“The View From the Phlipside” is a media commentary program airing on WRFA-LP, Jamestown NY. It can be heard Monday through Friday just after 8 AM and 5 PM. The following are scripts which may not exactly match the aired version of the program. Mostly because the host may suddenly choose to add or subtract words at a moments notice. WRFA-LP is not responsible for any such silliness or the opinions expressed. You can listen to a live stream of WRFA or find a podcast of this program at wrfalp.com. Copyright 2013-14 by Jay Phillippi. All Rights Reserved. You like what you see? Drop me a line and we can talk.
Program scripts from week of February 10, 2014
My name is Jay Phillippi and I’ve spent my life in and around the media. TV, radio, the movies and more. I love them, and I hate them and I always have an opinion. Call this the View from the Phlipside.
Winter Olympics
I must confess that I was prepared to write a preliminary obituary for the Olympics. I mean there’s so much more sports available for us to watch, day in and day out. The Olympics just aren’t that special any more. Not like they USED to be when everything just stopped and you’d watch the skating and the ski jumping and the hockey. I was all prepared to shake my head sadly at the coming demise of a great tradition.
Then I did a little research.
The 2012 Summer Olympics in London were the most watched TV event in American TV history. The Vancouver Winter Olympics Opening Ceremonies in 2010 scored slightly higher ratings than this weeks event in Sochi, Russia. (By slightly higher I mean they were 3% higher in overall viewership. So we’re talking SLIGHTLY). Sochi was a comfortable 26% better than the 2006 Winter Games in Torino, Italy.
So maybe the obituary is premature.
I will confess to coming into this with a little bit of “Old Man’s Disease”, which can be broadly defined as believing things were better “back in the day”. So what are we really looking at?
First, the networks still believe that the Olympics have a large audience. That’s why they keep dropping huge amounts of money on them. NBCUniversal shelled out 4.8 billion dollars for the rights to the Olympics in 2014, -16, -18 and -20 even after losing money in 2010.
For American audiences the real dividing line seems to fall on two factors. Not surprisingly, the first is how well the American athletes are doing. Big year for Team USA? Ratings are fine. The other factor is whether or not the events are tape delayed. Vancouver was broadcast live, Torino was tape delayed. In fact among tape delayed Olympics the Opening Ceremony broadcast from Sochi was the second highest rated of all time (Lillehammer in 1994 holds the top slot).
So I guess now I can just sit back and enjoy the Olympics. Watch the ski jumping, the ice dancing, the bobsledding, and the Alpine and Nordic skiing events. I can watch events I know nothing about and watch athletes from countries I can’t locate on a map.
It’s a happy surprise to discover the Olympics are still bringing the gold.
Beatlemania at 50
If your commentary beat is the media then this week you’re going to talk about the Beatles. It was 50 years ago on Sunday that America “discovered” the Beatles.
So let me get this out of the way right up front. You don’t have to like the Beatles. I know that at times it certainly feels like you’ve insulted motherhood, spit on the flag and uttered the basest of heresies if you say you don’t like the Beatles. I want you to know that it’s OK if you don’t like them.
But please, PLEASE, don’t be one of those foolish people who say that the Beatles stink or that they’re overrated. We’ve talked before about confusing what you like with what’s actually good.
You don’t have to like the Beatles. But you have to recognize that the Beatles were good. That they are a pivotal point in popular and rock music. There’s pop and rock BEFORE the Beatles and pop and rock AFTER the Beatles. And I challenge you to find any other single group that marks that kind of shift in music.
They are the best selling musical group of all time with between 600 million and a billion units in sales. They have 6 Diamond albums, as well as 24 Multi-Platinum albums, 39 Platinum albums and 45 Gold albums just in the United States. Rolling Stone declared them the greatest artists of all time, Billboard has them at number one all time among Hot 100 artists.
I hear a lot of folks say things like “What’s the big deal? A lot people do stuff like the Beatles”. Well yeah, but the Beatles did it first. Like creating their own record label. It was a big deal when Madonna created “Maverick Records” in 1992. The Beatles led the way in 1968 with Apple Records.
Expanding what was meant by the term “rock”, hit movies, their own record label, taking music to new places, both good and bad, are all part of the Beatles legacy. They not only showed astounding growth as musicians but they maintained their popularity as they changed.
No, you don’t have to like the Beatles. But 50 years ago this week musical history was made. The musical world changed.
And there’s just no argument there.
Before I begin this program you have to make a promise. You to promise not to be hatin’ on me after I make a confession. I didn’t think it was a big thing but apparently it is.
At the Super Bowl half time show I had no idea who Bruno Mars was. I had no idea who Daft Punk was. I had no idea who Imagine Dragons was.
None. I had heard the names of Bruno Mars and Daft Punk. I could have told you nothing about either of them. I didn’t know if Bruno Mars was a solo act or a group.
I commented on my Facebook page about not knowing Bruno Mars and my family and friends went into shock.
Yes, I’ll own it. Clueless.
Remember, you promised not to hate.
The funny thing is that once upon a time I was the music director for a certain radio station here in Jamestown. I listened to pretty much anything and everything. In one interview I did back then I said I’d get 20-25 new records a week and I’d listen to them all. 5 or 6 of those would be flat out awful. 5 or 6 a month would be worth listening to long range. I once won a national contest among radio DJs on picking the winners of the annual Grammy awards. I was into pop music.
Then I left commercial radio. And my teenage daughter grew up. I moved firmly into middle age and pop music wasn’t as big a deal. I’m far more likely to check out the latest from long time favorite acts like Bruce Springsteen or 10,000 Maniacs than I am to go looking for the next big thing. I was all excited when my college aged daughter introduced me to the music of a Finnish group called “Poets of the Fall”.
What the Super Bowl experience has done is reignite some interest in what’s going on out there. Like the groundhog I’m sticking my head up and looking for a musical shadow. Bruno Mars put on an amazing show that day. Daft Punk has some pretty serious hooks in their tunes and I could see myself really enjoying Imagine Dragons.
Now all of a sudden I feel that old musical itch firing back up again. There appears to be some pretty good music still out there to be discovered.
Maybe I’m not such an old man after all.
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