“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 October 22, 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.
What’s In A Name?
It should be noted that I probably am bothered by this topic more than most people. The reason for that is my name. Most especially my LAST name. P-H-I-L-L-I-P-P-I. It’s a French name, from the Alsace region near the borders of France, Germany and Switzerland. And it gets mangled on a regular basis. FILL-ih-pie, fill-EE-pee plus the occassional headscratcher like fillapeenie. No idea where those come from.
All of this comes to mind because of a small country in western Africa. Earlier in this month, four U.S. Special Forces soldiers were killed in an apparent ambush by terrorists. As always, this program is not about politics. It’s about the media. In this case the fact that so many folks in the media don’t seem to be able to figure out how to pronounce the name of the nation in question.
It’s spelled N-I-G-E-R, and it is pronounced nee-ZEHR. How do I know that? Am I an expert on African nations? Certainly not. I spent approximately two minutes doing some online research. I found an article by a reporter who had called the Nigerian embassy and asked.
So explain to me how, as recently as this past weekend, I’ve heard reporters with major news outlets saying things like “nigh-zheer”. Remember I’m a guy with a laptop computer sitting in a tiny office in my own house, and I found the proper pronunciation.
In two minutes.
The reason for that pronunciation isn’t hard to figure out. Till 1960 Niger was a French colony. The official language of the country is, in fact, French. So a French pronunciation of the name shouldn’t be surprising. None of this is hard to figure out.
Let me be clear. I have no issue with you if you didn’t know how to say that word. Most of us, myself included, couldn’t find Niger on a blank map of the African continent. My only contact with that name was as a small boy. I was very disturbed when I found it on my elementary school class globe. I had been taught never to use a word that looked a lot like that one. My teacher assured me that it was OK. That’s the last time I spent much time thinking of Niger.
But journalists should do better than that. Getting details right should always be at the center of what they do.
In a time when the respect levels for journalism in the broader sense is down, it becomes even more important.
Details like pronouncing the name correctly.
End of Year Movies
This thought kept percolating up through my brain over the last month or so. “You’ve forgotten somethng, you’ve forgotten something”. I didn’t worry too much about it because I’m always forgetting something. Then it dawned on me, I hadn’t taken a look at the end of year movies yet.
So let’s dive right in.
Next to the summer months, this is the biggest time of year for big movie releases. You have disposable income, school breaks, holidays, plus any movies that want to sneak in for Oscar consideration. Here’s what is popping up on my radar.
Of course, we have the big franchise installments. “Thor: Ragnarok” is first up, in just over a week, plus DC comics latest attempt to take some wind out of Marvel’s sails with “Justice League” two weeks later. And in December is the latest Star Wars installment, “Star Wars- The Last Jedi”.
Also in the “carrying on the franchise” zone is a new addition to the “Saw” series, titled “Jigsaw” “Daddy’s Home 2”, “Pitch Perfect 3”, “A Bad Mom’s Christmas”, yet another version of “Murder on the Orient Express”, yet another Amityville movie, this is “The Awakening”, and “Jumangi-Welcome to the Jungle” which features lots of big names and the smell of a holiday turkey. Just my hunch on that one.
On the upside is “Suburbicon”, a black comedy starring Matt Damon, directed by George Clooney and written by Clooney and the Coen Brothers. You have to figure its either going to be great or a train wreck but it will be interesting.
Finally, I was stunned by the number of biopics slated for this holiday season. Biographical movies have a variety of challenges, like you always know what the ending is going to be. “Goodbye, Christopher Robin” just opened with the story of the creator of Winnie the Pooh, A.A. Milne. We have an LBJ movie with Woody Harrelson, a Churchill movie with Gary Oldman, a Tonya Harding movie, a Jeffrey Dahmer as a teenager movie, one about Edward Kennedy’s darkest hour in “Chappaquidic”, a Charles Dickens Christmas movie, and a musical version of the life of P.T. Barnum that stars Hugh Jackman.
There is one that jumps out at me. It’s title “The Disaster Artist” and it stars James Franco as movie auteur Tommy Wiseau. Wiseau wrote, directed and starred in quite possibly the worst movie ever made, “The Room”. Like all the truly great bad movies, this one circles the block to find greatness. Wiseau is a unique personality that just might salvage the biopic.
What’s guaranteed, is there will be plenty of holiday presents for movie lovers before the New Year arrives.
Wanting To Be Wanted
Last week I talked about how there was a new nine hundred pound gorilla sitting in the middle of the media living room. That the time for my generation, the Baby Boomers was ending and the Millennial were taking our place. You may not have noticed, but the Millennial generation does not always do things the way their parents or grandparents did things. Learning how they approach things like media and marketing is going to be of immense importance as we move forward into this new age.
In the old days, like five years ago or more, the relationship between consumer and media was relatively passive. When we Boomers were growing up, it was SO passive that a lot of the older generation was certain that we were going to grow up to be drooling zombies with brains made up of tapioca. The whole process was that the media just did its thing and we paid attention to whatever degree. Marketing was much more about sales and pitching products. There was no way to interact, at least not in the sense to which which we have become accustomed today. The most interaction you might get was writing a letter. Which would probably disappear without a ripple.
Today’s media consumers, led by the Millennials, expects that interaction. They can tweet, and comment and post videos about anything and everything. They can even do it live. So how do you create a bond in those circumstances?
Here’s the term you need to know for this discussion. “Wantedness”. That means the consumer wants to know you want them. A study from earlier this year, put out by the folks at the Wonderman advertising, marketing and consulting network, said seventy nine percent of Americans will “only consider brands that show they understand me and care about me.” At a moment in history when trust in the media is low and demand for transparency is high, companies need to understand this new dynamic.
There is more choice out there and we have more access to all that choice. So don’t try and tell them how to behave or what to buy, prove that I want to be associated with your product, service or company. And the bar is set high. If you can’t deliver the way companies like Starbucks or Amazon or Netflix can, you can forget getting their business.
Once upon a time it was all about influencing the customer. Now it’s going to be much more about the customer influencing the media. It’s all about “wantedness”.
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
Stories Are My Life 
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