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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.
Comments: 1
And doing a bunch of other work as well. Since I last posted we launched ARC: The A&R Channel, a long-time vision of a new generation of music programming for the digital media age. We’re currently in 15,000,000 homes via Comcast and there will be plenty to say about ARC in the coming months. In the mean time, if you are a Comcast Digital subscriber please go to ON Demand/Music/ARC and check us out. Thanks.
Posted: December 15th, 2007 under » Editorial, » Media.
Comments: none
Posted by Seth Shapiro
If you are interested in submitting to the Television Academy for the 2007 Emmy Awards in digital media, please drop a line to info@newamsmedia.com and we’ll be sure to get you all the relevant info.
Posted: March 24th, 2007 under » Editorial, » Media.
Comments: 2
Apropos of nothing, this occurs to me every time I see a commercial for it: I loved the first season of the thing. Trump never said anything in the boardroom that I didn’t agree with. If the boardroom was a set next to the apartment that never bothered me either. But then I started to hate it. Here’s why: after enough years of corporate life, it was just too clear how steeped in Cold Withholding Daddy the whole premise was once the novelty wore off. Most of these contestants quickly stopped doing their antics to win a job and quickly began slaving to win Bossman’s approval… Mr Trump will like this, Mr. Trump would never approve of that, blah blah.
Which, really, is a damn sad way to live. I would much prefer a show about a bunch of daypass lunatics who start their own companies. Wait, that show is on already – it’s called Los Angeles. Never mind.
Posted: March 22nd, 2007 under » Editorial.
Comments: none
The two TV Academies have yet to resolve their differences over the Emmys and digital media.
The Hollywood Reporter covers it reasonably well here, but here’s the short version:
There used to be one TV Academy. It was based in New York, as was the TV business.
Then Johnny left for Burbank. Over a period of time, the primetime industry followed. Then the LA chapter of the Academy ceded from the larger Academy, with the view that it represented the majority of those working in television. A visual representation of the conflict can be found here.
As part of the ensuing settlement, the LA Academy (ATAS) won custody of the Primetime Emmy Awards, the ones we’re all familiar with. NATAS (the NY-and-elsewhere Academy) came to preside over areas including Daytime and Technology. An uneasy truce ruled.
Then digital media came along and wreaked havoc.
If you step back, it’s a valid philosophical question: if Primetime television is delivered via new technological solutions, such as IPTV, streaming or download service, does a recogniton of merit fall under dominion of the creative guys or the technology guys? The answer is obviously both. But someone has to preside over the statue, and so the debate continues.
One day we will all undoubtedly get along. Everyone’s trying to do the right thing. Till then hopefully no one loses an eye.
Posted: March 22nd, 2007 under » Editorial, » Media.
Comments: none
Posted by: Seth Shapiro
In San Francisco, highight of the conference so far has been an intriguing series of UI/UX paradigms by designers including Schematic, Method, Spin the Bottle, Eat.TV, Voom and OpenTV. Appropriately, the designs grappled with the pressing need to move from searching a linear guide to presenting a visual search methodology which keys from one visual selection to another visual selection. Dale also described his concept of the “New Primetime”: those pieces of content which are recent (including recently grabbed via DVR, from VOD, etc.) rather than the old school notion of Primetime as “airing on a network this minute”. Good discussion.
Posted: March 13th, 2007 under » Events.
Comments: none