“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 and hear? Drop me a line and we can talk.
Programs from week of March 27, 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.
Nothing Is On
Since the earliest days of cable television, there has been a constant refrain that with all those channels there was still nothing to watch. Bruce Springsteen even wrote a song about the subject in 1992’s “57 Channels (And Nothin’ On)”. Flipping through endless channels that specialize in endless reruns can seem like an awful lot of effort for no return. While the average American cable/satellite package has around two hundred channels, on average most of us watch about fifteen. That’s a whole lot of channel skipping that most of us do.
There appears to be a shakeout coming for some of those networks. Not all channels cost the same to be on your cable or satellite package. And not all channels bring in the same number of viewers, thereby making money. The sweet spot conists of those channels whose costs are low and income is high. Or who generate enough of an audience to help defray the costs of the programming.
How that shakeout is taking place isn’t simple. Obviously, if the parent company decides the channel isn’t a money maker and isn’t worth subsidizing they may shut it down. In the case of the Esquire Channel, the decision was made following negotiations between NBCUniversal (the parent company) and Charter Communications on a carriage contract. Charter didn’t want Esquire, following the channel being dropped by DirectTV and AT&T’s U-verse services. That cost the channel almost thirty percent of its viewers and NBCUniversal decided to pull the plug and rebrand Esquire as a digital only platform.
On the other hand, you have channels like ESPNnews, ESPN Classic and FoxSports 2. These are very expensive channels to operate (sports channels always are) which don’t generate large audiences. When times are good, channels like this can be carried on the coattails of their big brothers who do generate the kinds of numbers needed. As the cable/satellite business continues to feel the effects of growing cord cutting, they want to cut the deadwood.
Among the channels that have either already been cut or are being eyed for future closure are Cloo (already gone), MTV Classic and others. Even sports networks like the Golf Channel could become targets due to high cost versus low viewership.
Eliminating a lot of borderline channels won’t bother most of us. But if you’re thinking this will lower your bill each month, the news isn’t good. When it comes to how much of your bill is represented by these channels, the numbers are vanishingly small. In some cases, the channels were throw ins in earlier negotiations. If you wanted the big name channels you had to accept these as well. So there’s no discernible impact headed our way financially.
It may just mean that there will be fewer “junk” channels to skip as we head towards those fifteen we actually watch.
Messing With My Friends
Have you ever gone back to someplace you knew as a kid, and discover that it’s changed? Maybe it’s a friend that you’ve known for years, but you haven’t seen all that much for a while? Then you bump into them at the store or at a party or whatever and they have changed? Big time? It can be disconcerting. In fact, it can be a major league shock. We all tend to have a very definite view of our world and the people in it. Change is not something that most people like very much.
Looking at the movies that are heading our way put me in mind about how poorly we react to changing things, or people, we love.
First, there’s the new Tomb Raider movie set to debut next year. The first photos of actress Alicia Vikander as the iconic main character Laura Croft have been hitting the internet. And not everyone is pleased. How to put it? Ms. Vikander is somewhat more petite than the traditional image of the heroine? The movie looks at an earlier part of the characters life and is based on a 2013 reboot of the original video game. It was at that point that Croft’s physique was made a bit more realistic. But some folks are not happy that the character is changing on the big screen.
Likewise, fans of the Star Wars franchise were a little perturbed to hear that the coming Han Solo feature film will reveal something new and startling about the beloved bad boy. It appears that Han Solo isn’t his “real” name. That little bombshell came from Disney CEO Bob Iger during a lecture at the University of Southern California. The as yet unnamed movie follows the character from age 18 to 24 and includes, according to the Disney boss man, how Han “got his name”. The Twitter-verse promptly lost its mind.
For me personally, I am very concerned about a movie, also slated for next year, of a beloved book. Madeliene L’Engle’s “A Wrinkle in Time” is one of those books I return to again and again. I have heard nothing about the movie, which just wrapped principle photography recently, but I am worried about how Meg and Charles and the rest will come across when they finally hit the big screen.
It’s a sign of just how much these characters have touched us that we care so much about fictional people. In that dedication is a tribute to the work of authors, artists, and actors who bring them to life. It’s also a challenge for the new artists as they bring them back to us again. Do it wrong and there will be a price to pay.
What we’re really asking is for them to take care of our imaginary friends.
Rules About You
.You may have heard some discussion over the last couple weeks about online privacy rules being overturned. Let’s take a look at what is actually going on here.
Late last year, the Federal Communications Commission (the FCC) passed new regulations that would have required your ISP, that’s Internet Service Provider, to get your permission before they could sell your web browsing information to other companies. That may not sound all that impressive, but this kind of data can make a whole lot of money for the companies who are selling and buying it. The rationale behind the rules was that the ISPs are the vital connecting point between the Internet and the public. The argument against them was that online companies like Google or Facebook were not included, and could, therefore, collect and sell your information without your permission.
On March 23 the United States Senate used the Congressional Review Act to do two things. They overturned the rules and moved to make sure that FCC couldn’t make similar rules in the future. The Congressional Review Act was passed as part of a larger piece of legislation in 1996. It gives Congress the ability to review federal regulations and overturn them if it sees fit. At its best it allows our elected officials to put a leash on regulatory agencies. At worst, it gives Congress the ability to micro-manage for political reasons. Everyone has a different opinion on that subject.
So what does it mean to you? Has anything changed for you with the vote a week ago? In simplest form, the answer is “no”. The rules were scheduled to go into effect next month, so we were never covered by them. Plus there are actually two additional steps that have to take place before it’s official. The House of Representatives need to pass the measure and then the President has to sign it. Both are expected in the next week or so.
If that happens it means the company that you pay for Internet service will be able to gather all the information about where you go on the web, plus things like health and financial information, and sell it to companies that want to sell you a service or product. For many experts that represents a serious issue about privacy. Maybe you don’t care, but your neighbor does. Each of you should be able to make that decision. There are often ways to “opt out”, but the question is “Shouldn’t the default selection be – my information is mine?”
For me, the reality is that the rules didn’t go far enough. Our online information should have more stringent privacy protections.
If you’re concerned as well, contact your ISP and ask if you can opt out.
Right now, it’s the only protection you have.
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
Stories Are My Life 
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