Latest news with #DanielTiger'sNeighborhood
Miami Herald
9 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Miami Herald
Olivia Munn explains why she doesn't allow Ms. Rachel in her house
When it comes to raising young children, it feels almost inevitable that popular children's programming will dominate the television screens at home. But according to actress Olivia Munn, she doesn't allow any of it in her home despite being a mom of two. During a conversation with People, Munn explained that when it comes to even the most popular children's programming, she says no to most of it. 'I know kids love [YouTuber Ms. Rachel], but the thing is, if I can't watch it, I'm not going to spend the rest of my life going crazy,' Munn told People. 'These kid shows drive me crazy.' Munn and her husband, comedian John Mulaney, are parents to 3-year-old son Malcolm and 9-month-old daughter Méi. Even cartoons are a big no, Munn told People. 'Malcolm asked for 'Blue's Clues' [recently], and I don't know who showed him 'Blue's Clues,' but they are on my list now,' she continued. 'I said, 'Not in my house.'' 'John got him into the Spider-Man cartoons, which is not interesting to me,' Munn continued. 'I put on Tom Holland's 'Spider-Man: Homecoming' and was like, 'If you want to watch the real-life ones, then we can watch that.' It might be a little too old for him, but I can't take the cartoons.' There is one children's show, however, that Munn is able to stomach, and that's PBS' 'Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood,' admitting that it is a 'great program.' She explained how it helped Malcolm with the transition when his baby sister was born. 'Daniel Tiger has a little sister, and we'd tell him, 'There's a baby sister coming,'' Munn says. Munn's latest addition comes after the actress revealed her daughter was named after a lie her mom, Dung Kim Munn, told her. While a guest on Seth Meyers on May 12, prior to welcoming Méi into the world, Olivia Munn said that Kim Munn told them that the American version of her name Dung was June. 'One day we were driving,' Olivia Munn told Meyers, 'my mom just says, out of nowhere, 'You know, people call me June. My mom's name is Dung. It's spelled D-U-N-G. And so she said, 'You know, people call me June.' And I said, 'When do people call you June?' And she was like, 'You know, a lot of people call me June. It's the Americanized name for Dung.'' Kim Munn's realization led Mulaney to suggest naming their daughter after his mother-in-law. Only later, after sharing the special news with Kim Munn, Olivia Munn learned that only two people have ever called her mother June. 'It's staying June,' she told Meyers. 'We're not changing it. So yeah, she's kind of in honor of my mother, but I hope she doesn't grow up to be as big a liar.'
RTÉ News
28-04-2025
- Business
- RTÉ News
Losses increase at Brown Bag Films as revenues almost halve to €30m
The owner of multi-award-winning Brown Bag Films recorded pre-tax losses of €4.6m last year as the business continued to be hit by the downturn in the animation content industry. New consolidated accounts filed by Scholastic Ireland Holdings Ltd show that the group's pre-tax losses of €4.62m were a 31% increase on the pre-tax losses of €3.5m in fiscal 2023. Pre-tax losses increased as revenues almost halved from €58.93m to €30.18m. However the revenues figures are skewed as the accounts are for a 10 month period to the end of May last year compared to a prior 12 month period. The group recorded losses of €3.17m and exceptional costs of €1.44m concerning redundancy costs and impairment resulted in the pre-tax loss of €4.6m. Numbers employed by the group reduced from 264 to 202 during the year as staff costs declined from €20m to €15m. On the exceptional €1.44m cost, the directors state that the cost "reflects changes in the industry which left the group with the unfortunate course of action to reduce its headcount". The directors state that in the prior year, a decision was announced to restructure operations by downsizing which the directors feel "will allow the group to achieve efficiencies and boost profitability over the long term". The accounts show that the group - which operates studios in Dublin, Toronto and Bali - paid out a dividend of €1.74m last year. The group did record a trading profit for the year after combined non-cash depreciation and amortisation costs of €8.9m are taken into account. The Brown Bag business - which celebrated its 30th year in business last year - was founded in Dublin in 1994 by Cathal Gaffney and Darragh O'Connell. Brown Bag Films was acquired by Canadian based 9 Story Media Group in 2015. 9 Story Media was purchased by the US based Scholastic for $185m in March of last year. In an interview on RTE Radio One's The Business in March 2024, Mr Gaffney spoke about the downturn in the industry. "The market has softened quite a bit. For the last 10 years all the streamers, Apple, Netflix, Prime were all commissioning tonnes and tonnes of children's animation," he said. "Now that has pulled quite a bit - they are cutting both costs and content that they produce. It is a tricky time globally, but it will bounce back, it always does. We are somewhat insulated in the work that we do is in both service and IP (Intellectual Property) work. It is not as busy as it was," he added. Some of the the studio's global hit TV shows include Doc McStuffins, Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood, Henry Hugglemonster, Bing, Peg + Cat, Peter Rabbit, Wild Kratts, Olivia, Noddy in Toyland, The Magic School Bus: Rides Again, and Octonauts. On the risks and uncertainties facing the business, the directors state that "rapidly changing technology and platforms are altering the broadcasting landscape and existing business models and driving growth in direct-to-consumer and digital markets". They state that "the group believes it has sufficient experience to meet these risks while delivering profitable revenue growth". The pre-tax losses for last year also take account of interest payments of €492,410. Directors' pay reduced from €842,107 to €631,950. Shareholder funds at the end of May last year totalled €48.53m, which included accumulated profits of €8.9m. Cash funds increased from €8.04m to €11.46m.
Yahoo
27-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
MTG pitting Elon's DOGE against NPR and PBS is a literal hot mess
It was a question so simple that a child could answer, posed by Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., to Mike Gonzalez, a Heritage Foundation senior fellow. 'What does 'ugga mugga' mean to you?' Khanna asked. 'Nothing,' Gonzalez replied. Fair enough. Maybe it doesn't mean anything to you, either. If you didn't know this exchange took place in the middle of a House Subcommittee on Delivering Government Efficiency hearing, you might wonder why it matters that Gonzalez was clueless about this or any other aspect of 'Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood.' Khanna was asking about things any of the millions of parents with children who watch one of the Public Broadcasting Service's most popular children's programs would know. But Gonzalez, who was brought before the DOGE subcommittee to advocate for defunding the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which provides funding for National Public Radio and PBS, hadn't a clue. He didn't know that 'Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood' is not affiliated with 'Sesame Street.' He couldn't even tell Khanna the name of the iconic public television show from which it was spun off. That would be 'Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.' As for the meaning of "ugga mugga," we'll let Daniel Tiger explain it. Wednesday's two-hour and 26-minute hearing was punctuated by many infuriating, embarrassing and downright ignorant lines of questioning, the bulk of which was directed toward NPR president and CEO Katherine Maher and PBS president and CEO Paula Kerger. But Khanna's bit was not without purpose, nor was it the most theatrical. His fellow Democrats called attention to the ridiculousness of the hearing, including Khanna's fellow California Rep., Robert Garcia, who used his time to ask Kerger, among other things he purported that the American people want to know, 'Is Elmo now, or has he ever been, a member of the Communist Party of the United States? Yes or no?' 'No,' the PBS head responded dryly. 'Now, are you sure, Ms. Kerger?' Garcia continued, gesturing toward a large picture of Larry David's nemesis. 'He's obviously red.' For a moment, she played along, 'Well, he is a puppet,' she said, 'but no.' Committee member Greg Casar, D-Texas, piled onto this bit, peppering Gonzalez with questions like, 'To your knowledge, has Miss Piggy ever been caught trying to funnel billions of dollars in government contracts to herself and to her companies? The answer is no. How about Arthur the Aardvark? Has he ever fired independent government watchdogs who are investigating his companies? The answer is no.' This was meant to call attention to the shamefulness of this hearing, "if shame was still a thing," as the committee's ranking member Stephen Lynch, D-Mass. put it. A beat or two after his set-up, Casar mentioned that it's DOGE's leader Elon Musk, not the Muppets, rewarding himself with billions in government contracts – potentially $11.8 billion over the next few years, according to The Washington Post's analysis. He's also previously called for NPR and PBS to be defunded, apropos of nothing. In asking Gonzalez about 'Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood,' though, Khanna's aim was more pointed: He was showing that the people who are most insistent on cutting public broadcasting funding don't watch or listen to much of it, if any at all. Gonzalez, who wrote the blueprint for defunding the CPB for Project 2025, derides the content that NPR and PBS present – lineups that include public television's massive historical docuseries by Ken Burns, 'NOVA' science documentaries and 'Nature' features — as 'noneducational.' But it's been quite some time since the absence of knowledge about public media or input from the people it serves has stopped right-wing figures from forming policy-shaping opinions. In any case, the Democrats' showmanship, such as it was, fit well enough within a hearing that subcommittee chair Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., subtly titled 'Anti-American Airwaves: Holding the heads of NPR and PBS Accountable.' Republicans wanted PBS and NPR to answer for, among other alleged sins, inadequately covering their fixation on Hunter Biden's laptop; NPR's unflattering coverage of Trump when he was a candidate; left-wing bias enumerated in an opinion piece by former senior business editor Uri Berliner, who resigned from NPR last year; and Maher's incendiary tweets calling Donald Trump 'a deranged racist sociopath' from 2020, when she ran the Wikimedia Foundation. (She apologized profusely for exercising that First Amendment right during the hearing.)Once she and Kerger were called to testify before what Axios described as '[t]he most chaotic new committee in Congress,' it was a foregone conclusion that Wednesday's hearing was not going to land in the win column for PBS or NPR. Maher has been in her position for a year. Kerger, on the other hand, is PBS' longest-serving president, having taken up her watch in 2006. Both she and I have been doing our respective jobs long enough to have witnessed previous right-leaning Congresses target public media. But this battle feels different. In the short time since Donald Trump began his second presidential term, GOP officials have signed on to unpopular and damaging policies despite the harm they might inflict on their constituents. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr, a Trump appointee, has ordered an investigation into PBS and NPR regarding whether member stations violated government rules by identifying their programming underwriters on the air. Meanwhile, the ideologues shaping this discussion seemed more concerned with producing potentially viral exchanges to gin up outrage on social media and support Fox News talking points. The situation isn't entirely hopeless. On Wednesday, Pew Research released a report indicating 43% of its poll respondents – Democrats, Republicans and Independents — believe NPR and PBS should continue to receive funding from the federal government. It consistently ranks as one of the most trusted news sources and American institutions, according to YouGov. Saving PBS and NPR in the past required viewers of all political stripes to come together and pressure their representatives to support it. If their bipartisan boosters rally to save it this time, it isn't guaranteed that Congress will follow their wishes. According to its own report, NPR receives around 36% of its $300 million annual operating budget from corporate underwriting spots and 30% from station programming fees (about 30%). About 1% comes directly from federal sources, it says, while PBS receives roughly 16% of its funds from the CPB. Kerger was a good sport in playing along with Democratic subcommittee members' Muppet jokes. Nevertheless, you could tell from the serious expression on her face that these proceedings were nothing to laugh about. PBS has always been and will always be a soft target in the culture wars, demonstrated by Greene opening the hearing by describing NPR and PBS as 'radical left-wing echo chambers for a narrow audience of mostly wealthy white urban liberals and progressives who generally look down on and judge rural America.' That was the warm-up. One of her aides produced a giant, fabulous picture of drag performer and author Lil Miss Hot Mess, who Greene described as a 'child predator' and 'monster.' The queen's crime? Reading to children in an April 2021 segment for 'Let's Learn,' an educational show produced by the WNET group and the New York City Department of Education. A YouTube video that has since been set to private opens with a statement dated May 24, 2021, clarifying that the series was not funded or distributed by PBS. Kerger repeated this, further adding that New York's member station mistakenly placed it on the PBS website, but it was neither intended for national distribution nor aired on PBS itself. In a statement shared with Salon and posted to social media, Lil Miss Hot Mess responded that she wasn't surprised that Greene called her hateful names. 'But the unfortunate irony of Greene's political bullying is that while she claims to promote liberty, in reality, she just wants to tell us all what to think and do,' the performer said. 'Greene's attempts to defund PBS and NPR are the worst form of censorship," she continued, "reflecting both her own ignorance and the Republican party's authoritarian impulses.' In her opener, Greene also cited a 2015 'Frontline' documentary that followed transgender kids and their families, making the vile suggestion of it being evidence of public television allegedly 'sexualizing and grooming children.' Ah, yes. Young children are secretly wild about 'Frontline' and 'Independent Lens.' Anyway, both shows air in primetime, amply removed from PBS' children's programming block. 'Independent Lens' typically runs at 10 p.m., long after the typical toddler's bedtime. Some committee questions didn't change much from what past officials have asked. Republican members questioned whether Americans still need PBS at a time when many people get their news and information from the oh-so-reliable Internet and podcasts. They also questioned the utility of its award-winning children's programming since cable channels like Disney and National Geographic have children's, nature and science shows covered. As in the past, Kerger and Maher explained the obvious: PBS and NPR are free, reach 99% of the country and are primarily supported by private underwriting and listener donations. Yet again, the public TV and radio heads had to explain how the Corporation for Public Broadcasting works and how much (or little) federal funding is allocated to public media. The CPB is not a government organization but a private, nonprofit corporation created by Congress in the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967. Its mission statement reads, in part, "CPB does not produce programming and does not own, operate or control any public broadcasting stations. Additionally, CPB, PBS, and NPR are independent of each other and of local public television and radio stations." This is to ensure NPR's and PBS's editorial independence from CPB. Contrary to the way several GOP subcommittee members erroneously characterized NPR and PBS, they are not 'state media.' These and other claims resulted in the hearing resembling a light version of a Maoist struggle session. Ironic, since it was Greene and other Trump-aligned representatives muttering asides like, 'Sounds like communism,' as they listed the supposed evils of NPR and PBS. Putting aside the emptiness of GOP committee members' concern over youngsters being more harmed by anything on PBS than the vast frontier of the notoriously family-friendly Internet, the entire display was a sham. But not a complete waste. The hearing's fourth witness, president and chief executive of Alaska Public Media Ed Ulman, testified that public media is essential to rural communities, 'especially in remote and rural places where broadcast cannot succeed," he said. "We provide potentially life-saving warnings and alerts that are crucial for Alaskans who face threats ranging from extreme weather to earthquakes, landslides and even volcanoes.' The lion's share of the CPB funding Republicans are eager to cut funnels directly to more than 1500 public media stations to support their programming, including local news. The most significant beneficiaries are rural stations. 'Reducing or eliminating federal funding would be devastating and could cause the closure of many stations, especially the most rural and remote,' Ulman told the committee, making it clear that calls to defund the CPB aren't merely attacking mainstream journalism. They threaten services that benefit the underprivileged and vulnerable. As directed by the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, 6% of funds appropriation goes toward system support, defined as 'projects and activities that will enhance public broadcasting." This includes fostering collaboration across the system 'to help ensure effective and efficient programs and services' and helping to offset infrastructure costs. As for the rest, CPB president and CEO Patricia Harrison said in a recent press statement, 'For every public dollar provided, stations raise nearly seven dollars from donors, underscoring their value to the communities they serve.' There's good news about the status of the CPB's funding — for the time being, anyway. On March 14, Congress approved a Continuing Resolution for Fiscal Year 2025 that President Donald Trump signed into law, which includes $535 million for the organization. Since the CPB is forward-funded by two years, the current allocation is set through 2027. Of course, DOGE's directive is to eliminate 'wasteful' spending. That $535 million represents less than 1/100th of a percent out of the total federal budget, a recent report on PBS NewsHour cites. Breaking that down further, each American pays $1.50 a year to support the CPB, NPR and PBS. Compared to monthly costs for cable and streaming services, that's a bargain. 'There's nothing more American than PBS,' Kerger said, and the millions of people who watch the service's programming would likely agree with her, even if they don't agree with everything PBS airs. Supposedly, that is also American. Yet to be seen is whether Congress will continue to honor that principle when the Corporation for Public Broadcasting submits its next appropriations request.
