Chopping Up Truth In Media Since 2009
Thanks Shakespeare, you gave the proper weight to what President Trump has done to his country.
High treason is not a joke!
Not something to be ignored because some will get tax cuts.
We sugar coat it.
Who cares if someone running for office undermines our democracy?
Who cares – as long as he secures our borders and keeps Mexicans out?
No.
Please watch:
2019 is going to be my “Year of Blogging Dangerously” – because America is in a bad place right now.
Jill Kennedy – OnMedea
There is absolute proof that Donald Trump said he was FOR the Iraq War in 2002:
“Are you for invading Iraq?” Howard Stern asked him, and Trump answered, “Yeah, I guess so.”
No matter how you interpret “Yeah, I guess is so…” – it definitely doesn’t mean “NO.”
But in the first Clinton/Trump debate September 26, 2016, (and many times before that) he categorically denied it.
He Tweeted climate change was “created” by and the Chinese in this tweet:
The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 6, 2012
But he categorically denied it.
It went on and on like that in the debate and has gone on and on like that throughout his campaign.
And he gets more and more popular.
How is that even possible?
This clip from “Lenny” starring Dustin Hoffman (directed by Bob Fosse – and one of the great movies of the 1970s) perfectly encapsulates Trump’s strategy of denying no matter the proof and his followers acceptance of the denial as fact – because they WANT to believe him:
I haven’t been blogging regularly for a while as I’ve working on a book and upcoming podcast about the history of Manka Bros. Studios.
I hope starting in the next couple of weeks I can balance both projects and get back to writing about the business of media.
Jill Kennedy – OnMedea
Even when it’s good news!
Even when it’s a “liberal” pro-Hillary-slanting site – photo editors cannot resist putting up the “crazy Hillary Clinton” photos (e.g. CNN below).
She freakin’ clinched the nomination – THE FIRST WOMAN EVER IN A MAJOR PARTY – and CNN made her look crazy.
You can imagine just what Fox News did:
I mean, for Christ’s sake, this is New York Magazine’s pic:
And another NY Magazine:
All crazy. Nothing Presidential.
Mother Jones at least had the decency not to put up a picture at all.
I admit, a good, natural, happy picture of Hillary Clinton is very hard to find.
This is the best I could do:
But, damn, that was a long time ago. She hasn’t been happy in a long time.
Jill Kennedy – OnMedea
GO PRIVATE.
There will never – ever – be enough growth and margin improvement to satisfy Wall Street.
Maybe short-term the studios will get a bump by telling investors they are going to make 100 comic book movies over the next 5 years – but after that flattens out – there’s nothing left to grow on top of that.
And it’s all Wall Street’s fault. You can’t blame studio executives. They have to appease Wall Street or they’re out.
I mean, my company, Manka Bros. just announced a trilogy of films based on the board game CHECKERS!
Wall Street’s insistence for high margin growth in such a mature business is destroying creativity (again, note all the sequels and re-makes and re-hashes and re-dos) and in it, ruining any realist opportunity for growth.
To grow the way Wall Street would like, 21st Century Fox (for instance) would need to have an “Avatar” one year (and double the amount of TV production); two “Avatars” the next year (and double again the doubled amount of TV shows); four “Avatars” the following year – and so on and so on. And they would all have to preform as good or better than the first!
And the market is saturated already.
There are too many choices and studios don’t have the monopoly on content creation that they once did.
And the moguls long for those days.
Sorry, fellas, they are not coming back.
It won’t be cheap to go private – billions and billions – but there is plenty of private equity out there that would love an asset that consistently pumps out up to $1 billion in pure profit.
Without the need to top profits year after year, the content produced can be more experimental, and thus, much more interesting and exciting for the consumer.
It would even allow for the occasional down year when things just didn’t work out. Hollywood IS a cyclical business, after all.
Hollywood Studios are sacred treasures in this country (and around the world) and should not be allowed to just fade away because Wall Street wasn’t happy with the growth prospects.
We must do what we can to save these institutions and going private is the best way.
Jill Kennedy – OnMedea
Comics have nothing to do with Comic-Con anymore and they haven’t for many years – so just stop.
It’s just about what is popular in culture. They could call it “Pop-U-Con” as well.
Sure, there are comic book elements to the show: Batman movies, Batman TV shows (“Gotham” which may feature a very young Batman – or not), Batman games, Batman slot machines, etc.)
Also, people dress up as Batman – which makes it a comic book convention, right?
And, yes, people get comic book artists to sign their shit.
Their Mad Magazines from 1973.
Their 1977 Spider-man issue which featured Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
It just goes on and on
And that’s great for a comic book convention. That’s what you would expect.
But now people also dress up as characters from “Grey’s Anatomy” and “The Good Wife.”
And this year, the “50 Shades of Grey” movie has a a’first-look’!
At this point we have left comic book land.
Seriously, look at all these TV panels – there are six comic book related TV shows and probably about 40 TV show panels which have nothing to do with comic books or comic book culture.
And no one seems to care.
Just as no one seems to care that “House of Cards” and “Orange Is The New Black” aren’t TV shows – but yet they get nominated for Emmys and no one seems to care.
Comic-Con is not a comic book show, it’s a popularity show.
Popular things (like cheerleaders) and comic book fanatics are like peas in a pod, right?
I can’t even imagine what someone like “Comic Book Guy” from The Simpsons would ask the “50 Shades of Grey” panel.
Seriously, comic book geeks need to start something new that is far far away from the movie studio PR machines.
I fear that no one really cares that Hollywood has commandeered this convention for their own selfish reasons – and that is the biggest drag of all.
Jill Kennedy – OnMedea
And that is not sarcastic.
Today, on “The View“ it was announced that the Marvel character “Thor” will now be a woman in the comic books.
This is NOT the real God that people actually worshiped a thousand years ago or so (Manka Bros. is a producing an event series based on his life).
This doesn’t necessarily mean that the movie character of Thor will change to a woman – but it is an absolutely genius move on Marvel’s part being that it was announced one week before Comic-Con.
Marvel now has stolen a bit of thunder from others who are seeking publicity. This will be the number one subject discussed (most likely in a negative way based on early message boards posts I’ve read).
DC Comics will now have to answer questions about which characters they may change to a woman – or what do they think of Marvel’s move. It’s just a no win for them as they get things rolling with several comic book properties that are about to launch (5 TV shows in the fall).
The Internet is already blowing up with this story and it’s all pretty silly.
The only people who should actually care if Thor is a male or female are those who still worship the Norse Gods (and you gotta love those Norse Pagans hanging on to a dream) as their Gods. In the actual religion, Thor is most likely a guy.
In a comic book, you could even change the gender of Jesus and Mohammed and no one should care.
IT’S A COMIC BOOK!
(Though I would probably hesitate to do that Mohammed if I were a publisher who wanted to stay alive.)
So, congratulations Marvel.
For better or worse, you own Comic-Con 2014.
Jill Kennedy – OnMedea
P.S. – And now you’ve announced that “Captain America” will be black – another master stroke!
The internet is blowing up today on the news that “Community” will be exhumed and given a 15 episode Season 6 on Yahoo!’s video streaming service called Yahoo! Screen.
This, I suppose, is a big get for Yahoo! because now people have heard of Yahoo! Screen.
It’s also, obviously, a real life saver for many “Community” fans who, apparently, have been walking around the Earth like the cast of “The Leftovers” after the Rapture.
Don’t get me wrong, I consider myself a dork for many television shows and would be upset if they were cancelled but this spontaneous ejaculation of joy today is on par with the Brazilians reaction to winning the shoot-out against Chile in the World Cup.
This news also creates an interesting scenario in that most of the rabid fans that love “Community” so much hate Yahoo! equally as much.
It should be a fun experiment for Yahoo! (they have nothing to lose and a boatload of cash coming from the Alibaba IPO). And it could just be another nail in the coffin of Broadcast TV.
I just hope Dan Harmon and company are up to the task. It’s one thing to make an announcement on Twitter – it’s another thing to sit in a writer’s room and realize – “Ah, shit, we’re doing this on fucking Yahoo!”
There are insanely high expectations going into this streaming video show (it’s no longer a TV show).
Sucking could result in a mass suicide.
Jill Kennedy – OnMedea
Nearly every major online publication (and print for that matter) are sending at least one reporter to Las Vegas for the Consumer Electronic Show (CES) – and no one, except those reporters, actually cares what comes out of the show.
It’s all the same – year after year.
Reporters write up an elaborate post about “What to expect from CES this year!” –
– then they go to Vegas
– they do a decent write up of Day 1
– then they party hard the first night because they have been so focused on the build up of CES that they just want to unwind
– and then they write a lackluster Day 2 report (because they are hungover)
– party some more
– and then sort of disappear until it’s time to drag themselves home.
Believe me, if CES were held in Fresno, even the Tech reporters wouldn’t show up.
Because it’s not about “new technology” (the gadgets are really just variations on themes from the past 10 years), it’s about “Vegas” and being able to get drunk on the company dime.
The same goes for the legions of companies that attempt to break new products and show off their brilliant innovations.
It’s a snow job – everyone is reprinting the same press release and then heading to dinners and cocktail parties to talk about the press release.
99.99% of the world’s population really don’t care to read about a $150,000 4K television, or a self-driving car or wearable tech – they might buy it once it hits the market if the products are good – but to read about it from hundreds of tech reporters and bloggers? Not so much.
But 99.99% do care about Vegas. So just write about your debauchery (like this CEO from last year – CES After Dark) and forget the gadgets.
No one cares.
Jill Kennedy – OnMedea
5/12/14 UPDATE: AT&T to acquire DirecTV! Lock the doors – it’s scary out there.
2/12/14 UPDATE: Holy Crap, 2014 just got a whole lot uglier (and it was already hideous) with the announcement of Comcast acquiring Time Warner Cable!
ORIGINAL POST:
It’s coming.
Holy shit is it coming.
Millions are getting pummeled with a horrible winter but brace yourselves further, because you are in for a shitstorm of job cuts in 2014.
It will not be pretty.
It seems that media company CEOs are hell bent on proving to Wall Street that their companies can be growth companies.
Unless they fire every employee and start a new company by themselves in a garage, they cannot be growth companies the way Wall Street would like.
20% margins just will never happen again in the movie, TV, print, or music industries – so deal with it.
But these CEOs are guys (all guys) who think they can do anything.
But they will fail.
And then they’ll CUT.
And… it will not be pretty.
Tribune got things started.
My company’s CEO has called 2014 “The Year of the Hammer.”
No one will make it through unscathed.
First to go will be the packaged media folks. Those who support the production and distribution of DVDs and CDs and magazines, etc.
Gone.
Next will be the slow growth businesses – like movies and Broadcast TV production (serious like a heart attack).
Slates will be slashed, storytelling risk-taking will cease to exist.
Since no one can seem to do comedy anymore on Broadcast, they will be relegated to the epic mini-series format like “Under The Dome” and live Sports to stay afloat.
Then, finally, the low margin businesses will be hit – like console games. With the exception of a few huge titles, it’s a tough business and it certainly doesn’t help these overly-ambitious / delusional CEOs hit their targets.
So what’s going to be left? TV production for cable and Over-The-Top (OTT).
Why TV gets ownership of Internet content production is baffling to me. But they do.
By the end of 2014, giant media companies with their film studios, broadcast networks and massive real estate leases will be much MUCH leaner and the quality of the product will be much MUCH worse.
Hey, but a point of margin here and a point of margin there adds up to… 2 points.
But lighten up, Spring is coming.
Jill Kennedy – OnMedea
If other blogs didn’t steal my stuff years ago, I would have said R.I.P. Journalism – but “R.I.P.” as a way of saying a something is dead is also dead.
So, what do I mean by “Journalism Is Dead?”
Very simple. Journalism is dead. I’ll prove it.
The online media “information” space has been taken over by the Press Release. Companies issue press releases or send emails to blogs like Deadline.com or TechCrunch and that becomes the news of the day. No one is actually out in the field unless you consider a guy with a camera in the face of a drunken celebrity at TMZ real journalism.
Very few – VERY FEW – are actually digging up stories, creating news – trying to right the wrongs. It’s all controlled by someone other than journalists.
So here’s my experiment…
I didn’t really write over the summer because I was working on a book – so my numbers were pretty terrible on this blog. I was doing pretty well when I was constantly writing about how Facebook sucks. But now it’s terrible.
Last month I had very few eyeballs on this site because I really wasn’t around and only posted one time. Pretty sad.
In September 2013 – OnMedea had 1,167 hits. A real low for the site – but my own fault. In October, I am at 574 hits for the month – mostly because of the old Sean Hannity story – but really terrible.
Now I’m mostly going to do what others “media” blogs do for the rest of the month (Press Releases, hearsay, etc. – with my own little comments here and there) – whatever takes the LEAST amount of time – and give updates on how my numbers change.
Should be an interesting experiment.
Jill Kennedy – OnMedea