Hollywood Reporter: Hollywood Hills Bird Streets

The Hollywood Reporter declares that the Bird Streets--the very fancy area above the Sunset Strip where the streets have names like Oriole, Thrasher, and Nightingale--is hotter than ever. Larry Flynt and Leonardo DiCaprio have lived there for years, but there are lots of new (rich) neighbors coming in (including two Friends--Matthew Perry just bought, Jennifer Aniston just rented, although she also owns an investment property nearby). There are currently 15 houses for sale in the neighborhood, with asking prices ranging from $1.25 million to $18 million, and seven houses for rent. Here are a few other things you might not have known about the Birds:

- True Grit producer Megan Ellison owns two neighboring houses built by designer/developer Steve Hermann. She also "owns a third adjoining residence and has spent nearly $33 million to acquire the properties. Her dealmaking has been the subject of great speculation as residents wonder about her plans for the compound; she declined comment." - A Keller Williams agent who repped the seller in the Perry sale, "says homes that are considered teardowns can fetch as much as $7 million if the lots offer '10 out of 10' views." Furthermore, the houses with views reach prices per square foot "typically achieved only in neighborhoods such as Malibu's Carbon Beach." - The Bird Streets have a community group called the Doheny Dining Club. It's an open group, founded in 2008, that meets about twice a year for "progressive dinners." The DDC's founder says "We didn't think this was the kind of community that wanted to get to know their neighbors...But it seems that everybody wants that." The only member confirmed in the story is celebrity divorce attorney Laura Wasser. - One of the Bird Streets most famous spots, the Blue Jay Way house where George Harrison wrote "Blue Jay Way" in 1967, is now a rental. According to Redfin, it last sold in 2009. ·

Why Hollywood Is Flocking to the Bird Streets Neighborhood [THR]

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Condo rentals at sundance should be negotiable this year

http://saltlakecity.craigslist.org/vac/2675757387.html salt lake craigslist > housing > vacation rentals please flag with care: [?] miscategorized prohibited spam/overpost best of craigslist $4 / 2br - SUNDANCE ATTENDANCE IS DOWN, DON'T ACCEPT OVERPRICED HOUSING (Park City) Date: 2011-10-29, 5:14PM MDT Reply to: hous-h2kt9-2675757387@craigslist.org [Errors when replying to ads?] Here is something PC condo owners don't want you to know. Attendance at this year's Sundance Film Festival is waaaaaay down. According the SL Tribune, the amount of parties and events has dropped by more than half. Many hollywood executives are skipping this year, or sending skeleton teams. There is a glut of unrented Condos and Homes. Don't accept the inflated prices, give them counter offers at the normal Ski Season rate (or start out at the Summer rates). If they are advertising here on Craigslist, they are desperate and know its late in the game. It's a renters market now and everyone in PC knows it. The PC Condo owners would rather earn some money during Sundance then let it go empty. Beware of people in SLC or Orem/Provo trying to rent condos claiming they are near PC -- its a 30 minute drive through a snow covered canyon. Get everything in writing as there are some thiefs here that will take your money on condos they don't even own. Advice from a Sundance Veteran. Location: Park City it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests PostingID: 2675757387

Changes in the biz

In this issue of The Institutional Risk Analyst we feature a comment from Michael Whalen, two-time Emmy award winning composer, music supervisor and recording artist. He is also a professor at The City College of New York and NYU, a media consultant and an analyst for Fox Business. You can read #0000ff;">the earlier interview with Mike in The IRA library on #0000ff;">www.irabankratings.com. We start off with the great Robert Hunter song #0000ff;">"Row Jimmy Row," which was first performed February 9, 1973 at Rose Maples Pavilion, Stanford University. As one Dead Head commented years back, "We all work, supported by water (a powerful liquidity), never knowing, really, how we are doing, or where we are going." That certainly applies to a lot of the global economy today and especially the media business, as Michael explains.

Imagine that the micro economies for different sectors of business are like weather fronts, some huge, some small. Despite how the weather "feels" no weather lasts forever. Like weather, it takes some amount of months or years for the environment that created the economy to pass away.

In the media space, we have been experiencing one of the biggest changes in "weather" - ever. It started in the late 90s with the rise of the Internet being widely used by the public, the first peer to peer file sharing networks (Napster) and the first notion that not all digital media had to be paid for or that the dominate positions of the television networks and film studios would someday end.

The change accelerated by 2001, 9/11, the SAG strike and the dominate rise of cable TV (HBO) made the media playing field more dynamic and sacred cows were called into question. Ten years later, what we are seeing is the mechanics completely changed for how media is sold, paid for and how it is exploited. Whether or not everyone in media, its investors or it's "players" repositions themselves for the next 5 years of what might happen - I think it's time to get on the rain boots and get out the umbrella. Think Blade Runner, my brother's favorite movie. This is the story of the old economy that has already ended. With a hurricane suddenly approaching, this "new" economy has scared people in media who fully grasp what the radically different metrics and the social changes mean. This is a tale of two economies.

As with any moving weather systems, the two economies of today's media environment are overlapping. You can read in the entertainment trades every day the impact of these two ways of doing business living side by side are having on the media world. Look around, pieces of the economy of 15 years ago still exist - you buy a ticket and see a movie (you are playing a hell of a lot more for popcorn). You sit through commercials on TV and you see a program. You can even order a CD on amazon.com and get a physical full-bandwidth recording and the liner notes! These last "golden days" to quote "The Sound of Music" of the old economy is quickly disappearing but its effects will linger in the speaking and the behaviors of the "avoiders" for a little while longer.

The assumed ability to exploit media content into the new streaming platforms and have it paid commensurate with that content's likely budget (anything above nothing) and satisfy "old" income projections are all gone. As you can quickly deduce, it is in this overlapping and the two economies operating side by side that is the SOURCE of the overwhelming confusion and upset of analysts, pundits and long-time media watchers about the near-term and medium term future of media. Many of my colleagues and fellow media watchers would say that what I am about to write is completely insane, wacky, mad, irresponsible and utterly incorrect.

The overwhelming majority of media content being created now in 2011/2012 (film, television & music) is being BLINDLY financed with hopes that NEW reliable and profitable media streams will emerge quickly before the "old" income streams completely dry-up. This has caused near panic in Hollywood, New York, London and Bollywood as media makers and content producers plow headlong into the unknown -- before the project is cancelled or its budget slashed. In reality, many media producers right now have no idea how or to whom their work will be sold or licensed and for how much. They must use the paradigm of the past to describe a brand-new financial landscape that is both unknown and uncharted. Welcome to the new media economy.

Let me be clear: I am NOT talking about the huge "tent pole" movies being made right now, the successful television shows that have network funding or music being created by established artists and bands. These projects are becoming fewer and MUCH farther between. To invoke a line from the "Occupy Movement", we're talking about the other 99% of media

Here's an example: in the new subscription based streaming paradigm there is NO WAY to predict or calculate sales on a per project or even a per USE basis. Further, royalty equations and blanket license fees being used by companies like #ff0000;">Netflix, Hulu.com and others have nothing to with actually paying the content creators for the use of their material. Why? At $8/month, how does Netflix expect to pay each content owner for the use of the material if 100 or more titles are viewed in a month? These deals also include "profit" sharing on ad sales which track the most popular pieces of streamed content, etc. Therefore, all content creators must choose to either be at the mercy of these indifferently created blanket licenses or to embark on a new path. Said another way, the recent blow-up at Netflix is but the first of several such tremors coming down the pike.

to read the rest of the article : www.irabankratings.com