Recently in Media - General Category

Deep-down, I believe almost everything Kagan puts out is bullshit.  Entertainment industry projections that are almost never right.

However, I had to give pause when I saw this chart regarding Comcast's NBC Universal purchase.  If you're an old media mogul, this chart should scare the living piss out of you (which for Sumner Redstone may be a healthy thing).

What Kagan is saying in this chart (and what I have believed for about a year now) is that Broadcast Networks are dead.  JUST LOOK AT THOSE VALUATIONS!  $1.7 Billion gets you NBC AND Telemundo.  WTF?  (That price would get you around 30% of USA Network.)

Seriously, there is no purpose for a broadcast network anymore.  It's old media moguls trying to hold on to the old days.  I hate to break to you guys... it's over.   Martinis at The Smoke House and a show with a 40 share is fantastic... but it's over.  Move on.

Steps should taken immediately to convert NBC to a basic cable channel (two revenue streams - come on, Jeff, mmmm - tasty).  Do this and NBC would, overnight, become the most popular cable channel on TV (until CBS converts).

What this chart says that I completely don't believe (and DON'T WANT to believe) is that Intellectual Property is dead (film and television production and libraries).  That's insane!  Does Kagan seriously think we're heading for a future when content owners are no longer in charge? 

If Disney, Warner Bros., Fox, Paramount, Universal and Sony lose the ability to further exploit, in any meaningful way, their owned, copyrighted, fully-amortized content that they've acquired and produced over the past several decades - these companies are basically worthless.  A declining asset with no chance to recover.

Now, for the sake of my parent company, Manka Bros. Studios - The World's Largest Media Company (thus, the company with the most to lose), I hope Kagan is wrong (like they normally are).  But, if Kagan is right, and we realize a future where studio libraries cost more to manage than they bring in and broadcast networks lose more and more market share to cable networks, who among us are going to survive?

Personally, I remain bullish on content and the future of intellectual property.  HOLD ON TO THOSE COPYRIGHTS, MEDIA COMPANIES! 

A cable channel (even with two revenue streams) is nothing but a pipe into the home.  A convenience, yes.  A necessity, no.  The water, not the pipe, is what sustains life.

Jill Kennedy - OnMedea



 

Online celebrity gossip blogs need you to keep evading authorities and issuing bizarre statements on your website.  It's the only way many of them will be able to survive the current advertising slowdown.

For a while, the crazy death of Michael Jackson and the pending divorce of Jon & Kate sustained TMZ, Defamer, Radar, etc., but now, they really needed something to jack up the Holiday season - and your insane Thanksgiving was the perfect (the absolute perfect) present under the tree.

What you need to do now, Tiger, is barricade yourself inside your home or come out naked and drunk like something on "Cops" (throw in a scream at the helicopters for that extra zing).  Maybe you and Kobe could get together and go on some sort of cross-country crime spree ala "Bonnie and Clyde". 

I don't really care what you decide to do next - but PLEASE DO NOT TELL THE TRUTH.  That would kill this story faster than David Letterman confessing his illicit affair on national television.

So, Tiger...

DON'T come to California and host your golf tournament (keep everyone wondering where you are);

DON'T give a press conference to clear everything up (unless you decide to make it a crazy one with someone like Drew Rosenhaus as your spokesperson);

DO go on Oprah and Jay Leno once your wounds have healed for a nice, safe interview that you have full control over (and stick to your story of Elin freeing you with a golf club from your wrecked Escalade);

DO give Elin a flawless 20-carat diamond during "The View" and "thank her for saving your life"...

Etc. etc. etc.

Just don't tell the truth.   That would ruin everything.

Jill Kennedy - OnMedea

Meredith Whitney has been right in the past. 

Meredith Whitney has been wrong in the past. 

Meredith Whitney will be right about some things in the future. 

And Meredith Whitney will be very wrong about some things the future.  

The point? 

Meredith Whitney doesn't know shit about the future.  Meredith Whitney doesn't know shit about what the world will be like in the future.  David Blaine doesn't know what the world will be like in the future.  Or Uri Geller or Sarah Michelle Gellar.  NOBODY knows about the future!

When Meredith Whitney goes on CNBC with the Money Honey (Maria Bartiromo) and throws bombs while yelling fire at a stock market and overall economy that is struggling, what good does it do? 

I'm not saying she should pull her punches if she seriously thinks a double-dip recession is inevitable.  I'm just saying... she has no idea if a double-dip recession is inevitable.   Nobody does.  Much like the pundits who say the market is going to 15,000.

I understand Meredith Whitney has to be salacious to back up that rebel, bad girl photo on the front of the website (and above) for her company.  "What will that renegade MW say this time?  Get ready to sell sell sell!"  

But now, Meredith, you are, once again, in the unenviable position of rooting against the American economy - desperately hoping to be right to uphold your "reputation" and secretly wishing the worst so that you can say on CNBC in the spring "Well, I called it last November, Maria." 

Even though you know... you don't really know.

I don't care about your precious math and underlying fundamentals, Meredith, and all the bullshit numbers you'll throw out to back up whatever you're trying to say - just admit that nobody knows nothing.

Not even a woman with a zebra on her wall.

Jill Kennedy - OnMedea

There was a story posted on The Daily Beast by Rebecca Dana titled AYN RAND POWER DRESSING in which she writes:

Ayn Rand--author of The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, mother of Objectivism, and the conservative movement's most rapacious cougar--leapt back into popular culture this year as the hero of the Obama-hating far-right.

But it's not just Glenn Beck and his minions who are drawing inspiration from the writer, who died in 1982.  This fall, the dowdy Russian émigré is en vogue with a whole different set: the free-wheeling, Obama-loving, arugula-eating fashion world.

Now, I do not follow the antics of Glenn Beck (though I may follow a few of "his minions" depending who they are) and I realize that Rebecca Dana did not actually call Ayn Rand a Conservative (just "the movement's most rapacious cougar")... but I just need to put down for the record that she was a staunch anti-Conservative and actually speaks with an almost hatred of them in this extensive audio interview (about 3:30 into the interview she states "I am not a Conservative nor is Objectivism a Conservative philosophy."):

http://atlasshrugged.com/ayn-rand-works/ar-conservatism-vs-objectivism.html

For readers of Ms. Dana's blog who may not actually research her statements, I fear they would form a completely wrong opinion of Ayn Rand - especially by carelessly linking Ms. Rand to Glenn Beck.  (Having done a little quick research on Mr. Beck, I will refrain from opining on him as I do not want to draw the bloodthirsty freaks in his audience into this discussion.)

Jill Kennedy - OnMedea

Seriously, Sharon? 

Are you f-ing kidding me? 

This is why TheWrap.com is necessary?  "Sex On The Set, Part 2:  How Fake Is It, Really" - a story so probing, so important, so searing that it needs TWO PARTS! 

When I punched up TheWrap.com this morning (to see what stories Deadline Hollywood had broken earlier) and saw in giant 32+ point type "Sex On The Set, Part 2:  How Fake Is It Really?", my immediate reaction was Albert Brooks' reaction in Broadcast News while he is watching a fluff piece that William Hurt put together.

"Can we turn on the news?", he says.  "Sorry... sex, tears... this must be the news."  Later, he adds:  "You really blew the lid off nookie."  

With stories like these and upcoming headlines like "Actors Who Adopt ShowBiz Pets" and "Which Models Have Veneers And Which Have Caps", Sharon Waxman (along with "Sex On The Set" writer Gina Piccalo) have fulfilled TheWrap.com's mission as a "primary news source focused on the business of entertainment and media" and are well on their way to becoming THE HOLLYWOOD SOURCE FOR... WHATEVER DRIVES TRAFFIC!

Jill Kennedy - OnMedea

[Thanks to James L. Brooks and Albert Brooks for my blog headline today.]

... Ben Silverman doesn't.  I would give Ben the benefit of the doubt, but we all know his new $100 million company with Barry Diller is not going to work (or create anything remotely new or ground shaking). 

As soon as Ben launches his new company (whenever the F that is), the rest of the world will realize that he doesn't get it.  The sooner we get him to retire to the penthouse of The Palms in Vegas so he can bang cocktail waitresses two at a time, the sooner we can move on with our quest for a workable New Media business model.

BUT LEO LAPORTE (founder and chief guru of twit.tv - or This Week In Technology) GETS IT! 

Please watch this 40 minute speech he recently gave to the Online News Association and you will see what I mean.

As long as we stay away from and stop encouraging these inane ultra Hollywood-types who have no vision, we just may get somewhere.

Jill Kennedy - OnMedea

OK - it's time to redesign your website.  That's just hideous!

Come on - you're called DIGITAL HOLLYWOOD!  A site like that makes people go running back to Analog.  Simplified complexity, please.

Jill Kennedy - OnMedea

Frankly, no one gives a shit anymore.  Last night's show was painful. 

A tour of the set?  Seriously?  Matthew Weiner, creator of Mad Men, is unable to give an acceptance speech for winning Best Drama because there was a five minute TOUR OF THE SET at the beginning of the show?   "Where we will all be spending the next three plus hours!"

The opening number from the Academy Awards winning for Best Musical Number?  Best Musical Number? 

That painfully long Family Guy bit with the baby killing the dog (full disclosure - I'm a Simpson's girl and think Family Guy sucks so I probably wouldn't have liked even if it were short and funny). 

There there was bit-after-painful-bit about the demise of television.  Television, the way it was in 1979 is dead - TELEVISION ISN'T DEAD!  What else are we supposed to do to pass the time on this miserable planet?  We like the internet, we like television, we like movies, we like going out to dinner, we like talking on the phone, we like working out, we like going to the park with our kids, we like going to Disneyland... just because we spend a few hours less watching TV doesn't make it the end of the world!

I know there is a lot of insecurity in this town and a very strong need to give each other awards.  But would the programming change if there wasn't Emmy Awards?  Are the actors from NCIS: Los Angeles relevant in any way?  Was an appearance by the Gossip Girls a way to reach out to 15 year olds?  As an experiment, Television Academy, why don't you put next year's awards on the Disney Channel and see how many young girls you get to watch... But that would never happen because the Emmys are much too prestigious for that.

I know the old white executives want it to be 1979 again when the television audience apparently actually cared if M*A*S*H would win or lose - but those days are gone.

It's over.  Kill it already.  Every year it sucks and every year we watch.  Over half that crowd (i.e., the late night comedy show writers), wanted to be watching the Giants/Cowboys game on NBC.  Myself included.

Jill Kennedy - OnMedea

Dear Nikki,

Your new business strategy will fail.  This morning, a new (unremarkable) web design was revealed along with a new address (Deadline.com) and it is a disappointment.  A disappointment to all us bomb throwers out there who are just trying to make a buck with salacious stories about other people's lives. 

I say it's a disappointment because DHD is a straight-out-of-bed must read for nearly everyone in the business of media.  You should resist the urge to turn it into something more than it is. 

I don't understand why people in this industry find it difficult to be content with success. 

Nikki, you had an amazing one woman operation (terrible graphics and all - but it worked) with great inside sources, timely scoops and the freedom to say whatever the fuck you wanted. 

That's all going to change now. 

You are attempting to become a corporation - a media conglomerate, if you will.  You seem to fancy yourself one of those top media executives whose career you could bring down with one click of the "Publish" button.  I fear those days are ending. 

I believed you when you said nothing would change after being bought by Mail.com Media Corporation (I would have put a link of that last sentence to the blog you wrote after being bought - but it appears to be gone!  See what I mean?). 

Believe me, I'm not against buyouts.  Manka Bros. doesn't pay me shit and we all need capital to run a successful business.  But now you're opening offices (OK, hiring a couple bloggers in pajamas) in several other world cities under the "Deadline" brand.  Plus, you talk about technical people and designers.  Please.  Can you look at the numbers and tell me that your free cash flow margin isn't decreasing?

Do you seriously believe you'll find other "Nikki Finke's" in London, Hong Kong, Syndey, et al?   What the fuck scoops are you going to get in Mumbai?  There are plenty of great media muckrakers in that country.  They don't need you.  There is only one Nikki Finke and paying other people to digg up fresh scandals in international territories isn't going to work. 

I'm going to miss the freshness, the immediacy and especially that feeling that we're getting real inside dope. 

But it's not too late to change!  Stay small and profitable.  Don't expand and be forced out of business in a year.  Or worse, in a year, don't attempt to go back to your old self in a pathetic display of "Well, I tried!"

Jill Kennedy, OnMedea