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Edward Jay Epstein

Journalist Edward Jay Epstein has a new book about Hollywood that looks interesting. It discusses, for example, how the money made from movies these days comes not from theater screenings but from home video and other outlets:

The benefits of prolonging a fillm's run in the theaters are now negated by the loss that would be sustained by delaying its video opening past the point at which it can benefit from the movie's advertising campaign.

I used an article that Epstein wrote about DeBeers and the marketing of diamonds in a high school media class I taught a couple of years ago and it was one of few things the students actually enjoyed reading (y'know, kids today...). Granted, I had to create an abbreviated version ('cos my 12th graders had extremely limited attention spans) but it's always a charge when teens are moved to read history. And for those who haven't read about one of the most successful marketing campaigns in history--how diamonds were pitched as rare stones symbolizing true love--it's a great story.