“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 2013-17 by Jay Phillippi. All Rights Reserved. You like what you see? Drop me a line and we can talk.
Programs from week of January 9, 2017
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.
Connected Parents
There’s an interesting demographic that seems to have adopted the whole Internet of Things world in a big way. That demographic is parents of children.
The Internet of Things refers to all those devices we use that connect themselves to the Internet. So the activity tracker in my pocket, the smartphone, smart watches, smart kitchen appliances, you get the idea.
In a survey done for the parenting website “BabyCenter”, seventy-one percent of the parents said that they currently owned one or more connected device, and more than a third said that they were looking to add to the collection in the next sixty days.
Right off the bat, it should be noted that the survey was of people between the ages of eighteen and forty-four, meaning that they are all Generation X or Millennials. It’s important to remember that because these generations were raised around Internet technology, so it’s not particularly surprising that they are comfortable with it.
If we step beyond the technology toy aspect of it, what else attracts them to it? In simplest terms, they see this as making their lives simpler and allowing them to be better parents. That’s a very interesting idea to this old school parent. While Kid Phlipside is way past the “childhood phase”, I still have very clear memories of that time of life.
Now imagine living in a world where you could control your television set from your smartphone, where you could get information about whatever you needed to know while you were elbow deep in dirty diapers. A world where you had technology all around you that helped you to multitask and save time. That’s what this generation of parents finds appealing in these connected devices.
And I suddenly find myself a little jealous of this younger generation. If there is one thing that seems to carry through the generations of parenting, it’s that there are so many demands made of the parents. Very much like the White Rabbit in “Alice In Wonderland”, parenting is the perpetual race of “so little time, so much to do”. The concept of the “labor saving device” has been moved into the Twenty-First Century with all these things that can talk among themselves.
There still remains the ongoing issues of security and how much information about us, and our children might be shared and with whom. In the end, my bet is that a very harried mom, trying to do all the things she needs to do, or the dad trying to get six impossible things done before breakfast might be willing to take any help they can get.
And I wouldn’t blame them one little bit.
Ending Carriage Wars
Of all the annoying events in the media world, I’m not sure there is one that annoys me more than when local TV stations (or the groups that own them) and the satellite/cable services get into battles over what are called “carriage rights”. In case you’ve missed my past diatribes on the subject (lucky you), carriage rights are simply the fees paid by the satellite/cable people to carry the local stations on their systems. It amounts to millions of dollars, which sounds like a lot to you and me, but is relatively small potatoes in the world of big media. The problem is not the fees, that’s simple business, it’s that we the viewers are the inevitable hostage to it all. It’s a stupid game of brinksmanship where we are the only ones to suffer.
So imagine my intrigue when I saw several new devices on display at the ultimate technology nerd event, the CES, or Consumer Electronic Show, held each year in Las Vegas. One of the side effects of the many annoyances of getting your television viewing from cable and satellite companies is something called “cord-cutting”. That means stepping away from the service providers. As recently as a decade ago, that would have meant going cold turkey. Today, you have a wide array of online and streaming options that are very close to being able to fill all your needs.
Except for local stations. Sure, you could grab an antenna, but how many of us are really looking to hook up MORE things to our TV, rather than fewer? So while some folks like Hulu are negotiating carriage rights for the broadcast networks, other folks are trying to make things simpler.
It’s a little bit old school really. People are adding digital TV antennas to their devices. Antenna manufacturer Mohu introduced Airwave which is a digital antenna with a networked TV tuner. The makers of Tablo DVRs introduced “Tablo Live”, which will allow you to stream network TV to any device in your home. Even Dish Network is getting into the game. The debuted the “Sling AirTV” OTT box which provides for a digital antenna to be attached, not included sadly, but that puts all your streaming and over the air viewing all on a single input.
The key innovation for all of these is getting the viewer all the network programming PLUS local news, sports, weather, and programming, at no additional carriage fee.
The solution isn’t perfect yet, but count me in favor of anything that makes my life simpler and spares me being dragged into the middle of yet another stupid carriage war.
Pony Poop
There are days when you have to wonder what people are thinking in the corridors of power. I also imagine that the public relations people are in a corner weeping their hearts out.
The latest incident of the corporate world missing an obvious PR landmine is happening down towards me. Verizon has gotten itself entangled in a fight with the folks on Chincoteague Island. That’s right, the same island of the famous herd of ponies beloved by many young people through the books of Marguerite Henry, like “Misty of Chincoteague”. The legend of the ponies says that they are remnants of Spanish ponies who swam ashore after their ship sank in a storm. Like most legends, there’s a lot of room for discussion.
The caretaker of the Chincoteague ponies is the Chincoteague Volunteer Fire Department, and that is with whom Verizon is bumping heads. The fire company is planning to build a new firehouse on property they own. It’s also property where Verizon has a whole bunch of telecommunications equipment that is important to the island communities phone service. Verizon told the fire company they have to cough up seventy-three thousand dollars. Like most volunteer companies, Chincoteague has to raise massive amounts of money for fire trucks and ambulances, plus the financial issues surrounding the ponies. That’s a lot of money for them and they are outraged.
Now Verizon isn’t an unmitigated villian in all this. They have an established easement on the property and are within their rights to expect these expenses to be picked up. I would even go so far as to note that last year was a tough one for the company. They had a huge workers strike that cost them a bundle, they bought Yahoo just in time for a major security breach too. On the other hand, the board of directors authorized a dividend increase for the tenth straight year, and their quarterly profits show up in the billions of dollars.
It’s the big corporation against the local volunteer firefighters and the most beloved ponies in the world. This is what makes PR people weep. It’s a no win situation for Verizon, as long as they keep presenting that bill. I have to imagine that the public relations department just keeps saying, “Just pay the bill, just pay the bill”, while the finance people tear their hair out. The amount of money in question is trivial as regards the bottom line. It approaches infinite value when it comes to negative publicity. Which, given last year, I would think they’d want to avoid.
Let’s just hope that somebody at Verizon comes to their senses and helps the company avoid stepping in the pony poop.
Call that the View From the Phlipside
Copyright Jay Phillippi, 2017
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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