“The View From the Phlipside” is a media commentary program airing on WRFA-LP, Jamestown NY. It can be heard Monday through Friday around 7:30 AM. 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 moment’s 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 2013-16 by Jay Phillippi. All Rights Reserved. You like what you see? Drop me a line and we can talk.
Program scripts from week of April 25, 2016
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.
Late Night Wars
It’s always interesting watching the competition in the late night talk show world. That time slot has been a classic part of America’s television watching routine for about a half a century. And right now, there’s been something of a shakeup there.
In the last couple years, we have seen a massive turnover of hosts on all the shows. Jimmy Fallon took over the legendary “Tonight Show” on NBC, Stephen Colbert moved into “The Late Show” at CBS and Jimmy Kimmel was the latest host to take on the time slot for ABC. Of the three of them, the one who was watched with the greatest anticipation had to be Stephen Colbert.
Colbert was coming off a superstar turn as the host of Comedy Central’s “Colbert Report”. He was a super hot property and CBS was looking for a host to improve on the ratings of long-time host David Letterman. Colbert’s core cable audience was young, hip and, oh yeah, young. This was going to shake things up in the late night arena.
Colbert won the ratings battle his opening week but didn’t hold the lead at all. In fact, at one point in December Colbert was in the number four ratings slot behind Fallon, Kimmel and NBC’s Seth Myers, whose show comes on AFTER the major late night offerings.
So it is perhaps unsurprising that the network has brought in a new lead producer, what the industry refers to as a “showrunner”. Chris Licht, who had been the executive producer for the network’s morning program “CBS This Morning”, has now been handed the reins for “Late Night”.
Overall, Colbert’s number have grown year to year but haven’t significantly improved on Letterman. He is in a close battle with Kimmel for second place most weeks.
I’m not a huge consumer of late night TV. I tend to judge the success of a show by how often my social media friends share a clip, a line or a bit from the shows in their feeds. I see Kimmel regularly. Colbert’s appearances in the last year wouldn’t require the fingers of one hand to count.
When Stephen Colbert made the move away from “The Colbert Report”, he announced he was leaving that character behind as well. At the time, I wondered how much that might hurt his connection with his audience. The network scores the most overall viewers of all networks most weeks and finishes second with the desirable 18-49 demographic. So it’s not as if Colbert was having to manufacture potential viewers.
My bet is that until he regains some of that cutting edge, iconoclastic personality that made him a cable sensation, no amount of showrunner tweaking is going to set the late night on fire.
Reality
Over the years, I have made no bones about my lack of enthusiasm for 3D technology at the movies or on television. There have been perhaps two movies that I thought used the technology in any way that advanced the storytelling rather than just as a gimmick. On the other hand, I find myself still undecided on 3D’s big brother, virtual reality. Part of that is simply trying to be fair, I have not had the chance to try it out. Plus, there are places where I can understand its use. So it’s been interesting to track how the technology has been growing over the last couple years.
Right off the bat I like the Google Cardboard concept. Rather than have to invest big bucks into a piece of equipment that you may or may not like this uses a simple cardboard pattern and your smartphone (with an app) to give you a starter kit for VR. You can make your own or buy a kit for around $20.
Whether you drop hundreds of dollars or just cut up an old box, what you can do with you VR headset continues to expand. I understand the allure of using the tech if you’re into gaming. But there are more opportunities in bloom that I’m still pondering. For example, one of the hottest recent additions to the Apple universe has been live video streaming using an app called Periscope. It’s been a big enough hit that Facebook has begun to expand into live streaming as well. Well, YouTube has decided to go one step further. They are offering live streaming that uses VR to give you a 360-degree view. I can’t help but think that it’s the ultimate version of my old Viewmaster. It would be very interesting to see what that looks and feels like.
I’m a bit more puzzled by the announcement last month that USA Today is planning to launch a news program called “Virtually There”. The New York Times has already been exploring using virtual reality technology to give the consumer more of a “you are there” feel to the news. This isn’t entirely new territory for the nationwide newspaper, as they’ve been offering some 360 stories already. Again, I haven’t had the chance to check out the offerings yet so I won’t pass judgment on it now. My primary question is how this really adds to the journalistic storytelling. Some of the stories that are being mentioned as the kind of thing the show will include pieces on national politics. Do we really need, or even want, that kind of kind of coverage of our national political leaders? Color me decidedly undecided on that.
It will be interested to see just what the reality of virtual reality is going to look like.
Generation Read
There’s another generation waiting in the wings. It will be interesting to see where they go and how they use media.
First, let’s deal with the issue of what we are going to call them. The experts are pointing to a starting point right around the start of the current century. What we’re going to call them is still a little up in the air. Generation Z, the post-Millennials, the Plurals, and the iGeneration are all being tossed around. An arbitrarily assigned name is far less interesting than some of the media related things that have already started to pop up about them.
This will be the first generation to grow up in an internet driven world. They have been surrounded by more media than any generation before them. So this next item took me by surprise.
The folks at Nielsen recently did a global survey of all generations and asked about how we use our ever more valuable free time. Not surprisingly some things varied differently by generation. For example, the oldest group, the Silent Generation, was the only group to list gardening in any significant numbers. Travel was listed by a significant percentage of all generations but it became increasingly more important as the generations aged. Television is a universal choice for all generations.
The really surprising news is that this youngest generation is adopting an older technology in increasing numbers. They like to read and like books. How much do they love it? According to the Nielsen survey, 27% of that youngest generation chose it as their top choices for their free time. That put reading ahead of television for them. Even more interesting is that reading finished ahead of social media viewing and even video games or online games. In fact, only listening to music finished ahead of reading.
Music was first, reading second, TV third followed by connecting with family and friends and exercise. Theirs was the only group that put exercise in the top five.
As much as some groups have despaired for reading by the younger generations, the Nielsen date gives real reason to hope. Only the Silent Generation, for whom reading was in first place with 42% picking it and the Baby Boomer, with 29% and a second place finish behind TV, scored reading higher.
A Pew Research study shows similar kinds of positive trends for reading. The percentage of Americans under 30 who have read at least one book last year was 88%. That may sound like setting the bar low but that’s almost ten percent better than Americans 30 and over.
Here’s an idea, let’s just call them Generation Read.
Call that the View From the Phlipside
Copyright Jay Phillippi, 2016
Theme music for “The View From the Phlipside” and “TVFTP – Podcast” is “Hustle”
Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0
Stories Are My Life 
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