Media Curmudgeon

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April 30, 2004

Friday, April 30, 2004.

Friday, April 30, 2004. A Nasty Dilemma
In today's Boston Globe, the following headline appeared, "UMass paper under fire for Tillman column." The story by Marcella Bombardieri, went on, "A college newspaper columnist who wrote that NFL player and Army ranger Pat Tillman 'got what was coming to him' when he was killed in Afganistan triggered a furor at the University of Massachusetts yesterday, drawing hundreds of angy responses from across the country and a scathing statement from Jack M. Wilson, new president of the University of Massachusetts."

The author of the controversial column, Rene Gonzales, wrote in the UMass-Amherst Daily Collegian, "That was not heroism; it was prophetic idiocy." His column was paired with a second column praising Tillman's heroism. As e-mail flew around the country and to the paper, the paper's editor, Jennifer Eastwood, said that 98% of the e-mail expressed outrage at Gonzales's column.

UMass president Wilson issued a statement that recognized Gonzales's right to free speech, but called the comments, "disgusting, arrogant, and intellectually immature attack on a human being who died in service to his country." In an interview, Wilson said he wanted to exercise his own right of free speech because he didn't want the world to think this expression was representative of the University of Massachusetts. He was doing his job and conducting a little damage control while standing up for free speech.

The paper's editorial board published a statement that said, in part the paper's mission; "to create discussion, with dialogue on the merits of each argument ... We cannot ... compromise the mission of our publication for the sake of ensuring the constant happiness of our readership."

This is a nasty dilemma that, in my mind, perfectly defines the terrible moral and ethical conflicts the press has in covering a war. Free speech versus mean, tastelss speech. I'm glad I'm not the editor of Daily Collegian nor had to be faced with the decison to run the Gonzales colmun. It's a damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don't decision. If the paper runs the column, it will be villified, especailly by conservatives and war supporters, who have a very good, valid point--it's nastily disrespectful. If the paper doesn't run the column, it is consciously inhibiting free speech and the public debate of controversial issues, especially free speech by a young minority student in a college environment, where free speech should be honored to the fullest.

All the great news newspapers (The New York Times, The Washington Post, and US Today that try to be fair and blanced (not an Orwellian slogan but a journalistic commitment) face similar dilemmas every day about covering this war and its horrors and triumphs. It makes me appreciate and suffer with the editors who have to deal with these dilemmas day in and day out. I feel your pain and I honor you for trying to do your best. Of course, I abhor those editors at The New York Post, Fox News, and, now Sinclair Broadcasting, who have no intention of being fair and balanced and, thus, defile journalism and try to shut down the free market of ideas.

When I thought about the UMass situation, where my son, Chas, goes to school, I asked myself, "If I were editor, what would I do?" I decided after some thought (and writing about it helps to think) that I would have met with Gonzales and asked him if he knew what the consequences of running the column would be for him, whether he might consider toning down the language and try to make his anti-war point more respectful, gentler. But if Gonzlaes refused, I would have run the column. But I know when I read it, I would weep--weep for Pat Tillman, weep because I had to do something mean and nasty that I didn't want to do, and weep for the crap my paper was going to take...but mostly for Tillman, who doesn't deserve anything but praise and respect.

Journalism is a tough profession--low pay and grenades constantly lobbed from all sides, especially the far right. I think we ought to have more sympathy and understanding instead of always trying to kill the messenger. The messenger works hard, is exhausted by the journey, and deserves a little respect for doing a tough job.

Posted by Charles Warner at 10:06 PM | Comments (0) | Print |

Friday, April 30, 2004.

Friday, April 30, 2004. Shutting Down the Marketplace of Ideas
I'm not a good enough writer to express deep emotional feelings or outrage in writing. An accomplished writer like The Rude Pundit would probably do a much better job at expressing outrage about two stories that broke today that I believe validate, once again, that the conservatives are trying to shut down the free marketplace of ideas.

Right-wing conservatives, especially the current Bush administration, for years have conducted a well-funded campaign to boost the concept of an unfettered, unregulated free market economy that benefits large corporations (especially large media corporations). At the same time they have conducted a similarly well-funded campaign to promote their conservative political and religious agendas by loudly accusing the media of being liberal. This systematic, cynical, dishonest campaign has had a chilling effect on the news media. The media (including PBS and NPR) go way too easy on conservatives and, particularly, the current Bush administration--they gave Bush a free pass in the 2000 election.

This concentrated campaign by conservatives to browbeat the news media to push a right-wing conservative agenda and values on the public is brilliantly documented (with tons of facts, not wild, stupid, simplistic lies like conservatives such as Rush, Bill O'Reilly, or Sean Hannity use) in two books, which I recommend highly: Eric Alterman's What Liberal Media and Robert McChesney's The Problem of the Media.

What outraged me today were two stories: (1) Sinclair Broadcasting's ABC-affiliated stations refusing to carry Ted Koppel's "Nightline" program this evening in which Ted will be reading the names of over 700 soldiers who have died in the war in Iraq, which Sinclair claims is intended to damage support for the war. According to a story in the Baltimore Sun today, Sinclair officials said that Ted Koppel is attempting "to disguise political speech as news content," said Mark Hyman, Sinclair's vice president for corporate relations. "He's welcome to participate in political speech, but this purports to be a news program. There is no journalistic value here." The Sinclair ABC stations are in Asheville, NC; Charleston, WV; Columbus, OH; Pensacola, FL; Springfield, MA, St. Louis, MO; and Winston-Salem, NC.

God love Senator John McCain, who responded today with a blistering letter to Sinclair. The letter opened: "I write to strongly protest your decision to instruct Sinclair's ABC affiliates to preempt this evening's Nightline program. I find deeply offensive Sinclair's objection to Nightline's intention to broadcast the names and photographs of American who gave their lives in service to our country in Iraq."

Sinclair Broadcasting's Mark Hyman not only runs corporate affairs (notice the title doesn't say public affairs--that says it all) but is also a conservative commentator on a consolidated newscast that is aired on 37 Sinclair stations. Hyman frequently blasts the "liberal" media bias. And why is a newscast consolidated in 37 markets? To save money and maximize profits, certainly not to serve 37 separate communities.

Hey, Sinclair, "FUCK YOU! Strong letter follows." Let's hear it for John McCain who isn't afraid to go after big, corporate media that is infinitely more interested in maximizing profits and sucking up to the current conservative administration than in serving the public. As author Eric Alterman would say, "What liberal media?" Sinclair Broadcasting, which owns or services 62 television stations reaching 24% of the US population, is clearly conservative as are the owners of most televison stations, especially Fox, which owns TV stations that reach 39% of the US population and the Fox News channel, the most arch-conservative, Republican, pro-war, pro-administration of all broadcasters. E-mail me a list of liberal television station owners or television network owners--it won't take you long.

It's unconscionable for Sinclair not to run the Koppel program. It's biased, it's wrong, it's undemocratic, and it undermines the free market of ideas. Conservatives want free-market capitalism, but not a free market of ideas--in other words, they want it all their way all the time, and anyone who disagrees is a dirty liberal, a dirty socialist, or a dirty Saddam lover--pure McCarthyism (McCarthy was a Republican).

Well, I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it any longer. I'm going to blog about it and I'm e-mailing my friends to make sure to watch Koppel tonight. If there were a Sincliar station in New York, I'd make some signs reading "FREE SPEECH!" and stuff like that, gather some pals, protest outside the station, and call all TV stations competitive to Sinclair--they would be sure to cover the protest. If anyone reading this lives in a town (see list above) where there is a Sinclair station, please, please organize a protest.

(2)The second story that broke today that pissed me off and reinforced the fact that we are fed a steady diet of conservative political propaganda crap was in the Washington Post. Reporter Mike Allen wrote," Vice President Cheney endorsed the Fox News Channel during a conference call last night with tens of thousands of Republicans who were gathered across the country to celebrate a National Party for the President Day organized by the Bush-Cheney campaign.

Fox news styles its coverage as 'fair and balanced,' but it has a heavy stable of conservative commentators that makes it a favorite around the White House. It is unusual for a president or vice president to single out a commercial enterprise for public praise."

Later in The Washington Post story, Cheney is quoted as saying, "It's easy to complain about the press -- I've been doing it for a good part of my career. It's part of what goes with a free society. What I do is try to focus upon those elements of the press that I think do an effective job and try to be accurate in the portrayal of events. For example, I end up spending a lot of time watching Fox News, because they're more accurate in my experience, in those events that I'm personally involved in, than many other outlets." Well, we all know how fair and balanced Dick Cheney is.

What we all have known all along is now official, Fox News is a mouthpiece for the White House. Fox isn't news, it's propaganda endorsed by the administration. What can you do? Don't ever watch Fox News and e-mail everyone you know not to do so--you never know, you might know someone who has a Nielsen meter.

Posted by Charles Warner at 9:43 PM | Comments (0) | Print |

April 28, 2004

Wednesday, April 28, 2004.

Wednesday, April 28, 2004. I'm Worried About Air America Radio
When Air America Radio first went on the air a month ago, I listened not only because I wanted this liberal radio voice to succeed but also because I wanted to hear how they sounded, how they were programmed. Therefore, I was disturbed to read in today's New York Times a story headlined "Two Executives Leave Air America." In the "Business Digest" column, the summary read, "Air America Radio, the new liberal talk network, said that Mark Walsh, its chief executive and one of its founders, and Dave Logan, it executive vice president of programming, were leaving. The disruptions in the executive suite of Air America, a subsidiary of Progress Media, came as the network continues its struggle in just to be heard in Chicago and Los Angeles." In the story on page C6 reporter Jacques Steinberg wrote, "The disruptions in the executive suite of Air America, a subsidiary of Progress Media, came at a particularly chaotic moment."

I'm worried about the chaos, the viability of Air America Radio, and, frankly, about the programming. As an ex-radio general manager of five major-market radio stations, I have a modicum of programming knowledge. (I'm sure that my ex-program directors, including Bob Pittman, would say that "modicum" in my case means zero). Nevertheless, since Air America Radio is free over the air in New York, at least, and on the Internet (Air America Radio), my advice is free.

First, about the viability of Air America. It seems to be running more commericals and fewer public service announcements, which is good. I would hope that more large companies would advertise on Air America because they cannot deduct political contributions for taxes, but they can deduct advertising as a business expense. Don't you love it--the government is subsidizing advertising on Air America Radio that continually blasts the current administration. I would also hope that Air America would rotate public service announcement copy more frequently so that people don't get burned out on the PSAs.

Second, about the programming. Because I'm a teacher, I tend to think in terms of As, Bs, Cs, and Ds, so I'll give a few grades. I give an A to Air America for the overall concept, a national liberal radio voice to attempt to serve as a counter-balance to the overwhelming conservative, right-wing radio talk programming on radio and television. The biggest star on Air America and best-know personality is Al Franken, who is on with Katherine Lanpher on the "O'Franken Factor" weekdays from noon to 3:00 p.m. EST. I give Al and Katherine a B+. Good guests (Roberet Reich, Hillary Clinton, Al Gore, Richard Clark, and more). Franken is not a good interviewer; he talks too much on interviews because he's esentially an entertainer, and like all entertainers, he wants to call attention to himself. The comedy bits are very good because they introduce an entertainment element to keep the show moving and from getting too overbearingly negative--even bashing Bush can get old. Franken's facts are good and when he talks about the issues instead of himself; overall he's good and getting better.

The next biigest star is Janeane Garofalo, who co-hosts with Sam Seder on the "Majority Report," weekdays 8:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. I like Janeane and give her an A-. She's funny, factual, and focused on the issues. I'd put her on in the morning 9-noon).

Randi Rhodes is on weekdays from 3:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. and I give her a D. She's too randy and foul-mouthed. She's a radio pro, but she's terrible on calls--interrupts callers unmercifully, especially if there is a hint of disagreement. She, too, talks too much about herself--the congenital entertainers' disease. Also, she moved to New York from Florida to do her show, but on a recent program she ripped New York as dirty, nowhere for her dog to poop, and nowhere for her to smoke. Someone should tell her it isn't a good idea to trash New York on the radio in New York. Randi is obnoxious and doesn't help the image of liberals--plays into the hands of conservative critics. I'd put her on overnight.

Laura Flanders is on the weekends and I give her an A-. I'd move her to Randi's spot in the afternoon--more soothing, less jarring.

"Unfiltered" is the show in the morning from 9:00 a.m. to noon EST. I give it a B-. It needs fewer voices and more humorous bits. "Wake up laughing" should be their slogan, and then they should try to live up to it.

Last, I give an A to the news. Shelley Lewis is the news director and she's a pro. The news is well delivered and often includes stories not covered int he mainstream media. Well done.

It's interesting that the news is the best thing on a liberal opinion-based talk format. Air America has a lot of work to do. But, please listen, give it your support, and let Air America know what you think. We need more diverse, alternate opinions on today's corporate-controlled media.

Posted by Charles Warner at 3:47 PM | Comments (0) | Print |

April 26, 2004

Sunday, April 25, 2004.

Sunday, April 25, 2004. The Upfront of Dorian Gray.
One of the ways that I keep up on what's happening in the media industry is to read The Jack Myers Report. The daily newsletter is read by many media industry executives and Jack is ofter prescient about media trends. He is also usually good on economic issues and media industry revenue forecasts. Jack has been writing lately about the upfront market, and on April 5, he wrote a special report titled "The Upfront Is Not Broken." And this last week his Tuesday newsletter was headlined "Scatter Soars" and Jack wrote, "In a surprising turn of the market, second quarter network scatter is 'going through the roof, according to several senior cable network executives, with prospects for the Upfront becoming more 'solid.'"

Jack also recommended in a report that the media quit writing about and glamorizing the upfront and let the networks and agencies have at it. I've known Jack for years, and he's a pretty good economic reporter and predictor of trends, but he's also, like most successful writers of newsletters, partial to the interests of his subscribers--agencies and networks included. I think Jack is hyping the upfront and that, contrary to his claim, that the network upfront market is not only broken, but it is also corrupt.

When I read Jack Myers and other media columnists and reporters talk about the upfront, it reminds me of Oscar Wilde's The Portrait of Dorian Gray and the 1945 movie of the same name starring George Sanders and Hurd Hatfield. The the upfront market seems unhealthy and doesn't age, in fact gets healthier every year, but the portrait, which represents reality, ages horribly and disintegrates. In the story Dorian Gray is an awful, corrupt person, just as the upfront market is.

The reality is that broadcast network television's audience declines substantially every year as viewers defect to cable, to video games, to the Internet, and TiVo (the generic name now for personal video recorders--PVRs) programs so they can skip commercials, thus depriving advertisers of the audience networks have promised. To make things worse, the networks increase clutter, making commercials less effective, and raise prices every year. So an eight percent decline in audience and a seven percent increase in rates, means a 15 percent CPM rate hike, or a doubling of rates every four years, which makes the upfront, as I said in my April 19 blog, a sucker's bet.

But why do advertisers make the sucker's bet? Because the system is corrupt. The dirty little secret is that the agencies and networks are in a deceitful, dishonest alliance to bilk advertisers' stockholders out of billions of dollars. First, the agencies make the vast majority of their profits by buying network television, and they want to see rates go up so their profits will go up, but the agencies obfuscate this profit in their financial reporting. Second, executives that control advertising expenditures at companies aren't stupid; they understand the game. Their payoff comes in the form of lavish entertainment by the networks: Super Bowl, Academy Awards, Final Four, set of Clint's next movie, Peter Jennings's "private" birthday party, and on and on. The agencies also throw in nice goodies such as suggesting that their clients become involved with production of television commericals that often feature beautiful, budding starlets willing to please. Imagine an automotive executive returning to Grosse Point after spending a week in Malibu "overseeing" a commercial shoot and telling his awestruck friends (behind his wife's back) about dining with Hollywood directors and helping him "cast" (with a big wink) the commercial and pick the music. Sex, drugs, and Rock 'N Roll works every time.

So, who are the suckers, the advertisers who are thus bribed by the corrupt system or the stockholders of large advertisers such as P&G, GM, Ford, and Time Warner (AOL, especially)? Obviously advertiser executives, as advised by their crooked agencies and as bribed by the agencies and networks, get their payoff, so it must be the stockholders who see $1 billion in advertising, 80 percent of which is being spent in network television, squandered every year (and getting less for more each year). In four years, if everything goes according to agency and network plans, the $1 billion will be $2 billion and the corruption will have paid of handsomely for everyone except stockholders and the public that has to put up with increasing commercialization.

So what can you do? Attend a GM or Ford or Time Warner stockholders meeting (assuming you own a share or two of stock), get hold of a microphone, and ask for one of those extravagant trips to the Super Bowl or to supervise a commercial shoot. Tell the CEO that he or she makes so much money (500 times the average worker) that he or she can afford the trip and that you can't because you own the company's non-performing stock. And, after all, you'll add just as much value as any of the company's executives will and you'll have a lot more fun.

Posted by Charles Warner at 12:40 AM | Comments (0) | Print |

April 19, 2004

Monday, April 19, 2004. There's

Monday, April 19, 2004. There's a Sucker Born Every Year (In May)
When I was doing research on this blog, I Googled P.T. Barnum, who said, "There's a sucker born every minute," or so I thought. On a P.T. Barnum Web site, I learned that one of Barnum's competitors actually originated the phrase. But so what, I thought, it sounds like Barnum and, so, it works. Just like Bogart never said, "Play it again Sam," in "Casablanca." But everyone perceives he said it, and Woody Allen made a play and a movie named after the famous non-quote.

Therefore, as P.T. Barnum said, "There's a sucker born every minute." But I want to amend it to, "There's a sucker born every year (in May)." I'm referring, of course, to the network television upfront market which usually breaks in May of every year. For advertisers, the upfront market is a sucker bet, like calling a raised pot in poker in order to draw to an inside straight. The networks and the agencies are the shills in this high-stakes poker game. The agencies (large network television buying conglomerates) advise clients that they have to stand the raises, which the networks increase every year, so the advertisers won't be locked out of network television prime time in the upcoming season. Buying network TV is the most profitable activity for agencies, so they have a vested interest in advertisers upping their spending every year, in spite of the fact that nework TV audiences are declining every year as their costs increase. Networks, of course, are in cahoots with the agencies and play the scarcity principle up to the hilt. CBS's Les Moonves said this week that CBS would take the number-one upfront billing crown away from NBC this year and that he was expecting double-digit price (CPM) increases. It was almost like a carnival barker yelling, "Get 'em while they last--Dr. Moonves's Miracle Elixir. Cures everthing, includuing warts and lonliness!"

Advertisers who believe this pitch about the upfront market are suckers. Paying more for less is always a sucker play, especially now when the networks are increasing clutter to an all time high and the value of traditional advertising has never been more in question. A story in the April 12 issue of Television Week was headlined "Clutter on Broadcast Rises: Three of Big 4 Nets Surpass 15 Minutes Per Hour of Nonprogram Material." ABC was the most cluttered at 15 minutes and 31 seconds per hour, which might be one explanation for their miserable ratings. There were two stories about the decreased impact of advertising.

One story, headlined "Madison Ave. Out Of Touch: Study Finds Industry Needs to Address Marketers' New Challenges," that appeared in the April 12 issue of Advertising Age reported on a survey of top marketers conducted by the consulting firm, Now. The survey queried 300 CEOs, marketing chiefs, and agency executives. One hundred and fifteen responded, and here's how they felt: 92% said their marketing could be more effective; 76% said their marketing should better leverage new technologies, media, and branded content; 98% said that consumers weild more power thanks to word of mouth and new sources of information; 85% said that Madison Avenue needs to reconnect to marketers' new challenges; and 71% said the mega-agencies are too focused on their own financial results rather than a client's business (just what I said above).

Those five responses were in big red letters in a sidebar to the story. But buried in the story were the really scary numbers that weren't highlighted by the advertising industry's leading publication or by any other publication I have seen that is supported by advertising. Here's the buried information, "Now (the consulting company that did the survey) estimated that what it calls with-it 'Now brands' spend less on advertising than do dull 'Not Now' brands. Starbucks received $34 million in measured media last year, compared with Coca-Cola Classic's $108 milllion; Mini Cooper received $22 million versus Buick's $183 million; while Google received a grand total of $2.4 million compared with AT&T's excess of $928 million, according to spending figures from TNS's Media Intelligence/CMR."

Guess who'll be buying in the upfront this year, probably Coca-Cola Classic, Buick, and, certainly, AT&T, the biggest sucker of them all as far as advertising is concerned. How would you like to be the marketing director of any of these brands and have to compare your brand's image, recall, and acceptance to Starbucks, Mini Cooper, or Google?

The other story appeared in Stuart Elliott's "Advertising" column in The New York Times. Elliott reported on a Yankelovich and Partners study that was being presented at the 4As convention showed that the "effectiveness of campaigns that agencies produce for marketers is deteriorating" because "negative perceptions about advertising have substantially increased." "People have a love-hate relationship with advertising," said J. Walker Smith of the Yankelovich organization, according to Elliott, "But a far greater percentage are saying they have conerns, primarily related to its growing obtrusiveness." Fifty-four percent of the respondents to the survey said they would "avoid buying products that overwhelm them with advertising and marketing."

But do you think AT&T or its agency will recommend not spending so much or not rushing into the upfront market? Not by the hair on your chinny chin chin. Could some of the perception of obtrusivenss come from the increased clutter? Probably, but will the networks cut back on clutter? Not by the hair on your chinny chin chin. Could some of the perception of obtrusiveness come from commercials becoming more obnoxious as they try to get our attention--because of farting horses and horny chimps? Of course.

What gets me is that the suckers who spend too much on advertising and in the upfront market take us viewers for suckers and think we won't notice or rebel against too many commercials or obnoxious commercials. We're voting with our feet and with our dollars. We're going to Starbucks, we're on the waiting list for a Mini Cooper, and everyone in the entire world uses Google at least twice a day. But, hey, now that Google is about to do an IPO, some slick agency will recommend that it buy network TV in the upfront market. Google will give the agency what it deserves, the Bud Light farting horse commercial.

Posted by Charles Warner at 9:12 PM | Comments (0) | Print |

Monday, April 19, 2004.

Monday, April 19, 2004. No Sooner Said Than Done
Not even someone with as big an ego as mine could rationally claim that a blog about Viacom and other media companies being wimps and not challenging the FCC's Taliban-like assault on freedom of speech in the name of curbing indecency changed any one's mind. However, today a story moved on the wires that Viacom, Fox, the Screen Actors Guild, Radio One, Beasley, Citadel, Intercom, and other broadcasters will join activists like People for the American Way and Media Access Project to petition the FCC to rescind its March ruling that Bono was "indecent" and "profane" when he uttered the term "f---ing brilliant" during a live awards show on NBC. An official at NBC claimed the company is filing its own petition to the FCC today seeking a similar review of its ruling on Bono.

I was wrong. Viacom, Fox, and the other media companies signing the petition and fighting the FCC's stiff fines and rulings on indecency are not abandoning their fight for free speech to their bottom lines. But wait a minute. Are the big media companies fighting for the principle of free speech or for their bottom lines? If you read Bob Wright's (CEO of NBC) op-ed column in today's Wall Street Journal, you'll see the fight is about the bottom line. For NBC, it's being able to compete with cable, for as Wright indicates in his column, "It is not just broadcast licensees who should be concerned. Make no mistake, the American public will bear the brunt of this legislation, which is just vague and punitive enough to cause talented writers, producers and actors to flee broadcast television." Later in the column he writes, "Viewers of NBC and other broadcast television networks deserve to see the full creative vision of talented producers like Dick Wolf and John Wells, who are responsible for some of television's best shows--as reined in when necessary not by politicians applying vague rules, but by broadcasters (and their viewers and advertisers, who vote with their eyes and dollars)."

In other words, NBC and the television networks want the freedom to get dirtier in order to compete with "The Sopranos" and "Deadwood." And the sanctimonious utterances about the creative vision of Wolf and Wells is disengenuous, because quality drama like "Law and Order" and sitcoms like "Friends" are being replaced by reality junk like "My Big, Fat Obnoxious Fiancee" and "The Apprentice," mostly to save money by not making quality drama or sitcoms. Top-flight Hollywood talent is not fleeing to cable because of lack of freedom of speech, it's being replaced by low-priced and low-brow amateurs in reality shows. These reality shows are not only soiling the network TV landscape, but they are virtually destroying the syndication market. Can you imagine anyone watching a reality show in syndication, watching it after they know the outcome? "Seinfeld," "Friends," and "Everyone Loves Raymond" will be on the air in reruns for years as many viewers look forward to seeing their favorite epispodes again and again, but where are their replacements coming from?

The great , high-quality drama shows and sitcoms of the past served the same function as myths did in ancient times, or like fairy tales did--they were stories that taught us how to lead our lives. They often dealt with touchy subjects like abortion and racial prejudice. They integrated the country through laughter. Bill Cosby uplifted everyone, regardless of race, age, or financial status. What do we learn from the reality shows? Deception, greed, foul play, and disgusting behavior.

On the other hand, venal as it might be, I applaud Bob Wright and NBC as well as Viacom, Fox and the others for fighting the FCC, the Bush administration's media Taliban. However, I found it interesting that the same day it was announced that Viacom, Fox and others were fighting the FCC's draconian indecency rulings, Fox announced it was expanding the number of people on its board of directors to 14 and would include Viet Dinh, described as a "36-year-old law professor and adviser to the Bush administration." Rupert Murdoch is so smart the way he covers his bases--go after the administration on one issue and pander to it by appointing a Bush sympathizer. That's the way to get stuff done in Washington, pay off people. Hey, I've got a good idea; suggest to Michael Powell that he back off on the indecency crusade and in return promise him a prime-time network TV reality show. They could call it "The Intimidator," and viewers wouldn't complain about his hairdo.

Posted by Charles Warner at 6:15 PM | Comments (0) | Print |

April 18, 2004

Sunday, April 18, 2004. Better

Sunday, April 18, 2004. Better Commercials?
There are some encouraging signs that television commercials might get less obnoxious. After Bud Light's farting horse, a horny chimp, a male bikini-wrap, and crotch-snapping dog nadir in the Super Bowl, Anheuser-Busch is rethinking the tone and content of television commercials. As reported in Stuart Elliott's "Advertising" column in the Friday, April 16, issue of The New York Times, Auggie Busch IV told the annual meeting of the American Association of Advertising Agencies (4As) this week that Budweiser was "prepared to do better research" on their commercial approach, because "there's something going on out there."

Augie Busch is as clueless as another person with the same last name (waspier spelling) who got his job because of a powerful, dynastic family name and who wouldn't be working if it weren't for his first and last name.

Later in the Elliott 's column people who are a lot smarter and more articulate than Bush (oh, sorry for the typo, I meant "Busch"), declared "You can still be creative and careful about sophomoric humor. You have to be sensitive to the mood, and I think the mood has changed significantly," said Steven Blamer of Grey Global Group advertising agency.

Are Busch and Blamer suggesting that the taste of 21-25-year-old male beer guzzlers has suddenly changed dramtatically? That their craving for sophomoric, randy, puerile, bathroom humor featuring farting horses and out-of-control partying or wrestling by nubile women (preferably twins) has been sated? Bullshit. The mood of the country hasn't changed, immature young men haven't changed (and probably never will), but what has changed is that the media and advertisers are more afraid of the current administration's crack-down on supposed indecency fueled by the religious right, which has the White House and the President (and thus the FCC) in its thrall.

The US Constitution supposedly guarantees the separation of church and state, but the current president and his administration have brought religion, politics, and national policy closer together than any previous administration in the history of our country. Our national abortion, education, judiciary, even international policies are influenced by fundamentalist religious doctrine and ideals. And nowhere is the pressure more intense than on the media to clean up what the fundamentalists refer to as "indecency." This administration has more in common with the Taliban than it would like to think.

But the media and advertisers (and their agencies) are wimping out on first amendment and free-speech issues. Clear Channel, Viacom, and other major media conglomerates are knuckling under to the right-wing, fundamentalist pressure on indecency because of one thing--money. The bottom line is that newly proposed fines that are more than ten times larger than previous fines for indencency could potentially put some broadcasters out of business. Certainly taking away the licenses of radio or television stations for air indecent material could put those stations out of business. And because the media is one of the most profitable businesses in the country, no media company wants to take a chance of lower profits or being put out of business. The fight for free speech gets abandoned to the bottom line.

Does this mean that I think the dreadful, tasteless Howard Stern is being unfairly prosecuted? Yes. I hate Stern's program, but I believe he has a right to say most of what he says. Do I think it's OK for Bono to use the f-word as an adjective in an ad lib acceptance speech? Yes. Do I think it's OK for Janet Jackson to bare her boob for an instant on national TV. Yes, because it was no more provocative than Brittany Spears tries to be and certainly less offensive than the crotch-grabbing rapper on the same Super Bowl half-time show. What I do find offensive is that the media companies and advertisers aren't fighting back and standing up for freedom of speech.

I know if I got my way and the indencency cops (like stupid John Ascroft ordering the breasts on statues covered) were all sent to pornography hell, that there would be a lot more tasteless stuff on television. But what is more obscene, a one-second glimpse of Janet's boob or the program "The Swan?" America television viewer's appetite for tasteless, indecent crap seems endless.

Perhaps the solution to the problem of making commericals more acceptable to the indecency police is to be more creative and produce commercials like the current American Express campaign that features Jerry Seinfeld talking with Superman. Great, funny, compelling video (available on the Web). So good that Seinfeld and Superman were interviewed on NBC's "Today" show several weeks ago--a huge, free plug for American Express.

Maybe advertisers and agencies could knock off this concept, for, after all, knock-offs are the sincerest form of flattery and everyone always copies everyone else in advertising anyway. How about similar pairings and subsequent commericals and interviews. Wouldn't you love to see George Bush and Elmer Fudd, Condi Rice and Bugs Bunny, and Dick Cheney and Porgy Pig being interviewed about WMD on "Today?" Or Howard Stern and Road Runner? Let's hear it for a new trend in better commercials!

Posted by Charles Warner at 12:32 PM | Comments (0) | Print |

April 17, 2004

Saturday, April 17, 2004. Chris

Saturday, April 17, 2004. Chris Warner Responds
As far as I'm concerned, AOL is irrelevant. I reduced my usage to the $4.95/mo. for 3 hours, and only keep it for email because changing is a royal pain. Now that I have a cable modem, I actually use the Internet.

Posted by Charles Warner at 11:18 PM | Comments (0) | Print |

April 12, 2004

Monday, April 12, 2004. Some

Monday, April 12, 2004. Some Free Advice for AOL (And Worth Every Penny)
I have not been blogging for over a month because I have feverishly been trying to finish my online book, Media Sales Mangement, before the students in my Media Sales and Sales Management graduate class at the New School University are supposed to read it. I have finished six of seven chapters and should have the final chapter posted by the first of next week. I'm proud of the book and would be pleased if you'd take a look at it -- click here.

What prompted me to start blogging again was that I was having an e-mail conversation with a good friend about what could be done to improve AOL (the topic of my last blog). My friend suggested I post my comments, so here they are:

I believe that Jon Miller and Ted Leonsis will be gone within a month, (the sooner the better for AOL) and a new, leaner, marketing driven (driven to get new members) organization will emerge. Editorial decisions must be made faster and to be much more relevant. The Welcome Screen (WS) needs to be bigger and contain more information that is relevant to the Welcome Screens that members customize. For example, the business, news, sports screen should have up-to-the minute business news and no show biz or msuic celebrity crap. I'd also have more than six WS configurations. I’d get the programming of the WS out of the hands of AOL techhies and idiots who seem to think all AOL memeber scare about is shopping for bargains and give the WS to the various Time Inc. publications, which have good editorial judgment and know their audiences. So FORTUNE would do the business screen, Time the news screen, Sports Illustrated the sports screen, Teen People the teen screen, etc. That way the publications could do solid daily reporting, break stories, and promote their weekly or bi-weekly issues. More important, they could make their stories interactive—the key to online news and information (even show biz information—and report the poll results online as well as in their magazines. They could even include a section “Top Ten Blogs of the Week��? in the magazines. That would increase circulation, increase subscriber loyalty both to the magazines and to AOL.

By doing credible daily reporting by WS type, members would hang around AOL longer and not go off to news sites relevant to them. A really smart editor could coordinate all of this and make instantaneous decisions to update the WS when needed and and do lots polls targeted to younger demos, then the results of the polls could be analyzed by member bloggers. Have a feature called “Fighting Bloggers.��? Pick the best five blogs and promote them. Rude Pundit or Gawker would win half the time, but that’s the kind of exciting, entertaining, outrageous, funny stuff AOL should be looking for to increase interest and participation (of course the Rude Pundit would need a warning that readers were about to read someting filthy, in horrible taste, and funny as hell).

AOL has to get away from the aggregator mentality and produce exciting, credible, original content. The game has changed. When it was the only game in town, being an aggregator made short-term sense, but no longer. There is too much excellent content on the Web and people are no longer afraid to go out there and get it. AOL needs to be an active enabler and an empowerer, not a passive aggregator. Bean counters like being an aggregator, because it’s cheap, but it will drive people elsewhere. Programmers want original, creative content that will enable and empower people to participate and give their opinions--it's called interactivity. Although it’s expensive, ioriginal content will keep people around and give them an advantage of being an AOL member. AOL members have few advantages now and as more and more realize they can save $23.90 a month and have free e-mail that is almost as good, they will continue to cancel AOL -- the diaspora will continue. AOL also has to make its e-mail better; it needs some new bells and whistles to keep members paying this highest monthly fees of any ISP.

Finally, AOL needs to beef up its efforts to sell itself to corporate customers. If people could use AOL at work and at home, it would increase subscriptions and reduce churn, which is killing AOL. I know that Time Warner people said that AOL wasn't robust enough for them to send huge files, but that could be fixed for corporate clients--charge them for it. AOL dropped the ball and forgot about its corporate sales effort in a moronic attempt to create and sell AOL TV, an even worse idea than smell-o-vision.

If someone doesn't fix AOL soon, Time Warner will have to sell it at a huge loss. There have been rumors that Steve Case might buy it (and, I suppose move it to Hawaii, which he now owns), that Barry Diller might buy it, or that Bob Pittman might buy it. Case won't buy back AOL because he didn't know how to run it, just sell it to make himself rich. Diller won't buy it because it wouldn't give him an entry back into Hollywood, which I think he craves. But Pittman? He's already saved it once.

Posted by Charles Warner at 10:41 PM | Comments (0) | Print |