The “Jay Sherman Test” and 2013′s summer blockbuster movies

Apr 062013
 

Monsters UniversityRepeating a post from last year, I thought I’d look at 2013′s summer blockbuster movie slate, and see which ones pass Jay Sherman of “The Critic”‘s criteria for whether or not it’s worth seeing a movie (at least at the theater for $11). Jay’s criteria were:

  1. If it used to be a TV show, just don’t go.
  2. After Roman numeral II, give it a rest.
  3. If it’s a remake of a classic, rent the classic.

The actual “The Critic” scene is (at this writing) still available on YouTube.

And now, on to the actual list of movies. List of films taken from Box Office Mojo.

Pass

  • The Great Gatsby
  • Tyler Perry Presents Peeples
  • Epic
  • The Purge
  • Now You See Me
  • After Earth
  • The Internship
  • Man of Steel
  • This Is the End
  • Monsters University: Though not stated, I work on the assumption that just as one sequel is allowed, so is one prequel.
  • World War Z
  • The Heat
  • White House Down
  • Despicable Me 2
  • Grown Ups 2
  • Pacific Rim
  • The Conjuring
  • R.I.P.D.
  • Red 2
  • Turbo
  • 2 Guns
  • 300: Rise of An Empire
  • The Smurfs 2: I assume it’s based on the classic Belgium comic by Peyo (and not just the TV show), so passes.
  • Elysium
  • Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters
  • Planes: It’s set in the same universe as Pixar’s “Cars” movies, but since it’s presented as its own film (and not “Cars 3″), I’ll give it a pass.
  • The Wolverine: Similar reason as “Planes”—set in the X-Men movies’ universe, but seems to be presented as standing on its own—so I’ll also give this one a pass. If anything, it’s a sequel to the Wolverine film from a few years ago.
  • We’re the Millers
  • The To-Do List
  • Kick-Ass 2
  • Grandmasters
  • The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones
  • The World’s End
  • You’re Next
  • Closed Circuit
  • Getaway: Despite the title, it’s not a remake of the 1970s Steve McQueen film.
  • One Direction: This Is Us
  • Satanic

Fail

  • Iron Man 3: It’s a part three.
  • Star Trek Into Darkness: It’s based on a TV show. Since it’s a reboot of the franchise, it might also count as a “remake of a classic,” but just being based on a TV show alone is enough to put it in the “fail” column.
  • The Hangover Part III: It’s a part three.
  • Fast & Furious 6: It’s a part six.
  • The Lone Ranger: It’s a remake of a classic radio/early television series.

Not many in the “fail” column this year, for some reason. Maybe we’re between high-numbered sequels? Or the zombie craze means making stabs at original horror-themed films is in vogue? (Though there’s a lot of movies with “end of the world” plots this summer…) Or the high-numbered sequels and remakes are big enough names to hang most of Hollywood’s summer profit-making hopes (Iron Man 3, Star Trek’s sequel, etc.)?

Will be interesting to see which films become hits and which ones miss around Labor Day…

For a famous cinematic diversity test (though centered around female characters), see the Bechdel Test.

RIP Roger Ebert, Carmine Infantino, and George Gladir

Apr 042013
 

Flash (vol. 1) #123Unfortunately, bad news has adhered to coming in threes, as they say. Today marks the deaths of three individuals involved in the world of entertainment: movie critic Roger Ebert, veteran DC Comics artist/editor Carmine Infantino, and Archie Comics veteran George Gladir.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert, of course, was one-half of the famous film review duo “(Gene) Siskel and Ebert.” I grew up watching his movie review program on TV, and later read his reviews in the newspaper and online. Even later still, I followed his Twitter feed.

While I didn’t always agree with Ebert’s reviews, I did like reading them, and usually considered him a trustworthy critic. (Seeing him roast a film that was awful was also enjoyable, I admit.) I also liked seeing Ebert’s political remarks, as well as those criticizing the ludicrous nature of the MPAA movie rating system.

Ebert’s been satirized like anyone else in the media over the years. “Animaniacs” featured a parody of Siskel and Ebert in the Slappy Squirrel episode “Critical Condition,” though the parody was largely just a series of jokes about Ebert’s weight, plus Slappy repeatedly blowing him up over giving her old shorts a bad review. While there were a few amusing moments (including Slappy’s remark about the ramifications of freedom of speech), this wasn’t one of the better “Animaniacs” shorts, or as good as Slappy’s Halloween short (still my favorite Slappy episode).

A better animated appearance by Ebert was in the mid-90s TV series “The Critic.” While Jay Sherman’s already a partial physical pastiche of Ebert and Siskel (Ebert’s build plus Siskel’s baldness), the film critic duo made an appearance in one episode, “Siskel and Ebert and Jay and Alice.” Here, the film critics (voiced by their real selves) break up during an argument over a movie, after they bring up having praised such films as “Carnosaur” and “Benji the Hunted.” The ex-duo subsequently each try to recruit Jay as their new partner, while Jay tries to reunite the two. I liked the portion where they’re “reunited” at the top of a New York City skyscraper, while remarking on the derivative nature of the whole scene:

Carmine Infantino

Carmine Infantino was a long-time artist (and later editor) at DC Comics, dating back to the late Golden Age. His most famous creations or co-creations were Black Canary, Batgirl, the Elongated Man, the Barry Allen Flash, and Wally West (as Kid Flash). As an editor, he also helped hire at DC such classic Bronze Age artists/writers as Denny O’Neil, Neal Adams, and Jack Kirby. For more on his life, see his Wikipedia entry, as well as this article.

For me, Infantino’s the definitive Flash artist, and one reason I enjoyed the Silver Age Flash stories.

George Gladir

George Gladir was a long-time writer for Archie Comics (as well as “Mad” magazine rival “Cracked”). His most famous co-creation (along with Dan DeCarlo) was Sabrina, the Teenage Witch. Originally intended as a one-shot character in 1962′s “Archie’s Mad House” (its “Mad”-like humor comic), Sabrina proved to be popular enough to be brought back; by decade’s end, Sabrina had gained her own animated TV series. Gladir continued to write for Archie up until his death.

For more on Gladir, see this article.

The return of “Warner Communications?”: Time Warner to spin off Time, Inc.

Mar 072013
 

Tiny Toon Adventures' Warners logosSome might recall the big merger between Warner Communications (owners of Warner Bros. studios) and Time, Inc. (publishers of “Time,” “Life,” and other magazines) back in the late 80s. After almost 25 years of “matrimony,” it looks like Time Warner is looking to spin off its Time, Inc. side, in the name of pushing its TV/video/motion picture side of things as future money-makers versus, well, print media like “Time.” Despite that Time wasn’t losing money, apparently the “print media is dead” meme, general corporate profit-mindedness, and a proposed previous sell-off deal falling through have prompted Time Warner’s decision.

There’s no indication what the now-Time-less Time Warner will rename the remaining company, if anything. I presume “Warner Communications” might be an option; it’s the name used between the early 70s and the late 80s for the Warner side of things. However, given media types aren’t particularly nostalgic/emphasize youth at extreme lengths (and that it’s been almost 25 years since they used “Warner Communications”), they’ll probably go for something more “2013.” “Warner?” “Warner Corporation?” Just plain “Warner Brothers, Inc.?”

On the comics and animation side of things, expect status quo. For animation fans, the animation studios, cable TV networks, and film libraries are all exclusively on the Turner and Warner Bros. side of the company. For DC Comics fans, it’s been under the Warner side of the company (and corporate cousins of Bugs Bunny) since Warner Communications’ predecessor “Kinney National Company” bought DC in 1967.

(Useless trivia: “Kinney” was a former cleaning services/parking garage company that for some reason expanded into media ownership. Warner Bros. until 1967 was run by the actual Warner siblings it was founded by/named after, though by 1967, only Jack L. Warner (the “J.L.” that Daffy Duck refers to in the Looney Tunes short “The Scarlet Pumpernickel”) was left. With the death of the old-school studio system, etc., Jack L. Warner sold the company to Seven Arts Productions in 1967, and retired a few years later. The merged company (briefly named “Warner Bros.-Seven Arts”) was bought by Kinney in 1969, and eventually renamed “Warner Communications” in 1972.)

Films I’ve missed: “Yogi Bear”

Feb 242013
 

Yogi BearThe next film on the list of films I’m catching up on is 2010′s “Yogi Bear.” Based on the classic Hanna-Barbera cartoon, the movie, like most live-action versions of cartoons, takes various liberties with the original material, and (like live-action versions of cartoons) comes off as inferior to the original.

The plot of the film sees Ranger Smith (played by Tom Cavanagh), a nature documentary filmmaker (played by Anna Faris), and of course, Yogi and Boo-Boo (played by Dan Aykroyd and Justin Timberlake respectively) trying to stop the greedy mayor of an unnamed city from shutting down/selling off Jellystone Park.

Since you’re probably wondering what’s wrong with this film, I may as well make a list:

  • It’s yet another live-action film with CGI characters voiced by celebrities, which despite such films doing mediocre more often than not, keep getting churned out by Hollywood. I should note how tired I am of CGI cartoons and how I’d rather have seen a well-animated 2D animated film, something the end credits’ animation suggests could’ve been nicely produced. However, I may as well be talking to a wall as far as Hollywood’s concerned.
  • Jellystone Park for some reason is treated as a local city-run park, despite that it’s always been a US national park in the original series. In case Hollywood forgot, Jellystone’s a parody of Yellowstone National Park. One of Yogi’s classic lines was always citing how he’s a “government-protected creature,” as in federal government. If they had to demote it from the federal level at all, I wonder why they didn’t go for making Jellystone a state-level park instead (and make the mayor a crooked governor running for re-election), which would’ve kept the plot intact.
  • The only female character (not counting the park visitors, of course) is Anna Faris’ character. It wouldn’t have hurt to have thrown in Cindy Bear as well. Cindy might also have helped stretch out the film’s rather short running time of 80 minutes.
  • The famous “Yogi Bear” theme song, for some reason, isn’t used in the film’s soundtrack at all.

As for what’s right about the film, I’d have to say Justin Timberlake’s voicework for Boo-Boo. While Akroyd’s Yogi was so-so, Timberlake’s Boo-Boo sounded rather dead-on, which I wouldn’t have expected for such celebrity-driving voice casting.

Despite the film’s flaws, it actually did well at the box office, making a profit domestically (and doing well overseas, also).

“The Daily” folds… why did it fail?

Dec 052012
 

The DailyNews came around the online world that Rupert Murdoch’s iPad-based daily newspaper, “The Daily,” is closing up shop, not having pulled in as many subscribers as they’d wanted. See NPR’s article on the rise and fall of the digital-paper-that-couldn’t.

As for why it couldn’t, every media outlet online’s speculating why. Overall, I’d agree with Mashable and a few other sites’ take on why “The Daily” failed (besides a generic sounding name… I keep wanting to add “Planet” at the end…):

  • Being an iPad-only publication. As popular a tablet as the iPad is, not everyone owns one, and even those that do might want to read their news on their phone, a non-iOS device, or even their computers. Most digital magazines/newspapers/etc. are cross-platform, either via apps available for a variety of platforms (see Comixology, Barnes and Noble’s Nook, Amazon’s Kindle) or are Web-based. Apparently, “The Daily” realized this too late and tried expanding to the iPhone/Android, but it was for naught.
  • A lack of ability to share links to articles. The “New York Times” has a model of allowing unlimited reading of articles accessed via links from social media (Twitter, Facebook, etc.), but otherwise setting a limited number of articles read before hitting the site’s paywall. While other online news sites don’t have such paywalls, at least the “Times” allows its articles to be easily tied into social media. The same didn’t seem to be the case for “The Daily,” as a possible byproduct of its app-based nature. Maybe adapting the “Times” approach would’ve helped, if they didn’t want to take the everything-available-for-free-online approach.
  • Forgetting that they are competing with the “New York Times,” CNN, NBC, NPR, and even sites like the “Huffington Post,” let alone specialty news sites/aggregators such as Flipboard, etc. Merely being based on an iPad and a daily publication isn’t sufficient enough when existing news outlets (and ones with ties to more credible news organizations than News Corp., frankly) are out there. If anything, being an iPad-only app surely handicapped its ability to compete with the above papers.

From the NPR and Mashable articles, it sounds like they’re folding the remaining “Daily” staff and resources into the “New York Post,” which is a well-known paper that already has an online presence, one not tied to a specific $500 tablet. Improving the “Post”‘s online (and mobile device) presence might’ve been a better path to take instead of starting up “The Daily” in the first place.

Disney to buy Lucasfilm, “Star Wars” rights for $4 billion

Oct 312012
 

Star WarsWhile Hurricane Sandy and the upcoming US election are the top news stories, Tuesday’s late afternoon announcement managed to trend on Twitter anyway, and for good reason: Disney’s announced that they’ll be buying Lucasfilm for $4 billion from George Lucas (half stocks, half cash). On top of the buyout, Disney says there’ll be another trilogy of films, starting with “Star Wars 7″(!) in 2015. Lucas will serve as a consultant, but otherwise says he’s retiring.

I suppose I have some mixed feelings on this one. On the plus side, Disney has to be an improvement over the utter awfulness of Jar Jar Binks and the three prequels. Disney in charge will also hopefully mean the end of the classic trilogy being sliced-and-diced with unwanted CGI/out-of-place characters for re-releases at the movies. Mickey Mouse’s bosses have also done well maintaining their purchases of Marvel and Pixar, with “The Avengers” as this year’s biggest blockbuster hit.

On the down side, it means yet another batch of unneeded sequels will be coming. There’s also Disney already being quite gargantuan in size as a media conglomerate—not only will they also be adding the “Star Wars” franchise, but lots of other facets owned by Lucas (including special effects company Industrial Lights and Magic). Not that antitrust laws apparently mean much anymore—given Disney’s the same company partly responsible for our ludicrous copyright lengths. Finally, I wonder what’s to become of the “Clone Wars” cartoon, now airing on Cartoon Network and in syndication. Will Disney yank it and move it to the vertical-integration domain of Disney XD? The same question could be asked of the long-running line of Dark Horse Comics; Disney apparently couldn’t move fast enough to yank the Disney comics’ licenses away from Boom! Studios after it bought Marvel.

Either way, it’ll be strange not seeing the 20th Century Fox theme play before the opening of a Star Wars movie… I’ve come to half-expect hearing the “Star Wars” theme play after hearing the Fox fanfare.

RIP Newsweek (and the concepts behind weekly newsmagazines?)

Oct 222012
 

NewsweekAs announced last week, weekly newsmagazine (and Time competitor) Newsweek says it’ll be ending its 80-year run as a print publication, and shifting solely to online content after the end of this year.

While others blame the existence of the Web as a reason for Newsweek’s death (and ignoring the right-wing “OMG liberal media” crowd), it all seems to ignore that the major cause Newsweek’s death came from an issue of quality, not format. In recent years, Newsweek’s turned from harder news and toward a tabloid-style format, complete with plenty of fluff stories advertised on the covers. No amount of “Web 2.0″ will fix this, especially with better news sources (online and offline) to turn to. Guess my pessimistic prediction from a few years ago was right.

As for the idea of whether weekly newsmagazines are dead, I’ll admit Time doesn’t have much competition left on the newsstands without Newsweek. Still, it is important to have neutral, well-researched and -analyzed stories about the issues of the day, via investigative journalism or longer-form news stories. I suppose Time, being one-half of “Time-Warner,” is better suited to the overall shift to digital, plus it (somewhat) avoided the tabloid direction of Newsweek.

Concerning the Web, unless I’m missing one offhand, I’m not sure if there’s any websites that replicate the newsmagazine experience in a way that isn’t either A) biased/op-ed-like in some way (Daily Kos, Drudge Report, etc.), B) as broadly general as Time/Newsweek are (versus specialty sites like tech sites, food, etc.), C) isn’t just an arm of a TV/radio network or newspaper (CNN’s website, etc.), or D) actually pays the writers (Huffington Post). Maybe the next online-only version of Time/Newsweek has yet to emerge? Or the weekly print newsmagazine’s just being replaced by a mix of the websites for daily/weekly newspapers, TV networks, and NPR?

A look back over summer 2012′s blockbuster movies

Aug 282012
 

BraveSince Labor Day’s coming this weekend, marking the effective end of the summer movie season, I may as well look back now on this summer’s blockbuster films, and follow up on my post from May about how this summer’s films did or didn’t do, based on the “Jay Sherman” Test. For detailed box office information, see Box Office Mojo. Yes, some films are still in theaters, and thus their box office take can improve, but I’m just calling it as “hit,” “broke even” (if it seems slightly above or below its production budget) or “flop” as of this writing.

Movies that passed the Jay Sherman Test:

  • The Avengers: This summer’s biggest hit globally and domestically in terms of box office, even moreso than the final Batman movie.
  • The Dictator: A flop domestically (not breaking even), but seemed to be a hit internationally.
  • Battleship: Another flop domestically, but profitable with international take factored in.
  • What to Expect When You’re Expecting: broke even domestically, did well internationally.
  • Chernobyl Diaries: apparently a flop.
  • Battlefield America: a flop.
  • Snow White and the Huntsman: flop domestically, successful internationally.
  • Prometheus: about broke even domestically, hit internationally.
  • Rock of Ages: a flop.
  • That’s My Boy: a flop.
  • Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter: a flop domestically, profitable with international take.
  • Seeking a Friend for the End of the World: a flop.
  • Brave: a big hit, though seems “Ice Age” is more popular internationally.
  • GI Joe: Retaliation: N/A; afraid “Batman” would do it in, this one’s been pushed back to a release early next spring (last I checked).
  • Magic Mike: one of this summer’s biggest hits.
  • People Like Us: seems to be a flop.
  • Savages: about broke even.
  • Ted: one of the summer’s biggest hits (unsurprisingly, given it’s by “Family Guy”‘s creator… meh).
  • Tyler Perry’s The Marriage Counselor Witness Protection: wrong film previously cited, but still, a big hit, at least among African-American audiences.
  • The Amazing Spider-Man: another big hit, especially internationally. I didn’t care for this one, however (preferred the previous films).
  • Neighborhood The Watch: despite the name change, it’s still a flop.
  • Hope Springs: not sure, but assume it’s done OK.
  • The Campaign: also not sure, but guessing it did OK as well.
  • The Odd Life of Timothy Green: ditto the above two (no production budget listed), but it’s supposedly been doing OK at the box office recently.
  • Paranorman: Cartoon Brew suggests it’s doing OK, but not stellar, given how stop-motion animated films tend to do.
  • The Expendables 2: seems to be doing better internationally than domestically, but still profitable.
  • Premium Rush: a flop.
  • 7500: N/A; apparently pushed back to 2013.

Movies that failed the Jay Sherman Test:

  • Dark Shadows: a flop domestically, but broke even internationally.
  • Men In Black III: a flop domestically based on production costs (despite Will Smith’s name), but a huge hit internationally.
  • Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted: a hit domestically and internationally.
  • Total Recall: flop domestically, breaks even with international take.
  • Sparkle: broke even.
  • The Dark Knight Rises: one of the summer’s biggest hits (unsurprisingly), though “The Avengers” is the top grossing superhero film domestically and internationally.
  • Step Up Revolution: broke even domestically, did much better internationally.
  • Ice Age: Continental Drift: successful domestically, huge hit internationally, surpassing even Spidey and Bats.
  • Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days: a hit.
  • The Bourne Legacy: doesn’t seem to be doing as well domestically, but successful enough internationally.

So out of the films that “passed” the test domestically:

  • Successful/broke even: 14
  • Flop: 12

For a success rate of 54%.

And out of the ones that “failed” domestically:

  • Successful/broke even: 7
  • Flop: 3

For a success rate of 70%. Hmm… no wonder Hollywood prefers formulaic films…

As for next summer, I’m guessing there’ll be plenty of sequels (probably from what came out over the previous several years), plus there’s the “Man of Steel” film finally hitting theaters, which for Superman’s sake I’m hoping isn’t a flop (or anything like the Nolan Batman movies)…

 

The pros and cons of the 2012 Olympics on NBC

Aug 052012
 

NBC logoI was originally going to hold off on writing this until this year’s Olympics were over, but given the constant stream of remarks online about this year’s games, I thought I’d post this now.

I thought I’d list the pros and cons of NBC’s treatment of the Olympics this year. I figure seeing what NBC’s actually doing right, as well as offering constructive criticism of how to improve what’s wrong (which I admit is a lot), might be useful.

Pros

  • NBC’s biggest positive this year is that they’re finally airing all Olympic events live in some form of another; the Peacock network’s achieving this by streaming everything online. And yes, that’s everything, ranging from NBC’s quadrennial Olympic obsession with swimming and gymnastics to minor events like table tennis (yep, an Olympic sport), handball, and badminton. Replays of almost all of the events are also available through NBC’s website. Most of the streaming coverage is either a camera pointed at the events with no commentators, or is accompanied by a generic (British) commentator. Since streaming is coming via YouTube, it’s likely the same generic global feed the Olympics is offering to areas of the world where the games aren’t available through a national over-the-air broadcaster (large portions of Africa and Asia, for instance). Given the inanity of NBC-proper’s primetime coverage and commentary (see “cons”), not hearing any announcers for some may be a big plus.
  • NBC’s also making use of its various cable channels (CNBC, MSNBC, a few specialty channels) for coverage of some events, particularly boxing, soccer, and basketball. Said channels also air some replays of their live coverage. The cable channels treat the coverage in a professional fashion, without NBC-proper’s primetime down sides. (Oddly, USA isn’t being used as an Olympic channel this year; are 21 hours a day of “Law and Order” reruns more lucrative than live sports?!)
  • NBC-proper (that is, the over-the-air TV network, not its cable channel cousins) is also airing various events live during daytime hours. From what I’ve seen, the daytime broadcasts cover the events in full, and with much less of the sliced-and-diced aspects of their primetime coverage.

Cons

  • Coverage of the opening ceremonies. Besides not streaming/airing it live (like all the other events) and editing out a tribute to victims of terrorism for dubious nationalistic reasons, NBC’s announcers also gave it their usual “unique” commentary. Fortunately, I avoided NBC’s opening (save the parade of nations portion, though that was mostly with the TV on “mute”) and watched the BBC’s version on YouTube (before it was removed).
  • NBC’s announcers, as noted above. Their commentary during the parade of nations too often sounded inane, ignorant, and (in a few cases) offensive.
  • While I expect a primarily American focus, NBC-proper’s coverage comes off as somewhat nationalistic in tone, forgetting that this is a global event, not a US-centered one. Which leads to…
  • The badness of NBC-proper’s primetime highlights (aka tape-delayed) coverage. This year, NBC’s doing the right thing in airing or streaming all events live during the daytime hours, then airing a highlights reel in primetime; their daytime TV/cable channel coverage is also done adequately. However, oddly NBC itself seems to go off the rails once primetime comes along. Hence, lots of complaints about (as @Jocelyn_ on Twitter put it) seemingly spending “8 seconds” on covering a sport, putting an excessively pro-US spin on coverage, or the announcers pretending they don’t know the outcome of some event (despite being tape-delayed coverage, and NBC’s own website/everywhere else online having long since noted the results).
  • Probable paranoia about cord-cutting (and being owned by Comcast not helping) has led to NBC requiring one to have a digital cable TV subscription to watch any of the streaming coverage, something no other country’s streaming coverage requires. And of course, no  attempt at a “carrot” approach in offering a discount cable TV package if one signs up during the Olympics, or offering the streaming as a stand-alone package they’d charge for—instead, it’s “no expensive cable TV subscription, no streaming, period.” Which just seems to encourage cord-cutters to make “other arrangements” (streaming BBC or Canada’s CTV if they’re tech-savvy enough), for all of mainstream media’s gripes about piracy.
  • The usual heavy number of ads are a common complaint come Olympics-time, but I’ve seen complaints about ads popping up even in streaming coverage (which already requires an expensive cable subscription). Though ad blockers can block such ads…
  • Authentication for streaming coverage didn’t come smoothly for me, though it was related to Flash in Linux not automatically installing a DRM module (see here for how to fix that).

Think I’ve hit all the major high and low points. That said, “spoiling the outcome of games” I don’t really consider a “con”—it’s a global event (not timed for the benefit of us North Americans) and it’s not 1988 anymore. It seems silly to me to complain about “spoiling” something like a live sporting event, unless one plans on cutting off all media/Internet usage for two weeks.

Now that I’ve listed the above, here’s my suggestions to NBC as to how to improve things in time for 2014′s Winter Olympics (in Sochi, Russia) or 2016′s Summer Olympics (in Rio de Janeiro):

  • Offer the streaming coverage to anyone without cable for a set fee. If this is too “radical,” at least make offers (via corporate owner Comcast) for a “sign up for cable before or during the Games and get several months free” type of package. While live sports is cable’s biggest trump card left in stopping cord-cutting, I don’t see it as stopping someone determined enough (see: proxy/VPN usage to get BBC or CTV, or various sketchy illegal streams), or those who might want to watch the Olympics but otherwise aren’t dedicated sports fans.
  • Air the opening and closing ceremonies live like everything else, even if it’s just streamed online. NBC can still rebroadcast it in primetime, ad breaks and all.
  • For NBC in primetime, focus more narrowly on rebroadcasting the day’s events in full (versus jumping around), and recognize it’s OK to acknowledge non-Americans (and not as part of some forced-sounding “us versus them rivalry” “narrative”).
  • Require the commentators to have done their research beforehand, and know who people like Tim Berners-Lee actually are. (If I have to “Google him,” it’d probably be just as easy to skip watching NBC altogether and find someone’s coverage of all this already posted on a file-sharing site, etc.).
  • Show more respect to other nations (including not editing out their terrorism tributes and learning something about countries other than “it has a funny name“). Leave the nationalism/jingoism to Fox’s domain (and the cracks about funny country names to us viewers at home… or the writers of the old “Timon & Pumbaa” TV show).
While NBC’s coverage is greatly improved over four years ago (in that everything is finally being aired live), it clearly still has a long ways to go. Despite the above suggestions, NBC seems quite slow in changing how they cover the games, especially since it still gets them high ratings. Thus, I’m guessing more disgruntled tech-savvy viewers will still be turning to “alternate” viewing means in the future…

WISN-TV off of Time-Warner Cable in Milwaukee; thousands denied “Ellen” reruns

Jul 172012
 

Shot of my DVR (from Time-Warner Cable) and Toshiba DVD recorderHere in Milwaukee, there’s currently a dispute between Time-Warner Cable (which serves most of southeastern Wisconsin) and WISN-TV, Milwaukee’s channel 12 and its ABC affiliate. While the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has more details, basically WISN’s owners (Hearst) wants TWC to pay three times what it currently does to carry its stations. TWC so far has refused, and thus WISN’s been off their cable lineup since Friday. (They’re filling in the channel space with the Hallmark Channel for the time being.)

While I’m sure this will eventually be resolved (no doubt at the expense of seeing my cable bills go up even further; they’re already nearing the century mark), I find it hard to empathize with either side in this debate. I also note that since it’s summer (reruns and all), Hearst and Time-Warner Cable can drag this out much further than, say, if this were happening a few months from now. Since WISN airs the over-the-air broadcasts of Packers football games, this dispute will sooner or later be over faster than one can say “angry Cheeseheads.”

Meanwhile, I suppose now’s a time for linking (again) to my cord-cutter post, since over-the-air viewers don’t have to deal with such cable company related antics.

Update (7/19/12): The two sides have reached some sort of agreement, and WISN is back on Time-Warner Cable’s lineup.

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