What Have We Learned From MySpace?

It used to be when you bought a business you bought something tangible. No more.

News Corp, owners of Fox News, Fox Television, Wall Street Journal, NY Post and a zillion other media properties is no longer the owner MySpace. It wasn’t pretty. This was a fire sale. Rupert Murdoch, the guy behind News Corp, has to be smarting from this.

With that in mind let’s look back and see was written not too long after News Corp bought it. Here’s some of what David Carr’s Media Equation column from the October 29, 2007 New York Times.

No snickering please!

In the United States, Mr. Murdoch’s appeal is thought to work in the heartland, where Fox News takes aim. But on the left coast, Mr. Murdoch is truly among friends. The attendees at the Web 2.0 conference know him as the ultimate market timer, the guy who swooped in out of nowhere and bought MySpace for $580 million two years ago, before its audience doubled and before social networks became the platform of the future. And this was before Facebook got a valuation of $15 billion via an investment from Microsoft on Wednesday.

“This is not just another rich guy — there are a lot of those around here,” said John Battelle, one of the summit’s hosts. “He built News Corp. from not much, with his own two hands, and this is a room full of entrepreneurs. The other thing this room respects is intelligence, and they can tell he is smart, really smart, not just from what he says, but what he has done with MySpace.”

I just read John Battelle’s writing a book that “will give us a forecast of the interconnected world in 2040, then work backwards to explain how the personal, economic, political, and technological strands of this human narrative have evolved from the pivotal moment in which we find ourselves now.” Yeah… uhhh … right.

It used to be when you bought a business you bought something tangible. No more. Was there anything to MySpace that couldn’t be carried around in a briefcase? What did Murdoch buy for $580 million in 2005? What did he sell today for $35 million?

When companies can rise or fall this quickly how can you properly value them? Maybe the lesson of the Internet era is companies should be run to earn, not to be flipped.

Note: I work for FoxCT. We are affiliated with Fox Television, meaning we run The Simpsons, American Idol and NFL Football. We are not owned or run by News Corp.

Murdoch Versus Dolan: The Two Least Sympathetic Figures In Media Are Fighting

It’s a pissing match. In a pissing match everyone gets wet.

Cablevision and Fox are fighting. It’s tough to take sides. This is like the old commercial where you had to choose between a headache and upset stomach!

Seriously, it’s Rupert Murdoch versus Chuck Dolan. These are the two least sympathetic characters in media!

As of this moment WWOR and WNYW have been removed from Cablevision systems serving millions of viewers. It’s a pissing match. In a pissing match everyone gets wet.

The New York Times reports:

News Corp. quickly issued a release headlined, “Cablevision Drops Fox.” At the same time, Cablevision began posting a message on the screen that accused News Corp. of “pulling Fox 5 and My 9 off air” and declared it was News Corp.’s decision, “not ours.”

I work in TV so I’m not quite an unbiased observer, but I can give you an idea what’s going on.

For the longest time TV stations were thrilled to be on cable. Cable brought our pictures into people’s homes more clearly. It was a marriage of convenience on both sides. Cable served the overwhelming majority of our viewers and we in turn provided the most watched stations.

As cable began to sell local advertising and the cable networks began to pour money into new programming the marriage became a little more strained. We were still cable’s big dog, but the cable systems themselves were becoming our competitors!

Then local TV revenue began to shrink and TV station owners looked at cable and wondered why TV stations weren’t getting the cash they were paying money to CNN, USA, TBS, The Weather Channel, and all the others. TV station owners began to demand money from cable systems to carry our signals. Our marriage of convenience was turning ugly!

Over the past few years there have been a few showdowns like the one between Fox and Cablevision. Stations have been pulled from cable systems taking away popular shows and even more popular sporting events. In New York City this weekend Fox will be carrying the baseball playoffs and the NFL. How unhappy do you suppose Cablevision subscribers will be to lose the Yankees&#185 and football Giants?

At some point one of the parties will cry “Uncle” and a truce will be declared. It could happen tomorrow. It could happen months from now!

In the meantime both Cablevision and Fox are calling each other names and trying to look like the good guy. Like I said earlier, it’s Dolan versus Murdoch. This fight has no good guys!

Here’s the video Cablevision has been running on the channels formerly occupied by WWOR and WNYW.

&#185 – I’ve got an error to correct. The Saturday Yankees game is actually on TBS and not affected. The Phillies game Saturday night is on Fox and will be missing from Cablevision’s New York area systems. In addition the Fox station in Philadelphia is part of this dispute, so Cablevision subscribers near Philadelphia won’t get to see tonight’s game nor the Eagles game tomorrow.

Something Fox News Is Doing Right!

Today Fox News Channel, MSNBC, The Washington Post and others have positioned themselves and their coverage away from the middle. That puts them under the microscope as political opponents scour for weakness which can be used to embarrass them.

fnc-logo.jpgWelcome to journalism in the 21st Century. The ‘right down-the-middle’ mantra of the last half century is gone. We’re back to journalism practiced by partisans.

Yeah–back to. This is how it used to be.

Here’s a little Wikipedia refresher on William Randolph Hearst. I suspect you’ll be surprised!

As Martin Lee and Norman Solomon noted in their 1990 book Unreliable Sources, Hearst “routinely invented sensational stories, faked interviews, ran phony pictures and distorted real events.” This approach came to be known as yellow journalism, named after the Yellow Kid, a character in the New York Journal’s color comic strip Hogan’s Alley.

Hearst’s use of yellow journalism techniques in his New York Journal to whip up popular support for U.S. military adventurism in Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines in 1898 was also criticized in Upton Sinclair’s 1919 book, The Brass Check: A Study of American Journalism. According to Sinclair, Hearst’s newspaper employees were “willing by deliberate and shameful lies, made out of whole cloth, to stir nations to enmity and drive them to murderous war.” Sinclair also asserted that in the early 20th century Hearst’s newspapers lied “remorselessly about radicals,” excluded “the word Socialist from their columns” and obeyed “a standing order in all Hearst offices that American Socialism shall never be mentioned favorably.” In addition, Sinclair charged that Hearst’s “Universal News Bureau” re-wrote the news of the London morning papers in the Hearst office in New York and then fraudulently sent it out to American afternoon newspapers under the by-lines of imaginary names of non-existent “Hearst correspondents” in London, Paris, Venice, Rome, Berlin, etc.

Hearst is just the easiest example of what’s certainly a long list. Rupert Murdoch is a lot less of an outlier than he’s portrayed.

Today Fox News Channel, MSNBC, The Washington Times, New York Post and others have positioned themselves and their coverage away from the middle. That puts them increasingly under the microscope as political opponents scour for weakness which can be used to embarrass them.

Jon Stewart has mastered the art. He often shows FNC on both sides of the same argument, depending on the political winds at any given moment. Recently he showed Fox using video from one event as coverage of another more sparsely attended event.

Last week Fox did it again. Sarah Palin video from the presidential campaign was used as B-roll for a book signing appearance. An anchor talked about the “huge crowds.” Oops.

Maybe, even for Fox, enough is enough. Here’s an internal memo passed along by MediaBistro’s FishbowlDC.

Subject: Quality Control We had a mistake on Newsroom today when a wrong book cover went on screen during a guest segment, the kind of thing that can fall through the cracks on any day with any story given the large amount of elements and editorial we run through our broadcasts. Unfortunately, it is the latest in a series of mistakes on FNC in recent months. We have to all improve our performance in terms of ensuring error-free broadcasts. To that end, there was a meeting this afternoon between senior managers and the folks who run the daytime shows in which expectations were reviewed, and the following results were announced: Effective immediately, there is zero tolerance for on-screen errors. Mistakes by any member of the show team that end up on air may result in immediate disciplinary action against those who played significant roles in the “mistake chain,” and those who supervise them. That may include warning letters to personnel files, suspensions, and other possible actions up to and including termination, and this will all obviously play a role in performance reviews. So we now face a great opportunity to review and improve on our workflow and quality control efforts. To make the most of that opportunity, effective immediately, Newsroom is going to “zero base” our newscast production. That means we will start by going to air with only the most essential, basic, and manageable elements. To share a key quote from today’s meeting: “It is more important to get it right, than it is to get it on.” We may then build up again slowly as deadlines and workloads allow so that we can be sure we can quality check everything before it makes air, and we never having to explain, retract, qualify or apologize again. Please know that jobs are on the line here. I can not stress that enough. I will review again during our Monday editorial meeting, and in the days and weeks ahead. This experience should make us stronger editorially, and I encourage everyone to invest themselves one hundred and ten percent in this effort.

The memo has a message for all newsrooms of all political persuassions: Content trumps presentation.

If the reason for these most recent screw-ups is a rush to make the broadcast look pretty or flashy the emphasis is wrong. Facts need to be correct before worrying about production values.

This isn’t going to change FNC’s slant. They’ll continue to cover news from a right-of-center perspective. I actually have little problem with that. It just looks like the effort will be made to sell their points from a more factual base.

Of course it’s also possible the memo was leaked to provide easy political cover while nothing changes! We’ll have to wait and see.

About The Big Bing Rumor

How is this not restraint of trade?

Briefly–I’ve seen lots of posts suggesting Microsoft’s Bing might pay News Corp (Rupert Murdoch) to let them index News Corp sites with the proviso they don’t allow Google to do the same.

How is this not restraint of trade?

Rupert Murdoch From Both Sides Of His Mouth

Murdoch blames the search engines, but the truth is the entire business model for advertiser supported information is broken.

My friend Farrell forwarded an article from Rupert Murdoch’s Sky News:

Rupert Murdoch has warned internet search engines the time has come for them to pay for news content.

The News Corp chief executive said sites such as Google and Yahoo, which take content from a range of sources, would soon be charged for the service.

This is totally within Murdoch’s right and if he wants to put his content behind a paywall he should. The New York Times used to do this with much of their exclusive content, like columnists, but later relented.

If taken at his word, Murdoch could implement a change to cut off search engines now.

To stop search engines from indexing your site you simply add a tiny text file to the root directory. It’s beyond simple and can be totally accomplished with one line of code. The Journal, or any news site, could do that in a few minutes.

Not only is that not what Murdoch’s doing–he is doing the opposite!

If you go to the Wall Street Journal site you’ll find many (not all) stories run for a few paragraphs and then stop with “…” Here’s an example I found in a link from the Journal’s home page:

As of July, nearly 90% of U.S. households paid for television either from cable, satellite or phone companies rather …

It’s obvious the story continues, but it only continues for subscribers.

However, if you enter that same sentence fragment into Google you get a link to the full Journal story!

As of July, nearly 90% of U.S. households paid for television either from cable, satellite or phone companies rather than getting it free from broadcast stations, according to Nielsen.

The Google link and the direct link from WSJ’s home page produce the same URL link. I believe WSJ’s website is configured to deliver the full content when the referrer is Google or Yahoo!, etc.&#185

The URL for the Sky News story I quoted at the beginning of this post is optimized to make it more visible to search engines. Many of the story’s key words are embedded in it: http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Business/News-Corp-Chief-Executive-Rupert-Murdoch-Tells-World-Media-Summit-Search-Engines-Must-Pay-For-News/Article/200910215402865?lpos=Business_First_Buisness_Article_Teaser_Region_0&lid=ARTICLE_15402865_News_Corp_Chief_Executive_Rupert_Murdoch_Tells_World_Media_Summit_Search_Engines_Must_Pay_For_News_.

The Journal and Sky probably do this because search engines drive traffic to their sites. Without the search engines wsj.com and sky.com would see a lot fewer hits. They are making money from those hits–though certainly not as much as they want nor probably not enough to survive in their current business model.

Murdoch blames the search engines, but the truth is the entire business model for advertiser supported information is broken. The type of journalism the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and other ‘classic’ news sources provide is dependent on selling high cost advertising.

Unfortunately, the same eyeball on the net is worth a lot less than in the paper or on TV. It’s a matter of supply and demand. The Internet has opened up the supply so there’s nearly an infinite number of places to run your ad.

Murdoch will grouse and yell and flail like the bully he’s always been–but he’s screwed and he knows it. He’s not in that boat alone. Mass media as we know it is terribly ill.

&#185 – My research on this is less than voluminous. How they do it isn’t as important as the fact they do it.

All The Dirt That’s Fit To Print Or Broadcast Or Browse

If Obama cured cancer, Drudge would find a downside.

As I write this a Chris Shays for Congress ad is on during the Emmys. Even Republicans are running against the Republican Party. Shays is. Everyone’s a rebel.

I’ve read a lot about this presidential race being the meanest, dirtiest ever–and then I’ve read it’s not. Who knows? There’s no shortage of bullshit available on both sides.

This is probably our most partisan election as far as media goes.

There’s Fox–strongly Republican, though publicly in denial. Rupert Murdoch was on Fox last week saying what awful would happen if Obama is elected.

MSNBC has turned sharply Democratic and otherwise left-of-center with Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow. It’s a little less comfortable for MSNBC. Unlike Fox, there is an affiliation with a non-partisan news organization (NBC) and no Roger Ailes. They’d do better with a Roger Ailes to run interference.

I am most intrigued with politically slanted coverage on the net. I’ve been a big Drudge reader for years. He is heavily out in support of McCain/Palin. Tonight on Drudge:

OBAMAPELOSI DEMAND ‘OVERSIGHT’ ON BAILOUT…

PALIN DRAWS CROWD OF 60,000 IN FLORIDA

If Obama cured cancer, Drudge would find a downside.

Drudge is now balanced by Huffington Post. Wasn’t Arianna Huffington once a conservative? On Huffington McCain can do no right.

Obama: Bailout Plan Must Address “The Crisis On Main Street And Around Kitchen Tables Across America”

Here’s the problem with all this vitriol. Once the election is over there’s going to be a huge segment of our population unhappy and ready to hatchet whomever wins. No matter what the result, this promises to be the most divisive (and derisive) election I can remember.

Who Is Winning The Writer’s Strike

Admission first: I’m a union member. I’m not a strident, by the book kind of guy, but I do participate. I’ve never been on strike and hope I never will be.

I have been watching, with interest, the labor dispute between the Writers Guild and producers. The economics of entertainment are changing rapidly. I really don’t know what the correct solution is.

No conventional broadcasting company is making enough money on the Internet to make up for the money the Internet has siphoned from over-the-air showings.

There is one thing that’s perfectly clear in this dispute. The writers are winning the war of PR and winning it handily.

The problem for the producers is, they’re up against people who can cleverly frame an argument… who are used to doing it for a living.

Here’s an example (see below) I found on Youtube.com. These writers from the Daily Show have taken the techniques they were using against politicians and turned them on the producers.

Substitute George Bush and Dick Cheney with Sumner Redstone and Rupert Murdoch and you’ll have the idea.

As with any strike, there is peripheral damage. Lots of non-combatants are out-of-work. The economy in Los Angeles and, to a lesser effect, New York will feel it. And, of course, you and I will suffer when 2&#189 Men runs out of fresh episodes&#185.

&#185 – I’ve never watched the show, but it seems like low hanging comedic fruit to go after them. I have never shied away from a cheap laugh.

A New Network

Recently the UPN and WB TV networks decided to merge and form CW. News Corp (aka Rupert Murdoch), which owns the Fox Network and also a few UPN stations was left out in the cold. Today, their revenge: “My Network TV.”

I’ve attached the NewsCorp press release after the jump, but basically this little network will premiere with two telenovellas.

Though seldom seen in the English speaking United States, novellas are a mainstay of Spanish television here and lots of networks worldwide.

Maybe the word novella is a bit pretentious. These are soap operas, in prime time, Unlike most nighttime network dramas we see now, these will be shot on videotape (or whatever the next generation of video storage turns out to be), not film.

I would expect these to be sexy, steamy soap operas – as far as the envelope can be pushed.

If, and this is a big if, one character or one story line gets ‘hot’, this will be the best investment in modern television. “My Network TV,” more than any other network, will be driven by the power of word-of-mouth. One of these telenovellas could get hot in an instant.

Here in Connecticut, it’s certainly possible My Network TV will be offered to WCTX, our UPN affiliate. I have no knowledge of any inside dealings and would expect to be kept out of the loop, as you would expect with any employee who had no need to know.

It is seldom you see old line media making creative moves like this which might build over-the-air viewing. This is definitely out of the box thinking, probably by Roger Ailes (also responsible for Fox News Channel).

I am worried I won’t approve of the final product which is presented. Still, I have to say I am pleased that there’s still creative thinking going on at the network television level.

Continue reading “A New Network”

My Favorite Misconception

It used to be all I had to worry about was that rumor I colored my hair. Nope – never. I’ve got lots of gray sprinkled in there, but it just isn’t seen on TV and I’m not sure why. But the rumor persists.

Tonight I got this email from my friend/physician Steve with new rumors.

He said you’ve only got your job “because your family owns the network.” When I pursued this further, he told me that your family owns the Fox Network (it should only be, right?)

When I pointed out that WTNH isn’t part of the Fox Network AND that I happen to know your father and (1) he hasn’t got that kind of money and (2) his name isn’t Rupert Murdoch, he stopped. For a moment.

But then he said, “and [your] father-in-law is Dr. Mel!!!”

Does Helaine know that? Did you? I asked where he got this information and he said he heard it a long time ago. I told him that I knew for a fact that he was wrong about that, too (he either thinks that you’re really young or Dr Mel is much much much older.)

Isn’t this crazy? That’s the first I’ve heard about the Fox Network, but I get the Dr. Mel father-in-law question all the time. Both, of course, not true.

Where do these things get started? In fact, why would anyone care enough to start something like this?

I often worry about the hair coloring rumor, because I don’t want people to think I’m trying to scam them by being something I’m not.

I visited the Fox lot this summer. trust me, if I owned the network, I would have had a much better parking spot.

L.A. In The Sunshine Is Very Enticing

I had a ‘date’ for lunch, so I drove Stef and Helaine to Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. There was a time when I had to explain Rodeo Drive to people who had never been to L.A., but it has become larger than life and universally known.

I wasn’t there, so I don’t know much of what went on (and since it was primarily shopping, I don’t want to know). There is one story the girls shared with me.

As they walked down the street they passed a trash can with smoke pouring from it. A man walked out of a store, poured a bottle of water in&#185 and left. But the smoke continue to waft out.

Within a few minutes, the sound of sirens. Then a Beverly Hills fire truck, police cars and traffic agents showed up. The street was blocked off and firefighters, direct from central casting, put out the smoldering trash receptacle.

Meanwhile, back in Century City, I was pulling onto the 20th Century Fox lot for lunch. Originally I drove in from the main entrance on Pico. The security guard there re-directed me to the parking garage off Galaxy.

Though I was farther from my destination, that was a good thing. I got a chance to walk through the Fox lot.

Make no mistake about it, this is a movie factory – which is very cool. Everywhere you walk are signs you’re in “Hollywood.” Though I saw no production in progress, it was obvious there was a lot going on.

There is no strange thing I saw at Fox. There were at least two vending boxes selling the NY Post. Granted, it is owned by Rupert Murdoch who also owns Fox, but it’s just a strange place to see the Post on sale.

Lunch was with someone I first met in 2nd grade! He is now a highly placed executive at Fox Television… and that’s why I’ll preserve his anonymity.

He’s a very nice guy, was very bright back then, and hasn’t changed. He is in a business where each and every decision has dollars attached to it. It’s a lot of pressure, a lot of accountability and I think he enjoys it.

We talked about people we knew from school and our families. In some ways our lives have run parallel. We both started families, having children, later in life.

It was really a great lunch and fun talking with someone who has insight into a part of my business that I normally have little contact with. As we said goodbye, the Robert Blake verdict came in.

Wow. No one more surprised than me. Well, maybe Robert.

I left Fox and headed to Beverly Hills to pick up Helaine and Stef. There had been a whole lot of looking and a little bit of buying.

We headed back to the hotel so I could pick up my camera. When we got there I noticed the satellite trucks and microwave vans lining up on Avenue of the Stars, in front of the hotel. “Arnold” was coming to speak at the Century Plaza tonight and protesters were expected! Coverage was assured.

After a quick break we headed back to the Valley. We wanted to take a look at a house. It was 4:30 and traffic on Santa Monica Boulevard was awful. The 405 was worse!

In the car, the subject turned to driving on California freeways. The 405, for instance, is 5 lanes in each direction. If you’re used to driving on 2 or 3 lane Interstates, 5 lanes can be unnerving.

Steffie’s theory is the right line on a 5 lane highway isn’t the breakdown lane, it’s the crying lane! People who are flustered, or otherwise unable to handle the highway pull to the side and cry. She might be right.

We cruised through Encino and Sherman Oaks, stopping at “Belle Gray,” a boutique owned by Lisa Rinna. Though Stef bought a shirt, she said the folks in the store weren’t particularly friendly or helpful.

After stopping at Ralph’s to pick up bottled water and fruit for the room, we headed to the Sherman Oaks Galleria and dinner at the Cheesecake Factory.

The Galleria was the mall setting for the movie “Fast Times at Ridgemont High.” Of course nearly every place in the Los Angeles area has been the setting for something. A few years ago, after falling on hard times, the mall was closed, gutted and rebuilt. What is there now is smaller and open air.

In fact for dinner, we sat under a propane heater on an open air patio. The night was beautiful. The portions immense. We ate an left.

So, here it is 9:39 PM, as I type. Helaine and Stef are in bed and asleep. I won’t be far behind.

Tomorrow we’re planning on heading to the Pacific Coast Highway and driving through Malibu. Later, we’ve got dinner reservations with some friends. More tomorrow.

&#185 – This being Beverly Hills, I assume it was Evian.