It’s my shortest blog of the year – but I think the point is solid.
Here’s just one of the many reasons from NYMAG.com
Jill Kennedy – OnMedea
The title is not some abstract reference for reconnecting with a global vision…
She LITERALLY needs to get her voice back.
I’m not sure I can listen to another interview with that raspy, unhealthy voice.
And here’s one of the more recent interviews…
Seriously, Marissa, the company (and your baby) will be just fine if you just don’t talk for a few weeks.
You must rest your voice or you will be talking like Harvey Fierstein before too long.
Jill Kennedy – OnMedea
The first draft of my book is finished (more on that in the coming weeks) and I am back on the job here at OnMedea.
It was an excellent summer with lots of quiet and lots of work.
Other than the entire media spectrum going to Hell in a handbasket, there really is nothing much going on.
Movie studios are imploding and on their current tract will produce fewer and fewer quality films while continuing to bore audiences around the world with sequel after sequel after sequel. Don’t the studio bosses know that the Tentpole Is Dead?!
My parent company, Manka Bros., is apparently abandoning original films altogether.
That’s one sure-fire way to kill your business (with all due respect).
Broadcast networks continue on their painfully slow journey to complete irrelevance. (Thank God for football, huh?)
I declared them dead a couple of years ago but they are still on life support – though brain dead.
Oh, yeah, and we’re about to go to war. The world is, frankly, in chaos. My colleague Lester Aldrich wrote a thoughtful piece on the prospect of going to war from his own perspective as an 88-year-old man who has been through two wars.
But I digress… happy to be back. Have a great weekend.
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:Â “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
Hollywood doesn’t need to panic yet – but the powers that be should seriously start thinking about changing film slate strategies.
This is great news for filmmakers, terrible news for Hollywood’s bottom line.
Tentpole movies, when they work, print money for years and years and years – through sequels and licensing, etc. etc.
But, like what happens with obesity, if you give someone a double-quarter pounder meal with super-sized fries every once in a while – it probably won’t make you fat.
If you give someone that meal every freakin’ day for the rest of their lives – they’ll be fat and die much sooner than is necessary.
Hollywood studios have booked a tentpole movie practically every weekend for the next five years.
This is unsustainable and only a matter time before audiences yell bullshit, back away from the Big Mac and change their diet.
This is not to say that these movies are going away completely. There is always an appetite for a great event film spectacle. When they hit, it’s the greatest experience. And I hope that never goes away.
But everything can’t be a tentpole.
Yesterday, I saw the Deadline.com story on Disney’s announced animation slate (see picture).
Personally, I CANNOT WAIT for “Untitled Disney Animation Movie 2017!” And I really can’t wait for the Untitled Toy that my daughter will want.
Studios, especially on the live-action side, have no idea which movies are going to rise up from the pile to get a greenlight five years in advance.
They just know that they have to make 5-6 tentpole movies a year to hit their revenue and profit targets. You can’t make a decent budget projection if you have slated “Silver Linings Playbook 2” or the next film from Alexander Payne.
Tentpoles are necessary for financial planning. But it’s become so much of a science and so NOT much of a creative endeavor that I fear they are suffocating the goose that’s been laying the golden eggs for the past 10 years.
And, seriously, audiences just can’t take it anymore.
They aren’t crying for “Marvel Character #1,000” to finally have his or her own movie!
“Remember that character that cleaned the floors in ‘The Amazing Spider-man Comics #43’? He totally needs his own movie!”
But Hollywood thinks it can do it and that audiences will keep lapping it up.
And this summer, they will – Â “Man Of Steel” and “Pacific Rim” both look fantastic and I’ll be seeing them both on opening weekends with millions of others.
Again, Hollywood doesn’t need to panic yet.
I wrote a couple of years ago that audiences will never tire of super heroes – that the characters who are shoved quickly into movies should not be blamed for the failures of mortal film executives and writers to tell their stories well.
But there is only so much heavy lifting these characters can do – they’re superheroes, they’re not God.
It’s time for Hollywood to take more risks, be more experimental, have more fun. Don’t be afraid to fail.
Film production IS McDonalds these days. The food looks and tastes exactly the same every time (and, sure, there is some comfort in that). But when was the last time you heard an employee at McDonalds say their job was fun and totally creative?
Jill Kennedy – OnMedea
Seriously, what is their problem?
Just because some guy says 12 are dead – doesn’t mean you post it. Even Rupert Murdoch should know that (maybe not).
Jill Kennedy – OnMedea
The PGA and professional golf, in general, is an absolute joke.
How many times during The Masters did we hear that Tiger Woods should withdraw himself from the tournament in order to protect the ‘integrity of golf’?
This is such bullshit.
First of all, the officials missed the call and it wasn’t until after Woods gave an interview that some caller alerted the Augusta Nationalist (my spelling) Golf Club officials that Woods incriminated himself.
Some caller? I can imagine this was the way the scene played out:
Augusta National Golf Course – 19th Hole
Inside a paneled lounge, several white men with southern drawls are drinking scotch and smoking cigars. There is a general laughter that never seems to die down.
Suddenly, a perspiring office worker bursts into the lounge.
OFFICE WORKER: Gentlemen, someone has just called and said Tiger Woods admitted during an interview to stepping back a yard to take a drop.
An Augusta Member (we’ll call him Scooter) drops his smile.
SCOOTER: Aw, Bubby, can’t ya see we’re having our scotch and smoking our cigars. Tiger’s a good ol’ boy and a surprisingly good golfer.
OFFICE WORKER: But more people are calling in. And they’re Tweeting, too!
Another member (we’ll call him Hootie) puts down his scotch and turns grave.
HOOTIE:Â Tweetin’? Gentlemen, we had better address this issue. Can someone please get a copy of that videotape or film of this interview and set it up in the Hogan Room anti-chamber for our immediate review? Bring your glasses, gentlemen. I have decided that scotch will be allowed for one time only in the Hogan Room.
Etc etc etc (I could go on forever with these guys).
We all know what happened. Tiger got a retroactive two stroke penalty and basically was removed from the tournament – at least in spirit. Commentators no longer praised his play or got excited when he made a good shot.
Golf Channel analysts called his decision to keep playing a disgrace and an error in judgment that will follow him the rest of his career and taint his legacy.
Oh, really? What would have made the situation right?
Maybe they should have put him in stocks outside of Butler Cabin for the duration of the tournament and he could have been released by the new champion.
Maybe Tiger should have performed hara-kiri like a Japanese samurai on the 18th green because of what he has done to the great game of golf.
Has the great game of golf and its legacy of racism and exclusionary policies really taken a hit here?
You know what hurts the integrity of golf? The Augusta National Golf Club and its past policy of excluding women and minorities and doing VERY LITTLE to correct the problem (adding Lynn Swan and Condoleezza Rice doesn’t really get you there).
You know what hurts the integrity of golf? The hypocrisy of all those who point a finger at Tiger Woods for cheating on his wife when half the field at The Masters is on wife number 2 or 3 or 4 – with countless girlfriends in between (or during).
You know what hurts the integrity of golf? Old white men commenting that the sole black golfer competing in the tournament should quit when you know they wouldn’t ask that of Fred Couples if he committed the same infraction.
You know what hurts the integrity of golf? Playing a tournament at a club that was founded by a man – Cliff Roberts, the first Augusta Chairman – who once said: “As long as I’m alive, all the golfers will be white and all the caddies will be black.”
You know what hurts the integrity of golf? Those crappy looking green jackets that are mythologized to appear as though they were made by the hands of God.
The Masters – ‘a tradition like no other’ – and golf, in general – had better change its ways or it will be going the way of the dinosaur and the Republican party before too long.
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 Â 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.
Companies who believe that having millions of “Likes” on Facebook is important to their bottom line have it absolutely wrong.
 “Liking” Coke or “Liking” The Avengers on Facebook isn’t going to make a person drink more Coke or see The Avengers more times – it just means they’re going to get nothing but product blasts for the rest of their lives.
I would argue it might actually make you drink less Coke because you’re so fucking annoyed with the relentless marketing from the Coca-Cola Company.
Social media would be incredibly valuable if companies would just leave it alone, make products people really like (not “Like”) and stay out of our faces.
People talking with each other (real people) and texting and emailing and chatting, etc. is the greatest marketing tool ever invented (and it wasn’t actually invented by anyone – save God). And companies are figuring out new and clever ways to fuck that up.
If you mention in your status that you are running out to Starbucks – there is really good chance your Picture and Status Update will appear in one of your friends News Feed as ads.
So, you are now, unwittingly, a Corporate Shill for Starbucks. Most people don’t like to be Corporate Shills. The term “Corporate Shill” is not a term of endearment. It makes your real friends hate you just a little bit more than they did before you pushed a product on them.
I did a little experiment over the past month. I decided to accept everyone who requested to be my friend on Facebook –Â http://www.facebook.com/jill.kennedy.5095
I had my own little circle of work colleagues and college friends (around 30) – but decided to accept all comers in the hope that I could expand the number of “Likes” on my newly-created Company page –Â http://www.facebook.com/MankaBros
So I accepted and sort of went begging for “Likes” as so many people do. “If you ‘Like’ my page I’ll like your ebook or Erotic Blacklight Art Page in return…'” etc. etc. etc.
This was an eye-opening and humiliating experience – I now have 768 Friends (and counting) and not many “Likes.”Â
But, surprise, suddenly there was pornography in my News Feed.
There was every kind of racist Poke imaginable. Scary sexually advances. (And, to be fair, a few genuinely nice people.)
But, in general, a stunning display of what’s really out there.
Not pretty.
Are these the people Coke wants to “Like” them?
The marketing world’s latest buzz phrase is “Big Data” – gathering everybody’s information. Seriously, there are people out there whose information should never be shared except with some type of law enforcement.
Personally, I can only speak for big media companies (and myself), but I can imagine it applies to every company (and person) out there – be careful what you wish for when you start your social media campaigns because once people “Like” you, they never leave you alone.
Jill Kennedy – OnMedea
P.S. – “LIKE” ME ON FACEBOOK!” –Â http://www.facebook.com/onmedea
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