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The season premieres on the traditionally leading Thursday prime-time lineup were down across the board. ABC still led (with CBS #2 and NBC third) with Grey’s Anatomy and Ugly Betty – but with numbers down 17% and 15% from last year, respectively.
Reminds me what we wrote in out DVR/VOD overview in 2006: “What’s on Thursday at 9? Soon no one may care any more.” That seemed like a strong statement to some then. Now it’s clearly the shape of things to come.
Posted: September 29th, 2008 under » Media.
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There was something to like and a lot to dislike about this year’s 60th Emmy Awards, broadcast this past Sunday.
The good: the best thing that can be hoped of an award, generally, is the recognition of work which is not the market leader, but which is good work. Both Mad Men and 30 Rock are great shows with mediocre numbers. Hopefully the multi-award wins of each will turn on more viewers to these shows. This is a good and heartening thing from the voting members of ATAS.
That said: how many minutes of boring and barely relevant can you pack in 3 hours? Enough to produce the worst ratings in People Meter history, with fumbling execution by a group of reality leads sharing the hosting duties, in a game they couldn’t win. Also, tributes to 40 year old shows like Laugh In and The Smothers Brothers work when they show what was great about the shows in their times – which definitely didn’t happen in the the just rotten staging of Ruth Buzzie and company, nor unfortunately in Steve Martin’s heartfelt tribute to the show that started his career.
Beyond that, the show’s running attempt to define the TV business as challenged but indomitable is just stupid. For thing, the proliferation of internet video has, more than anything, underlined the economic and creative value of professionally-produced content – which is still coming almost exclusively from the TV business.
Second, no industry is indomitable. The Academy should (and hopefullly will) roll with the new, cut the idiotic teleprompter banter, and rededicate itself to championing high-quality video, regardless of distribution channel. In a way, it started to this year.
Posted: September 24th, 2008 under » Media.
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On 7/19 I’ll moderate a discussion on “The Influence of Audience” for BLT LA, at the Luxe Hotel in LA (Sunset @ 405). Social media has obviously increased discussion of the effect of audiences on the creation of media. But in truth (whether through market testing in TV, multiple mix releases in music, or test screenings of multiple endings for features) the community has always had a role in the birth, growth, and evolution of popular media.
It’s worth taking a look at cases where fans and haters have influenced the direction of major projects, and valuable to discuss how communities can be engaged to improve projects.
Posted: July 14th, 2008 under » Editorial, » Events, » Media.
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As expected, AT&T has ended its current five-year agreement with Dish, effective in this December. It did the same with DIRECTV a few months ago. Not clear what the long-term dance will be (or not be) between ATT and satellite – the acquisition speculation is not far behind us. if ATT does want a sat partner, this certainly clears the way for a year-end DTV/Dish bidding war.
Posted: July 8th, 2008 under » Finance, » Media.
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Nobody cares
Posted: July 8th, 2008 under » Editorial, » Media.
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You may have read about Canoe Ventures, a long-in-development but recently-unveiled consortium of the US cable MSOs to create a national ad sales platform for cable. The venture points underlines the need for cable to modernize its ad sales businesses and compete more effectively. It gets ridiculed for obvious reasons (cable isn’t known for its lightning business response), but the effort could really matter. Will be posting some links re Canoe soon.
Posted: June 22nd, 2008 under » Media.
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Every 18 months, someone trumpets Caller ID displayed on TV (an easy task for a cable modem or DSL obviously) as the long-awaited killer app of interactive TV
If this were true, then (to paraphrase James Carville) the digital TV industry would be the most expensive act of masturabation since Ross Perot’s candidacy.
We have cordless phones now. And, really, you can look at your phone while you watch TV.
Other than your boss, Caller on TV is not interesting to anyone on Earth.
Posted: March 30th, 2008 under » Media.
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Just back from the road after some weeks in Philadelphia, San Francisco and elsewhere, all great.
btw the ARC website has been up for some time here. Please let us know what you think and, especially, if you have any shows or artists we should be looking at. Thanks.
Posted: March 14th, 2008 under » Media.
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One of the realities of conducting diligence in digital media is that you shovel and enormous amount of information into your head for a job, and, for a period, become an expert in that particular patch of land. One of the other realities is that you wind up doing another job rather quickly. One of the by-products of that fact is that your cognitive faculties get adept at dumping a whole mass of information just as soon as you don’t need the info anymore. It’s the only way to make room for the new, and has the additional benefit of saving you from focusing on info which will be obsolete within 18 months anyway. The patterns and rhythms of that information remain. And if you go diving back into the same bucket of arcana, a lot of it always comes back. Which is a long way of saying that I studied the two competing high def DVD formats extensively 18 months ago, and it was pretty clear that Blu Ray was just a better technology. It was more expensive, which gave Microsoft and Toshiba a reason (good or bad) to fight it with their own McFormat, but it was bigger, smarter, more extensible, and just better at most of the things that one would buy a high def product for. Bottom line, it felt like another case of Beta vs. VHS, in which a superior Sony format is threatened with extinction largely because it came from Sony. So it was good to see that better product score the decisive win with Warner’s recent decision to go with Blu Ray. Like the beating with a stick of major label DRM, this is a good and sensible market decision. Amen.
Posted: January 14th, 2008 under » Media.
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You almost never leave meetings with your heroes without being disappointed. But I had the rare joy of having my expectations exceeded this week when I sat down to interview Chuck D for ARC. If I had to pick one voice from my generation, it would be all Chuck. I’m grateful to have gotten to ask him the questions I had from watching Def Jam get built from my dorm at NYU and then seeing “It Takes A Nation of Millions” become the Sgt Pepper of hip hop. Thanks Chuck, Walter, Lathan and Brother Malik for working with us – we’re honored.
Posted: December 15th, 2007 under » Editorial, » Media.
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