Media Curmudgeon

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November 30, 2004

Karmazin to Sirius Satellite Radio

Last week one of the big announcements was about Mel Karmazin joining Sirius Satellite Radio as CEO several weeks after the tilting-point announcement that Howard Stern had signed a five-year, $500-million deal with Sirius.

Karmazin had been Stern's mentor, champion, and defender at Viacom's Infinity Radio, for years, so it was not an unexpected move for Karamzin. What is Karmazin's reappearance apt to mean for listeners to Sirius? One thing you can be sure of is that he will focus on increasing revenue.

If past behavior is any prediction of future behavior, here's what might happen:
1. Karmazin will sign up more high-profile radio talent. Not only can popular personalities attract new subscribers but Sirius can charge a premium subscription price for them, and commercial material can be inserted in personality talk programs in order to increase revenue.
2. Commercial loads will be increased on all non-music channels and some commercial material will be inserted somehow in music programming. In an analysis of commerical clutter on 41 cable channels, as reported in the October 27, Jack Myers Report, Nielsen's Monitor-Plus information showed that Karmazin's Viacom cable channels VH-1, Spike TV, Comedy Central, and MTV had the most clutter--the only cable channels with over 16 minutes of commercials in an average hour (ESPN2 had the least with only 11:58 minutes). Also, remember that it was under Karmazin's watch at CBS when some of the CBS owned and operated television stations used the Time Machine that sped up programming illegally so that additional commercials could be inserted.
3. New revenue streams will be found--perhaps from record companies or independent record promoters who will pay for airplay. It wasn't until after Karmazin left Viacom that Infinity started to clean up the practice of pay for play. To be fair, the clean-up was probably not because of Karmazin's departure, but because of NY Attorney General, Elliott Spitzer's investigation into the practice. But it is a fact that only after Karmazin's departure and as part of the clean-up that Infinity fired one of its program directors (in Rochester, NY) for taking what appeared to be a form of payola from an independent producer. Payola is illegal because of an act of Congress, but whether it applies to satellite radio will have to wait for court interpretation, I suspect.

Of course, the Stern deal is a year off and there are rumblings that the FCC is trying to find a way to extend its oversight of indecency to cable television and satellite radio, something that would require an act of Congress to amend and modify various telecommunications laws that were passed before the advent of cable television and satellite radio. But who knows with a Republican majority in Congress that seems intent of ridding the air of what it and, more importantly, the religious right considers off-color, the possibility of such legislation is not beyond the realm of possibility.

What will Stern do if the FCC can fine Sirius for Stern's potty mouth? Will Sirius's $500 million contract with Stern be valid? Will Stern want to make the jump if he can't talk dirty, if he doesn't want to turn blue into red?

My sense is that Congress will not give the FCC censorship authority over cable and satellite and that Stern will make the move, but you never can tell. I had a sense before the election that Kerry would win. Perhaps this is another case of wishes coloring my crystal ball vision (not that I wish that Stern move to Sirius--I don't care--but I do care about the FCC not being given a free pass as a media censor).

Posted by Charles Warner at 11:32 AM | Comments (0) | Print |

Kmart-Sears Merger a Model for Broadcasting?

When the Kmart-Sears merger was announced last week, one of the things I noticed in press accounts about the merger was that one of the main reasons that Kmart's Edward Lambert made the deal was because of the value of Kmart's and Sears' combined real estate.

In the New York Times November 18, article about the deal, titled, "The Archtect Behind Kmart's Suprising Takeover of Sears," reporters Andrew Ross Sorkin and Riva D. Atlas write that, "He (Lambert) also noticed something that most other investors did not: the value of Kmart's real estate might be worth more than the business itself."

As sales of the two companies continue to decline in comparison to Wal-Mart and Target, the real estate "should provide a financial safety cushion." I guess what this means is that Lambert could close both KMart and Sears stores and develop the property their stores occupy.

Local radio and television stations might eventually have to do the same thing, especially AM radio stations. FM is now the dominant band in radio; it is rare for an AM radio station to be among the top ten in a major market. But AM radio stations need lots of land for a transmitter and tower and the lower on the dial, the higher the antenna and, thus, the more land needed for the supporting guy wires. I'm sure that in large urban areas the land needed for an AM radio radio tower is worth more than many of the AM stations are.

Maybe the FCC could do a study and see how many AM stations could sell or develop their property and go dark. Then, the electromagnetic bandwidth could be turned over to wireless (WiFi Internet access and cell phones) use. This idea could accomplish several things. First, it would increase bandwidth for Internet access and make it more available to more people. Second, it would get rid of a lot of really dreadful talk radio programming (especially Rush Limbaugh). Third, it would give the FCC something to keep it busy so it wouldn't have time to play indecency cop.

Local television stations don't need as much land as AM radio stations in most cases becasue they can put their towers on top of buildings. But some TV stations do have substantial real estate, which is certainly more valuable to their owners than their programming and infinitely more valuable to the community than the re-runs and other programs that are chewing gum for the mind. And think of the bandwidth that could be turned over to wireless if a lot of television stations went dark--communities would be much richer and much better off culturally and intellectually. Instead of watching numbing re-runs, people could be reading blogs on portable computers with wireless cards.

Posted by Charles Warner at 10:46 AM | Comments (0) | Print |

November 24, 2004

SBC-Microsoft Deal Completes the Convergence Promise

In the November 17, Business section of the New York Times there was a front-page story (not the lead story) that was headlined, "SBC to Start Project to Send TV Over Lines," with a byline for Ken Belson and Matt Richtel. They reported on SBC's announcement that it would pay $400 million to Microsoft for software used to deliver TV programming over high-speed data lines, which would be "a crucial move into unproven territory for SBC."

On November 23, the lead story in the "Marketplace" section of the Wall Street Journal featured an interview with Ed Whitcare, the CEO of SBC, the second-largest phone company, behind Verizon. SBC acquired two of the seven original regional Bell companies, Ameritech and Pacific Telesis. Whitcare recently purchased AT&T Wireless for $41 billion, which when its customers are added to SBC's Cingular wireless service will make the combined companies the number-one wireless carrier.

In the WSJ interview, which was titled, "Meet the New TV Guy," Whitcare gave five reasons to "get your TV from your phone company." The interview was obviously set up as part of an SBC campaign to sell the fact that it would soon be delivering television over phone lines using the new Microsoft technology, although Microsft's new software was not referred to in the interview.

All of Whitcare's five reasons didn't make sense--it seemed like he was streaching on two of them--but three of them were valid. "Reason 3: Cable companies have a tradition of raising prices every year." That one was prescient because today (11/30) both the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times has stories that, in fact, Comcast was raising its cable rates an average of about 5 percent nationwide.

"Reason 4: SBC would likely offer cable channels a la carte." This is a big one because who needs or can watch 500 channels? The majority of viewers spend the vast majority of their time watching only five or six channels and thus are being charged too much for crap they never watch, including those disgusting public access channels. The other good thing about a la carte pricing is that parents (and others) could keep pornographic and indecent channels away from their kids simply by not ordering them.

"Reason 5: Consumers who buy all their services from SBC would get a big discount." Of course, this is the big kahhuna, the killer app. When a single provider can offer phone service (wireless, VOIP, and land-line), broadband Internet access, and television the convergence promise will not only be fulfilled, but the price wars will begin.

"Convergence" has two meanings. The first, and most common, is that all audio-video applicances (computers, radios, televisions, phones, recorders, iPods, and cameras) will converge into one appliance. The other is that the subscription fees for all of these audio-visual appliances will converge into one bill.

What convergence means for consumers is good because it gives them what they want: freedom of choice and lower prices. But what this means for the various media is unclear because it is impossible to predict for certain future winners and losers in what will be an internecine distribution war.

But here's what I think it will mean if current trends continue:
1. The switch to broadband Internet access will acellerate as phone companies such as SBC and Verizon begin to lay more and more fiber optic lines that will allow for faster connections than cable companies can offer and at lower prices. This switch will hurt current ISPs such as AOL, Earthlink, MSN, and Netzero. AOL will have to push hard to get people to use AOL.com as their default or primary portal, in fierce competition with Yahoo, which has a huge lead.
2. With phone companies and, now, electric companies being able to offer television over their installed lines into homes, prices for television will drop. Cable companies will have to lower rates to compete with new forms of viedo distribution and they will have to offer a la carte pricing to compete.
3. Video on Demand (VOD) will increase as competition to provide VOD by multiple competing suppliers to multiple devices (cell phones included) will drop prices and increase choices.
4. More audio (iPods and podcasting and satellite radio) and video choices will further fragment viewing and listening, which will effect several media: Print (newspapers and magazine) readership, circulation, and advertising will continue to decline, but a more rapid pace. Terrestial radio and television (networks and local stations) will continue to decline, but at an even more rapid pace than in the past, caused by convergence and by continued over-commercialization in response to reduced profits. Higher relative advertising rates (CPMs) in all media because of the increased ability to target narrow audiences in this ever more fragmented environment.
5. As broadband usage increases, so will both the number of people using the Internet and time spend on the Internet increase substantially. These increases will mean more advertising will switch to the Internet, more shopping, and more travel reservations (does anyone still deal with a travel agent). More and more people will also get their news, information, and opinion from the Internet, which will hurt television network news the most--Brokaw and Rather got out just in time--because network news is now irrelevant (and they don't have a clue that they are).

Posted by Charles Warner at 4:13 PM | Comments (0) | Print |

November 17, 2004

Silos, Silos Everywhere

Brian Steinberg's "Advertising" column in the Wall Street Journal on Monday, November 15, was headlined "CNN.com Tries Humor in New Ads -- Cable Network's Online Arm Seeks to Appeal by Giving Edge to Its Personalities." Steinberg's first paragraph read, " Wolf Blitzer...comedian? Mr. Blitzer and some of his follow CNN newscasters are about to find themselves in the unlikely role of humorous pitchmen as they lend a hand to a promotional effort for CNN.com, the online arm of the Time Warner cable news channel."

The column goes on to describe the promotion spots and compares them to a similar humorous promotion campaign that ESPN ran for "Sports Center." So what's the big deal?

Doesn't anyone at the various Time Warner divisions talk to each other? AOL just launched a reinviogated AOL.com and is going to promote it as an alternative to Yahoo.com, and AOL News is an important component of the new AOL.com. You might think that the CNN unit of Time Warner might have waited for its promotional push for CNN.com in order not to compete with AOL.com, which might have happened if the various silos regulalry talked to each other or tried to cooperate with each other.

But not at Time Warner. Obviously, some of the silos do talk, because on the CNN.com site there are prominent links on the bottom of the home page to Time, Sports Illustrated, and Business 2.0. Also, CNN.com uses Yahoo, AOL's biggest and most hated competitor, as its search engine. AOL uses Google, which provides AOL with 30 percent of its advertising revenue.

What all this means is that CNN talks to the Time, Inc. people, but to the AOL people only reluctantly, a habit, I suspect, that is left over from the bitter hatred of AOL that occurred after the merger. Or maybe it's in retribution for AOL using ABC News as one of its main links on its AOL News site (although AOL is now prominently featuring a CNN ticker on its AOL and AOL.com news sites). But whatever the reasons for non-cooperation (which was what the AOL-Time Warner merger was supposed to be about), it is clear that most of the Time Warner silos aren't going to cooperate with AOL, which is another reason I believe that Time Warner would love to sell AOL as soon as the outstanding lawsuits and investigations are settled. The pre-merger Time Warner people's lingering loathing of AOL will never go away.

But who will buy AOL? Who has the money to pay 10 or 11 times earnings for an asset that is in irreversible decline? Microsoft, that's who. Microsoft has the money and could reduce AOL's workforce by about a half by combining AOL's programming, connectivity, marketing, and sales operation with its own. The other reason that Microsoft will be the buyer is a personal one.

Bill Gates is known to be one of the most competitive people on the face of the earth (in addition to being one of the smartest). So you know that he is still smarting from when AOL rubbed his nose in the dirt over a remark that Gates reportedly made to Steve Case that Microsoft would either buy AOL "or bury it." AOL people loved to quote this remark and gloat when AOL's stock was at its height, with its over-inflated, bubble evalution. You know Gates would love to buy AOL now and gloat back. Revenge really is sweet, especially to fierce competitors like Bill Gates.

Posted by Charles Warner at 7:40 PM | Comments (0) | Print |

November 12, 2004

AOL Reorgs in Preparation For What?

This past week AOL and its parent company Time Warner (once upon a time AOL was the parent and Time Warner was the child) made several announcements. Why?

The previous week AOL announced it was laying off 700 people and had repositioned AOL.com as a portal that would compete with Yahoo. At the beginning of this week Time Warner announced it was putting aside $500 in a contingency fund to prepare for any potential settlements with SEC and Justice Department investiagtions and stockholder suits that are pending. This was followed by two other AOL announcements, one in the middle of the week about a huge reorganization and at the end of the week AOL made annoucenment of a new travel aggregation product that will compete with Orbitz and Travelocity and an announcement about a new Senior Vice President in AOL's advertising sales group. I know AOL and Time Warner too well to believe that these announcements were mere coincidence. The timing indicated a well-orchestrated attempt to signal Wall Street that something is going on.

Here's what I think is going on: TW is sending a signal that it's getting AOL's house in order and will sell it as soon as all of the investigations are wrapped up. TW is also signaling the SEC, Justice Department, and litigating stockholders that it's ready to settle and pay up to get it over with.

When Dick Parsons announced TW's first quarter earnings, he made a special point of saying how important AOL's EARNINGS were to TW--second only to TW Cable's earnings. He also praised the startegic plans of AOL CEO Jonathan Miller. Why this emphasis? Parsons was whetting the appetitite of potential buyers who need big cash flow, now he's further enticing them with a lean and mean AOL, poised for growth in areas other than its traditional dial-up business.

The AOL reorganization into three units that will report to CEO Miller was a signal of the death of AOL's notorious matrix organizational structure. The matrix structure was probably an idea of Steve Case to bring AOL's beanstalk growth of the mid 1990s out of anarchy. But instead, the matrix structure gave fifedoms to an unruly passel of anarchists that created an incredibly slow moving, impossibly complex, internecine warring, multi-headed hydra monster that couldn't make decisions as fast as technology was changing. Every head had a different agenda and a different idea of how best get the stock price up and, believe it or not, how to beat Microsoft, its sworn enemy.

It looks like AOL's new reorganization will kill the multi-headed monster and may make decisions easier and faster. In fact, AOL has made several aggressive decisions to expand beyond the dial-up business recently, so it seems to be moving forward faster than before. But does it know where it's going?

When Bob Pittman came to AOL in 1996, he knew exactly what AOL's business was and where it needed to go. It was straigtforward. AOL was an ISP and its only goal was, to quote Peter Drucker, "to get customers and keep them." Sign up members, and that's what Pittman told AOL's direct marketing genius, Jan Brandt, to do, and she did it.

Steve Case set forth AOL's mission: "To build a gloal medium as central to people's lives as the telephone and television--and even more valuble." At the time, that was really cool and visionary. But it was a mission for the Internet, not for AOL. Granted, from 1995 on AOL was the Internet. And guess what, AOL did accomplish its mission, it built an global medium, the Internet, as central to people's life as the telephone and television--and even more valuable. It was the Internet, not AOL that became that medium. And AOL grew on the back of a buggy-whip technology--the telephone, or a twisted pair of copper wires. It based its business model on connecting to the Internet via the telephone. When Case saw that broadband technology, DSL and cable, would ruin his telephone connectivity business, he used AOL's inflated stock ("wampum" Jack Welsh called it) to buy Time Warner.

Case conned Gerald Levin into selling him hard assets that could shore up AOL's inevitable decline as people switched to broadband. Case and AOL probably deluded themselves into thinking that the AOL content was so terrific that people would want it even though they no longer needed AOL to connect to the Internet. But when people were connected to the Internet via a fast, always-on connection, they realized they didn't need AOL because there was other content as good or better out on the vast Internet.

So what is AOL's purpose now that people don't need it to connect? It's no longer to get customers and keep them--keep them, maybe, but at what price? The Wall Street Journal this past week critiqued AOL's new television campaign as being misdirected. What was the commercial's point? Was it trying to get new customers, keep old ones, get them to switch to broadband, or to go to AOL.com? I suspect the purpose was trying to keep customers because one commercial mentioned many of AOL's safety features such as parental control.

But what the commerical didn't mention was that as a last resort AOL will let people keep their e-mail address for $4.95 a month. That means they can't connect or have AOL's content, but that they can go to the newly configured AOL.com and retrieve their e-mail. But $4.95 is along way from the $23.90 a month AOL gets now from its 22 million members.

AOL is losing about 650,000 members a quarter, which is a shame, because it is a much improved product and its content is getting richer all the time, but probably too late. So, AOL is setting up (or improving) shopping sites in the Internet, travel sites, a portal (AOL .com) for life after connectivity, and, in the meantime, is conducting an orchestrated campaign to sell it to some investor who wants a cash cow in a declining business. I wonder who that might be?

Posted by Charles Warner at 6:42 PM | Comments (0) | Print |

November 11, 2004

Big Media's War on Creativity

I made the argument in my previous blog that from looking at editorial endoresements by newspapers in the election that was just concluded, it would appear that fears of corporate control over the voice and opinion of local newspapers are unfounded. I know from my own experience and from the data I looked at and reported on about newspaper endoresements that the vast majority of large media corporations allow their local media outlets autonomy in their editorial and candidate endoresement decisions.

If this is the case, then what is the concern about letting big media corporations get bigger--owning more stations and owning newspapers and television stations in the same market? Big, public media companies are more interested in growing profits than in influencing voters. The obvious exception is Sinclair Broadcasting, but it appears to have suffered financially because of its attempt to influence voters, which will reinforce the local autonomy policies of other big media conglomerates.

Other than coportate opinion control, one of the other major argument against media consolidation is that it stifles a diversity of voices in a market. However, with hundred of channels on cable, satellite television and radio, and, especially, the millions of blogs and information sites on the internet, this argument is weakend.

The biggest problem I have with the big media companies getting bigger is because these congomerates emphasize profit growth, not serving their communities and certainly not nurturing and encouraging creativity and innovation in the arts.

In many markets local radio stations used to encourage and even play local bands and would break new music if a popular DJ or a program director liked the sound of a new artist or band. But this sort of experimentation is not allowed in corporate radio where independent record promoters pay stations to play records the big record companies are pushing.

In some markets, locally owned television stations used to occasionally air performances by local theater groups and other local performance artists, but this practice is declining as more and more stations, particularly corporately owned stations, chase profits. Corporate radio and television today is lowering the standards of taste, culture, and creativity.

Don't get me wrong, profits are necessary for businesses to survive, but the question is how much profit is enough? The answer for big media is always "more." That's how big media bosses keep their stockholders happy and, thus keep their jobs, by demanding more, always more. But as newspaper circulation and radio and television audiences slowly and irreversibly decline, how does the big media get more? By adding advertising pages and adding commercials, by imbedding product placements in programming, by producing cheap (in both senses of the word) look-alike programming, and by appealing to the lowest cultural common denominator ("The Swan" instead of Swan Lake).

I'm not a cultural elitist. I hate the opera and am not a fan of the ballet or classical music, but I am a fan of jazz and theater, both of which have a rich and deep artistic American heritage that is being ignored by big, corporate media. Add to this cultural inattention by big media the FCC's crackdown on "indecency" (translation = freedom of speech) which further inhibits creativity, and you have what amounts to a war on culture and the arts--to say nothing about the religious right wing's attack on free artistic expression through idealogical bombardment of the National Arts Foundation.

The country doesn't need, especially at this time of the ascension of the conservative religious right, more big, corporate media, more media consolidation that it order to grow will genuflect to the conservatives' attacks on indecency and, thus, creativity. American needs more independent voices who will have to learn how to survive through the hard necessity of innovation, and what is innovation but applied creativity.

Posted by Charles Warner at 3:27 PM | Comments (0) | Print |

November 9, 2004

Newspaper Endorsements

Tuesday, November 9, 2004. Newspaper Endorsements.
I looked at a list of 411 newspaper endorsements that was published on the Web on November 2. It provided some interesting and unsuspected insights into "big media."

Of the 411 newspapers, 199 with a total circulation of 15, 900,734 endorsed Bush and 212 with circulation of 21,762,206 endorsed Kerry, which gave an early, unrealistic hope to Kerry supporters (like the early exit poll data did). But I examined the list based on what some of the larger and more prominent newspaper groups did. Here are the results:

Gannett (owner of non-endorsing USA Today), the largest newspaper conglomerate in the US had 65 newspapers on the list, 25 for Bush, 40 for Kerry.

Knight-Ridder owned 24 newspapers on the list, 6 for Bush and 18 for Kerry.

Scripps had 14 on the list, 6 for Bush, 8 for Kerry.

The Tribune Company (owner of the Chicago Tribune) had 8 papers on the list, 2 (The Chicago Tribune and the Harford Courant) endorsed Bush and 6 endorsed Kerry, including Newsday in Long Island.

The New York Times Co. had 12 newspapers on the list with 4 endorsing Bush and 8 endorsing Kerry.

Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. had four newspapers on the list, 2 endorsed Bush (The New York Post and the Boston Herald) and 2 endorsed Kerry (smaller suburban papers).

So much for the theory of corporate control of the press. Gannett, the biggest of the media conglomerates that owns newspapers obviously let its papers have local autonomy, as did Knight-Ridder, Scripps, and even the Tribune, New York Times, and Murdoch. The last three companies have the perception of being biased, but they allowed diviation from their perceived slant.

It's too bad Sinclair Broadcasting didn't take a page from the above newspaper companies' play books and allow its 40 stations that ran the anti-Kerry documentary local autonomy. Maybe there is a lesson here fro Sinclair.

Looking at the list, it would appear to support the argument that newspaper editorial endorsements don't make any difference in the final outcome of a national election. It also might give people who are against concentration of control of local media (like me) to pause and think, even re-examine their position. Because if media conglomerates are more interested in profits than in political proselytizing (as it appears by examinign the list of endorsements) then why not let Gannett, the Tribune Company, and Murdoch own all the television stations and newspapers in the country?

I'll make a case for the other point of view later.

Posted by Charles Warner at 9:35 PM | Comments (0) | Print |

November 8, 2004

More On Editorializing

Monday, November 8, 2004. More On Editorializing.
Today Jim Romanesko of the Poyneter Institute had several links to newspaper columns about newspaper editorializing. One links to Al Neuharth's stance against it, and another, by the Pittsburgh Post-Tribune's Colin McNickle, made a plea for newspapers to editorialize in order to frame the issues for an informed public discussion. McNickle claimed that the Cleveland Plain Dealer shirked its civic duty by not endorsing either Kerry or Bush this year.

But, as I indicated in my previous post, even if it's considered shirking by many journalism purists, I think we're going to see more newspapers stop endorsing presidential candidates. Nevertheless, the debate is on and online, so check it out.

Posted by Charles Warner at 4:21 PM | Comments (0) | Print |

November 7, 2004

The Post-Election Media

Sunday, November 7, 2004. The Post-Election Media.
Sinclair Broadcasting was widely criticized in the press and liberal blogs for running pro-Bush editorials and an anti-Kerry documentary in prime time on its television stations. One group was so upset it filed with the FCC to get the Sinclair licenses. The press also reported that many advertisers pulled their advertising from the Sinclair stations that ran the anti-Kerry documentary--advertisers notoriously shy away from controversy and content they consider to be an inappropriate environment for their commercials.

But what about newspapers? Do advertisers shy away from newspapers that run editorials contrary to an advertisers point of view? No. So why shy away from television stations that run a controversial prime-time special? I suspect the answer is that advertisers steer clear of contorversy when they have alternatives. There are lots of alternatives to the Sinclair television stations which is not a group with stations with must-buy ratings. Whereas, there are few, and in most cases no, alternatives for newspaper advertisers.

So what is future of editorials and pro-candidate programs on television? Poor, I think. Bottom-line oriented CEOs and boards of directors will be scared away from controversial programming by reports of Sinclair's advertisers' defection.--everyone except Sinclair's CEO, David Smith, who claims that his company made money on the anti-Kerry program and will continue to do issue-oriented programming and editorials, according to Media Post's Wayne Friedman in his Novemebr 5, TV Watch Column.

I don't think Friedman believes Smith, nor do I, and, more important, I don't think other broadcasters will. The trend in recent years has been for televison networks and stations not to editorialize and to steer clear of contoversary (with the exception of the "60 Minutes'" Rathergate fisco). That controversy will more than likely make CBS and the networks more cautious, especially because they will not want to irritate the Bush White House and the Republican-dominated FCC, which they hope will expand station ownership limits and go easier on indecency. So don't expect any changes in television, and that includes Fox News's and Sinclair's pro-conservative approach. And, don't expect the FCC to give Sinclair's licenses to anyone else.

What about newspapers? It is clear that newspaper editorials don't have a major impact on the way people vote in national elections. Kerry endorsements outnumbered Bush endoresements from newspapers this year, but so what. There were several newspapers, including USA Today, that did not endorse presidential candidates. USA Today's founder and current columnist, Al Neuharth, does not believe newspapers should endorse candidates. USA Today is a national newspaper, and the number-one circultation daily in country and, thus, attemtps to appeal to as wide an audience as possible. Could it be that USA Today's neutrality is part of the reason it has grown and increased its circulation lead over number two, the Wall Street Journal and number three, the New York Times, both of which endorse candidates?

The New York Times, with its endoresement of Kerry, reinforced to the Red states that is the voice of the Eastern liberal establishment, which is anethma to the Red states. Can the New York Times ever fulfill its national expansion goals if it continues to be seen as a New York liberal paper? Probably not.

As newspaper circulation continues to decline and bottom-line pressures plague the print business, I would not be surprised to see many newspapers continue to endorse local candidates but not to endorse national condidates--to take a USA Today approach to neutrality and try to avoid alienating either side of the political divide. The concept of going down the middle (sometimes referred to as objectivity, which we realize now is not possible) originated in the 1800s when publishers of partisan newspapers realized they could double their circulation and, therefore their advertising revenue by being neutral and appealing to both sides. I expect more newspapers to take this approach over the next four years.

What about the partisan media of today, especially blogs and radio? Blogs have had a extraordinary impact on the political scene this year and have come into their own as a source of news, opinion, and discourse. Dan Gillmor, in his breakthrough book, We the Media, suggests that blogs are the media of information in the future. Blogs took a step back this past week when several of them posted early exit polls that showed Kerry in the lead, which led to a short surge in Kerry futures in the stock market and too early euphoria among the Kerry campaigners. And the authors of at least two of the most read blogs, Daily Kos and Press Think, have indicated they are tired of the daily pressure to blog and are asking for contributors to share the burden of posting, so there might be a decline in the quality and timeliness of blogs for a while. However, I expect blogs such as Talking Points, Instant Pundit, and the The Note to increase in readership and usage as sources of information and opinion. Recent research has indicated that 34 percent of people 18-54 get their news from the Internet. I expect that to increase to almost 50 percent in the next four years.

Radio is a different matter. I expext partisan radio to decline, especially liberal radio. I don't expect Air America Radio to last the year out. Al Franken is Air American Radio's biggest draw and his goal when he started was to see that George Bush was defeated. So much for that.

Perhaps the anti-Bush blogs and Air America Radio will learn that just being against something doesn't work. It worked for Rush Limbaugh in bashing the Clintons, but that was a common sport at the time and easy to do. I expect Rush's influence to decline as radio audiences continue to decline--a slow but irreversible decline.

In summary, less poltical partisanship and controversy in television, fewer endorsement editorials in newspapers, more partisanship and influence of blogs, and less influence of radio.

Posted by Charles Warner at 3:13 PM | Comments (0) | Print |

Election Results

Sunday, November, 7. Bill Grimes's Post-Election Thoughts.

Final Thoughts: Election

1. The Months Leading Up To Election Day:

� Fifty-five perecent of registered voters in the US were Democrats (and still are).

� The president's management of Iraq was losing support rapidly among voters.

� The public's view of the state of the economy--mainly, "lost jobs"--was adversely affecting voters' views of the president.

� The president's overall "job performance" was thought to be "good" by less than 50% of voters--his lowest since mid-2001.

� By the end of October after three debates, some polls found that Kerry won all three; many found that he won two; none found that Bush had won two or three of the debates.

� Media coverage critical of the president's performance intensified (according to Center for Media and Public Affairs the large three broadcast network shows aired 77 % "positive" stories on Kerry while 64% of Bush stories were "negative").

� Communicating some compelling appeal to "conservative" voters in the Red states would likely be important for Democratic victory.

� In the 2000 election Bush received fewer popular votes than his Democratic opponent.

2. Election Day: The Vote

� Nine million more people vote for Bush than did in 2000

� Three and a half million more vote for Bush than Kerr

� Republicans gain four additional Senators

� Kerry fails to win one Red state and loses key state Florida with 47% of the vote.

3. Tomorrow: The analysis and future:

1. That Kerry lost the presidency and Democrats lost seats, given the perceived state of Bush administration�s handling of foreign affairs and the economy is at the very least surprising.

2. The election result suggests less than competent strategy and execution by the Democrat brain trust and the candidate. Some thoughts as to how and why this substantial advantage Kerry enjoyed during the last few months was squandered.

3. Dems cannot win Red states with a liberal from Northeast (or West Coast) unless perhaps their Republican opponent is a Moderate West Coaster) unless perhaps their Republican opponent is a moderate Northerner--obviously not the case with Bush.

4. Electing a Senator to the presidency does not seem to be a route to the White House�when was the last time it happened? Wouldn't Dem strategists be thinking this too?

5. Associating and cavorting with Hollywood and Rock n' Roll mega-stars continues to be thought to be ultra-cool by Dem candidates but not thought so by Red state voters (and, I think, a lot of Blue state voters, as well). A few examples of star Kerry cheerleading that appeared in the press presumably with his handlers' knowledge (since each was related to raising money for his candidacy):

1. Whoopie Goldberg at Rainbow Room black-tie event uses scatological language referring to the president's last name as a warm-up to calling him as criminal.

2. Cher, speaking to an elderly group of ladies in Florida, struggles to maintain her balance at the podium and arduously searches her memory for words; finally finds them; and calls the president a modern Nazi.

3. Eminem, a rap song artist whose lyrics often highlight cop beatings and violence to women , pens a new, made-for-the-campaign, anti-Bush tune.

4. Bug-eyed Susan Sarandon and anti-business hubby Tim Robbins are pictured condescendingly ticking off reasons Bush is stupid.

5. Meryl Streep regales a group of NY potential Dem donors about the president's "fixation with Jesus Christ."

6. Michael Moore's �Fahrenheit 9/11� which produced gleeful disdain in the brilliant brains of two-coast Dems had the opposite effect in Red states where "less-sophisticated" Americans who saw (not many) or heard via word-of-mouth the vitrioloic depiction of the president felt the movie was unfair and saw Moore as "another Hollwood smart ass who looks down on us folk." A schoolmate friend, a retired postal employee who has never left West Virginina, told me that upon visiting his daughter in Philadelphia he went to see Moore's movie. He had planned on voting for Kerry but was outraged by the "superiority attitude" of the movie maker. Marty voted instead for Bush.

Well, all this sounds cool and hip here in NY and on the left coast but, I believe, Dem brothers, that buddy-buddy stuff with patronizing and privileged Hollywood profit-participators is not amusing and not appreciated in Red states and will never be. Advice: muzzle the mouths of the stars and don't jump up and down on a stage in Toledo, Ohio two days before the election to show Ohio voters that you and the Boss are bros. Maybe, if your name was Clinton, but William Clinton you were not. IT IS THE CULTURE, STUPID.

� Do not associate with billionaire New York Liberals. Take their $80 million that George Soros raised with four other pals and keep it quiet. The publicity of fat-cat financing helps only in NY and LA exactly where Dem candidates do not need help--it hurts in Red states. Mr. Soros, quoted extensively in a 12 page article in an October issue of the most liberal, Bush-whacking magazine, THE NEW YORKER, compares the Administration to Hitler's and calls Bush "worst kind of liar". I am sure his half-thought-out thought was: The morons in Middle America have never heard of this magazine, let alone ever reading (or capable of reading) it. That is if Soros even considered the consequences of his raving hostile opinions on performance of the President. Did he and the Dem chief strategist--the lady from Massachusetts whose bio leader is managing the campaigns of Ted Kennedy in that challenging-for-Dems state--think that Karl Rove might receive a copy of the article and if so Mr. Rove might just have an idea or two as to how to distribute it strategically to voters? Did they think at all about the impact these remarks might have on the unfortunate American who doesn't understand how Soros made billions and while not resenting it wonders why such a fortunate person (and immigrant to boot) would be so angry in their great country, America. As this West Virginia boy can attest, those Mountaineers do not like to hear that talk from a guy who has never been to their state and who has not been on a commercial plane in 40 years. An additional factor is one my daughter communicated to me. She said a number of her friends in San Francisco thought that Mrs. Kerry was an unattractive snob who evidenced little empathy for anyone and no real affection towards her husband. The contrast between the two presidential candidates' wives was starkly clear--and the losers were the Dems.

� Kerry's occasional assertion of some Administration "failure" without a referenced source damaged his credibility and thus his chance to win. Example, in third debate Kerry said, on the subject of national security, "Our nation's borders are more vulnerable and unsafe the they were four years ago." Now, how without citing some source for this claim would anyone believe this possible? Everyone knows about the creation of Homeland Security and their terrorist alerts; most everyone knows that spending on security has been dramatically increased since 9/11 and everyone living person in America knows that since that awful day thirty-eight months ago not a terrorist firecracker has been ignited in this country. Does any one think that we have not suffered another attack because our borders are less safe? Or, could it be, Mr. Kerry, that perhaps because terrorists do not want to attack us again? Or, maybe is it just darn good Republican luck? I do not know what Kerry was thinking about! This is one example of a number of unsubstantiated criticisms of his opponent that are nor remotely believable. Advice to Dems: do not permit candidates to make such statements. Voters with a little bit of thought will conclude that the speaker is not being honest and thinks they (the voters) will not notice. (Voters too dumb, candidate thinks. Or I am too smooth.)

� Final thought: people want to vote for a likable person. Likable I think means something like the good guy I know at work or at the club or at church. Likable is not a person speaks with affectedly multi-sentence retorts. However you want to define to, likable enough--relative to Bush--was not John Kerry. And "person� just means a guy or gal who has a few flaws, just like me. Not the picture perfect Kerry with his Anglo patrician good looks plus with a dash of Eastern European mystique; the best education culminating with Ivy school debate champ; decorated war hero with non-stop bravery, an "in-your-corner" DA getting bad guys; a Senator of tireless devotion to task and electorate. Even if it were all true nearly all the time, it is not the profile of any "person" you or I have ever known. Sculpted in privilege, packaged by Hollywood Dem advisors and much funded by New York financiers who openly spew hatred of an American President, Kerry was inadequately managed and was incapable of executing a "likable person" public persona. Johnny, we didn't ever know ye."

Posted by Charles Warner at 9:15 AM | Comments (0) | Print |

November 3, 2004

Not in Anger

Wednesday, November 3, 2004. Not in Anger.
I read a number of blogs today and many of them were filled with anger. We all have different ways of dealing with loss. Some do it with anger or rage, other with sadness and depression, others with new resolve, and others with rationalization (�You really didn�t want Kerry to win because the mess is so big he�d get blamed for not cleaning up an impossible mess and not be re-elected").

The way I dealt with my loss was to shed a tear when I got up this morning to give vent to my grief, not for me but for America and its global reputation, then to read some blogs, and then to go for a walk so I could think about what I might do to see that such a disaster didn�t happen again. I said to myself, �Don�t get mad, get even.� I counseled myself not to become angry, not to take it personally, and not to let my emotions or my ego blur my vision. This was my response, more because of age probably, than because of reasonableness.

I wrote down a list of things I had to do, starting today, to see that my team won in 2008. I thought, �Put me on the team, coach. Tell me how to prepare, what to do, who to block, and who to tackle. We have to show the world that we can play fair, play by the rules, and win. If we try to beat the other side by using their negativity, scare tactics, and dirty tricks, we debase the honor of the game, we lose our pride, and, ultimately, we lose our souls.�

I remembered a story about a renowned samurai warrior who protected a great lord. The lord was assassinated one day and the loyal samurai, enraged, sped after the assassin and finally cornered him. The samurai raised his shining sword and prepared to behead the terrified assassin, but at the moment that he was going to swing his sword toward the head of the assassin, the samurai instead let his arm and sword drop limply to the ground and he turned and walk away, letting the assassin live. When an onlooker asked the samurai why he had not killed the assassin, the samurai replied, �I was angry and if I killed him it would have been because I was angry, which is not the right reason he should die. He must die not because of my anger but because he killed my lord."

Democrats must defeat the Republicans in 2008 not because of anger but for the right reasons.

The biggest problem now is to find a coach, or as Bush called Karl Rove in his victory speech, an �architect� for a victory in 2008. We have a talented legion of willing, motivated, bright players who are on the humane, caring side of the issues, but we need a much better coaching staff and head coach who can unify us as a team so that we have one inspiring, positive mission, one simple, positive message, and one overriding, positive goal�to win in 2008�and not to have a goal of the Republican candidate losing, that�s a negative goal (�Anyone but Bush� didn�t work). We need a party organization that doesn�t focus on how to make the other side lose, but that focuses on how to win with honor. Winning with honor is key, because that is what will restore our honor in the world and in the history books in the twenty-second century and beyond.

Winning with honor is much harder than winning by breaking the rules (as we found out yesterday), so that's why we have to start now, plan better, and work harder, but not in anger.

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

The Morning After

Wednesday, November 3, 2004. The Morning After.
I quit drinking 26 years ago after I had hepetitis and discovered six months after I recovered that even a sip of booze hurt my insides. I haven't missed the booze or, especially, the hangovers. The morning after tying one on were miserable. I remember saying to myself, "Was that woman I was flirting with really that pretty? Did I really make that obnoxious remark? Did I really try to pick a fight with 300-pound gorilla?"

This morning I'm having another type of hangover--a sadness and hubris hangover--and I'm asking myself, "Was my candidate really that good? Did I really predict to friends that the youth and female vote would create a Kerrry landslide? Did I really believe those exit polls published on blogs in the late afternoon and that the networks wouldn't touch? Did I really say that the pre-election polls were all wrong because they couldn't reach cell phones."

I wasn't drunk, I was wrong. I let my heart and my hopes color my thinking. I didn't realize that voters would vote their hearts, not their heads; would vote according to their faith rather than according to the facts; would vote according to their short-term interests rather than long-term ideals; and were so worried about "security" that they were willing to give up some of their own and, especially, others' constitutional rights (including prisoners of war).

I was also wrong about blogs as the new media model. This was the election that I thought (and hoped too much) would be influenced by blogs. But the blogs not only got it wrong but also you couldn't get to many of them. Reports this morning indicated that the severs of several of the most popular blogs crashed--Daily Kos, Talking Points, and Wonkette among them. The liberal-leaning blogs posted exit poll results that were favorable to Kerry. The exit poll results were distributed virally in the late afternoon and gave Kerry supporters (like me) false hope. The networks got it right this time by not referring to any exit polls and being cautious.

CNN was the most cautious, ABC the most aggressive in calling wins for states and, thus, electoral votes. I wonder if anyone watched CBS's coverage. Did ABC or the networks' coverage matter? Not much, although I suspect that by being aggressive, ABC probably picked up viewers. We'll see what this means for future elections; however, I do believe that the TV news networks are much too full of themselves and think they have a lot of power to influence elections, like not calling states until all the polls have closed. If you look at a map of red and blue states this year and in 2000, the two maps are virtually identical. Few people changed their minds from the 200o election.

Also, Bruce Springsteen and the rock and show business stars didn't help bring out the youth vote. Some estimates indicate the only one in ten young people (18-29) voted. Joe Trippi wrote in a blog on MSNB that the future of the country was in the hands of the future of the country. Nice line, and true--the future of the country were irresponsible and didn't care about the future of the country. Joe Trippi forgot, as I did, about the self-absorbtion and notoriously short -term vision of many young people, who think long-term is day after tomorrow.

But Aaron Brown of CNN did quote at length Buzzmachine's Jeff Jarvis's post-election peace pledge:
I promise to... Support the President, even if I didn't vote for him..... Criticize the President, even if I did vote for him..... Uphold standards of civilized discourse in blogs and in media while pushing both to be better.... Unite as a nation, putting country over party, even as we work together to make America better.

Well said. I'll try to follow it.

What will Bush's second term mean for the media? I would try to predict, but today I have no faith in my ability to predict. I think Howard Stern said it best--that he is glad he is moving to satellite radio. Life in radio and television is going to be hell...and cleaner.

Posted by Charles Warner at 1:26 PM | Comments (0) | Print |

November 2, 2004

Tuesday, November 2, 2003.

Tuesday, November 2, 2003. Election Day.
I voted today at 9:30 am at the 92nd Street Y. It was inspiring to see the longest lines I've ever seen when voting at the Y. My favorite snapshots were; 1) a limo driving up, a driver hustling to open up the back door and helping a well-dressed, feeble old man out of the car and onto a walker as the old man painfully and slowly made his way to vote and 2) an old bull dog tied to a parking meter while his owner was inside voting--the bull dog looked liked Dick Cheney, mean and sad.

I had lunch with a good friend, a conservative Bush supporter, who predicted a Kerry win, which raised my spirits. What we agreed on was that if Kerry wins there will be a better chance of legislators getting together and working out reasonable compromises that would modernize the election process, reduce the deficit, and reform election financing.

I walked home (95th Street) from 33rd Street--up Fifth Avenue to 58th Street to make sure that FAO Schwartz was closed (it was), across 58th to Madison, and up Madison all the way. It was a will-power walk. I didn't stop at Ferragamo, Gucci, Hermes, Timberland, or Ralph Lauren.

When I got home, I checked out the blogs and the early indications from Daily Kos were in favor of Kerry. I read another blog that recommended that people check out blogs because blogs would have the best early information because they would publish early (and unreliable) exit poll information that the networks and old-line news organizations wouldn't touch.

I then went to Romenesko, as I do every day, and linked to Jimmy Breslin's last regular column for Newsday. I love reading Breslin and I was sorry to read that his column would be his last, so I sadly clicked on it. However, I was rewarded with one of his best, in my opinion. Please read it. He predicts a big Kerry win as he has been for months. I felt better.

Posted by Charles Warner at 3:58 PM | Comments (0) | Print |

November 1, 2004

Monday, November 1, 2004. I

Monday, November 1, 2004. I Was Bushwacked.
Last evening I got a call from a woman who asked me to "support" the Southern Illinois University School of Journalism where I received my masters degree in 1982. She asked for a donation this year for more than the $100 I had given for the last few years. I told her that I wasn't able to give anything this year because, "I have given all the extra money I had to John Kerry and the Democratic party."

She asked, "Why are you voting for John Kerry?"

I replied, "What!"

She repeated, more emphatically, "Why are voting for John Kerry?"

As I hung up the phone, I growled, "It's none of your God damned business."

The Bush-Rove mafia have infiltrated everywhere it seems. Do the Bush-Rove Nazis really think that by challenging people they are going to get them to change their minds or their votes? I think this kind of confrontational behavior reveals a deep anger and frustration that these messianic people have. They hate everyone who doesn't share their fundamentalist, simplistic, freedom-denying beliefs. Well, they are not going to get any money from me and they are not going to win tomorrow.

What happened to me was not as bad as some of the hateful, ruthless, angry scams others have suffered. The Daily Kos reports of one in Michigan:

Posted by Charles Warner at 6:20 PM | Comments (0) | Print |

Monday, November 1, 2004. Why

Monday, November 1, 2004. Why Sincalir and Pappas Aren't Bigger.
Bill Grimes wrote the following in response to my blog about television station owners Sinclair (24 percent coverage of US TV homes) and Pappas (15 percent of US TV homes) and provides some excellent insights into the future of local television broadcasting:

Posted by Charles Warner at 4:12 PM | Comments (0) | Print |