myblog

Power to the producers

Like more than 70 million people worldwide, I just watched they “Kony 2012” video on YouTube. It’s powerful, engaging and more than worth the time. If you haven’t seen it, you owe it to yourself to spend the 29 minutes.

 What can we learn from Jason Russell’s video? Too many things to count. But let me connect a few dots in the world of new media.

 For perspective, “American Idol”, TV’s most popular show, reaches 12 million viewers on a typical night. It’s all about entertainment and it’s in its twelfth season. Kony 2012 is a gut-wrenching expose of Joseph Kony, a Ugandan warlord who abducts kids and turns them into sex slaves and soldiers in his rebel army. Documentary producer Russell has reached a massive audience with a serious message by leveraging the power of social media. His goal: to shine the spotlight of truth on Kony and provoke the international community to stop this criminal.

 Russell is a great storyteller, effective communicator and social activist with justice in his sights. But imagine for a moment that his strategy is used for less lofty goals. Like selling entertainment.

 For example, a producer or production company creates the pilot for a TV show. But rather than sell it to a network, it’s posted on YouTube. It goes viral and builds dramatic interest in the new show and its characters.

 Then, teases for other episodes in the series appear on YouTube and Facebook, directing viewers to a Web site where they can pay per view. In Jason Russell’s case, if only 10 percent of his current audience decides to pay to watch the second episode, that would be more than 7 million viewers. And any money, let’s say a buck a show, would go directly to him and his cause.

 So, I ask you, in the future, why will creators go to the networks or studios with their scripts? Some will need corporate Hollywood to underwrite their productions. However, in many other cases, private investors could play that role. With on-demand viewing and streaming video, the producer no longer needs a syndicator or regular time slot on a cable network. They simply need an audience that is willing to pay or sponsors who will pony up the dough to reach an established audience. And with Web TV, you don’t need Nielsen to monitor your ratings. You can count hits automatically, record how long people stay with a program and where they go when they’re done.

 In fact, you don’t even need the likes of Netflix to carry your show. That streaming service is in peril, as their contracts with the movie studios are running out in the next couple of years. Soon Hollywood’s moguls will be demanding billions, not millions for the rights to stream their movies on the Web. Giants with deep pockets,  like Google and Amazon, may gobble up that territory. As the recession wanes, the value of content is coming back.

 So, once again, the creative mind is king. Unless Netflix, the networks and their kind pay to partner with content developers, they will soon become empty pipelines.

 Jason Russell’s noble Facebook crusade is attempting to liberate Africa’s children. In the meantime, he may have empowered artists, worldwide. 

 

Reality TV

 Anyone who has every collaborated to produce a television show, knows it’s an imperfect process. Getting creatives to cooperate is a little like herding cats. By nature, people who make TV are fiercely free spirited and tend to be stubbornly committed to their individual visions. And then there are the egos.

 Now you can see this dysfunctional yet magical dynamic in HBO’s amusing documentary, “Exporting Raymond.” It features the creator of the Emmy-winning show, “Everybody Loves Raymond”, as he attempts to produce the sitcom in Moscow for Russian television.

 This is no ordinary behind-the -scenes feature. Cameras follow Phil Rosenthal through the ordeal of translating the whacky family life made famous by Ray Romano and cast. But in Russia, Rosenthal struggles to convince the production team that his way is funny and theirs is … well, Russian.

 Even the czar of Moscow’s high theatre gets involved, and Rosenthal is genuinely in awe of his stature and brilliance.

 Although humorous at points, to industry insiders, “Exporting Raymond” will feel painfully real. The conflict between producers, directors, actors and Rosenthal is classic and all too familiar. It is from this friction that the heat of great productions is born. That is if those involved are mature and honest enough to seize the best ideas once they boil over.

 In fact, there’s one scene where the head of comedy for Russian broadcasting is watching the taping. Even he sees that it isn’t funny. And at this point when all seems lost, the director finally turns to Rosenthal to ask him how he would change the scene. And then he follows his advice. Suddenly, everyone is on the same page. The lines are clicking. The audience that has been paid to laugh is genuinely cackling.

 I won’t spoil the ending for you in case you haven’t seen it. It’s worth the 90 minutes for any audience. But if you’re in the biz you’ll see that it speaks the international language of TV.

 Nyet invented here. 

 

Local matters

While the world tunes into the Academy Awards to see who waltzes away with Oscar, I’d like to take just a minute to focus attention on the local scene. Not Michigan’s movie industry, but Detroit TV.

 As a product of the Motor City’s television industry from 1979-87, I have to confess it’s painful today to tune into Detroit’s ABC, CBS, NBS and FOX affiliates. These stations’s are skeletons of their former organizations and are generally dedicated to police blotter, scandal, weather and sports. The news departments are actually sharing footage to save costs as budgets dwindle to keep pace with declining audiences. Local programming is virtually extinct, unless it’s a paid infomercial by a healthcare system or a telethon, with airtime bought by the charity raising funds.

 And then there’s “Let It Rip” on FOX in Detroit. It’s a low budget, bare knuckles, smash mouth gab-a-lot where the smooth and professional veteran news anchor, Huel Perkins, hosts local newsmakers and commentators on the hottest topics, usually local. His corner man and cohost, attorney, Charlie Langton, sparred late Friday night with the co-founders of Detroit 300 -- a grass roots, community group that works the city’s streets to make them safer. They were deconstructing last week’s murder of a nine-month old boy, shot in in a gang-related incident when assailants used an assault weapon to indiscriminately pepper his home with rapid gunfire.

 The conversation was intelligent, detailing the battle to quell vicious street violence in a town where citizens are reluctant to cooperate with cops. Detroit 300 was calling on resident’s to take back their community by reporting criminals and gang bangers who are crossing the line, to kill grandmothers and babies.

 The production values were simple, but the topic was universally compelling. These ingredients are essential to successful communications and any worthwhile program. There was no screaming and shouting; just an unvarnished yet civilized exploration of an inner-city paradox. A lifestyle where neighbors are afraid of the bad guys and afraid to get caught informing the cops. It’s the most community service I’ve seen from a local TV station in years.

I’m going to be dropping in on “Let It Rip” when I can on Sunday nights at 6:30 p.m. or on demand at myfoxdetroit.com.

 It’s easy to get caught up in the drama of the world torn by war and strife, the struggle for independence, the toxic tragedy of divided nations, including our own, and the spectacular sacrifice that achieves world championships in sports. But few things on television will have more impact on your life than genuine issues in your neighborhood, county or state. In some cases, these are matters of life and death.

 There’s a void among local media created by collapsing budgets chasing a bottomline business strategy over a cliff. The void is waiting for a financial commitment that repays viewers, listeners and readers for their loyal following.

 It’s called meaningful, regular local programming and reporting about things that matter at your kitchen table. I say, let it rip.

 

 

 

"A Bite of the Apple" -- Season One

Have you ever watched an episode of your favorite TV series and wished you didn’t have to wait a week or even a day to see the next one? Of course you have.

And in the future, you may get your wish.

Netflix, the Web-based subscription service for viewing movies and TV shows has become a content developer. In fact, they have two original series, and viewers can access an entire season all at once via the Internet. That’s right. No waiting until next week. Watch every episode of a brand new show on the day it debuts.

“Lilyhammer” is the Netflix hit that is now Norway’s most popular TV series. In fact, it’s already the most watched show in Norwegian television history.

It features Steven Van Zandt of Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band. Van Zandt also played the mobster “Silvio” in HBO’s blockbuster hit series “The Sopranos”. A million Norwegians watched the first episode of his new show, in which he plays a New York mob boss in witness protection, hiding out in Lillehammer, Norway. His character, Frank Tagliano, chose the snowy destination based on watching the 1994 Winter Olympics broadcast from there. Now he’s an unemployed, immigrant gangster far from his territory in the big apple. If you’re a “Soprano’s” fan, you can imagine the fun.

Although a Norwegian production company produced the show for the Norwegian Broadcasting Company, Netflix helped finance it. And Americans will only see it via the Web, not over the air or on cable. But with Netflix, you can stream it to you big screen.

Hulu, another Internet-based TV entertainment source recently announced its own original series. And YouTube has paid Jay-Z and Madonna to develop YouTube video channels with fresh, unique content.

It only makes sense. If you can deliver entertainment via the Web or some other method, then why pay tolls to cable companies and satellite services. That’s obviously why Comcast bought NBC. They’re only hope for long-term survival is to create their own, exclusive content that people want to watch.

Now here’s an exciting twist to consider. Apple made news this week talking about plans to build on its Apple TV product. It’s an affordable ($200) device that allows you to stream video content from the Internet to your television. Or for that matter, it will mirror you iPad, iPod or iPhone and connect those devises to you big screen, too. So a movie you have on your phone can be viewed wirelessly on the flat screen in your living room or wherever. Apple TV can also connect you to all the content you’ve stored on the iCloud, so you have access to all the assets you own.

Up until now, Apple has made a bundle selling other people’s creative properties via iTunes, where people buy movies, music, TV shows and other entertainment to play on their various pods and pads. But, it’s only a matter of time until we’ll buy  electronic art directly from the artists or their producers.

I wonder if Apple’s next step is to begin generating its own original entertainment to sell with Apple TV. Imagine they hire Ken Burns to produce a documentary series on Steve Jobs and the evolution of his company. Maybe Ron Howard directs a movie based on Jobs’ life. If Mark Zuckerberg gets “The Social Network”, a movie celebrating the launch of Facebook, Jobs deserves an epic drama on the scale of the “Star Wars” trilogy.

At $500 a share for its stock, Apple certainly has the cash to go into the entertainment business. If they’re as good at it as they have been at re-inventing computing and communications, we’ll soon forget about traditional TV.

 And if “Jobs” becomes a series, I’ll bet we watch every episode on the first weekend.

 

e-Cops

One of the great perks of working from home is a daily walk. I’ve been taking one at lunch for over 15 years. I do a brisk 1-1/2 miles in about 18 minutes, plus a cool down to round out the half hour.

When I started in 1996, the economy was expanding faster than my waistline. As I walked quickly through my neighborhood, I stepped to the staccato beat of hammers, buzzing saws and humming machinery. Seemed like every other house was undergoing a makeover. I’d occasionally chat with a carpenter or contractor and got to know my local postal workers a bit.

By the time the economy started its death spiral in 2007 and 2008, there were very few construction projects and even fewer people on the street. Instinctively, I started taking some extra security precautions, like locking my back gate as I left the house. I’ve always locked all the doors. It’s just common sense. Plus, I had produced my share of TV features on crime and preventing it. I’ll never forget interviewing a Detroit cop who said, “you basically want to do anything you can to make it tougher for someone to break into your house.”

Most break-in artists want nothing to do with people, violence or trouble, he explained. They’re out for an easy score. When you lock your doors, turn on lights and bolt the gate, you’re making it a little tougher.

But it surprises me that my local PD hasn’t taken advantage of the Internet to up the ante with criminals. Recently, there’s been a rash of break ins in our Dearborn neighborhood. Apparently, the perpetrator is using landscaping blocks to bust in doors and windows. Curiously, the cops have found houses vandalized, but the homeowners aren’t reporting any missing valuables. Lots of damage, but the only thing reportedly taken has been a handgun, so far.

I first heard about it from my mom who had seen a TV news story. Then I read a Patch article.

My question is: why aren’t local police e-mailing and texting citizens reports about burglaries or other crime trends in the community?

At the  Dearborn Police Web site, you can file an official police report for certain crimes. You can access information to start your own neighborhood watch. But I didn’t see any links to check out crime patterns. The department’s Facebook page is virtually dormant, with a handful of likes and well under 100 visits.

If law enforcement championed a communications campaign to acquire citizen contact information, e-mails and cell phone numbers, they could tap into a powerful source of security. A kind of electronic neighborhood watch. This tactic could be especially valuable when communities are pressed for funds and resources. Taxpayers can play an important role by supporting first responders and adding a level of vigilance that is impossible for police to deliver.

Public service announcements with McGruff the Crime Dog are nice public relations. But if we really want to improve results, communities should consider properly implemented, social media crime campaigns. They might actually save lives. Photos might include sketches of the perp. Postings could feature descriptions of the criminals and their MO as well as recommended security procedures. Of course, citizens could provide tips through the site or directly to the police.

Making people aware of threats and providing very rapid, helpful information could make the difference between a foiled B&E and a violence.

Let’s take a byte out of crime.

 

 

 

Head Games

Somewhere inside Lucas Oil Stadium, an emergency medical team will be ready to respond to an injured player on Super Bowl Sunday. During most games at most stadiums, these first responders remain idle on the bench.

That’s not to say there aren’t serious, life-threatening injuries occurring every week in the National Football League. They go unnoticed. For that matter, those same traumas occur on the college gridiron and at the high school level.

Some studies estimate that as many as 15-20% of high school players (200,000 to 250,000 boys) experience concussions each year.

During the run-up to this week’s big game, media outlets have explored the head injury issue. Last Sunday night, CNN and Sanjay Gupta, M.D., exposed some jaw-dropping insight on the impact of repetitive concussions. A pathologist examined the brain of a deceased 17-year-old player and identified conditions of dementia. That’s right, this young victim’s brain had started to turn very old because of the beating it took on the field.

For years, HBO’s “Real Sports” has been the journalistic leader in efforts to report the connections between football head injuries and their long term affects, including causing ALS.

Although slow to acknowledge the scientific connections, even the NFL has now made a formal commitment to fund studies of concussions and improve the healthcare of injured athletes.

Despite all this data, why haven’t we seen a better football helmet?

Battle Sports Science manufactures a variety of protective gear including a chinstrap Impact Indicator ^TM. The technology measures the force a football player endures and if the green light goes out, it means he should sit and his coach should evaluate him for a concussion. It’s a step in the right direction, but it would be better if we could prevent the injuries in the first place.

When it comes to safety, the NFL, NCAA and governing bodies for high school sports could all take a cue from the car business. The laws of physics are the same. It’s not the acceleration that hurts you in a car crash or a smashing hit on the football field. It’s the deceleration that kills. You stop so fast in a vehicle collision that your vital organs hit your skeleton at high speed. And the same thing happens to the brain during a helmet-to-helmet hit. The organ and its surrounding fluids are battered back and forth within the skull.

The big difference is that many people never experience a car crash in their lives. On the football field, collisions occur on virtually every play. And they can add up to trouble.

Like the NFL, the carmakers too were slow to get behind advanced safety. Lee Iacocca was against airbags before he was for them.  Eventually, Detroit and the rest of the automakers responded to public pressure and federal regulation to add technologies like smart air bags, as well as side airbags and head airbags mounted in  headliners.

But the need to decrease fatalities eventually forced companies to realize it was not just important to protect occupants in a crash. But it was even more critical to prevent the collision in the first place. Crash avoidance features have exploded in an evolutionary cascade, from anti-lock brakes and traction control to electronic stability control and active rollover protection. There are now systems that alert drivers, like blind spot detection and lane departure warning.

Volvo, a premier safety nameplate, refused to market a sport utility vehicle until its engineers could counter the dangerous vulnerability of a truck with a high center of gravity. When Continental AG invented Active Rollover Protection (ARP), Volvo released the XC90. You might remember the infamous Ford Explorer rollovers. Those vehicles now include standard rollover protection.

Carmakers have even borrowed military technology to improve safety. When Cadillac first offered night vision in the 1990’s, it came from defense contractors that had developed the technology for U.S. troops.

Can sports equipment companies like Riddell and Schutt reinvent headgear to better protect football players?

Right now, the helmet makers struggle with the same challenges as auto engineers. If they stiffen the structure to sustain harder hits, the same helmet can cause head injuries at lower impacts. The car guys eventually figured out you need to avoid the crash to reduce fatalities.

With that same logic, some critics are calling for an end to football, as we know it.  They’re suggesting rule changes like the elimination of the three-point stance. That would prevent two 300-pound linemen from getting maximum leverage before lunging into each other. Some high school coaches are limiting the hits in practice to reduce the thousands of impacts kids endure.

Parents work so hard to protect their children in vehicles with car seats, it’s ironic that they allow them to suit up for football without better protection.

Sadly, there have been no significant changes to helmet standards in nearly 40 years. Meanwhile players have gotten much bigger and faster.

But if the NFL and the NCAA invest enough money someone will invent the helmet of the future. A billion dollar purse to the company that develops the ultimate football safety gear would not only generate a few high-paying jobs, it could save lives and America’s favorite game.

Enjoy the Super Bowl.

 

Risky business

Michigan is all wet. And that’s a good thing.

Financial analysts and investment fund managers have begun to evaluate companies for their water risk with increased scrutiny. Translation: demand for clean, fresh water is growing dramatically and the price will likely rise significantly in the future. The concept of  “free water” is a thing of the past. Even the big four firm, Deloitte has published a report on the growing awareness in corporate boardrooms of global water shortages.

Companies like Smuckers, Coca-Cola and Coors, to name a few, depend on high-quality H₂O to create their products, so investors must consider the cost of water when buying their stock. As the world’s population grows and weather becomes less predictable, the value of water will swell like tides in a brewing storm. And that’s scary to companies that require it.

But that also means Michigan’s stock is rising. The Great Lakes State is surrounded by 20% of the world’s fresh water, with no shortage of precipitation. While politicians bid for jobs with corporate tax abatements, I believe Michigan has an ace up its sleeve.

The state could offer companies water credits. That is, they could lock in the price of water for a period of time, let’s say 10 years, in exchange for a commitment to locate in Michigan and generate jobs. That way, taxpayers don't have to subsidize corporations, and companies earn their benefits year by year. They continue to get lower water prices as long as they stay and keep employing people.

Of course, we’d have to enforce clean water regulations to protect this precious resource, but it makes sense for Michigan to play this trump card to win high paying jobs.

Keep this idea in mind: you can drink orange juice, but you can’t shower in it, process most foods with it or manufacture pharmaceuticals or other products with it. And salt water is not an option for most industrial processes.

Maybe Michigan should revise its state motto to read: If you seek a pleasant fresh water peninsula look around you.

 

 

 

Fast and loose

By now it’s old news. CBS Sports blew it Saturday night by prematurely reporting the death of Joe Paterno, Pennsylvania State University’s football coaching legend. The real story is that a student journalist demonstrated more professional accountability than anyone at the media giant.

Devon Edwards, managing editor of  “Onward State”, a Penn State student-operated Web site, resigned today for inaccurately reporting the death of JoPa, many hours before he actually expired. Edwards’ statement was genuinely contrite and made no excuses.  CBS Sports had seen the report at “Onward State” and re-reported it without any attribution or independent confirmation of the story. If they had simply said “Onward State” was reporting Paterno’s passing, they were covered. This is a fundamental journalistic standard.

So far, I haven’t heard about any resignations at CBS Sports, nor at the other media outlets that jumped on the erroneous story from CBS, without bothering to double-check with even one source. Inexcusable. These are the practices that separate professionals from amateurs.

I remember a television colleague losing his job in the 1980’s for a careless decision. He was a weekend weather guy at WXYZ-TV, Detroit, and as the story goes, he inaccurately activated the station’s tornado watch and warning system. Management canned him quickly. It was a question of the station’s credibility and the safety of the community.

Today’s 24/7 news cycle encourages rapid reporting. But quality and accuracy  always trump speed. For example, Paterno’s death was imminent and only a matter of time.  It would have been far more important to be first with a reaction from former Penn Sate assistant coaches Jerry Sandusky and Michael McQueary. These men have offered opposing accounts of the truth in the raging sexual abuse scandal at the university. Paterno’s testimony could have helped decide the outcome of the high-profile trial and the future of both men.

Unfortunately, today’s media has lost journalistic perspective. Expect more of these mistakes as media managers try to slash more costs. In case you haven’t noticed, Detroit TV news teams are actually sharing video today.

There was a time no station would consider attributing a story to a competitor if it could possibly be avoided. Even if the news broke minutes before airtime, producers would make an effort to conduct their own phone interview and report the breaking news independently rather than mention another station or publication. Now they're sharing pictures and relying on the ethics and judgment of so called “competitors.”

Why should you care? When competition and independence erode, powerful people can control the messages you receive and their points of view.

But in this era of bottom-line media, where stations and papers gladly pass off viewer video and commentary as news, the standards are sliding down a slippery slope. If this trend is not corrected soon, no one will trust the news, nor have any reason to bother tuning in or accessing a Web site.

We’ll just scan the headlines on Twitter and guess which ones are true.

 

 

 

A tribute to teamwork

Perhaps no sport demands teamwork more than football.

 A basketball star can break off the chain for 43 points and carry a team with outside shooting and treys.  A hockey goalie can stand on his head and stop all 50 shots he faces. A pitcher can strike out 20 and hurl a perfect game.

However, a running back can’t gain much without blocking. A kicker can’t score without a snapper and a holder. And a quarterback certainly can’t catch his own touchdown pass. That's why successful passers and ball carriers frequently buy their beefy linemen expensive steak dinners after big wins.

But if you watched ESPN this week, you’d have thought very differently. The network spent much of the time canonizing Tim Tebow as the patron Saint of Overtime Upsets, complete with the mandatory two miracle passes in a playoff game and a “Hail Demaryius" at Mile High Stadium.

After the Denver Broncos defeated the Pittsburgh Steelers to advance in the NFL playoffs, the sports network and many other media experts anointed Tebow as Denver’s hero and savior. The fact that wide receiver Demaryius Thomas made the game-winning play was lost on them. Sure Tebow threw a nice spiral, but the real overtime highlights were largely created by Thomas’ relentless quest to fight off would-be tacklers and win a 61-yard sprint to the end zone.

By the way ESPN hyped it, you would have thought Thomas defected the ball and Tebow miraculously dove 15 yards to snatch it from a defender’s grasp before flying the length of the field to score in a kneeling position. They dedicated an inordinate amount of airtime to Tebow worship last week, including a sophomoric game show called “You Don't Know Tebow.” On Thursday, the cable sports network carved out an hour to hero worship the young, struggling Broncos quarterback.

Unfortunately, professional sports long ago discovered that star power generates a quick, cheap buck – even when the star is not that brilliant. It’s easier to build a story around someone who looks the part, than to do the difficult work of dissecting the action to illustrate how eleven men worked in harmony to gain the four grueling yards for a first down inside the five yard line, or stop the other team short of the goal line. For a sports journalist, that requires real work, careful analysis and writing.

We saw a much more mortal Tebow yesterday in a humiliating loss to the New England Patriots. It will be interesting to see how ESPN presents its fallen hero this week. By the way, receiver Demaryius Thomas racked up a team-leading 93 yards in the Broncos loss to the Patriots. But if you Google his name tonight, the first thing that comes up is a CBS Sports article entitled:

 “Is Tebow guaranteed to be Broncos starter in '12?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Face time

Give me a moment to connect a few apparently unrelated dots.

This week Ericsson released results of a survey that queried 2,000 U.S. teens about interpersonal interaction. When asked which communications method they would miss most if it were taken away, 58% said old school face-to-face conversation. Number two at 26% was texting. In fact, kids still begin romances in person, not by passing electronic notes in class. Despite the enormous popularity and convenience of technology, young people still prefer to meet in the flesh. Surprised?

You shouldn’t be. Ultimately, face time is what makes movies, TV news and live theatre work. We are creatures of habit that crave contact, especially with emotional connections.

Coming up in just a few weeks Americans will gather for our annual party that may be the biggest collective event of the year. The National Football League’s Super Bowl. It is the grandest of stages featuring our most revered gladiators. But almost as important as the game are the commercials. This year, 30 seconds of airtime will cost Super Bowl sponsors at least 3.5 million bucks. Some spots will run $4 million.

Think fast. Which ad do you remember most from last year’s Super Bowl? I’ll bet it was Chrysler’s “Imported from Detroit” campaign featuring the Motor City’s renowned rapper, Eminem. Jokes, special effects and stunts can dazzle, but nothing sells like celebrity. What Super Bowl fan will ever forget Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfunction? Good or bad, people remember faces.

Auto analysts reported this week that virtually every car company will run an ad in the big bowl game this year. I’m sure they’re looking to generate the buzz that Chrysler did in 2011.

Of course, some brands manage to cultivate captivating on-screen characters without waiting for the annual NFL extravaganza. Two come to mind and both are booze. Captain Morgan Rum and Jameson Irish Whiskey have crafted mini movies to promote their spirits with leading men and adventures deserving of the silver screen or a C.S. Lewis novel.

In an era where technology rules, it’s time for a rebirth of classic advertising that tells brand stories instead of hyping inane pitches of products and services. And that requires a little face-to-face romance. Even if it only lasts 30 seconds.