Program scripts from week of February 27, 2012
My name is Jay Phillippi and I've spent my life in and around the media. TV, radio, the movies and more. I love them, and I hate them and I always have an opinion. Call this the View from the Phlipside.
Media Amusement
If you enjoy watching the media there has never been a better time to live than today. There’s more kinds of media and the old ideas that each media worked its own side of the street have gone completely out the window. I’m not sure I’ve ever had more fun that following a couple of stories that are just getting underway right now.
Google began as a search engine online. Over the the last 16 years Google has grown and grown. Now most of that growth was concentrated on the Internet. Web browser, e-mail, cloud computing, social networking Google’s reach has been extending into more areas. They’ve been working on growing into cellular phones and television too with varied levels of success. But now it appears they may be moving into older media. It appears that they will move into cable TV in the midwest in 2013.
That’s an interesting move in and of itself. Then add it that the folks at Dish Network, the satellite TV folks, have announced that they are looking at move into the cellular phone business. Dish has already been expanding. They bought the Blockbuster video business and launched the online Blockbuster streaming service. But like their primary competitors, curiously cable operators, Dish would like to free themselves from the stranglehold of a single delivery and profit stream. Cable has done it by packaging cable along with phone and internet. Now Dish wants to follow suit.
So cable networks are in the phone business and the internet, a satellite company is in the internet video and cell phone business and an internet company is into, well, seemingly everything.
The real question becomes if there’s any advantage to the consumer in all this. Often when corporations spread themselves to thinly outside of their area of expertise you end up with second rate services. It remains to be seen how any of these new ventures will work out.
But then if it were obvious it wouldn’t be as much fun to watch.
Amazon and e-books
There are times when you need to step back and think twice about some things. What seems like a good idea up front may not be such a good idea in the long run. The problem is that our society has become so focused on short term advantage that we can back ourselves into long term problems.
The current instance of that has to do with the folks at Amazon. Amazon has become the leader in the fields of both traditional books and e-books. At the same time the money folks on Wall Street have been pressuring Amazon to make the bottom line fatter. Given that Amazon has been an advocate for lowering prices as much as possible they have to put the squeeze on the publishers. So when the distribution contract with the Independent Publisher’s Group came up Amazon told them that prices had to go down drastically. IPG has refused and Amazon has now pulled all of IPG’s ebook versions for the Kindle. That’s a huge potential loss for the publishers and by extension the authors.
The problem as I see it is that in the long run it’s going to be a problem for Amazon too. Amazon maintains that the only people needed are readers and authors. Um, do they realize they just left themselves out of that equation? Sure I’d like prices to stay low on books and e-books. But I also know that the profit margin for the publishing industry has always been razor thin. Amazon is creating a situation that can potentially damage the industry profoundly.
Then think about this, there’s truth to the idea that you get what you pay for. If we convince the consumer that ebooks aren’t worth paying anything more than a buck or two for where’s the financial impetus to create the product? In the long run Amazon’s bottom line would improve if the price of books rose by a buck or two, they can maintain friendly relations with their suppliers and keep the financial situation profitable for the folks who create the content.
But Amazon will probably continue to think short term. And that is almost always long term trouble.
Biggest Loser
I’ve mentioned before that I’m a big fan of NBC’s reality weight loss show “The Biggest Loser”. I’ve reached that age where my doctor is after me to lose some weight so the show serves as an inspiration. If they can lose as much weight as they need to it doesn’t feel like I have any excuse to drop the 30 or 40 pounds I need to lose.
And it’s an interesting time right now on the show. The good news is that the latest weekly ratings have jumped a little bit. Of course at the Peacock network any show that brings in good ratings is something of a surprise. Just a week ago the weekly standings had NBC slipping behind Univision for at least one night of the week.
Meanwhile things may not be going quite so well on the show itself. The Biggest Loser presents a different kind of challenge to the contestants because they have to commit to something close to six months away from home. And the stress is apparently showing. Reports say that this past week saw all the contestants either threaten to walk off the show or actually do it. The producers had announced that once again they would give contestant already eliminated the chance to win their way back into the competition. The network has refused comment but the reports seem to indicate that the walkout was an attempt to leverage the situation. Unfortunately it appears that the network won and two contestants have been ejected from the show.
In the end that result was inevitable. The network couldn’t let any group of contestants feel like they could put the arm on the show over the rules. The contracts are pretty clear about what is allowed and what isn’t. Shows like this are huge profit makers and the network isn’t going to let anyone mess with the golden goose. In the end the network and the producers set the rules and the participants have little choice but to go along.
And for contestants on The Biggest Loser maybe they need to keep the focus on winning back their lives and health. Inevitably the trouble begins when they forget that and start thinking about winning what is really just a silly TV show.
Call that the View From the Phlipside.
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