“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 January 7, 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.
Think Before You Post
My bet is that prior to last week most of us had never heard of YouTube celebrity Logan Paul. In fact, I’ll bet a fair number of you just said, “Who?” when I mentioned his name. Such is of fame in the modern world.
Just to put everyone on the same page, Logan Paul is a 22 year old video blogger, or vlogger, on YouTube. This is what a modern day pop star looks like. His daily vlog posts are about whatever ridiculous idea pops into his head. This resulted in him being thrown out of two apartments, being arrested in Italy and an enormous real life fight online with his younger brother. Who is also a YouTube star. Like all pop stars this is mostly style over substance. Hyperbole over actual content. It garnered him some fifteen million subscribers, a six million dollar house and his own clothing line.
The question for any flavor of the month star, and let’s face it that’s what he is at this point, is whether you have staying power.
It doesn’t help when you decide to behave like an idiot. Paul went to Japan. While he was there he went to the Aokigahara Forest, an area near Mount Fuji known as the “suicide forest”. It is the second most popular place on the planet to take your own life. Logan’s idea was that he would video himself camping there overnight. Before they could do that, they came on the body of an apparent suicide.
Here’s where the wheels come off. Paul video-ed the body and then posted it on his YouTube channel. There was an immediate backlash, Paul took the video down and apologized. While some folks have criticized the apology, I watched it and thought it seemed sincere. Here’s why.
At the bottom line, Logan Paul is twenty two years old. His fans made him a star for doing silly and sometimes dangerous things (one video stunt actually cost him a part of his body). So it’s unsurprising that he, without a ton of life experience, and thinking that whatever he did was going to be a hit (because it always had been before) would do something stupid.
To make matters worse it wasn’t the only stupid thing he did while in Japan. He played the fool and made fun of his host nation and its people.
The problem with being more style than substance is that when the style fails you, there’s not a lot left behind.
Undoubtedly his hard core fans will forgive him. But his self-proclaimed goal of being the biggest media star in the world are a thing of the past.
Turns out, not all publicity is good publicity.
Music Royalties
Last week we touched on the subject of the bisness model of the music industry from the point of view of music consumers. At that time I promised a look from the other side as well, that of the musician.
The history of the how the industry handles money in regards to the artists who generate the product is, shall we say, spotty. For generations of musicians, the industry played with the financial books to minimize the amount of money that made its way to the artist. When the digital age arrived the industry actively resisted the changes. It seemed like a new age was dawning, where artists could take more control of their product and the profits that result from that work.
The reality is that it hasn’t always happened that way. As the market for music moved away from physical sales (singles, albums, CDs) to digital files, a lot of things changed. That change accelerated with the move to streaming audio. There is no longer an emphasis on albums, but just singles. And because streaming audio is more about what we used to think of as “airplay” than “sales”, that changes the basis for payment.
Over the New Year’s weekend I had a long conversation with a musician who feels that the current set up is the death knell for musicians. The royalty payments from places like Spotify. He talked about well established artists who receive royalty payments that barely cover a meal at McDonald’s.
The question of the size of those royalties is an enormous issue in the music business right now. There are plenty of musicians who agree with the person I was talking to at the beginning of the year. The claim is that you can not make a living income from the streaming service.
There are voices that disagree. Will Toledo, who is the lead man for indie rock group Car Seat Headrest, says he’s made thirty thousand dollars in royalties in the last four years. He claims to be able to pay his month to month bills on that income.
In reality, the record labels once again seem to be the winner in all this. Spotify makes most of its payments to the record labels which then divide them up between the various artists in their lineup. The industry is currently going after YouTube which is the most popular streaming service in the world and pays decidedly lower royalties than Spotify.
As I concluded last week, this is an imperfect system that is still shaking itself out. What is clear is that the music we love so much is in danger if we don’t figure out how to make the system pay for the artists.
Football Ratings
Well, the NFL regular season is over. It was a difficult season for the NFL. Now that we have moved into (and in the case of the Bills, out of) the postseason, let’s take a look at what really went on with football on the air.
This season, like the previous one, had a lot of things going on in it. It also showed the game suffering on the ratings scoreboard. There have been a lot of theories as to why that might be. The political protests by some players has been a favorite explanation for some folks. Others have pointed to the generally poor quality of too many of the broadcast games, especially those on the Thursday night broadcasts. Those games are not the favorite of many players, and the caliber of the action was less than exciting too often. Other folks point to the ongoing circus surrounding what is or is not a fumble or a catch as a point of frustration that is driving fans away from the games.
But what do we really know about the ratings drift? There are a few things we can point to that are supported by the numbers. Overall, the ratings of the NFL games did go down from last year. That’s the second year in a row for a ratings decline. The decline this year is about nine percent over last year. Now that may sound like an “A-ha!” number, but it may not be. Television viewing overall has been in decline for the last several years. The overall TV rating dropped by nine percent as well. So the NFL wouldn’t seem to be suffering any worse that the medium in general. The other interesting number is that there was only a single huge ratings game all season. That compares to thirteen just two years ago. If you really want to dig into the ratings numbers, there’s an article on SI.com that I heartily recommend. You’ll find the link on my webpage.
Here’s the other factor that needs to be noted about the NFL on television. Advertising revenues actually went up this past year. With all the stuff going on, advertisers still see pro football as compelling programming. And they want access to the eyeballs that still follow the game.
In all likelihood it is a combination of all the factors I mentioned before that are driving down ratings. Some of them are easily curable, others will be more complicated. One thing is clear, if the league wants to stop the slide, something has to be done by the time the season starts again this fall.
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
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