LP, Jamestown NY. It can be heard Tuesday through Friday just after 8 AM and 5 PM. The following are scripts which may not exactly match the aired version of the program. Mostly because the host may suddenly choose to add or subtract words at a moments notice. WRFA-LP is not responsible for any such silliness or the opinions expressed. You can listen to a live stream of WRFA or find a podcast of this program at wrfalp.com. Copyright 2013 by Jay Phillippi. All Rights Reserved. You like what you see? Drop me a line and we can talk.Program scripts from week of July 29, 2013My 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. Unsolicited Advice Periodically on this program I offer up some utterly unsolicited advice to various media personalities and major corporations. I will be the first to acknowledge that there is no evidence that any of them have ever actually taken this advice.
But they should.
In this case my advice is aimed at the folks at the television broadcast networks. It’s a tough life at the networks these days. Once upon a time just a few decades ago they were the king of the hill.
Today their viewership is falling overall across the board and for the second year in a row NO broadcast network show was even nominated in the Outstanding Drama Series category. That’s the serious win category. It’s the one that makes everyone sit and take notice of the quality work you do. So let me repeat myself. NO, as in ZERO, broadcast network shows were even nominated.
Ouch.
This prompted NBC Entertainment chairman Bob Greenblatt to rise up on his hind legs and try to explain it all away. Kind of interesting that it’s someone from the #3 network making the noise. His arguments aren’t really worth getting into since they’re pretty mundane but I thought maybe it’s time for a little unsolicited advice.
The networks are desperate to figure out how to turn this all around. NBC’s plan apparently involves more “event programming” which apparently means mini-series about Hilary Clinton and live broadcasts. I think I’ve got a better idea. How about we actually try investing in top quality programming? Maybe take a page from the folks at the BBC and go for short run, high quality programming. I mean BBC is generally accepted as a quality TV producer. Take a look at the new “Sherlock” series. A season is 3 90 minute episodes. Dump some serious time, effort and yes money into creating some real “event programming”. Surround them with your best series TV.
My bet is that ratings will go up and award nominations will pick up too. Beyond that we’d finally get some TV worth watching.
But no one will listen.
Apologize
Early on in my career I got into a dispute with one of my bosses. And yes it was just one of many, many such disputes I got into with various people. Who knew you could work with so many people who were wrong?
OK, not all of them were wrong.
But I still think I was right this time. I had messed up something on the air, misspoken myself reading a story, something like that. I apologized and went back and corrected myself. When I came off the air I was told I should never apologize because it just drew more attention to the mistake. Just read it correctly and move on.
The problem I have with this is that it assumes the audience is stupid. That they didn’t notice and if you act like it didn’t happen they’ll just forget about it. Pretending I didn’t do it didn’t work when I was 8 so why would I expect that it would work as an adult?
A couple of major news organizations found themselves in the same position. How they handled it is instructive.
A whole bunch of news organizations, including the L.A. Times and Business Insider, recently ran a quote by actress and new host on “The View” Jenny McCarthy about vaccines and autism. Now Jenny has said a lot of uninformed things about that subject but she didn’t say this one. The quote came from a satire site called “The Superficial”. When confronted with the mistake these organizations tried to bury the mistake. Which has allowed the false quote to continue to circulate with their names giving it weight.
On the other hand the Chicago Tribune recently ran a story about a disabled veteran and his seeing eye dog. Problem was the man in the story lied about being a veteran and how he’d lost his eyesight. The Trib ran an apology that explained what was wrong with the original story, took responsibility for not getting it right, explained the mistakes they made and promised that steps were being taken to insure that it never happened again.
So one news organization acted like professional adults. The other ones acted like guilty 8 year olds. Which one do you have more respect for?
For a cancer surgeon in New South Wales, Australia that was part of the problem. You see when you googled his name the search engine’s autocomplete function added the word “bankruptcy”. He claimed that this cost him patients and financial backers so he sued Google in California court.
This may sound silly but I guarantee the folks at Google don’t find it funny. It is one of a series of such suits brought against the search giant. Another suit had been thrown out in Wisconsin concerning a woman whose name brought up an autocomplete association with the prescription drug Levitra.
Here’s the problem I have with these suits. Both of the people in these two cases DO in fact have connections with the words they dislike so much. The doctor was listed as a creditor to a company that had gone bankrupt and the woman had already sued Yahoo over the same issue with Levitra.
The equations used to determine Google’s search process are way beyond my understanding so I thought I’d try a simple test. I googled myself.
With just my first name entered I got “Jay Phillippi Princeton” (I did some study there years ago), my full name then entries for Jay Leno, Jay Z and Jay McKee. By the time I got my full name in it was just the first two listings. So is that association with Princeton any fairer than the bankruptcy? No, although this makes me look good while making the doctor look bad.
The reality is that if you search the doctor’s name today you get dozens of stories about his suit against Google (which he has dropped without prejudice at the moment). All of which means that the word bankruptcy has that many more associations with his name.
I find it hard to blame Google for this problem. Your online reputation is made up of all the things that appear on the World Wide Web. For the professional it is more and more important that we spend some time working that system.
Call that the View From the Phlipside
"The View From the Phlipside" is a media commentary program airing on WRFA-LP, Jamestown NY. It can be heard Tuesday through Friday just after 8 AM and 5 PM. The following are scripts which may not exactly match the aired version of the program. Mostly because the host may suddenly choose to add or subtract words at a moments notice. WRFA-LP is not responsible for any such silliness or the opinions expressed. You can listen to a live stream of WRFA or find a podcast of this program at wrfalp.com. Copyright 2012 by Jay Phillippi. All Rights Reserved. You like what you see? Drop me a line and we can talk.Program scripts from week of November 26, 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. New Rules Needed The BBC has asked its employees not to do it, at least for the time being. A Kansas state appeals attorney was fired and faces ethics charges because she did it during a session of the state Supreme Court. And two weeks ago I sat in a meeting where it was a major topic of discussion.
What’s causing all this fuss? Using the micro-messaging service Twitter otherwise known as tweeting. And the reality is we are facing a serious change in our culture that needs to be addressed.
At the BBC several senior staff members have been tweeting about the upset following two major scandals that resulted in the head of the broadcasting giant resigning. The BBC has asked folks to allow these issues to be worked out inside the company. In Kansas the attorney tweeted a rude comment about the defendant in the middle of a court session! She was suspended and then fired.
I was attending a series of committee meeting connected with my work that drew people from all over the country. At the beginning of our meeting we discussed our expectations of one another while we met. And that’s when the tweeting issue arose. It splits largely along generational lines. The younger group sees tweeting as a normal part of their lives. The older generation sees it as rude and disruptive when done during meeting time. A realistic look at the issue says that the older generation is going to lose this argument in the long run.
At the same time not every moment of our lives is appropriate to be tweeted about or during. Out of our conversation at the meeting were a couple of concepts that I’d like to share. We need to understand that this issue is essentially one of mutual respect. That we respect the time, the place and the people where we find ourselves. That we realize that some issues need to be held in private and that everyone needs to make clear what they think should be private. Finally there needs to be a commitment to presence. Not just being in the room but being involved in what’s happening there. When your digital communication interferes with that then you’ve stepped outside the lines.
We need to acknowledge the times are changing and find ways to bridge between the generations.
Worst to First This is almost too funny. It was just a couple years ago, heck barely that, that we all but wrote the obituary for the National Broadcasting Company better known simply as NBC. The Peacock network has struggled to the point that at one time it appeared that it was going to slide out of the top three among networks for the first time in living memory.
It really wasn’t clear that NBC would ever be able to recover. The saying is that to everything there is a time and a season and you had to wonder if maybe NBC had just run out its string. With the media landscape changing as quickly and broadly as it has the question started to look like whether broadcast networks had simply become dinosaurs headed toward extinction.
Then we hit the first week of the fall season this year. Much to my delight I was able to report here that NBC had actually won a night! Shortly thereafter they won a week in the ratings as well. It was all very surprising and encouraging to see the one time champ come back slugging.
Well the latest news is almost impossible to believe. According to reporting in the Financial Times NBC has pulled off that legendary move called worst to first. The network has not only climbed out of the hole it has become the highest rated network for the fall broadcast season. It’s a story that has everyone in the industry scratching their heads. Turns out that may not be the most amazing part of the story.
The most amazing part of the story is that at the moment NBC is the only network that isn’t seeing significant ratings drops overall. Think about that. EVERY other network is facing what the Financial Times report refers to as a “...precipitous drop in television ratings so far this season”. Which may mean that the other networks may be facing similar kinds of problems some time soon.
So against all odds it looks like NBC had plenty to be thankful about last week.
Proof in the Crisis
Sometimes the most powerful positive moment in a person’s or a company’s life is the moment of crisis. Normally we think of a crisis as being something to be avoided but think about a crisis as any moment of great stress. A time when all of your resources will be called upon, a time when you are going to have show just how much you are truly capable of doing and being. A crisis is never really a fun time but it can be the time when you can find out just who you really are.
Two web companies found themselves in those kind of crisis, high stress moments recently. And both of them have to be happy with what they discovered about themselves.
The early stress moment was election night and the service in question was Twitter. The problem that Twitter has consistently suffered from is the appearance of the Fail Whale. If you’re not into Twitter culture then you may not know that beast. When the service became overwhelmed by usage you would get a graphic of a whale saying Twitter was down. But on election night, a night that saw a peak usage of 327,452 messages a minute, the fail whale didn’t make an appearance. This is huge step forward as Twitter becomes more mainstream. To survive an event that big without going down was a big victory.
The second moment of crisis was related to Superstorm Sandy. The storm surge flooded a great many internet server sites in the storm zone. A lot of online companies suddenly found themselves completely unable to do business. But the digital world prides itself on it’s flexibility and its ability to react quickly. So the question became how do we get back online? And the answer came from a surprising source - the online service Tumblr. Tumblr is what is called a micro-blogging site. It’s dedicated to shorter, more image oriented communication. What happened was when the folks at Gawker and Huffington Post among others got knocked off the internet they turned to Tumblr to help them get up and running. And the reality is that partnership worked so well some folks think that Tumblr might just be the future of online publishing sites. Tumblr isn’t sure it’s ready to make the move but let’s face it, it never hurts to have people want you.
A crisis can be a time that can break you. But if you’re good at what you do it just might be the event that makes you as well.
Call that the View From the Phlipside
"The View From the Phlipside" is a media commentary program airing on WRFA-LP, Jamestown NY. It can be heard Tuesday through Friday just after 8 AM and 5 PM. The following are scripts which may not exactly match the aired version of the program. Mostly because the host may suddenly choose to add or subtract words at a moments notice. WRFA-LP is not responsible for any such silliness or the opinions expressed. You can listen to a live stream of WRFA or find a podcast of this program at wrfalp.com. Copyright 2012 by Jay Phillippi. All Rights Reserved. You like what you see? Drop me a line and we can talk.Program scripts from week of October 3, 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. Peacock Victorious Normally I would never spend the time even on this quick little program to get all hot and bothered about the weekly TV ratings. The reality is that they are usually pretty boring, pretty much the same from week to week. You wait to see what might be the new hit of the season early on but they’re pretty much a yawn after that.
But I was just so excited when the ratings for the first week of the new TV season came out recently. Because for at least the first night of the new season, NBC was in first place. After so many years talking about the seemingly bottomless pit that the Peacock Network had fallen into I just couldn’t believe my eyes.
And it wasn’t some skimply little squeaker of a victory either. This was pretty convincing. The overall rating for the first night from the folks at Neilsen was a 4.0 rating and a 10 share. Now those numbers don’t mean a whole more to me than they probably mean to you so let’s take a look at the competition for comparison. CBS had a 2.7 rating and a 7 share, ABC had a 2.6 rating and a 7 share and Fox had 1.7 rating and a 5 share. That’s a fairly comfortable edge for the network that couldn’t shoot straight.
Even better it wasn’t just NBC’s new programming titan “The Voice” that was a winner. A new program “Revolution” took on a couple of veteran shows, ABC’s “Castle” and CBS’s “Hawaii 5-0” and beat both of them handily.
I need to sit back and savor that concept for just a moment. NBC won a night and has two, count ‘em two, hit programs on Monday night. Would I sound terrible if I said I wasn’t sure that NBC would EVER manage to pull that off again?
In the end there’s something about rooting for the underdog. And in the last couple years NBC has been about as under as you could possibly put a dog. As always there is a sure fire cure for making your way from the back of the pack. You need to find something new and interesting that can carry the audience forward. “The Voice” has been just that for the network. With any luck they will be able to build some momentum so that those embarrassing days will behind them forever.
Nice to see some new plumage for the Peacock.
MySpace Returns? I have no idea how to respond to this. This invitation to check out the soon to be re-launched MySpace. It’s like an old actor that you haven’t heard about in years. My first reaction is “Aren’t they dead?”. Apparently the answer is - not yet.
MySpace. Time for a quick review I think. Launched in 2003 it was the first big social network for most of us. By 2005 it was big enough that News Corp bought in for 580 million dollars. In 2006 it became the most visited web site on the Internet passing Google. That lasted till 2008 when Facebook passed it worldwide and in 2009 passed MySpace in the United States as well. Between then and now (just three years, my friends!) MySpace has fallen to the 161st in total web traffic. Among sites in the U.S. they currently come in behind the likes of tumblr and WebMD. In that same time they went from approximately sixteen hundred employees to about 200. Talk about crash and burn.
For all that they are not ready to throw in the towel. In June of last year Specific Media Group and pop star Justin Timberlake pitched in and bought the company. Sale price? 35 million dollars. Ouch.
Part of the problem with MySpace the first time around was that it really focused on an adolescent audience which made it a very uncomfortable place for college aged users and adults of all other ages. Which is part of why Facebook supplanted it as quickly as it did. So what will the new MySpace look like?
That’s a good question. There is an introductory video out there that gives glimpses of it. What I see doesn’t look quite like anything quite so much as Pinterest with a strong helping of music and Twitter type comments. At least that’s what I think it looks like. The problem is that I’ve tried watching the video on several different computers and haven’t managed to get it to play the whole way through yet. If you’re trying to attract a media savvy user base that’s probably not the way to go about it.
In the end I look at it and say “So why do I need this?”. I already have one social network I rarely use (Google Plus). Maybe Justin and the brain trust at the new MySpace have a really cool new idea. Or maybe that’s 35 million dollars they're never going to see again.
Beach Boy Cover Bands
I’ve always wondered about the life span of a rock band. At what point is the band no longer the band? How many original members have to remain? If Paul and Ringo got a couple of guitar players would they really still be the Beatles? Or is the name the thing?
Mike Love of the Beach Boys is betting that all he needs is the name. I’m not sure how else you explain the fact that Love fired most of the rest of the band last week. The Beach Boys have been on a 50th Anniversary tour. Just before the tour ended in London at the end of September Love announced that the post anniversary tour version of the band would no longer include David Marks, Al Jardine or Brian Wilson. Think about that for a minute. The Beach Boys without Brian Wilson.
The original Beach Boys were Brian, his two brothers Carl and Dennis, their cousin Mike Love and friend Al Jardine. David Marks has been an on and off member for years. With more than two dozen Top 40 hits in their career they have been international stars, one of the biggest acts of their era and sometimes called America’s Band.
Trouble in the lives of the cleanest of the clean cut ‘60s group is nothing new. Brian Wilson’s mental health issues, arguments, break ups and even law suits. One of which awarded Mike Love the rights to the name of The Beach Boys.
But that brings me back to my original question. When does a group stop being that group? There are some ‘50s Doo Wop groups touring that have no original members, largely because the original members have all died. If there were only Mick and Keith would they still be the Rolling Stones? At some point don’t you really just become a cover band of yourself? What really happens is that some members of the band realize that they can’t make it as themselves and need to hang on to the identity that pays the bills. Unfortunately you can end up with what I can only describe as zombie bands. The re-animated corpse of a once great entity that goes through the motions of life but without the soul.
Meaning no disrespect to Al Jardine or David Marks but in the end that’s The Beach Boys without Brian Wilson. A zombie shambling it’s way through our memories of one of the seminal catalogues of American music.
The Beach Boys just became the sound track to the Zombie Apocalypse.
Call that the View From the Phlipside
