“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.
Programs from week of November 7, 2016
This Week’s Podcast:
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.
Live PD
Just last week the A&E network debuted a new reality TV show that may come at the just the right time. Generally, I am over the whole reality TV thing. I’ve watched all kinds of them for almost two decades. The show on A&E takes us forward into new territory, even as it returns to the very roots of the genre.
The program, which debuted October 28, is called “Live PD” and it is a live action, two-hour documentary that puts the audience into the real life police action around the nation. I should note that “live” is not quite real time live. Because police work is unpredictable and sometimes disturbing, the show actually runs on a slight video delay, to give the producers a chance to sanitize the feed if necessary.
“Live PD” will follow officers in six jurisdictions – Tulsa, Oklahoma; Bridgeport, Connecticut;Walton County, Florida; Richland County, South Carolina; the Utah Highway Patrol; and an unspecified city or county in Arizona. There will be a live studio commenting team, made up of two retired Dallas, Texas police detectives, and a host. The feeds will come from fixed position cameras in cars and inside police buildings, presumably allowing us to follow any story from beginning to end (at least as far as booking, I’d guess). A&E General Manager Rob Sharenow, admits that when the idea was first pitched to him, he not only didn’t believe it was technically possible, he didn’t think any police department in the country would agree. Instead, they found many departments all over the country that wanted to be involved. The goal is to create a program that shows real life police work, with all of its complexities.
My first reaction was that this was a good idea. In a time where police forces are under increased scrutiny, this could be a way to show the broader reality of police work. I have family and friends who are or have been law enforcement officers. It has never been an easy job and right now it has become increasingly more difficult. There is a desire for greater transparency on both sides of the issue and this could help.
On the other hand, the show got its first negative publicity just hours after the first episode aired. A Bridgeport, Connecticut police sergeant was arrested on domestic abuse charges just hours after being featured on the show. She allegedly broke into her ex-boyfriend’s apartment and assaulted him. Beyond that is the kind of disruption that has been blamed on the NFL reality program “Hard Knocks”. It can be hard to resist playing to the camera, even when you’re supposed to be doing something else.
Let’s hope that the show, scheduled for an eight-week run, will bring more positives than negatives.
Indie TV
Growing up, I identified the local TV stations as much by their network as by the channel number. It was an essential part of their identity. In the old days, you had the three broadcast networks, ABC, CBS and NBS, then you had PBS. Anything beyond that were “independent television stations”. That was a polite way of saying they were bush league stations that played old TV shows and even older movies.
With everything else changing in the world, it looks like the concept of “independent television station” may be changing too. Because, in reality, does a station have to be a network affiliate to be successful?
There are a few examples out there of stations that go their own way and succeed. Atlanta saw independent station WTBS take advantage of the deep pockets of their owners to go nationwide via cable. WGN in Chicago and WWOR in New York City have also done very well, both as historically independent television stations.
Which makes what’s happening up in Boston interesting. WHDH has been the Boston area NBC affiliate since 1995 (curiously it is one of a tiny number of stations that have, at one time or another, been affiliated with all three major networks), but that will end at the end of this year. After a couple years of negotiations and court cases, NBCUniversal has decided to launch their own station in Boston to carry the Peacock Network programming. With all the other networks set for Boston, WHDH will be launching out on their own as an independent TV station. Their plan is to make a major commitment to local programming, especially news, along with syndicated programming.
How they will do is anyone’s guess. Their corporate owner, Sunbeam Television, is headed by a billionaire so there is some depth to the pockets here. They have already begun a hiring surge and a new news set is coming as well.
All of this got me thinking, what does the future hold for local television? Networks were designed to provide local stations with high-quality programming for their most important hours. Bu it usually came with strings. When the ill-fated Jay Leno in primetime experiment came along WHDH, like all the other affiliates was basically forced to take it because of the affiliation agreement.
If ever there was a time when independent TV stations could thrive, this might be it. With increased flexibility to commit to local programming, especially news, and almost total control of commercial inventory plus the ability to apply that local programming through the internet, this could be a winning concept. What it really requires is a vision that can break away from many of the old assumptions about what a successful local TV station looks like.
Winners and Losers
I am writing and recording this program on Tuesday night, as the future direction of the United States is being decided. The tension and the agony of this campaign drove me into the studio to consider it all from the media point of view.
By the time you hear this program, you will know who was the winner and loser in all the campaigns (probably). Along with the candidates, some of the political staff will have their careers boosted or busted by the results. But this is a media program and not a political one. So who won and who lost in the media?
I think the big winner were the comedy programs. They knew that this was going to be a good time for them. Lots of personality to play with, two distinctive voices to mimic and tons of material. Saturday Night Live got another boost with impersonations of Trump and Clinton (done by Alec Baldwin and Kate McKinnon) that have received rave reviews. So have some of their other offerings like the political Celebrity Family Feud. It’s exactly the kind of thing that SNL has always done well. Comedian and political commentator Samantha Bee picked the perfect time to launch her own program. “Full Frontal with Samantha Bee” debuted in 2015, just in time to really put her in the spotlight in the footsteps of her former boss, John Stewart. Politics is always fertile fields for comedy, this Presidential campaign has offered up a bumper crop.
Who’s the big loser? I think that has been the news industry as a whole. Whether it’s Fox anchor Brett Baier apologizing and retracting a story that turned out to have no basis, or CNN discovering that political contributor Donna Brazile was feeding information prior to the debate to the Clinton campaign, it’s been less than a banner year for the fourth estate.
Particularly damning was a report released in July by Harvard’s Kennedy School Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy that said the coverage of the Presidential primaries suffered from “journalistic bias”. The study revealed an only appalling eleven percent of the coverage was dedicated to things like policy, leadership abilities, or professional background of the candidates. What most of the air and print went to was coverage of the process itself and the question of “who is winning now?”. If you believe, as I do, that the primary function of journalism during an election is informing and educating the public, then the news industry as a whole received a failing grade. They got caught up in what was flashy and easy. I hope and pray that all of us will have made the right decision, but that may be in spite of the news industry.
At election time we deserve better than good comedy and bad journalism.
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
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