested in. Megan Ellison's Annapurna signed on to finance the film and Sony Pictures bought it at auction during the Cannes Film Festival. Clearly, they had already done a lot of research on the ground because they didn't take that long to change the movie and add a satisfying ending. Boal has a foreign correspondent background, and he developed and used contacts in the military and the Middle East to shape The Hurt Locker. The White House has knocked down the notion that the filmmakers were getting tipped secrets, with a spokesman calling it "ridiculous" and saying the filmmakers got no preferential treatment. This all sounds like a steaming pile of partisan politics to me, but it certainly will get a lot of attention. The military has made a practice of cooperating on gung-ho pictures in the past, lending know-how and making military hardware available on movies ranging from Pearl Harbor to Top Gun. Few pols have complained until now. There will be plenty of upcoming appeals for cooperation by military mission films taking shape, including the upcoming Pete Berg-directed Lone Survivor, a fact-based tale about heroic Navy SEALs who struggled to survive after their covert mission in Afghanistan was compromised and they were forced to fight their way out of an ambush by Taliban forces. And let's not forget about Act of Valor, a film completed about a Navy SEAL mission that featured a cast of actual Navy SEALs re-creating their exploits. That movie Relativity Media will release next President's Day weekend. So it doesn't seem like Bigelow and Boal are getting anything out of the ordinary. Divulging classified matter is a serious matter, but the film is a drama, not a documentary, and the facts behind the successful hunt of bin Laden have been widely reported by now. I would hope that as we face the continued threat from terrorism, the House Committee on Homeland Security would have more important topics to discuss than a movie," White House Press secretary Jay Carney said. Here is Rep. King's letter: August 9, 2011 The Honorable Gordon S. Heddell Inspector General Department of Defense 400 Army Navy Drive Arlington, VA 22202-4704 The Honorable David Buckley Inspector General Central Intelligence Agency Washington, DC 20505 Dear Inspectors General Heddell and Buckley: I write to express concern regarding ongoing leaks of classified information regarding sensitive military operations. As reported in a New York Times column on August 6, 2011, Administration officials may have provided filmmakers with details of the raid that successfully killed Usama bin Laden (UBL). According to that report, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Inc. and movie director Kathryn Bigelow received top-level access to the most classified mission in history to produce a movie about the raid, due for release in October 2012. Reportedly, a Hollywood filmmaker also attended a CIA ceremony in honor of the team that carried out the raid. The Administrations first duty in declassifying material is to provide full reporting to Congress and the American people, in an effort to build public trust through transparency of government. In contrast, this alleged collaboration belies a desire of transparency in favor of a cinematographic view of history. Special Operations Commands Admiral Eric Olson stated that the May 1st raid was successful because nobody talked about it before, and if we want to preserve this capability nobody better talk about it after, and that his operators 15 minutes of fame lasted about 14 minutes too long. They want to get back in the shadows. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Michael Mullen stated that It is time to stop talking, as We have gotten to a point where we are close to jeopardizing the precision capability that we have, and we cant afford to do that. This fight isnt over. Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates stated that Too many people in too many places are talking too much about this operation, and when so much detail is available it makes that both more difficult and riskier for such missions in the future. Leaks of classified information regarding the bin Laden raid have already resulted, according to a June 15, 2011 article in the Washington Post, in the arrests of Pakistanis who were believed by local authorities to have assisted the CIA with the May 1st raid. Further participation by JSOC and the Agency in making a film about the raid is bound to increase such leaks, and undermine these organizations hard-won reputations as quiet professionals reputations important for their continued operational success. And, the success of these organizations is vital to our continued homeland security. Therefore, I request an investigation and classified briefing regarding this matter from the Defense Departments and CIAs Inspectors General, including but not limited to the following: What consultations, if any, occurred between members of the Executive Office of the President, and Department of Defense and/or CIA officials, regarding the advisability of providing Hollywood executives with access to covert military operators and clandestine CIA officers to discuss the UBL raid? Will a copy of this film be submitted to the military and CIA for pre-publication review, to determine if special operations tactics, techniques and procedures, or Agency intelligence sources and methods, would be revealed by its release? How was the attendance of filmmakers at a meeting with special operators and Agency officers at CIA Headquarters balanced against those officers duties to maintain their covers? How will cover concerns be addressed going forward? What steps did the Administration take to ensure that no special operations tactics, techniques, and procedures were compromised during those meetings? To the extent possible to determine, how many human intelligence sources and how many Agency intelligence methods have been compromised due to leaks about the May 1st raid? What effects have these compromises had on the CIAs collection capabilities? Will Agency participation in a film about the bin Laden raid add to or exacerbate the effects of these compromises? If you have any questions, please contact Mr. Matthew McCabe, Senior Counsel for the Committee on Homeland Security, at (202) 226-8417. Thank you for your time and consideration of this request. Sincerely, PETER T. KING Chairman

Russell Crowe Joins the Mark Wahlberg Cop Drama Broken City

How much scrunched face can one detective story take? Mark Wahlberg and Russell Crowe will join forces on Broken City, the story of an “ex-cop-turned-private detective (Wahlberg) who is hired by the mayor (the role Crowe will play) to see if his wife is cheating on him.” That investigation leads to murders and cover-ups, but the most intriguing bit of news is that Broken City’s script was on the 2008 Black List — where Inglourious Basterds, Up in the Air, No Strings Attached, and The Beaver (which ranked #1) first appeared. [Deadline]