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Weinsteins Look to Go "Urban"

A lot of moguls are at some conference in Idaho, making deals about what we'll get to watch on screen for the next few years:

The Weinstein Company, the film studio started by the founders of Miramax, is near a deal to form a joint venture with Robert L. Johnson, founder of Black Entertainment Television, to create an urban entertainment company, according to people involved in the negotiations.

If you haven't figured it out by now, 'urban' is a euphemism for 'black.'

The potential deal was the talk of Allen & Company’s annual conference, where the nation’s media moguls converge to socialize and often sow the seeds for major mergers like Walt Disney’s acquisition of ABC/Capital Cities in 1996.

It's not just media folks in attendence, it's all the big muckymucks, right down to Warren "I avoided inheritance tax by giving half my wealth to charities my children control" Buffett. This is a place where the head of GE might decide to get into the entertainment business to save money on commercials for dishwashers. Someone needs to topple the tower of CEO Babel so they can't chum with each other and create conglomerates that not only provide poor service to consumers (AOLTimeWarner) but actually end up less efficient than the constituent companies (AOLTimeWarner).

Well, I'm not really qualified to talk business. So enough ranting for today.

About J. Ott

John Ott is a writer, filmmaker and futurist. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and Google+.