Media Curmudgeon

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December 24, 2005

NBC Buys Control of MSN

The New York Times announced today, Friday, December 23, that NBC Universal had reached an agreement to acquire majority control of MSNBC from Microsoft. The Times indicated that "the transaction could be the first step in ending a nine-year partnership between the companies, and puts NBC squarely in control of the network…NBC said it had an option to acquire 100 percent of the cable channel within two years."

The next paragraph read, "The deal comes after a year of negotiations to undo the partnership, in which side was increasingly frustrated with the other. Within NBC, executives complained that they did not have enough control of the network's budget to hire the right talent and market the programs."

And further in the story, "But the companies said MSNBC.com will be unaffected by the transaction and Microsoft and NBC…will continue to equally own the Internet site."

NBC couldn't make a dent in the ratings with the MSNBC cable news channel when it was the number-one TV network, so what magic is it going to wield now that it is the number four network (18-49)? Maybe NBC will bring over the same folks to run MSNBC that program CNBC; they certainly know how to get killer ratings. Also, MSNBC ranks better as a news Web site than MSNBC ranks as a cable news channel with Microsoft as a partner. So maybe NBC ought to bring the Microsoft Web programmers over to program the new MSNBC news channel; they could do no worse.

NBC Universal has gone sensational and downscale with its cable programming. It owns the Bravo cable channel, which features "Queer Eye: Weddings," "Project Runway," and "Celebrity Poker." Check them out at Bravotv.com. NBC Universal is also a partner with Hearst entertainment and ABC in the A&E Television Networks, which is comprised of the A&E Network, The History Channel, The History Channel International, The Biography Channel, The Military History Channel, The History Channel en Español, and the Crime & Investigation Network. A&E, which used to have pretty classy programming, is now featuring new, uplifting shows such as "Rollergirls" and "Dallas Swat"--check them out at

Does this mean that NBC Universal will go downscale with MSNBC? Probably. NBC Universal will more than likely look for someone to be more outrageous than Fox New's ratings topper Bill O'Reilly. Maybe the "the right people" might be Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert of Comedy Central. After all, most young people get their news from Stewart's "The Daily Show" and from the new "Colbert Report," which is a hysterical send-up of the pretentious, contentious, right-wing O'Reilly. Hiring these two would bring big ratings to MSNBC and improve its credibility among the demographic advertisers love--18-49 year olds. News on TV has become entertainment, so NBC Universal might as well go for laughs; it has nothing to lose.

Also, how do you think MSNBC talent, such as Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann, feel about NBC executives indicating that they haven't enough control of the network's budget to "hire the right people?" Talent, especially the brilliant-but-screwy Olbermann, is notoriously insecure and sensitive. Let's hope Keith gets pissed at the remark and leaves MSNBC, where he has little political credibility, and returns to ESPN. He's much better at sports than he is at politics (remember his embarrassing ranting about the 2004 Ohio elections?) He should give up trying to be a political know-it-all and go back to being a sports know-it-all, which he almost is.

Keith's regular appearance on the "Dan Patrick Show" on ESPN Radio, 1050 in New York, has become appointment listening for me. The two are intelligent and funny, which is more than I can say for Don Imus or Howard Stern (but, of course, I'm an old fart with a college degree, so you have to take that into consideration).

Posted by Charles Warner at 2:37 AM | Comments (0) | Print |

December 23, 2005

Google Goes Christmas Shopping

Larry Page and Serge Brin, the young geniuses who created Google, couldn't decide what to give each other for Christmas. As a Halloween present they bought themselves a hot new Boeing 767-200 jet. They had to top that for a Christmas present, so they bought each other 5 percent of AOL for $1 billion.

But this wasn't a typical present; it was a defensive chess move. Microsoft opened with a standard move, in this case trying to buy all or part of AOL (White Queen's pawn to E4). Google played the clock perfectly and waited until the last moment to make its unexpected defensive move to buy 5 percent of AOL (Black Queen's pawn to E5), thus blocking Microsoft's ability to advance in the E column--the search column.

The Media Curmudgeon, along with the majority of the Wall Street community, thought Microsoft was the most logical buyer of a big piece of AOL from Time Warner because we felt Microsoft needed AOL more than anyone else did in order to make its late-to-market search product competitive with Google's, which has a huge lead, to some degree because of the huge traffic it gets from AOL. I thought Microsoft would pay a big premium to get AOL and switch its search engine from Google's to Microsoft's.

Google's price of $1 billion for 5 percent of AOL valued AOL at $20 billion, a figure Time Warner CEO Dick Parsons had been touting all along and a price, I'll bet, that Microsoft was reluctant to pay, so Gates, Ballmer, and company were probably trying to negotiate a lower valuation. Microsoft was trying to buy 49 percent of AOL, which would have meant about $10 billion, a lot for even Microsoft to pay. Also, the deal AOL and Microsoft were trying to cobble together was very complicated. It was reported Microsoft didn't want AOL's dial-up business and I heard that AOL didn't like Microsoft's technology. Even more important, the AOL people simply didn't like Microsoft, which they considered Darth Vader, going back ten years ago. "Didn't like" is too soft; they hated Microsoft, so I'm sure the AOL people were trying to torpedo the deal in spite of what Parsons and Time Warner may have wanted.

If an AOL-Microsoft deal had been made, the AOL people would have done to Microsoft the same thing the Time Warner people did to AOL after the AOL-Time Warner merger, they would have sabotaged it purposely. The shot-gun marriage of the cultures of the AOL Internet, arrogant cowboys and the Time Warner publishing, arrogant preppies would never have worked and went up in flames. The Time Warner cable and movie people also hated the AOL gunslingers and poured gas on the fire. Steve Case and Gerald Levin were so blinded by their crush on synergy that they never saw the culture clash. They won a merger battle, but planned horribly for the occupation. Sound familiar?

But AOL loved Google, its people, and especially, its money from the Google revenue-sharing deal. AOL got 85 percent of the revenue from clicks it delivered to Google, which amounted to around $425 million for AOL. So the AOL people were delighted to save this revenue stream, but, more so I'm sure, were thrilled with the promotion deal they got from Google, which in my view is even more valuable over the long term than the $1 billion.

The new cross-promoting, cross-selling Google-AOL partnership becomes the 800-pound gorilla of the Internet, gives a whole new life to AOL (which it earned with recent innovations), solidifies Google's lead in search, and, most important of all to Google and AOL, sticks it to Microsoft. Congratulations to Google and AOL for making the best strategic move of the last five years.

Posted by Charles Warner at 2:05 PM | Comments (0) | Print |

December 12, 2005

New York Experiences

I haven't blogged in almost two weeks because I've been swamped with Christmas shopping and been racked with guilt for not blogging twice a week, which is my goal. It's a real dilemma, blog or shop for my eight children and six spouses or significant others, my wife and her two children, and my nine grandchildren. I think I bought a bushel basket full of iPod Shuffles. But I did have two experiences to write about, one a wonderful New York gathering and the other a pleasant media surprise.

On Thursday, December 8, I went for my daily walk in Central Park, but instead of walking around the reservoir, which I normally do, I headed for Strawberry Fields on the West Side of the Park. I had heard on the news on WNYC that morning that people would be congregating at Strawberry Fields to commemorate the 25th anniversary of Lennon's death, so I headed there.

On the way I tuned in to ESPN 105 Radio because it was after 2:00 pm and, for me, the unlistenable, angry, screaming Stephen Smith would be off the air and Dan Patrick would be on. I like Dan Patrick and often listen to him when I'm walking. I must have tuned in about 2:10 pm and I heard Dan talking with a guest about John Lennon. I though I recognized the voice. Could it be Dan's old ESPN "Sports Center" partner Keith Olbermann? It was. They had reunited on radio to talk about John Lennon on the 25th anniversary of his death and I listened raptly for the rest of the hour. It may have been the best 50 minutes of talk radio I ever heard.

For several years Dan and Keith anchored ESPN's "Sports Center" on television and set the standard for news and sports co-anchors. Everyone I know of in the business thought the pairing was magical and the best ever. They were smart, funny, and knowledgeable. They played off of each other brilliantly and seamlessly and seemed to be having as much fun doing the show as the audience had in watching it. They were wickedly clever. Olbermann ESPN left for the greener pastures in New York and, eventually, his own program on MSNBC. At the time the break-up was harder on ESPN fans than the Dean Martin-Jerry Lewis split-up was to that team's fans.

I listened in awe as Olbermann displayed his encyclopedic knowledge of Lennon and his music. Patrick was masterful in the way he deferred to Olbermann's ego and let Keith be the star of his, Dan's show. Dan almost matched Keith's knowledge of Lennon and his genius and the Beatles and their significance. They were respectful of Lennon, but not sad--they were celebratory. Just right.

Because it was a sports-talk program, they did cover a little sports. Dan read a Florida Marlins press release which tried to put a positive spin on the cynical dismantling of their team by trading away most of their good players. Dan would read a sentence and then Keith would translate--tell what it really meant. It was an ad lib performance that was brilliant, and it had me laughing out loud. Olbermann has a deep, resonant voice that is ideal for radio. I think he's better on radio than on TV because his television personality strikes me as a little too cynical. He often gets a smirk on his face that overrides the message in his words.

Olbermann and Patrick were magic--a perfect pair for radio. Too bad they can't get together more often. If they did, perhaps, at least for the time they were on the air, ESPN might beat WFAN 660, which is still the sports-talk leader by a wide margin in New York.

At 3:00 pm, I turned to WFAN 660 to listen to what they were doing. Mike and the Mad Dog were also doing a show on Lennon and it was excellent. I normally don't care too much for the way "Dog" treats callers (he tends to scream over them too often), so at that time I listen to Dan Patrick. But on December 8th, Mike and "Dog" were great as they talked respectfully to two Lennon and Beatle experts. Good listening.

As I was listening to WFAN, I arrived at the Strawberry Fields and saw a large crowd in the small space just west of the John Lennon memorial plaque, which had several lit candles and flowers ringing it. The crowd was singing Beatles songs. There were three or four people playing guitars and bunched around them were hundreds of people, some holding candles high but all of them singing in bittersweet, quiet, joyful, respectful, sadness.

The people were widely and wildly diverse--pure New York. A teenage girl who looked like she stepped out of a Ralph Lauren window stood on a bench next to a Latino guitarist and sang every word to every song. I stood next to a man who looked about 30. He was missing a couple of front teeth, was about 6'4", and must have weighed 300 pounds. He had on a grubby, stained sweatshirt, a dirty baseball cap, and big, baggy pants barely held up by a frazzled leather belt. He, too, sang every word to every Lennon song in a big, clear, perfect-pitch voice that hit all the high notes with ease and confidence. Fifty-year-old hippies with long hair and round dark glasses, 60-year-old couples, teenagers, blacks, Latinos, New York at its diverse, respectful best were honoring the memory of Lennon and singing his magnificent songs.

I love New York and I love good, smart sport-talk radio. I’ll go back to Strawberry Fields when I take my walks from now on and I hope I'll be able to hear and laugh with Dan Patrick and Keith Olbermann again on the way, although I doubt it. Keith probably wants to be seen on television and have his own show. Ego always trumps cooperation in the media it seems. But I will be able to enjoy the Lennon memorial in Strawberry Fields and play the tape in my head of that wonderful New York crowd signing John Lennon's songs.

Posted by Charles Warner at 1:18 AM | Comments (2) | Print |

Media Curmudgeon at December 13, 2005 1:03 PM writes:

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Media Curmudgeon at December 13, 2005 12:17 PM writes:

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