Khan Manka – Page 17

August 5, 2009April 28, 2011

Dawn Ostroff Compares Picking TV Shows To “Sophie’s Choice”

[From The Hollywood Reporter: “It was really a ‘Sophie’s Choice,’ Ostroff said of trying to choose projects for next season with only 10 hours to fill.]

Ms. Ostroff made this horrific comparison yesterday in Pasadena at the Television Critics Association Press Tour.

Seriously, Dawn? There was no other phrase you could use.

“Sophie’s Choice” was a decision Holocaust survivor Sophie Zawistowski had to make on which of her children would live and which would die in a Nazi concentration camp.

Sure, it was a work of fiction by William Styron – but he has even said that it was based on a real story (fyi, Meryl Streep won the Academy Award for her portrayal in the movie).

The decision on which child a parent would choose to live and which to die is the same as which TV show on The CW makes the schedule and which doesn’t?

The Gossip Girl spin-off or The Vampire Diaries?

Supernatural or One Tree Hill?

I know it was said on the fly and was meant to convey that it was a difficult choice – but come on.

Imagine what the Right Wing Pundits would say if President Obama, during the recent Beer Summit, said “It’s really a ‘Sophie’s Choice’ in deciding which beer to drink.”

I started OnMedea with the intention of having a positive tone in regards to the world of media (with the exception of anything concerning Ben Silverman) – but that’s been really difficult based on what I’m discovering out there.

I certainly hope Ms. Ostroff made the right decision and the new “Melrose Place” lives up to her expectations.

For the record, Sophie chose the boy.

Jill Kennedy – OnMedea

(I understand the slight irony that I write these things under the blog title OnMedea – a fictional woman who slaughtered her kids after finding out her man had an affair.)

August 3, 2009April 28, 2011

Is The Video Game Bubble About To Burst?

Nintendo’s earnings today must have been a troublesome sign for all the major video game companies (EA, Activision Blizzard, Sony, etc.).

With a couple of exceptions (most notably Midway Games), the video game industry has had a pretty great party over the the past five years. But is the party ending and the hangover beginning?

Long answer: Yes.

Are major media companies prepared for the coming burst?

Long answer: No. I believe that most believe the bubble will grow and grow and grow – until it becomes an infinite sphere with impenetrable walls that cannot burst.

A bubble that cannot burst. Hmmm. Wouldn’t that be marvelous?!

If Q4 2009 is as frightening as Q2 2009 for the industry, major media companies may wish to revisit their aggressive games company acquisitions strategy (or AGCAS). Maybe it should be revisited today.

Jill Kennedy – OnMedea

August 1, 2009April 28, 2011

Disney/Pixar Stickers

Here’s a simple request for all the lawyers and senior executives at the Happiest Place On Earth. Can you please keep your meathooks and your legalese off of my kid’s Disney/Pixar sticker book? It’s a freakin’ STICKER BOOK for Christ’s sake!

Do we really need “Copyright Disney/Pixar” on every single fucking sticker? There are about 200 stickers to a page and every tiny little sticker has “Copyright Disney/Pixar” on it.

For the good of the planet, save a few million gallons of ink!

Do you think the pirates out there making counterfeit stickers aren’t able to replicate your brilliant attempt at control of your intellectual property?

It’s not necessary. Nobody gives a shit.

Viacom doesn’t plaster a copyright notice all over Dora the Explorer and they’re selling a hell of a lot more stickers. And Manka Bros. doesn’t touch their Animaltered stickers.

I know it may seem like a stupid request – but I know there were way too many corporate and lawyer meetings about that copyright notice – and it’s an unbelievable waste of time.

Jill Kennedy – OnMedea

July 31, 2009April 28, 2011

Ben Silverman – Master Innovator?

I was at a party once and (G. Gordon) Liddy put his hand over a candle, and he kept it there. He kept it right in the flame until his flesh was burned. Somebody said, “What’s the trick?” And Liddy said, “The trick is not minding.”

Deep Throat – All The President’s Men

I’m not suggesting by the title of this entry and the above quote that Ben Silverman is as nuts as G. Gordon Liddy. Far from it. I personally believe he is too big of a pussy to even come close to burning his hand in a flame. But there is a certain recklessness (and his bizarre relishing in this recklessness) that makes the comparison apt. It’s almost like he wants you to call him a “hard-partying, womanizing, break the rules kind of guy.” That’s his badge of honor. And it works for most rock stars and even George Clooney – but not Ben.

I know for a fact that a few drugs and a good amount of booze has helped to shape some of the greatest content ever produced. Can you imagine jazz evolving as it did without the use of drugs? Can you imagine Hemingway or Faulkner or Fitzgerald writing sober? Can you imagine the filmmaking of 1970s without any chemicals to get through the long nights? Luckily we don’t have to.

There have been many successful executives in the past (and some currently) that have partied just as hard – but you don’t hear much about their social lives because they do their jobs and hit their numbers. When you fail, everyone starts looking very closely at how you spend your day.

Success would have saved Mr. Silverman and he would have been allowed to do whatever he wanted. (And Jeff Zucker probably would have encouraged him to continue to do whatever it was he was doing.) But he failed.

Ben Silverman was an absolute disaster at NBC. Practically everything he touched turned to shit (the list of expensive flops is long and you most likely have read about them elsewhere) – and yet, here he is, partying his way to the top of another company.

In my opinion, Barry Diller has done his shareholders a great disservice by letting this failure control a $100 million fund to bridge “the gap between traditional television and the internet”.

Sounds like an amazing idea, Barry! Somebody has got to figure out that puzzle, I suppose. And based on all the executive talent out there, you picked… Ben Silverman.

But, stupid me, I keep forgetting, based on press releases, Ben Silverman is a great innovator and the absolute right man to bridge that ‘gap’ (right man, that is, if advertisers are ready to party like animals, miss meetings, sleep late and never see a project through to the end).

But let me give credit where credit is due. Mr. Silverman is a guy who seamlessly integrated advertiser’s products into storylines of reality and scripted shows such as The Restaurant and The Biggest Loser. Wow, was that restaurant cooking with ACTUAL FOOD? Was that biggest loser drinking a Gatorade? I’m glad Mr. Silverman came up with the idea to let the biggest losers hydrate themselves. That’s a stroke of genius. The contestants should be very glad he didn’t cut the deal with Starbucks – the biggest losers would have then had to hydrate with Venti Lattes.)

Note to Ben: Ed McMahon sat next to a dog eating Alpo on The Tonight Show and it sold a lot of Alpo. Charlie McCarthy (Edgar Bergen’s ventriloquist puppet) sold a ton of Ex-lax on the radio and he’s a freakin’ puppet that can’t possibly know what it’s like to be constipated! Products sell because people want the products – not because a Ford Truck was seamlessly integrated into a webisode about a cop and a hooker.

There have been great innovations in advertising (the banner ads on the right side of this blog for one) – but Ben Silverman hasn’t come up with one (no matter how hard he tries to say that he has). Mr. Silverman has obviously gotten very lucky in life and now has $100 million to play with, which will buy a lot of entertainment for himself and his daily girlfriends as he listens to pitches for web series about hot tits and Vegas fraternities. I wish him all the best trying to sell those to Coke.

Here’s a prediction that will beat any tweet that Ryan Seacrest will make today:

The venture will fail – without fail. Sorry, Barry.

May 12, 2009May 12, 2011

All The President’s Men – Washington Post Budget Meeting Scene

1000Memories, Accel Partners, Amish Jani, Andrew Hyde, Andrew Mason, Andy Sack, Ashton Kutcher, Aydin Senkut, Ben Silverman, Bin 38, Bob Davis, Bob Iger, Brad Feld, Brian Kempner, Chris Hughes, Christopher Steiner, Dan Nova, Daniel Gaisin, Danielle Hootnick, Dave McClure, David Brown, David Cohen, David Kirkpatrick, Demi Moore, Demo Day, Diego Gutierrez, Dustin Moskovitz, Edmond Yue, Eduardo Saverin, Emmett Shear, Eric Lefkofsky, Fergal Mullen, FirstMark Capital, Founders At Work, Francis Duong, Gaurav Tewari, Gerald Levin, Gerald Poch, Greg McAdoo, Greylock Partners, Harjeet Taggar, HBO, Highland Capital Partners, Irena Goldenberg, Jared Polis, Jeff Bewkes, Jeff Weiner, Jeff Zucker, Jessica Livingston, Jessica Mah, Jill Kennedy, Joanna Shields, John Hsin, John Palfrey, Jon Miller, Jr., Justin Kan, Justin.tv, Khan Manka, Larry Wilson, Laurence Albukerk, Lawrence Lenihan, Li Ka-shing, Loopt, Manish Patel, Manka Bros., Mark Cuban, Mark Zuckerberg, Matt Cohler, Matt Nichols, Michael Arrington, Michael Gaiss, MySpace, Nick Marsh, Nicolas Carlson, OnMedea, Owen Van Natta, Paul Buchheit, Paul Cianciolo, Paul Graham, Peter Bell, Peter Thiel, Reddit, Richard de Silva, Richard Heitzman, Rick Heitzmann, Robert Morris, Ron Conway, Rudy Adler, Rupert Murdoch, Sand Hill Road, Scott Shane, Scott Switzer, Sequoia Capital, Sergey Nazarov, Shabbir Dahod, Shawn Broderick, Sheryl Sandberg, Sterling Phillips, Sumner Redstone, Tapzilla, TechCrunch, TechStars, TextPayMe, Toy Story 3, Trevor Blackwell, Y Combinator, google, Eric Schmidt, Tina Brown, The Daily Beast, Barry Diller, Dan Lyons, Google Smear campaign, Burson-Marsteller, Chris Soghoian, Jim Goldman, John Mercurio,

Here is a companion to “All The Facebook’s Men” – the actual scene from the original screenplay of “All The President’s Men”

INT. WASHINGTON POST – CONFERENCE ROOM

NATIONAL EDITOR: –let me tell what happened when I was having lunch today at the Sans Souci–

ROSENFLED: –correction–when you were drinking your lunch at the bar of the Sans Souci–

NATIONAL EDITOR: –this White House guy, a good one, a pro, came up and asked what is this Watergate compulsion with you guys and I said, well, we think it’s important and he said, if it’s so goddamn important, who the hell are Woodward and Bernstein?

ROSENFELD: Ask him what he’s really saying– he means take the story away from Woodstein and give it to his people at the National Desk–

NATIONAL EDITOR: –well, I’ve got some pretty experienced fellas sitting around, wouldn’t you say so?

ROSENFELD: Absolutely. And that’s all they do, sit sit sit – every once in a while, they call up a Senator, some reporting–

NATIONAL EDITOR: –well, what if your boys get it wrong?

BRADLEE: (after a beat) Then it’s our asses, isn’t it?

SIMONS: (indicates the meeting is over) And we’ll all have to go to work for a living.

As the men rise and head for the door, the FOREIGN EDITOR moves toward BRADLEE and SIMONS who remain seated as before.

FOREIGN EDITOR: I don’t think either Metropolitan or National should cover the story.

Bradlee and Simons look at him.

FOREIGN EDITOR (CONT’D): I don’t think we should cover the story, period.

BRADLEE: Go on.

FOREIGN EDITOR: It’s not that we’re using unnamed sources that bothers me, or that everything we print the White House denies, or that almost no other papers are reprinting our stuff.

SIMONS: What then?

FOREIGN EDITOR: I don’t believe the goddamn story, Howard, it doesn’t make sense.

BRADLEE: It will, it just hasn’t bottomed out yet, give it time.

FOREIGN EDITOR: Ben, Jesus, there are over two thousand reporters in this town, are there five on Watergate? Where did we suddenly get all this wisdom?

Bradlee and Simons say nothing. They respect this guy.

FOREIGN EDITOR: Look – why would the Republicans do it? My God, McGovern is self-destructing before our eyes — just like Muskie did, Humphrey, the bunch of ’em. Why would the burglars have put the tape around the door instead of up and down unless they wanted to get caught? Why did they take a walkie-talkie and then turn it off, unless they wanted to get caught? Why would they use McCord–the only direct contact to the Republicans?

BRADLEE: You saying the Democrats bugged themselves?

FOREIGN EDITOR: The FBI thinks it’s possible–the Democrats need a campaign issue, corruption’s always a good one. Get off the story, Ben — or put some people on McGovern’s finances; fair is fair, even if our business.

He leaves.

Jill Kennedy – OnMedea