“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 April 10, 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.
Too Much Interaction
One of the things that made the Internet such a wonderful discovery was the ability to interact. With other people, with companies, sometimes just with sophisticated software. Sitting in your little room in the house, or later, pretty much anywhere, and being able to connect and comment with other people in THEIR little rooms or wherever, all around the world, as and is pretty amazing. It’s become so “normal” that most of us don’t even really think about it. There’s a new generation coming up who has never lived in any other kind of world.
In many ways, it has been a huge gift to us all. The ability to interact directly has been a boon for correcting problems and heading off small problems before they become big ones. It has allowed celebrities to carve out more extended niches for themselves and stay in contact with their fan base.
But it hasn’t all been perfect. For example, take the case of pro golfer Lexi Thompson at a recent LPGA tournament. Thompson was leading the tournament heading into the final round. In fact, she was up by three strokes with just six holes left to play. Then the interactive nature of modern media stepped in. During a replay of play in the third round, a TV viewer noted that she had moved her ball by an inch. That’s a violation of the rules. Now, none of the players in her group nor the LPGA official with them noticed the violation. A viewer at home saw it and e-mailed the LPGA. Who reviewed it, and penalized Thompson four strokes, taking her out of the lead.
This makes no sense to anyone outside the LPGA as near as I can tell. The idea that viewers can call penalties on athletes based on network replays is ridiculous. Especially when you consider that about one hundred golfers played in that tournament. Estimates say that only twenty or so of them would ever appear on television. So there’s a real question about fair and equal application of the rules.
There has always been a boundary between the fan and the sport. That boundary can be tenuous enough for fans who identify too closely with their beloved game. The idea that somehow we fans have the ability, let alone the right, to insert ourselves into the actual play of the game strikes me as a very bad idea.
Let’s just say that there really can be too much of a good thing.
Summer Movies
Always like to keep my eyes open for what’s coming to the big screen over the next several months. Of course, at this time of year, that means looking at the summer schedule, which is usually filled with movies aimed at the blockbuster audience. So it’s not surprising that the list starts off with lots and lots of sequels.
We have another “Pirates of the Caribbean” – “Dead Men Tell No Tales”, plus “Guardians of the Galaxy 2”, “Despicable Me 3”, “Cars 3”, the fifth Transformers movie, another Planet of the Apes movie, another Spiderman movie (are they ever actually going to get this franchise right?), the second movie of the prequel trilogy to Alien, called “Alien: Covenant”. This is the sequel to 2012’s “Prometheus”, which I thought was awful. So I have doubts about this one. Speaking of sequels to less than inspiring movies, we get “Kingsman – The Golden Circle”. The first one was a good idea that simply never blossomed. Can’t imagine where they go with the second.
There is also the usual passel of movies that go back to a subject that has been done before. This summer we get relaunches for the King Arthur legend, with “King Arthur – Legend of the Sword”, Plus another Mummy movie, another Amityville movie, a remake of Steven King’s “It” (I have hopes for that. The TV mini-series was terrifying right up to the dreadful, let down of an ending). Oh and “Baywatch” will be coming to the big screen, taking us back to the days of the classic beach movie. Sort of.
There are a few new ideas that will be explored this summer. I am looking forward to the film version of Steven King’s “The Dark Tower”. We get a new comic book heroine with the arrival of “Wonder Woman”. Speaking of comic books, we also get something new called “Valerian and the City of A Thousand Planets”, an English language, French science fiction film about space and time traveling government agents.
Finally, a few oddballs caught my eye. There’s the “Emoji Movie”. Lego movies and Angry Birds movie apparently were not the bottom of the barrel. The children’s book hero Captain Underpants gets a movie, “Captain Underpants – The First Epic Movie. Last but not least were two movies that probably have more in common than just similar names. There is an English adaptation of a Russian adaptation of Shakespeare titled “Lady Macbeth”. If that seems a little highbrow for your tastes you can look forward the martial arts movie called “Lady Bloodfight”. Whatever differences they have both promise to get a little bloody before it’s all over.
But that’s just the nature of summer movies, isn’t it?
Owning Our Airwaves
There’s another big change brewing over control of the airwaves in our country. It’s part of a historic struggle between large media companies and the understanding of the phrase “in the public interest”.
The current Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is talking about reviewing the regulations that control ownership of television stations. After the conversion to digital broadcasting for television a couple years ago, the previous FCC ruled that the television ownership rules from 1985 that allowed companies to partially count stations with weak signals against the ownership cap was outdated. Digital broadcasting puts all stations on a much more even footing. This made that ownership cap, meaning the number of stations each company can own, even tighter.
Here comes the history lesson. In the Communications Act of 1934, which is the foundational document for our broadcasting industry, the FCC was instructed to make decisions on ownership based on the concept that “the emphasis must be first and foremost on the interest, the convenience, and the necessity of the listening public, and not on the interest, convenience, or necessity of the individual broadcaster or the advertiser.” At that time, the big broadcasting networks, NBC and CBS, wanted high fees charged for broadcasting licenses. The Commission turned them down.
Then in 1975, ownership rules were redefined again. The Commission said it was not in the public interest for a company to own both the local newspaper and either a radio or TV station in the same market. The goal was to maintain a diversity of opinion in the public interest. Starting with the Telecommunications Act of 1996, things began to swing the other way. Ownership rules were relaxed, and large media companies began buying many radio and television stations. Minority ownership of broadcast outlets fell to an historic low. Today, five companies control ninety percent of all U.S. media.
(Note – Five companies dominate the media landscape – Time Warner, Disney, Murdoch’s News Corporation, Bertelsmann of Germany and Viacom. While there is some dispute about the “90%” claim, a vast majority of our media is already owned by just a few corporate entities)
The current FCC rules say that no company is allowed to own stations serving more than 39 percent of U.S. television households. Eliminating or even modifying those rules is expected to result in more consolidation of media ownership, and the resultant decrease in different points of view being heard.
There’s a lot to be said for the concept from that original Communications Act. The airwaves have always been seen as property of the American people as a whole. We license their use to companies, traditionally in the understanding that they use them in our interest, that “the emphasis must be first and foremost on the interest, the convenience, and the necessity of the listening public…”
Having all our media controlled by less than a handful of big corporations doesn’t strike me as placing our interest first and foremost. You should communicate your thoughts on the subject to your elected representatives and the FCC.
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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