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
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
It’s going to be a long summer for Jeffrey Katzenberg and DreamWorks Animation. It may just be the last summer those two names are associated with each other.
Sure, they’ve got “How To Train Your Dragon 2” coming out. And, sure, it’ll do $500 million worldwide and make a decent profit.
But not enough to convince anyone that DWA isn’t a dead-company-walking.
By early next year, something will have to happen – maybe a sale, maybe a shutdown – but business as usual is not an option.
This failure seemed to happen in slow motion – nearly 10 years with a terrible, unsustainable business model.
I seriously doubt the Company Mission was this: “We’re going to produce two animated movies a year – and one of them will fail. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.”
In baseball, getting a hit fifty percent of the time would be superhuman.
In Hollywood, fifty percent sucks.
When your job is to produce animated feature films, and over half of your movies bomb, there is something wrong with you. It means, you are incompetent and, deep down, you really don’t know what you’re doing.
Big Hollywood animated feature films is the ultimate fish-in-a-barrel/low-hanging-fruit type entertainment. Kids of a certain age will see almost anything. And parents need these diversions to pass the time on a hot summer afternoon or a miserable cold winter day.
But I suppose over the half time, parents would rather be miserable than go see a DreamWorks Animation film.
I’m not saying everything has to be “Frozen” – but nothing should ever be “Turbo” or “Mr. Peabody & Sherman.”
From the beginning, I never understood the Animation unit IPO.
If the reason was just to get enough cash to pay-off Paul Allen at the expense of giving up your dream of building a giant entertainment conglomerate on par with the other majors, then that was truly short-sighted and weak.
Taking the whole company public was really the only option – a piece of it was just too small. I’m sure there was a reason – but it was mistake nonetheless.
Seriously, you went from producing content like this:
To content like this:
AwesomenessTV and OTT, in general, is not going to be enough to save the company – though it will be a nice asset for someone to pick up on the cheap – after the whole OTT bubble bursts (any moment now).
So, I’m sorry, Jeffrey, it’s time for you to just enjoy your money and your philanthropic work (cocktail parties, clambakes at Geffen’s house, etc.). You do many great things for the world – producing movies isn’t one of those things.
Sorry.
It is very possible that Khan Manka, Jr. – as he wrote himself – is the Last Hollywood Mogul.
Good luck to you.
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
I had to interrupt my summer hiatus (I’m working on a book so I haven’t been posting in this space for a few weeks) to say the Emmys Are A Joke.
I’m not talking about the nominations – for the most part, it’s the same actors year after year after year. TV comedy is in big trouble. The only broadcast shows nominated are getting really old. New comedy doesn’t exist on broadcast.
But that’s not at all the point I want to make it.
This is my point: “HOUSE OF CARDS” IS NOT A TELEVISION SHOW!
It is a series of webisodes.
High-quality webisodes.
It was not produced for television…
It did not air on a television network…
It is not a television show.
“House of Cards” is an internet series produced for online and mobile delivery. The last time I checked, TV shows are produced and distributed for satellite, cable and over-the-air broadcast networks.
The TV Academy can’t just cherry pick internet webisodes that it likes and call them TV shows.
And the TV Academy shouldn’t be claiming the Internet as their own – even though on their website they say: “The Television Academy, the only major organization devoted to the television and broadband screen entertainment industry…”
In reality, they have as much claim over the Internet as I do.
And it would be impossible for the guys in the TV Academy to watch all of the content produced for the Internet (so, to make it easy on themselves, they just give the nominations to Internet content that features big stars – Kevin Spacey, Jason Bateman, Zach Galifinakis, etc.).
Can you imagine these TV Academy members sitting with their iPads watching every series produced by comedy improv troupes around the freakin’ world? “Hey, did you guys see this one from some guys in Des Moines that make fun of working in an office? It’s hysterical! It should nominated for an Emmy!”
On top of that, the TV Academy refuses (because of arrogance) to even acknowledge The CW as a legitimate producer of programming (how “The Gilmore Girls” on old The WB never got a nomination is still one of the great injustices in entertainment history – and that’s no platitude) and yet they’ll throw a few nominations to Netflix to prove some kind of point. To show that the TV Academy is aware of the future and is very much on the cutting edge of content production.
But they’re not. When you think of the TV Academy – you still think it’s just a room of old white guys longing for the days of Norman Lear and the three powerful networks that everyone watched. Remember when the cable industry had to form their own pathetic award show (the Cable ACE Awards) because the TV Academy didn’t allow cable shows to be nominated?
Now, anyone can be nominated for an Emmy. Maybe I’ll produce a series of webisodes about my dog and submit it for consideration. It won’t even be looked at because my dog doesn’t look like Kevin Spacey.
You never know, maybe the TV Academy is changing with the times – and if they are – maybe they should change their name.
“The Transmedia Academy Of Arts & Sciences!”
Now THAT has a ring to it.
A couple of years ago, I wrote “Broadcast Networks: On Death And Dying” to illustrate that Broadcast Networks are in complete denial that one day they will just be another button on the grid – the master grid that gives equal weight to every type of format imaginable on our connected TVs (broadcast, cable, YouTube, Netflix, games, family videos… everything equal).
Ted Sarandos of Netflix is absolutely correct when he says: “Television is what’s on the screen – not how it gets there.”
But that doesn’t mean “House of Cards” should get an Emmy nomination.
It’s not a TV show!
Jill Kennedy – OnMedea
Make no mistake – there is no chance Aereo will survive longer than two or three years. That’s a best-case scenario.
Broadcast Networks are dying (it’s true) and will be dead in their current form within five years.
In five years, who is going to pay $8 a month for nothing?
Where are all those little antennas going to go once Broadcast Networks cease to exist?
What sort of business launches with this sort of insane hype that, at most, will only exist for five years?
A Barry Diller company, of course.
The only useful purpose Aereo has is that it will play a part in hastening the inevitable demise of Broadcast Networks.
That’s something, I guess.
I wrote a couple of years ago that Broadcast Networks were in denial (BROADCAST NETWORKS: ON DEATH AND DYING – April 1, 2011). That the executives were longing for the old days of The Big Five.
Now they’re just trying to survive at any cost.
New shows aren’t working. The upfronts next month will be terrible (regardless of what the networks will actually say in their trumped up press releases and over-the-top presentations).
But things aren’t completely dire.
Chase Carey has the right idea but he shouldn’t say that he’ll make FOX a cable channel as a threat to Aereo. He should make FOX a cable channel because it would be a good business decision. It’s really the ONLY business decision.
It is time for Broadcast Networks to accept that the world has changed. “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” is no longer the number one show. And new shows like “How To Live With Your Parents (For The Rest Of Your Life)” will not save you now.
Basic cable and becoming just another button on the infinite media grid of the future is the only chance ABC, CBS, MBS, NBC and FOX have to survive.
Love him or hate him (most hate him), Barry Diller has, once again, disrupted an industry in desperate need of change.
If he wasn’t so gooey I would be cheering him on.
For $20 million dollars, he is forcing a $50 billion industry to join the 21st century. Now that’s getting a bang for your buck.
Jill Kennedy – OnMedea
P.S. – Who knew Barry Diller enjoyed fishing so much? Here’s a great story of a recent fishing trip.
Hollywood is stuck.
New York is stuck.
Silicon Valley is stuck.
No one can really do anything too exciting because old media is still hanging around – refusing to give up the crown.
Don’t get me wrong – OLD MEDIA IS DYING – but they’re not dead yet.
DVDs are dying – but they’re not dead yet.
We can assume that digital downloads and streaming will be the format of choice in the future – but we don’t know how it will all be quantified. Will people buy digital movies and store them in the cloud using UltraViolet and iTunes or just rent from Redbox and subscribe to Netflix?
Broadcast Networks ARE dying – but they’re not dead yet.
Will YouTube become a go to destination for entertainment on par with broadcast and cable channels? OK, that’s easy – YES – and soon.
Will Netflix realize its dream and become another HBO? Probably not. Just because “House of Cards” sort of works doesn’t mean the next five or ten shows will.
Printed books are dying – but they’re not dead yet. Will eBooks be enough to sustain an entire industry? (And Gay Moroccan Poetry definitely isn’t going to turn things around.)
Magazines are dying – YEP, they’re pretty much dead. And the online future of magazines isn’t bright at all.
Same with printed newspapers. And newspapers online will not be able to cover the costs at their current levels – so look for further contraction of that industry.
Theatrical Distribution of movies and events is most likely here to stay when many thought a couple of years ago that the format would die (though 3D WILL die).
Even Facebook and LinkedIn feel like old school media companies that are wearing out their welcome. They’ll eventually go out of business. In the meantime, they’ll just stick around and be as boring as ever.
How crazy is it that the Music Industry almost seems relatively healthy (after a decade of torture and pain)? As horrible as was, at least they’ve made the transition to digital – and now, though smaller, they’re actually growing again. But for how long? Nobody knows.
It’s limbo.
We can’t see what the future will be because the past won’t go away.
Too many unanswered questions.
With everything so completely up in the air, it’s a terrible time to be in the media business.
Jill Kennedy – OnMedea
OK – I know NBC has been on a really bad run lately – but things are definitely looking up!
I just received an email alert from the Hollywood Reporter announcing that Christina Ricci has agreed to star in…
wait for it…
wait for it…
GIRLFRIEND IN A COMA
After 87 years, NBC finally has a show to be proud of.
Bob Greenblatt has proven his brilliance and I can’t to hear what’s next:
Could it be – “My Boyfriend’s Got A Nail In His Head”?
“Dad’s Bleeding From The Ass… Again”
“What’s That Thing On Molly’s Face?”
The possibilities are endless.
All joking aside… Here’s who is really in a coma:
Jill Kennedy – OnMedea
Old Hollywood just got another year older and closer to death.
In fact, it’s getting harder and harder for Old Hollywood to get out of bed in the morning.
Food doesn’t taste as good. Hangovers are a daily occurrence.
In short, Old Hollywood is not well.
And with each passing year, as movie studios and broadcast networks become increasingly irrelevant, my thoughts are about real estate.
What is going to happen to all those soundstages and sprawling campuses scattered around Los Angeles and the world when no one needs them anymore?
Soundstages built in the early 20th century by visionaries from Poland, Hungary, New York and Kansas City.
Clearly they won’t be used as much in the future as production costs for high quality content continue to drop and new visionary kids from everywhere else in the world are able to compete head-to-head with the best Hollywood writers and directors.
Perhaps they will be torn down and apartments built. But apartments in those areas are for young writers and actors who move to L.A. to chase that Hollywood dream.
They don’t have to move here anymore.
Perhaps one studio will be turned into a museum of what Hollywood used to look like.
It’s a lot of land, man, and the shopping mall business isn’t so good these days either.
It’s going to be a real problem one day.
As I said earlier this year, YouTube’s Original Content Strategy Is Working and that should put every remaining media mogul on high alert.
The 1975 when millions of families crowded the television on a SATURDAY NIGHT to watch one of the three networks is over.
Now, in all likelihood, a family of five is watching or doing five different things on a Saturday night (and the rest of the week for that matter).
And this has been true for a few years.
In 2013, another profound and symbolic pillar will crumble in the epic story of the Decline and Fall of the Hollywood Empire.
The Mogul.
2013 will see most of the remaining media moguls pathetically fade away from relevance with little fanfare. And that’s sad.
WHO IS LEAVING?
1. Sumner Redstone – Many would say he has already left (despite his attempt to look youthful with that shocking sprayed on orange hair). Sumner has desperately clung to power just as he clung to the side of the hotel ledge years ago to survive a fire. Sumner will be the first to leave in 2013 either by death or senility (though many would argue he has been dead and senile for the past 25 years).
2. Rupert Murdoch – Enough with this guy and his phone tapping and continued interest in buying newspapers. He’s done. There is an outside chance the family empire could continue if Rupert appointed his daughter Elisabeth to the top job (I would buy the stock if that happened). But his continue insistence on giving his idiot sons top jobs will, no doubt, destroy all that he spent his entire life building.
3. Barry Diller – Barry Diller is just tired of it all. Does anyone really think he is excited about owning Ben Silverman’s ridiculous company or CollegeHumor or The Daily Beast or Zwinky or Sports Pickle? Sail away, Barry. The media world no longer needs you. You had a good run. Now go get drunk.
4. Jeffrey Katzenberg – The last mogul standing of DreamWorks SKG (one of the last valiant attempts made to build a true media empire like the old days), Katzenberg will sell DreamWorks Animation for a few billion less than he would have hoped and leave the Hollywood scene. He will go on to become equally annoying in the Art Collection scene.
CLINGING TO POWER
1. The Weinstein Brothers (Harvey and Bob) – Despite several high profile movies (Silver Linings Playbook, The Master, Django Unchained) that will probably win quite a few awards this season, the Weinsteins are working with a business model from 1985. Attempted diversification into TV, publishing and interactive nearly cost them everything a few years ago. What they know is how to buy, market and get Awards for small to medium sized movies. And we know where that business is headed.
2. Ryan Kavanaugh – Calling him a mogul is generous (to say the least). Attempted mogul more like it. For some reason people keep giving him money. Hopefully, that stops soon and he is forced to land his helicopter not in Beverly Hills but somewhere out in Palmdale where he can live out his existence with a few other characters from “Day of the Locust.”
WHO IS STAYING?
Khan Manka, Jr. – Despite horrible performances year-over-year in both film and television (and publishing and music, etc.), Khan Manka, Jr. remains firmly at the top of the world’s largest media company. Even though he publicly states how much he hates the job and would rather be at his house in the Seychelles, he continues to stay year-after-year and I don’t see that changing anytime in the near or far future.
2. Thomas Tull (Legendary) – Even though Legendary is more of a high-end financing and production outfit than a media empire, Tull is eyeing much larger things and has the money to do it. How far he actually takes the media empire concept is the question. Is Legendary a new DreamWorks or actually something that will be successful?
3. Hed family of Rovio (Angry Birds) is the closest thing we have these days to a new generation media mogul (and I wish Raj, Mikael and Niklas Hed nothing but the best. DON’T SELL – BUILD!). Like Walt Disney and George Lucas before them, the Heds have a real chance to build an empire from a single group of characters. Their passion and ambition is infectious and they see enormous potential while others laugh in their face. The perfect scenario for global conquest.
—————–
So, 2013, endgame for moguls.
The big ones will fall.
Some smaller ones may rise (on a lower scale).
It will never be the same.
Where is Ted Turner when you really need him?
Jill Kennedy – OnMedea
P.S. – John Malone and Brian Roberts may be considered moguls in today’s terms. I just find them too boring to write about.