Media Curmudgeon

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November 27, 2009

Thanksgiving Conversation in the Age of the Internet

I’m old fashioned. I grew up in an era when Thanksgiving dinner was a time not only for food but also for lively family conversations and catching up; but not today in the age of the internet.

At a recent Thanksgiving gathering, I noticed the younger people were more engrossed in their computers, iPhones, and TV (a Roku device streaming Netflix) than in conversation.

I’ll make a rough guess, probably based more on perception than reality, that of the six hours of hanging out before we sat down for dinner, that the amount of time spent on a computer, mobile phone, or watching TV was twice the time spent in conversation.

Was this self-absorption, narcissism, social anxiety, or the age of the internet? I suspect the major culprit was the internet, especially with those under 35 in the assembled clan.

I suspect that the younger people have, as Ken Auletta says in his book of the same name, been Googled. If they are curious about things and people, they use Google to get the answer, which is not necessarily an evil thing in itself, or, presumably, Google wouldn’t do it.

The problem is that the instant availability and accessibility of the world’s information has reduced the compulsion or desire, it appears, for social interaction. The internet has isolated people in their own private worlds, thus eliminating the need for social exchanges in person because Facebook does it much more efficiently and, more importantly, emotionlessly.

Young people tend to text, Tweet, or Facebook with each other instead of talking face to face or even over the phone (mobile, of course), I’m guessing because there is less expenditure of emotion, and fewer honest feeling exchanged. Like with a computer or iPhone, there’s no emotion, no feeling involved, and young people are used to interacting without their emotions being engaged, it seems. They have never seen a computer or iPone cry or laugh or fall in love or get angry; these devices just give up all the information in the world, but no feelings.

Also, as I wrote in a previous blog, “We tend to believe that lots of information is good for a democratic society, and in theory it is. However, in practice there is now so much information (content) available that it is possible by means of selective searches and selective perception to create an echo chamber so that opposing sounds are never heard.”

Not only are opposing sounds never heard, but also information that is not in our wheelhouse of immediate and intense interest is not searched for or noticed, thus increasing our narrowing polarization and isolation.

When I mentioned my observations about the Thanksgiving gathering to my good friend, Paul Talbot, he said, “If I had opened a computer, turned on the TV set, or looked at my cell phone during a family gathering my mom would have thrown me out of the house.”

If we had been at Paul’s mother’s house yesterday, all of us (including me) would have been outside and hungry – and deservedly so.

This incident has been a good reminder to me to shut down my internet devices when I’m with other people and to interact – to be curious and care about who other people are and how they feel. After all, I’m not an emotionless computer connected to the internet, or am I?

Posted by Charles Warner at 5:27 PM | Comments (1) | Print |

Bruce Braun at December 2, 2009 8:10 PM writes:

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November 24, 2009

Oprah and the TV Dinosaur

The marriage between Oprah and national broadcast television was made in show business heaven, but after 25 years she's going to abandon the aging broadcast TV dinosaur, which will help push it into extinction.

TV made Oprah the most famous, most influential, most beloved, most generous, richest (about $2.3 billion) self-made woman in the world. However, last week she announced that she will stop airing her syndicated broadcast television daytime talk show in September 2011, by which time she will move her programming to her own cable network, appropriately named OWN (the Oprah Winfrey Network) – no one as ever said she’s not clever.

Here’s what Advertising Age had to say about Oprah’s move:

Oprah Winfrey's decision to end her long-running syndicated program is a bet on the future of TV -- that niche cable channels, with their dual revenue streams from advertising and subscriptions, will be a more stable media base, and that technology will allow any content provider to reach its core audience in a more direct fashion without having to be seen at a certain time of day and on a certain channel.

Not only will she boost cable’s ratings, but she will undoubtedly hurt broadcast television’s ratings, especially Diane Sawyer’s, who will by then be the anchor for ABC’s “World News,” (which has benefitted for 23 years from Oprah lead-ins) as pointed out by Brian Stelter in his thorough article in the New York Times.

This article, by the way, is just one more that reaffirms that Stelter is currently the most intelligent and knowledgeable writer about the television industry.

In two years, when Oprah leaves broadcast TV for cable, will television stations or even cable systems still be viable delivery systems? This Christmas several TV set manufacturers will be selling HDTV sets that connect directly to the internet (WiFi).

In a couple of years, will content providers such as Oprah have figured out how to charge for programming on the internet? Will Google’s YouTube have expanded its deal with CBS and be able to charge consumers directly for CBS programming? Will HULU.com, which this October had a huge surge in traffic because of ABC-TV programming, be a highly profitable delivery method? Will ESPN have made a deal with YouTube to change consumers $24.95 a month for all ESPN programming, including Web site content, streaming mobile content, podcasts, and streaming audio?

If so, will the broadcast TV dinosaur still be alive when Oprah abandons it?

Posted by Charles Warner at 3:21 PM | Comments (1) | Print |

Bruce Braun at November 24, 2009 5:48 PM writes:

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November 23, 2009

Lincoln Center Theater Cares

This is a good Monday. I’m sitting at my computer listening to the new Norah Jones album I downloaded, I got my appointment letter for teaching at NYU’s Stern School next semester, and I got a timely response from the Lincoln Center Theater giving me a refund on two tickets in seats from which my wife and I couldn’t see the full stage.

Here’s the meat of the letter:

I am sorry to hear that your enjoyment of the show was marred by poor sight lines. We appreciate your longstanding support of the theater, and would be happy to issue you a full refund of the tickets you purchased.

The refund will be issued directly to the card used to purchase the pickets. It may take one full billing cycle for the credit to appear. Thank you for giving us an opportunity to make this up to you. I hope your next visit to a LCT production is a more enjoyable one!

Research has shown that people will tell about 26 people about a negative experience with a product or company and tell only 2 or 3 people at most about a positive experience. There are scores of blogs with names like “Dell Hell,” “Comcast Must Die,” and “Microsoft Sucks” put up by angry customers because of awful customer service, being ignored, or lousy products.

So, I think Lincoln Center Theater deserves some cyber kudos for caring, fast, polite customer service. Therefore, thanks LCT.

The productions at Lincoln Center Theater range from OK (“In the Next Room, or the vibrator play,” “The Frogs,” Belle Epoque,” e.g.) to stupendous (“South Pacific,” “Broke-ology,” “Third,” “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone,” “The Coast of Utopia,” and “King Lear,” e.g.), but never a complete flop and, more often than not, superb and often innovative theater.

Buy tickets to LCT and you’ll see good theater and, just as important, you’ll be treated like you’re a valued customer. My wife and I were.

Posted by Charles Warner at 8:38 PM | Comments (0) | Print |

WSJ Lodged In 1926

Guest blogger Paul Talbot responds to guest blogger Bill Grimes about the Wall Street Journal.

Despite its efforts to contemporize, the Journal’s editorial position remains lodged in 1792 or 1926. The ghosts of Andrew Hamilton and Calvin Coolidge float off every page. Fortunately, the paper publishes one fine editorial each year, which, hopefully, we’ll be able to read once again this coming Wednesday.

The focus group-spawned efforts to contemporize the WSJ are reminiscent of Frank Sinatra circa 1967, sliding into a lemon-colored Nehru jacket and brushing what was left of his hair down over his forehead. Just not happening.

A piece on Heidi Klum back on the catwalk? Seems as if there’s a bit of TMZ envy at the WSJ.

As we consider the expanded collection of stories the WSJ does publish, let’s consider the stories it does not publish. Which backwaters of America it has no interest in. Which shibboleths of conservatism and business go largely unexamined.

Would the Journal’s editorial content be stronger without the broken-down parade of disgruntled supply-siders in search of redemption and relevance? Can we get the hook for these sad attempts to prop up Sarah Palin?

Unfortunately, the Journal’s makeover, certainly costlier than Ms. Palin’s, doesn’t seem to have softened the shrill tone of the paper, which is largely lacking in compassion and remains dismissive of human frailties.

So you’re a 28 year-old single mom working nights at an Arby’s in Jackson, Mississippi and you’re strangled with credit card debt because you bought that Samsung 46” LCD HDTV at Wal-Mart? Well, tough luck, you should have known better. Instead of watching Mo-Nique on BET you should be reading Benjamin Graham’s “The Intelligent Investor.” And don’t worry about usury laws, the free market will sort out your interest payments. Just keep your job and save your money.

Of course, the Journal is an essential, credible, exemplary, ingredient both in the American discourse and American journalism.

But it needs to proceed with caution. Headlining a collection of pieces of health care issues under the umbrella “ObamaCare” is pejorative, inaccurate, and cutesy. There is no need for the Journal to squander its credibility with these kinds of tawdry Murdoch tabloid trappings.

And Heidi Klum and Calvin Coolidge make for strange content bedfellows.

Posted by Charles Warner at 8:06 AM | Comments (1) | Print |

Bruce Braun at November 24, 2009 6:42 PM writes:

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November 20, 2009

The “New York Times' Newest Serious Problem

Guest blogger Bill Grimes writes:

For several years I have written short analysis and opinion pieces on the New York Times Company’s business, financial, and management problems. In a January 2007 lengthy report I suggested that the company sell its broadcast properties (it later did), that it sell the Boston Globe (it tried this year but found no buyers), that it sell its interest in the Boston Red Sox and a Canadian newsprint company (it didn’t), that strengthen its already excellent Web site (it did) and charge a substantial subscription fee (a much different pricing from its previously failed attempt to charge users a fee for mostly its high profile columnists (it didn’t), and to discontinue soon the printing, publishing and distribution of the print newspaper which represents 40s percent of the NY Times operating expenses. Sustaining this printing expense will be very difficult in any economic environment and by continuing to print the paper when the content is being given away free online is the main cause, I believe, of the deteriorating circulation of the newspaper. Furthermore, it makes charging a fee for the online product more difficult because of the ease of pass-along readership.

My other criticisms subsequent to that lengthy treatise have been the woeful performance of management. Management decision-making at the Times Company moves like pre-global warming icebergs. And when it finally decides to act upon a critical issue or opportunity, the ideal time to maximize the economic value of such decision has long passed. For example, the broadcast stations were sold two years after prices for radio and television stations had peaked. The Boston Globe was offered for sale only a year ago, long after everyone knew that online competition (Craig’s List, Google and dozens others) had forever crippled newspapers’ print advertising market. Selling the Globeis of vital importance to the company because it would reduce its crippling debt (see more below), free up financial resources to bolster NY Times’content and enable management to focus all its attention on it.

Two years ago the company, after the disastrous decision to build and buy (with other investors) a new headquarters building and being apparently surprised shortly thereafter that its profits were in freefall, realized that it may not be able to service its billion dollars of debt even though then it had about $100 million in cash on the balance sheet. So management went to the market seeking capital. It was unable to sell any equity – too risky to buy stock in a company that was rapidly approaching cash flow negative and with $70 to 80 million in annual interest payments owed to their banks for their current debt.

It finally found a lender, Carlos Slim, the wealthiest person in Mexican, who provided $250 million in debt. The price the company paid for this money was 14.2 percent annually, a staggering amount given today’s near all-time low interest rates. That loan with the additional accrued interest is due to be paid in 2012, and, without the sale of a lot of equity or the entire company, it will not be possible. However, the interest rate accurately reflected investors’ concerns that the company may fall into bankruptcy, otherwise less expensive debt or equity would have appeared. As a debt provider, not an equity owner, Slim has an early call on company assets in bankruptcy although the value of the printing presses seems dubious and I believe the company has sold some of its interest in the headquarters’ building. Last time I looked the value of the Boston Globe, for which the Company paid $2 billion, has been written down to $700 million with no apparent buyers.

The financing story has another twist. It has been widely reported after Slim’s loan that the Times Company had another interested lender at the same terms. That investor was Hollywood mogul, media-savvy billionaire David Geffen. However, he insisted on a board seat and the Times Company management recommended that their board to refuse such a request (Slim had agreed not to ask for representation). Having Geffen on the board of any company, given his track record as an investor, entrepreneur and understanding of media and its audiences, would seem too good to be true. But Times Company CEO Sulzberger apparently wanted no voice conflicting with his own.

Now, the Times’ newest serious problem is a threat that may be the most endemically serious of all facing the New York Times Company, a threat that will exacerbate its profit loss and perhaps result in the Sulzberger family finally losing control of the business. It is no other than the substantial improvement of the content of the Wall Street Journal under News Corp ownership. I didn’t observe closely enough the content changes that were being made to the Journals product two months ago when I became a subscriber of both home delivery of the print paper and the online Web site.

After studiously reading it daily for this period of time I am hugely impressed with WSJ. It competes favorably with the king of business and finance news, the Financial Times and increasingly so with the New York Times in other international and US news. Every week it seems that more content is being added to the WSJ in cultural and lighter information.

The WSJ looks contemporary and even hip, with splashy color and creative graphics. Both the quantity and quality of the content seems to me to have been significantly increased. Specifically, the WSJ has broadened into much more of a news content product covering local, national and, most striking, international news. It is no coincidence to me that the only major newspaper (print edition) to enjoy an increase in circulation this past quarter has been the WSJ.

I have moments ago finished reading the entire Friday, November 20, issue – every story. Here are the highlights of the diverse news and information content I found:

The front page has four articles, one on the House/Fed/Treasury dispute with a compelling color photo of an angry Tim Geithner responding to a question; the second on the grounding of the nation’s airlines yesterday; the third India’s labor wars and the fourth a lighter piece which has long been a Journal standard on “Buffalo Troubles in California”.

Also on the front page is Oprah’s photo and a short statement of her new TV deal, a listing of fourteen “Business & Finance” stories and fourteen “World-Wide” news stories. And an informative chart titled “Vital Signs’’ of leading economic indicators.

Page two begins six pages of “U.S. News” stories, followed by four pages of “International News” articles. Each is well-written and are mostly in-depth stories of broad interest to the thinking person –the NY Times reader, to be specific.

I did not see a single story written by a syndicated news service. All displayed WSJ reporters’ bylines.

The “Opinions” pages, including three editorials, had nine stories:

The six-page Marketplace Section looks terrific with four articles on its front pages. “Money and Investing” came next with color charts and graphs.

Then, for me, where the biggest change has occurred and what is aimed directly (as is the increase in US and International news stories) at the NY Times reader is the increase in interesting articles in the section devoted daily to the arts, home, dining, culture, and sports. Today, being Friday, this section called the “Weekend Journal” led with an article called “Rock God or Mere Mortal?” about Tom Petty featuring a large color photo of him with guitar. This section included in depth reviews of two films, two books, five sports articles, two on theater and more. The WSJ now seems to be competing favorably in every genre of content with the NY Times, and it is difficult, given the financial structure of both companies, to see how the Times can compete long term. Murdoch has greatly enhanced the content and the experience of reading the Wall Street Journal. It has become appointment reading for me and I would think others. Not to mention the fact that according to what I read last WSJ’s web site has 1.3 million subscribers paying $90 a year for the product.

But here’s the really bad news for the New York Times, the WSJ, at least today, is filled with advertising. Fourteen full-page ads, most in four-color. Scores of half and quarter page ads nearly all for upscale consumer products –those that the Times has relied upon over the years. I can remember when most advertising in the WSJ was Business-to-Business and advocacy ads. The WSJ also today had a hefty real estate classified section and many ads were large enough to exhibit small pictures of houses for sale. It seems to me that in this depressed advertising market that WSJ is taking meaningful market share from the Times, and that tells me that we will see continued reductions in ad revenue at the Times and greater operating losses. With the $250 million plus interest due to Slim in two years (April 2012) the outlook continues to dim.

How much longer can we, the public, and the Times shareholder have to tolerate the inept management of the company? I love the Times content and, more importantly, believe it is very much needed in our society, but I am not sure the government will have any bailout money left to keep it coming to us. One of my small irritants of management is its continuation of its slogan “All The News Fit to Print.” If you love the Times and want a good cry, think hard about those six words, which reminds me of the most ignorant slogan General Motors used in every Chevrolet ad until Rick Waggoner was fired by the US Government: “Chevrolet: An American Revolution.”

Life without the New York Times would not be pleasant and much more dangerous, but at least with the remarkable improvement in the Wall Street Journal, it may still be tolerable.

Posted by Charles Warner at 11:32 PM | Comments (1) | Print |

arcdoc at November 21, 2009 12:26 AM writes:

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November 18, 2009

Ken Auletta Has Done It Again

Ken Auletta has written another enlightening book that explains what’s going on in the media: Googled: The End of the World as We Know It. If you want to understand the new world, buy it and read it.

Auletta explained how the three major television networks lost viewers and squandered opportunities to get into cable by massive-ego-driven infighting in his 1992 classic Three Blind Mice. In Googled he documents how two Stanford Ph.D. students, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, changed the media landscape and, in fact, changed the world while executives in the old media world squandered opportunities to get on the internet and whined about the death of their magic world – media history repeats itself.

Auletta invested two-and-a-half years thoroughly researching and writing , and no one could have done it better. The Columbia Journalism Review, in ranking him as America's premier media critic, concluded, “no other reporter has covered the new communications revolution as thoroughly as has Auletta,” and New York Magazine described him as the “media Boswell.”

Executives, managers, and creative people in the media are not going to like what they read in this book because Auletta writes that at Google and in the new internet world engineers are the kings and queens and are the new creators that drive the business, not the marketers,salespeople, writers and directors who drive the dinosaur media.

Engineers believe in data and they ask tough questions. They ask “why can’t we make information free and accessible to everyone?’ Or “why can’t we put the needs of consumers first and not worry about making money right away.” This kind of thinking will drive greedy media moguls nuts. They’ll probably be happier watching “American Idol” or WWE Wrestling.

But you’re smarter than that. Read Ken Auletta’s Googled and don’t miss the final chapter, titled “Media Maxims” that he did not include in the book because it thought the 25 maxims (what he learned from writing the book) are "not organic to the book's narrative, and because I feared it [would] muddy the book’s purpose, casting it as a How-To book."

The final chapter containing the 25 maxims are available in a .pdf format on his Web site. Don’t miss them; they will give you almost the equivalent to a masters degree in media management.

Posted by Charles Warner at 10:03 PM | Comments (0) | Print |

November 12, 2009

Matsui and Rivera: Behavioral Models for TV

New York Yankee World Series MVP, designated hitter Hideki Matsui, and the incomparable closer Mariano Rivera were models of mature, professional dignity in the final game of the World Series – behavior rarely seen in the trash heap of commercial television.

Matsui, the calm, taciturn Japanese slugger drove in a record-tying six runs in the sixth and final game of this year’s World Series against the scrappy Philadelphia Phillies, and Rivera, baseball’s greatest, most effective closer of all time, got the final five outs to shut down the dangerous Phillies in a 7-3 Yankee win.

These were impressive performances, but what stood out as much as their on-the-field heroics were their calm, confident, mature behavior and, most of all, their dignity – the way they handled their accomplishments. They didn’t jump up, pump their fists, look to the heavens, or even smile. They just did their jobs in a non-demonstrative, professional manner.

Dignity is rarely seen on commercial television – not on cable where WWE wrestling is the consistently top-rated program, not on cable news which features bloviating and hysterical vaudeville performers who spin opinions and sensationalism without ever landing a blow on the facts. Witness the disgraceful coverage of the recent Ft. Hood killings in which the cable news channels got it wrong for hours and depended irresponsibly on erroneous Twitter and Facebook rumors too much.

And dignity is certainly not seen on prime time television, as brilliantly analyzed and skewered by James Wolcott in the current issue (December) of Vanity Fair in a piece titled “I’m a Culture Critic…Get Me Out of Here.” Wolcott’s intelligent article isn’t up on the Web yet, so you’ll have to buy the magazine or wait until next month to get Wolcott’s superbly written piece online.

Wolcott makes the point that Reality TV has “...not only ruined network values, destroyed the classic documentary, and debased the art of bad acting, but also fomented class warfare, antisocial behavior and class warfare.” Yes! Go get ‘em James!

You’ll get no dignity on Reality TV or anywhere on commercial TV where programmers have to get ratings with programs (news and opinion programs included) that appeal to the lowest level of taste and educational attainment and to the basest of instincts.

We don’t see much dignity in sports, either; certainly not in hockey, soccer, or football. But occasionally in Major League Baseball, which is slower, more intellectual, and dominated less by raw emotion than other sports, we get glimpses of maturity and professionalism.

The Fox TV network carried the World Series and to its credit, announcer Joe Buck and analyst Tim McCarver were fittingly mature and professional in their approach, in ironic contrast to promotion spots for the local Fox-owned TV station in New York which ran in some local breaks. The promo spots were for the Fox station’s local news programs and showed scenes of silly anchors laughing, a camel snorting, and another anchor juggling to reinforce the notion of news as lowest-common-denominator vaudeville.

But in the World Series games themselves, Matsui and Rivera, from Japan and Panama respectively, were models of the kind of dignified behavior it would be nice to see on TV.

Hey, Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Jim Cramer, Low Dobbs, Keith Olbermann, and network CEOs and programmers, were you watching? Will you please try to model the behavior of these two Yankee superstars?

Posted by Charles Warner at 11:05 PM | Comments (1) | Print |

Media Curmudgeon at November 14, 2009 10:24 AM writes:

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November 5, 2009

Victims, Victims Everywhere on Time Warner's HLN

Last week when I blogged about CNN falling into fourth place in the cable news channel ratings, I became a victim of my blogging – I had to watch CNN and HLN to see why HLN might beat CNN in the 25-54 ratings.

Watching CNN was numbingly boring, but not painful to watch. HLN (formerly Headline News and CNN2), however, was painful to view for more than a half-hour news cycle. The daytime anchor, Richelle Carey was as easy to watch as any carefully coiffed beauty on Fox News or Fox Business Network, and the graphics were easier on the eye and more in harmony with a news image than CNN’s (although not quite as good overall as Fox News’s graphics).

The problem was not the anchor or the graphics, but was with the story selection – the stories were all about crashes, rapes, murders, funerals, and disasters. The HLN stories offered a cornucopia of brief items with accompanying irrelevant, endlessly repeated video that would appeal to those who had the self-image of being a victim and wanted to watch stories of people suffering.

I remember reading a research study some years ago about why people like to read about or watch stories about disasters and crime. In addition to the fact the disasters usually create the opportunity for riveting video, people like to read or hear about them to feel good. They seem to say to themselves, “I’m glad that didn’t happen to me. I could be worse off than I am.”

Also, I think people who see themselves as victims like to have other victims as company. I suppose misery loves company. I suspect there is a deep need to reinforce their sense that they are victims and to confirm their persecution complex.
So I guess HLN has found its niche – victims.

The New York Times’ story titled “CNN Finishes Last in TV News on Cable” indicated that HLN in had a monthly average of 221,000 people 25-54 watching versus CNN’s 201,000. The reason the 25-54 numbers were touted is because that is the demographic preferred by advertisers, therefore the only viewers who matter.

So, of the 304 million people in the United States, I’m guessing there are about 25 million who are 25-54, which would mean that less than one percent of them watch the continuous victimization offerings of HLN. This is a small but obviously profitable niche for the Turner Broadcasting cable network (in turn owned by Time Warner).

HLN is profitable because there are marketers who target their advertising and promotion to people who feel like victims: Tax Masters goes after people who are victims of the income tax system, Humana Health Care goes after people who are victims of the health insurance system, Tylenol goes after people who are victims of old age, Long Island Hospital goes after victims of poor health, and Time Warner Cable, in its promotion spots, show people returning their Verizon phones, thus, they are victims of Verizon.

Thus, as a viewer, I couldn’t get away from the victim pitch – in the stories, in the commercials, and in the promos. There were victims, victims everywhere on HLN.

There is now a niche for victims on HLN; for angry, uneducated white men on Fox News; for dummies on Fox Business Network; for angry liberals on MSNBC; for sports fans on ESPN; for women on Oxygen; and for alien-abduction fanatics and circus lovers on CNN.

In the long tail of cable networks, appealing to ever narrower niches seems to be the prevalent strategy. UPN anyone – the Ukulele Pick Network?

Posted by Charles Warner at 10:02 PM | Comments (1) | Print |

Bruce Braun at November 12, 2009 8:27 PM writes:

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