Filmmakers Slam Smithsonian Deal with Showtime
Ken Burns and other prominent documentary filmmakers are blasting a deal between the Smithsonian Institution and the Showtime Networks cable channels to create television programming, saying it could cut off their access to the museum’s collections and curators. Smithsonian Networks, a joint venture between the museum and Showtime announced March 9, would require filmmakers creating documentaries relying heavily on Smithsonian collections or staff to first offer them to the Smithsonian on Demand cable channel, the New York Times reported April 1.
Jeanny Kim, vice president for media services for Smithsonian Business Ventures, confirmed that the new arrangement would limit the ability of filmmakers to sell some projects elsewhere, but added it only affects a small number of the works that use the museum’s resources. “It’s not our obligation to help independent filmmakers sell their wares to commercial broadcast and cable networks,” she told the Times.
“I find this deal terrifying,” said filmmaker Ken Burns, who felt the restrictions would have kept him from making such documentaries as Jazz available to public television because they drew heavily on the Smithsonian. “It feels like the Smithsonian has essentially optioned America’s attic to one company,” he told the Times, “and to have access to that attic, we would have to be signed off with, and perhaps co-opted by, that entity.”
Margaret Drain, vice president for national programs at Boston public television station WGBH, feared that the deal would hinder programs like Nova and American Experience. “If access is restricted, we are really going to be in trouble,” she said, adding, “I’m outraged that a public institution would do a semiexclusive deal with a commercial broadcaster.”
Posted April 7, 2006.
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