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Jill Kennedy – OnMedea
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Hollywood Studios’ Only Chance For Long-Term Survival
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
Why Don’t They Just Call It ‘Viral-Con’
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
Another Genius Move By Marvel
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 NOTÂ 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!
I Didn’t Realize ‘Community’ Fans Were Such Dorks
The internet is blowing up today on the news that “Community” will be exhumed and given a 15 episode Season 6Â 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
The Twilight Of The Katzenberg
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.”Â
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
The Verisimilitude Of Sarah Palin
Even though Sarah Palin probably doesn’t know what “verisimilitude” means – she knows exactly what it is because she is the living embodiment of the word.
Sarah Palin is living (and profiting) from the character of Sarah Palin that has been created for her by the various puppet masters in her life even though, deep down, the actual Sarah Palin could give a shit what the character Sarah Palin actually says.
The real Sarah Palin just wants to look good and have nice stuff.
And there is nothing wrong with that – unless, of course, because you are faking this hate-filled persona to get nice stuff you actually hurt real people.
Everyone knows Sarah Palin isn’t bright enough to be a force on the Right.
As much as I dislike the Tea Party and hard core Conservatives, they are not stupid people.
Sarah Palin is a stupid person. Full stop.
And I don’t say that to be mean. No female, outside of models and actresses, has done so much with so little brains as Sarah Palin.
She is living the American Dream for those with low IQs.
If you are an attractive, photogenic person and choose a polarizing political view, you can go far in this country – and she has proven that thesis correct.
The idiots at CPAC even gave her a standing ovation for her inane 3rd grade quality rewrite of “Green Eggs And Ham” slamming the Affordable Care Act.
If only that were the real Sarah Palin.
Deep down, I believe the real Sarah Palin doesn’t care much about anything.
I don’t believe she gives a rat’s ass about gay marriage. She would never admit it because that would destroy the fake Sarah Palin, but I can tell she doesn’t care if a man marries a man or a woman marries a woman.
She doesn’t live in a world where she has to give it much thought.
The same goes for immigration reform, Obamacare – she just doesn’t care about these things because she doesn’t have deep thoughts.
She wants to be famous. That’s it. And it has been working for over 10 years.
People love Sarah Palin and people hate Sarah Palin – but no one hates Sarah Palin as much as the real Sarah Palin – because she is living a lie.
Or maybe she’s not even smart enough to know that.
Jill Kennedy – OnMedea
Only Tech Reporters Care About CES
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
The Great Media Bloodbath of 2014
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
People Enjoy Watching… Everything Online
Hey, there was a new survey by the Pew Research Center about what people like to watch online.
Turns out – people like to watch pretty much everything…
Comedy: 58%
How-To: 56%
Educational: 50%
Music: 50%
News: 45%
This is a silly survey because it says 28% like to watch Animation; 27% Political; and 27% Sports.
People just like to watch what is interesting. To stick it in genres is pointless.
Does that mean now more people will try to create comedy? Or educational videos?
No, there will still be just as much crap and just as much good stuff on the internet.
Silly survey.
Jill Kennedy – OnMedea