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June 24, 2008

We’ll Miss You, George

I subscribe to Charlie Fink’s Quote of the Week, and the one Monday morning was from George Carlin, who passed away over this past weekend and who said “I think it's the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately.”

We’ll miss George, who, along with Mort Sahl and Lenny Bruce, was the Godfather of Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert – comedians who make us laugh while exposing an underlying truth.

It seems to me that it is indicative of the current state of television and the state of America’s culture in 2008, which television tends to mirror, that we are getting our collective version of the truth from comedians and not in the form of news and information filtered through celebrity-seeking, self-absorbed, biased, opinionated personalities.

Commercial television, especially cable television, is not giving us “a truthful, comprehensive, and intelligent account of the day’s events in a context which gives them meaning.” Television news organizations are not committed to labeling commentary as such, keeping editorial opinion separate from news content, and “in presenting and clarifying the goals and values of the society.” (The two quotes are from the five goals of the press as outlined by the Hutchins Commission in 1947.)

The nature of television is the culprit, I suspect. Self-absorbed exhibitionists are drawn to TV like a moth to a flame – they can’t help it. They want to be on TV; they want to be famous. Celebrity is the goal, not truth telling or reporting. Thus, we have giants of grandiosity and needy exhibitionists like Bill O’Reilly, Lou Dobbs, Glen Beck, Sean Hannity, Chris Mattews, and Keith Olbermann all bloviating with outrageous, noxious opinions, which makes them perfect foils for comedians.

Keith Olbermann has become a phenom because he straddles the fence between biased bloviating and comedy, but I suspect that some clever comedian will take deadly aim and soon join Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert on Comedy Central satirizing Keith’s pompous, arrogant, angry, and over-the-top rants.

Comedians have done the country a great service through the years by uncovering the truth with satire and farce, and no one did it better than George Carlin. I hope Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and “Saturday Night Live” acknowledge their dept to George and keep up their good work in bringing the truth to us through humor, for God and George know that we’re not getting much of it from television news, now that Tim Russert is gone, too. Tim and George must be having a good laugh together over what’s passing for news on television.

Frankly, I’m delighted that Tom Brokaw is taking over until after the election for Tim Russert on “Meet the Press” – the perfect and only choice for NBC. The country needs to see Brokaw back on TV regularly to remind us of the days when he, Peter Jennings, Walter Cronkite, Chet Huntley, David Brinkley, John Chancellor, Frank Reynolds, Howard K. Smith, Eric Sevareid, and, yes, Dan Rather in his younger years, were on television trying to give us a balanced, fair, intelligent account of the day’s events before balanced and fair was a slogan and an Orwellian lie. To remind us of the days when comedians didn’t make fun of newspeople -- they were journalists, not opinionated bloviators.

We’ll miss you, George.

Posted by Charles Warner at 1:30 AM | Comments (0) | Print | Mail this entry

June 19, 2008

My Hyperbole Was Wrong

My recent criticism of Sirius Satellite Radio CEO Mel Karmazin was a bit over the top and wrong. In a blog post titled “Are You Sirius?”, I wrote: “…the CEO of the merged companies will be Mel Karmazin, who does not have a strong record of keeping his promises to the FCC or to Congress.”

I was challenged to find “one example in … 40 years of being a licensee” that Karmazin has not kept his promises to the FCC or Congress, and I could think of none. Thus, I am guilty of sloppy blogging and even sloppier hyperbole. I should not have allowed my distaste for Karmazin’s management style and anger over his continual defense of Howard Stern on First Amendment grounds to taint my recollection of the facts.

When I asked the advice of a friend who worked for Karmazin at CBS, my friend wrote: “The indignation of a bully wrapped around first amendment gloss can’t withstand the scrutiny of staffing numbers of local newsrooms. Every reporter let go to help achieve operating efficiencies is a broken promise.”

Furthermore, Karmazin publicly decried the Federal ban on cigarette advertising on radio and television on First Amendment grounds. Karmazin championed potty mouth Howard Stern and paid obscenity fines because of him. Under Karmazin’s leadership at CBS, some CBS owned TV stations used a so-called Time Machine to digitally speed up network commercials in order to fit more local commercials in, contrary to FCC regulations.

However, I cannot remember any specific promises that he broke to Congress or the FCC. I made an error. I should have written that he does not have a strong record of keeping his implied commitments of public service and operating in the “public good, convenience and necessity.” Howard Stern may have the free-speech right to pollute the airwaves with filth and sexism, but I do not believe that Stern is doing a “public good.”

I also do not believe that the merger of XM and Sirius will be in the public interest. The merger is mostly in the interests of the stockholders of the two companies, including Mel Karmazin, who has an estimated $30-40 million invested in Sirius. But, I should not have stretched the facts to support my belief.

I apologize to the readers of this blog for the hyperbole error and misstatement. I would punish myself by listening to Howard Stern, but I don’t subscribe to Sirius, so, instead, I’m going to forget about the whole thing by listening to a couple of hours of John Coltrane on my iPod.

Apple's iPod has largely been responsible for the problems now faced by Sirius and XM -- problems which have been acerbated by the irresponsible over-spending on programming by Sirius's CEO Karmazin, who should not be bailed out by the FCC in allowing the merger.

Posted by Charles Warner at 10:59 AM | Comments (2) | Print | Mail this entry

Media Curmudgeon Author Profile Page at June 22, 2008 4:28 PM writes:

Bruce Braun writes:

"Outstanding!
Fair and balanced...no pun intended.

Paying outrageous amounts of money to talent (?) with shareholder money, without any clear path to a good ROI is irresponsible. Some would call it a breach of fiduciary responsibility to shareholders.

Would any one of us agree to pay $500M to one performer when our company was loosing hundreds of millions a year? The certainty about Stern's box office value to new Sirius subscriptions turned out to be a blip on the new subscriber radar screen. It would interesting to know what the annual churn factor is for Stern subscriptions. If he churns 5% a month, that means his annual average would be 60%! How do you make money on a business (Stern) if you have to replace 60% of his subscriber base every year? It is not like P&G is beating down the Stern sponsorship door. How much does it cost to remarket him?

Retention marketing costs could be enormous for Stern. After several years, what has been the ROI on the Stern deal for Sirius shareholders? Interesting that for all of the ballyhoo over Stern going to Sirius and how he was going to revolutionize satellite radio, there is nothing but dead air these days about Stern's audience and sales performance. No press releases on his success.

Is it a good business decision to spend three times more for sports programming rights than what can possibly be generated in related advertising revenues? Is it right to justify such a decision with the supposed tune-in value the sports programming might generate? Sirius is no different, than the broadcast nets and the extortion money they pay the NFL for TV rights. I asked a friend of mine, who at the time was the president of CBS sports how the rights fees could ever be justified or profitable. He agreed they could not but that the halo effect helped the rationalization of the price. As I recall, the NFL was getting $18B for all of the TV rights on that cycle. I asked my friend, why not buy the entire NFL for $18B? Why rent when you could own? If you added up the total projected market value of all the teams at that time, it would not have been close to $18B. He replied that the owners probably would not sell. How would you know, if you never asked?, I relplied. He shrugged and said: "good point."

Keeping up with the broadcast "Jones'" is an expensive proposition and not a very smart one.

From where I sit, the bureaucrats at the FCC must have a long memory about the Stern-FCC battles of days gone by. Mel was the gentleman when he dealt with the FCC while Stern railed against them. Years later, in comes Mel to the FCC, asking for approval on the XM-Sirius merger. Mel cannot escape the Stern association, no matter what. Why would people at the FCC go out of their way to help save a business like Sirius so they can continue to pay Stern a ridiculous salary?

You have to wonder if all the delays in approving the merger could be a form of payback for Stern's past sins and Mel's defense of him."


Media Curmudgeon Author Profile Page at June 22, 2008 4:24 PM writes:

Kennen Williams writes:

"I forgive you.

That said, and please check my facts, Karmazin's initiative to merge Sirius and XM is breaking a promise these two companies made to the FCC when they were formed and that promise was that they would not merge. Whether he was there at the time or not, he is the primary facilitator of this effort to renege on the commitment and he is clearly aware of the original agreement. Additionally, the two companies agreed to an interoperable receiver when they formed and have never made good on that commitment. I guess he wasn't there for that one either. This is yet another example of poorly conceived strategy, uncontrolled spending and an unworkable business plan resulting in an appeal to the FCC for a bail out. Let the market determine their future, not another ill conceived rescue that offers no added value to the public.

As far as Mel, his past actions speak volumes. Under his leadership of Infinity and CBS, profits came first, second and third. Somewhere far down the priority list came his employees and the public, which his stations were to serve.

You may have let your emotion run a bit amok, but your message is dead on. Don’t trust this man."


June 17, 2008

Are You Sirius?

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin issued a statement on Monday that if the two satellite radio competitors, Sirius and XM, agreed to several conditions that he would vote to allow the merger because it would be “in the public interest.” Do you seriously believe this, Kevin?

The New York Times reported:

Those conditions include a price freeze for subscribers for the next three years and a tiered pricing system that will give customers some flexibility in deciding which channels that they want. In effect, subscribers can pay less for fewer channels. The companies have also agreed to set aside up to 8 percent of the channels for noncommercial and minority broadcasters. And they agreed to take steps that will make it possible for more radio manufacturers to sell compatible radios, including equipment that will also play high-definition radio.

In other words, Sirius and XM are so desperate to merge, that they will do anything, no matter how contrary it is to their long-term best interests. Let’s look at these promises.

First, a price freeze. OK, a good promise, but the CEO of the merged companies will be Mel Karmazin, who does not have a strong record of keeping his promises to the FCC or to Congress. Second, a tiered system of pricing, also known as a la carte pricing. Such pricing will inevitably lead to less revenue. Who would pay $12.95 a month when they can pay less for a couple of hundred channels they never listen to? Third, open-source radio receivers that will play competitive – and really boring – radio channels? This compromise will lead to more fragmentation of the combined service’s audience and even lower ratings for the news/talk/sports channels that carry desperately needed revenue-producing advertising.

The conditions XM and Sirius agreed to are similar to a king saying that two of his subjects can get married as long as they agree to let anyone who feels like it sleep with his or her spouse. It certainly doesn’t sound like the basis for a happy marriage or a profitable merger.

Furthermore, Karmazin will undoubtedly keep his people on in the combined company (he is loyal to his people), but his old-media people haven’t been as effective in producing revenue as the XM people have, so that will not help the new, combined company.
The FCC has five commissioners, and Chairman Martin needs two other commissioners to vote with him for the merger to be approved. The Justice Department has already approved it, which raised the ire and opposition of several powerful Senators and the NAB – the powerful broadcasters lobby. And Martin has not always received the votes from the other commissioners he needs to get his way, so he may not this time.

However, my guess is that the merger will go through, but that it won’t save the two companies from eventual bankruptcy. Satellite radio was a rational concept when it was conceived in 1991, but that was before the Internet rocket took off and before the iPod, the other giant killer, came on the scene. Sirius’s Mel Karmazin tried a hail-Mary to save it by throwing an improbable $500 million at potty-mouth Howard Stern, and it almost worked.

But even Howard’s dirty vaudeville can’t withstand the onslaught of the Web and the iPod’s movies. Yes, the merger will save XM and Sirius a ton of money in marketing costs and the costs of bidding up talent such as Oprah and Martha Stewart, but in the long run it won’t matter. Even 15 tons of money and the merger won’t save XM and Sirius.

Posted by Charles Warner at 9:50 AM | Comments (0) | Print | Mail this entry

June 11, 2008

Your Choice

Jim Carnegie’s Radio Business Report http://www.rbr.com/radio/7998.html had an item this week about a radio station, 100.5 Max-FM (WXMM-FM) Norfolk-VA Beach, that “is the first radio station in the world to actually allow listeners total control to program the music. This new concept will allow each listener to select from thousands of ‘rock titles,’ and program the music” – no doubt on the station’s Webcast.

The same week, the New York Times ran a story titled “ABC News Likely to Reshape ‘World News’ Webcast.” The Times article quoted ABC News president David Westin, who indicated that “the network was considering ways to reinvent the broadcast, including a series of updates throughout the day.” However, the most telling part of the story were two paragraphs:

The troubles with “World News” highlight a larger struggle across the broadcast landscape to deliver news on the Web. The broadcast networks’ news divisions haven’t been able to convince many viewers or advertisers to move with them online, in part because their TV audience is older.

And further on in the story:

Network executives and media buyers say that broadcast news suffers online when it is based on the old news model of a strong and authoritative anchor, like Mr. Gibson, escorting viewers through the day’s news. Online news consumers want to click around, reading and watching only the stories that interest them.

It is amazing that it has taken radio and TV executives this long to pull their collective heads out of the sand and finally understand that new media is different from old media. It must have been hard for them when they realized that the old push (broadcast) model was what people were tired of. Listeners and viewers didn’t like the choices that out-of-touch, arrogant programmers and editors made; they wanted to choose their own music and news – songs and stories that were relevant and of interest to them.

Steve Jobs understood this principle when Apple introduced the iPod, which gave people choices. Young people now prefer their personally programmed iPods to terrestrial and satellite radio and opt for Web sites that give them choices, such as The Huffington Post, for their news.

The push model of radio and television has given way to the pull model of the Web. It’s now your choice, not their choice. But therein lays both a problem and an opportunity. The opportunity is for all of us to be better informed and better educated according to our own interests and tastes. The problem is that we have not been trained well to make these choices and to look for a wide variety of information.

We’ve been lulled into laziness by corporate lowest-common-denominator radio program directors, arrogant elitist newspaper editors, and celebrity-obsessed TV newspeople too long. With the freedom of choice comes the responsibility of making informed choices – a responsibility we all need to accept. We need to educate ourselves thoroughly on the choices available. So start surfing the Web. It’s your choice.

Posted by Charles Warner at 9:00 PM | Comments (1) | Print | Mail this entry

Bruce Braun Author Profile Page at June 13, 2008 1:16 PM writes:

I'd suggest a deeper root for these ills: media consolidation. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 lifted ownership caps and in typical congressional political blindness fueled by huge payoffs from the NAB membership, put broadcasting on the road to creative obliteration. Big group owners with hundreds of stations view the business through the prism of economies of scale, elimination of redundancies, etc. If you can program 50 stations out of one location, think of all those programming and support people you don't have to employ! Why worry about developing local on-air talent when you can buy a nationally syndicated personality? Everything becomes homogenized into one big bland offering that is boring and lame. Enter the Internet and Steve Jobs and look what happened. When I started in radio advertising sales in the 1970's, we sold our medium and stations as being the truly "personal" medium. In major markets, with 60+ stations doing endless types of programming formats, the listeners had choices. You could find a station(s) that were just what you liked. 1997 was the beginning of the end of radio as a personal medium. The same dumb-asses running the big radio groups, now rail against the XM-Sirius merger, the one bright light of making radio somewhat personal again. Guess what, AOL Radio now has an app for the iPhone! They won't be the last of the Internet radio programmers either. Can we expect an app from Sirius for the iPhone? I'll bet the smartest guy in radio, Uncle Mel, will have one ready very soon. I'd like to be an optimist and believe that the Internet will continue to be the source of media creativity and personal expression....at least for a while longer. Murdoch, Gates and that whole crew with all their billions have proven they are nothing more than a bunch of wealthy incompetents when it comes to the Internet.


June 10, 2008

Ailes Out?

I had lunch last week with a good friend who is wired into the media business, and the first thing he asked me when we sat down was, "Have you heard that Roger Ailes is out at FOX?"

"No, I haven't heard a thing, " I said, "but it makes sense. Murdoch is no dummy and he sees the shift in the country's tastes and mood."

Before Super Tuesday's New York State's primary, the tone-deaf New York Times endorsed Hillary Clinton, and Murdoch's normally conservative, Republican New York Post endorsed Barack Obama. Last week when Kara Swisher, at the All Things Digital conference, asked Murdoch if he had anything to do with the Post's endorsement and he replied, "yes."

Is Rupert Murdoch making a left turn after 50 years of being a staunch conservative? Hardly. The wily Murdoch is the ultimate pragmatist. He sees that the country is fed up with the Bush-Cheney-Rove war, corruption, big-business favoritism, neo-conservative idealism, and economic incompetence. He sees the polls that Bush is one of the most unpopular presidents in history. And, simultaneously, he understands that the country is fed up with the Bush-Cheney-Rove apologists, racists, and anti-feminist FOX News, which made the ultimate blunder in hiring Karl Rove. It would have done better putting a swastika as a backdrop.

FOX News, which Roger Ailes created and still heads, has had its run, as has George Bush, but like all entertainment programming, FOX News's novelty and divisive personalities have worn thin and people want (yes that word again) change.

Last Tuesday night, when the results of the last three primaries were announced, CNN won the ratings and MSBNC, usually a bad third, came in second, barely edging out FOX News, which was third. It's clear, at least for election coverage, that viewers prefer CNN to FOX News.

Also, there have been times when the liberal Keith Olbermann on MSNBC has achieved higher ratings than Bill O'Reilly on FOX News. O'Reilly's on-camera rant, viewed several millions times on YouTube, further damaged O'Reilly's image and reinforced what a nasty dummy he really is -- what Stephen Colbert has been satirizing brilliantly for several years. It's all catching up with Bad Bill and Phony FOX.

And that's just FOX News. Alies also created and is responsible for FOX Business News, which is a tasteless, embarrassing train wreck. Murdoch should fire Ailes for allowing FOX Business News -- know in the business as FOX Bimbo News -- to go on the air, to say nothing about letting FOX News deteriorate into being the brunt of jokes.

If Roger Ailes was fired and FOX News went off the air, what would Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart, Keith Olbermann, and other comedians have to make fun of? Murdoch must be getting tired of it. I think he might see the need for change not only in the country but also in his cable news networks.

Posted by Charles Warner at 1:00 PM | Comments (0) | Print | Mail this entry

June 5, 2008

"Bagels With Billary"

Silicon Valley Insider wrote on Tuesday, June 3:

Now that Time Warner (TWX) CEO Jeff Bewkes is accumulating a vast pile of cash from the spin-off of Time Warner Cable and the possible sale of AOL, what will he do with it? Speculation within the media industry is that he might buy CBS.

The Insider suggested that the merger made sense, mostly because Time Warner had a pile of cash and that, regardless of what Bewkes thinks about synergy, there were obvious synergies involved. I think there are synergies too, but perhaps not so obvious.

First, if Time Warner bought CBS, it could immediately move some of the excellent CBS correspondents over to CNN, then shut down the rest of the news division, and replace the “Evening News” with the CNN “Situation Room.” CBS and CNN have negotiated several times about combining new operations, so this would not be a surprise to either news operation. Katie Couric would be given a great excuse to exit the failing “Evening News” to be replaced by the popular Anderson Cooper, with Wolf Blitzer standing in the background to give briefings and updates. The “Situation Room” would be simulcast on CBS and CNN (both on cable, on the Web, and on CBS Radio stations), providing an attractive road block to advertisers.

Also, a combined CBS and CNN could give Katie Couric another $5 million a year to get up early and move to a simulcast morning news show that would pull CBS’s current morning show up out of the basement – call it “CNN Today” or something. Furthermore, with all the money Time Warner would save by combining CBS News with CNN News, it could afford to pay some really big stars to do talk shows.

Now ask yourself, what do politicians and TV personalities (including news and talk show personalities) have in common? A narcissistic need to be loved, admired, and be on mike in front of a huge audience. Some politicians, such as Jerry Springer, have made the transition. Why not Billary? They are narcissistic, adore attention almost as much as they adore money, and are currently looking for a meaningful gig that would keep them in the spotlight.

Think of it, “Bagels With Billary," a morning show simulcast with Katie Couric as hostess and either Bill or Hillary or both talking with each other or to other celebrities. Who wouldn’t go on their show?

If Howard Stern is worth $50 million a year to appear on Sirius Satellite Radio how much would Bill and Hillary be worth to appear on a morning show the would be simulcast on radio, TV, and cable? And what a show it would be! To kick it off, their first guest, next January, would be President Barack Obama.

Posted by Charles Warner at 2:13 PM | Comments (2) | Print | Mail this entry

Media Curmudgeon Author Profile Page at June 7, 2008 11:50 AM writes:

Bill Grimes writes:

"I think you are on to something. Several opportunities exist by combining the two albatrosses. New revenues from creative synergies could be created from the kind of talk shows you suggest but subsequent mismanagement would likely follow. Like a Hillary and Bill Show -- actually it could run eight to ten hours a day delivering a massive audience cume. In West Virginia alone this show would have a 90 rating which would exceed that of NASCAR’s. The rumor here this morning is that the Clintons will demand State for Hillary and a Supreme Court seat for Bill. So this show likely won’t materialize. But again, who knows? For $50 million Bill (“that guy's a scumbag, he's a slime") might twist her or bite leg.

Then, your TWX/CBS combo could produce mega cost reductions. Immediate TV entertainment production costs, corporate T&E (there is an immediate market for those private jets in Zimbabwe where President Mugabee has a big upcoming exit for his 500 best pals and gals), cancelling CBS NEWS is BIG IDEA way overdue (5% of viewers under 70 years old -even Viagra’ target end is 75), merging Hollywood lots, and closing a studio would all help produce a higher purchase price for CBS, but from a very low base.

The problem is that CBS assets are very slow-growth (not that TWX are growing much faster) and the outlook for growth above inflation is nil. It's actually less than nil if last two years are a barometer. It would take real imagination to own less attractive media businesses than broadcast radio, TV, and billboards with its tiny CPMs. Because of CBS's asset profile, no buyer will want to "overpay.” A multiple of 10 times EBITDA would be max the company could fetch I think But maybe less depending upon how much debt the very old man (Sumner Redstone) has burdened it with."


RyanRowe Author Profile Page at June 5, 2008 4:01 PM writes:

Im sure you're aware of Time Warner's pay-per-gigabyte overage charges for data transfer beyond their allotted amount per customer - being tested in locations right now (RIP net neutrality).

http://lnk.nu/usnews.com/l6e.html

I imagine streams of 'Billary for Breakfast' won't cost a dime for those with Time Warner as a provider. It's already a hit!


June 4, 2008

Jesse Kornbluth Reporting

Guest blogger Jesse Kornbluth went to this year's All things Digital Conference and posted his reactions to the conference on his Head Butler Web site. I felt the Media Curmudgeon's readers could benefit from Jesse's insights, so I'm posting part of his post. Enjoy.

I've attended all six D conferences. Each year, the mood's different. If this year's conference is a metaphor, we're not in a visionary time --- the economy was very much on the minds of the speakers at D, and much of the conversation was about monetization and profit margins. Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer spoke of Microsoft as if “search” is the Grail --- not so much because they want to help you find what you need faster but because Google has shown how search can be brilliantly monetized. Jerry Yang and Susan Decker talked about saving Yahoo from the clutches of Microsoft; although others spoke of Yahoo as if it were an AOL train wreck in the making, Yang and Decker are convinced they can avoid obsolescence --- that is, get their stock price up.

As I listened to the speakers, I was reminded that digital media and drug-dealing are the only two businesses I can think of that describe customers as users. That fundamental disrespect carries over to products and services. Vista, the new Microsoft operating system, is so glitchy that some computer buyers are downgrading to XP; Gates and Ballmer coolly spoke of “opportunities to improve”. When Mossberg read a letter complaining of abysmal customer service --- for premium customers, no less --- at Yahoo, Yang and Decker made the kind of soothing noises that suggested you might get your grievances handled if you write directly to them.

Mission? The word didn't come up. It was obvious: shareholder value. These are public companies, and they get a report card from Wall Street every day. Almost every speaker was rhapsodic on the subject of scale --- the same number of keystrokes on the corporate side, an ever-growing audience out there. The word almost lost its meaning for me until Sony's Howard Stringer bluntly talked of profit. No wonder these CEOs are so distant from what online executives like to call “the user experience --- for them, the user is, essentially, a debit card.

Esther Dyson nailed this: “One day marketers will realize people don't use the Web only to buy things. It's as if newspapers were talking about themselves as classifieds-only, without even mentioning news and other editorial content.” (I almost cheered when I read that, for Dyson was implicitly endorsing sites like HeadButler.com: screens rich in content and not in-your-face about merchandising.)

Only a few seemed to care about what goes on our screens. Barry Diller --- who heads a content-laden conglomerate that baffles Wall Street --- not only seemed to be a consumer of his own products, he mocked those who just churned out any old thing for profit. (Diller's best line was about the insularity of Hollywood: “a community that's so inbred, it's a wonder the children have any teeth.”) And Jeff Bezos made me think that the Kindle --- Amazon's new wireless reader --- really is a service to booklovers and information junkies.

But Dyson's comment stayed with me, and I found myself more on more on edge as the conference wore on. I usually ask lots of questions at D --- it's the recovering journalist in me, backsliding --- but this year, the conference was almost over and I hadn't asked one. Then Jeff Bewkes, the new CEO of Time-Warner, spoke. I knew him slightly from my days at AOL, when he headed HBO; I liked him then, and I like him even more as CEO. He spoke crisply, and I settled back.

Then someone asked him about Lou Dobbs, a once-savvy broadcaster who has turned his CNN show into a nonstop blast against immigrants. Bewkes said he'd talked with Dobbs, and while they had their differences, he was satisfied --- the Dobbs show was clearly labeled opinion, not news.

With that, I found myself moving to the mike to ask about Glenn Beck.

Glenn Beck, for those who have somehow avoided him, is a radio commentator who has added CNN --- a Time-Warner network --- to his workload. He calls himself a conservative, but consider some of his views:

“I'm thinking about killing Michael Moore, and I'm wondering if I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to do it. No, I think I could. I think he could be looking me in the eye, you know, and I could just be choking the life out. Is this wrong?”

Al Gore's “not going to be rounding up Jews and exterminating them. It is the same tactic, however.”

Jimmy Carter: "a waste of skin".

Gloria Steinem: “a self-centered self-righteous socialist out of control dangerous man-hating bitch”.

Beck's ratings are atrocious --- he seems to peak at 375,000 views, about a quarter of the number that Fox and MSNBC attract in the evening --- and at some point, even the dumbest TV executive will pull the plug on his show. Still, it astonished me that “the most trusted name in news" would hire this creep in the first place.

So I asked Jeff Bewkes: “How do you defend Glenn Beck?”

Opinion, he said. Glenn Beck is opinion.

“Yes,” I said. “But he represents the kind of opinion “ --- and you'd better believe I was aware that Rupert Murdoch was sitting twenty feet away --- “that you'd expect to find on Fox.”

“Actually, we get a lot of opinion that suggests we ought to have more people like Glenn Beck on.”

“Uninformed opinion,” I shot back. And he disagreed, and we left it there.

Had the world stopped and our little conversation moved to the center of the conference, Bewkes might have talked about free speech and the value of disagreements.

And I might have said that while no one prizes free speech more than I do, Glenn Beck is hate speech --- at the very least, he's crying “fire” in a crowded theater. And I might have said that it doesn't matter how few viewers Glenn Beck has; the simple fact that CNN gives him a platform degrades public discourse. Yeah, he's only one opinion. And someone else has another. And that's exactly what's wrong with TV, both network and cable; the facts don't matter. Facts are pesky --- expensive to acquire, hard to argue with. Opinion is cheaper, hotter, louder, much more fun. So the networks, all of them, opt for shrill and stupid.

I'm not debating the politics of Glenn Beck here --- I'm religious about keeping this site far away from the squabbles that divide us, often over nothing. I'm saying this, and this only: Public discourse, historically shallow and craven, has sunk to a new low.

And then I'm saying that, this time, there's an alternative: the Web. And one good reason the Internet is so important is that it's not yet big and corporate. A nerd who can write can draw an audience, even scale. And while Time-Warner doesn't have reason to fear any time soon, fact-based media with a clearly stated point-of-view is gaining traction. And the audience it's attracting is smart and young (if only in spirit) and still solvent enough to buy stuff --- in a bum economy, it's the dream demographic.

What does this audience want? A paradox, perhaps. More. And less. It wants authenticity. Quality of life. Things that are good enough, not necessarily the newest and shiniest. In a word, lives that feel sane --- as our lives often don't these days.

Over and over during D, I found myself thinking about Bill McKibben and his 2007 book, Deep Economy. When I returned home, I opened it and looked through my underlinings. Essentially, McKibben argues that endless growth is no longer possible. We can't afford the energy costs. And if global warming isn't arrested --- well, by one estimate, climate change could kill 184 million people just in Africa this century. McKibben's solution: localization. It makes life manageable. And more collegial --- did you know that Michelangelo's Rome had 55,000 people and Leonardo's Florence just 40,000?

Reading McKibben, you ask yourself: Must I desire Sony's $2,700 11” whisper-thin TV? Is a faster operating system really going to improve my life? Is building a company that de-emphasizes service and community the only way to profit? And, for those who care: How I want to spend my days at this crucial period for the planet?

Dangerous questions. Most of our fellow citizens will never ask them --- they're on the hamster wheel for life. But you and I may, and our defection from the “more” and “better” economy might jumpstart another shift of the tectonic plates. Technology companies stepping up and leading that change --- that's a topic D might explore in years to come.

But enough about the moguls; they can look after themselves, and, if history is any guide, they will. This is really all about you. Feeling frazzled and dissatisfied and looking ahead to more of same? Consider this rant one final bleat of encouragement for you to read one prophetic and hopeful book, on paper or Kindle. Because not every problem can be solved by search or cable TV.

--- Jesse Kornbluth, for HeadButler.com

Posted by Charles Warner at 9:43 AM | Comments (1) | Print | Mail this entry

Steve Touhill Author Profile Page at June 6, 2008 11:05 PM writes:

Amen, Jesse. The public trust has moved into the hands of the public itself.


June 3, 2008

Bill Clinton, the Great Projector

I hope all of you are following Justin Frank’s Huffington Post blog on which he’s previewing his latest book, Politics On the Couch. Dr. Frank is asking readers to comment on his posts, which include new sections of the book as he writes them, and to give him comments, suggestions, and feedback, which he promises to incorporate in the final, printed version of the book if the suggestions are reasonable.

This is an innovative new model for publishing in which readers can participate in a conversation with a respected author before the publication of a book and have some impact on the final product. I’m enjoying his insightful posts and am finding that giving Dr. Frank feedback is an intellectually stimulating experience that makes me a more thorough and thoughtful reader. I find I learn more if I’m reading more carefully than usual.

Justin Frank is a noted psychiatrist and author of the best selling book Bush on the Couch, which in my view provided penetrating insight into George W. Bush’s personality and character. Currently, he's writing about politics on the psychiatrists couch, and the first couple of installments were right on target, especially the June 2nd one on projection.

Dr. Frank writes:

Projection is an unconscious effort to look for an outside cause rather than an internal one - it often results in blaming or fearing others in order to protect the self from recognizing unwanted impulses, usually of destructive nature. Using this mechanism helps us manage anxiety by mobilizing our aggression against internal threats we now perceive as external.

That same day, Bill Clinton called Todd Purdom, the author of an article about the ex-president in the current issue of Vanity Fair, a "Sleazy, Slimy, Scumbag." Now, how’s that for a perfect example of projection – of someone projecting one’s own traits onto someone else. Bill Clinton, the Great Projector.

Posted by Charles Warner at 12:55 PM | Comments (0) | Print | Mail this entry

June 1, 2008

Jon Miller

Guest blogger Paul Talbot writes:

Somewhere near my old house in Pismo Beach, California, the signal of San Francisco’s KNBR starts to flicker and fade like a Brandon Webb sinkerball.

This is the stretch of coast where Dodgers fans and Giants fans fish from the same piers, eat the same Santa Maria BBQ, and dream baseball dreams spun from the same transplanted tradition.

This relationship is not unlike what unfolds back across the continent where Yankees and Red Sox fans are helplessly lashed to their own inevitable drama.

When the KNBR signal flutters down from San Francisco through the damp California night, it delivers the best voice in baseball, the voice of Jon Miller.

And on every Giants broadcast, the voice steers us through a storyline that captures the game with detail, knowledge, and enchantment.

The rhythms of play are mirrored in Miller’s inflections. It sounds effortless, but you wonder how hard he has to work at this.

There he is, almost whispering, seemingly reverent, and then something happens on the field and he snaps, but only enough to carry us along, to lift us out of the reverie, and then, when it all settles down, he returns us to wherever we were.

There he is sketching and painting and filling in just enough of the blanks of the game to let us do the rest.

“The pitch. Line drive.”

What we need know is laid out with minimalist, poetic precision. He ignores the extraneous like a Bauhaus artist.

And perhaps he is an artist, although his work certainly doesn’t stand alone. When baseball fans talk about Jon Miller’s talents, there is the inevitable and sometimes awkward comparison to the craft’s undisputed master, Vin Scully.

Scully has eased into the twilight of a remarkable career. Miller’s best days may well lie ahead. (They say Miller can lay down a perfect and respectful impersonation of Scully.)

What he also lays down is objectivity, and this has been a problem. Miller does not shy away from the kind of criticism that his counterparts are paid to avoid.

Before joining KNBR, Miller broadcast Orioles’ games at Baltimore’s WFBR. At the end of the 1996 season his contract was not renewed. Orioles’ owner Peter Angelos said at the time that he wanted to replace the candid and objective Miller with a broadcaster who would, as he put it, “bleed more orange and black.”
Angelos got his bleeding. Over the ten years following Miller’s departure the Orioles put together nine losing seasons.

What happens next? A clue comes from Shahnaz Mahmud writing in “Adweek” who reminds us that “Major sports leagues are making inroads into controlling more of their content, all of the time.”

It’s tough to tell what this means for Jon Miller, and for baseball fans who have slept around with new delivery platforms, but keep going back to their first love, the well-called game on the radio.

Miller’s craftsmanship may already be a quaint relic of the past. It may be “content” that is adeptly monetized in a viable and sustainable market. Or it may represent a threat to team owners and league executives.

Late at night, the marine layer creeps back in. KNBR’s warbling signal slices through the fog, soaring across the stands of Eucalyptus trees up on the Nipomo Mesa just south of Pismo Beach.

The game is over. Jon Miller has told us another story. Somehow, despite the orchestrated efforts of Major League Baseball, we have been able to wander, once again, back into our necessary past.


Posted by Charles Warner at 2:46 PM | Comments (0) | Print | Mail this entry