“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 2013-18 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 4, 2018
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.
Couples Therapy
Even the best relationships will hit a rough patch now and then. If the foundation of that relationship is solid, then you make your way through to the other side. I’ve been told that often the strongest part of a bone is where it has been broken. But sometimes the relationship needs a little help. In the worst case scenarios, it’s couple’s therapy. But sometimes you just need a little time apart.
I’m beginning to wonder our relationship with social media, and really, media in general. This time of year, some folks will give something up as part of a spiritual discipline. The number of people I hear deciding to walk away from media seems to be on the rise.
Is our relationship with our media dysfunctional? As a Baby Boomer, I’ve grown up with the media as a daily part of my life. More so than any generation before, but the generations that follow mine have upped the ante. A very large part of that is that media has become increasingly portable, and increasingly personal. It is the second part of that sentence that concerns me the most.
Our media has become more and more personally focused. We don’t have to watch or listen to what everyone else does. Through things like algorithms, our media services can design our media feeds so that we hear and see more and more of what we like. At the surface, that sounds like a wonderful idea. Rather than having to hear the Top 40 song that you hate so much so often, your feed only gives you what you like. And the world is a better place, right?
I’m beginning to wonder. Because it creates a world that is all about you, the modern model for media is one that takes us out of communal experiences to a much larger degree than ever before. It also inevitably narrows the world in which we live. There may be new experiences slowly mixed in, but because they are based on past preferences, we are less likely to find something new and innovative.
As we look around at a world that seems more and more hostile to that which is different, the question is: how much this new media cult of personality may be playing into it.
Which brings me back to my thoughts on relationships. Taking a little time away gives us the time to explore something new, different, and not so cookie cutter in our media. In doing so we can add depth and breadth to our lives that is less inwardly focused. Which in turn will make our time with our media more interesting as well.
Less Is More
I have had cable or satellite television for going on forty years. I signed up for my first service in my first apartment. Let’s face it I was living in a town where I didn’t know a soul and there wasn’t a lot else to do. It’s been a constant companion ever since.
But if there is one consistent issue I have had with television in general and cable channels in particular, it is the commercial load I have to endure. I refuse to watch movies on stations that interrupt with commercial breaks. It just makes me crazy. Plus the number of breaks and ads in those breaks seem to get higher and higher.
As it turns out, on that last point, my perception is absolutely correct. The total number of minutes has increased steadily. In 2009 broadcast networks were carrying just shy of thirteen and a half minutes per hour. By 2013, that number was over fourteen minutes. In January of this year, network spotloads increased at the highest growth rate in three years.
The total numbers of ads increased too because the length of the ads has decreased. You can air twice as many thirty second spots as sixty and four times as many fifteen second spots.
One reason why the spot load is growing is because viewership is down. That sounds counter-intuitive. But it’s a numbers game. As the number of viewers decline, you can increase what are called the “commercial impressions” by adding more commercials. You do it so you can improve your pitch to your advertisers. As Mark Twain was fond of saying, “There are lies, damn lies and statistics”.
All of which makes the recent announcement by the folks at NBCUniversal very interesting. In the fourth quarter of this year over 50 prime time shows on a range of the Peacock Network’s channels will see their ad load decrease. The number of ads in an individual break will drop by twenty percent and the total advertising time allotted will drop by ten percent. All of this is scheduled to coincide with the launch of the fall season. They are also looking at some new ways of approaching advertising on the networks, including using artificial intelligence to improve targeting to consumers.
I can’t imagine too many viewers will be upset with a decrease in the amount of television advertising. But our issues pale in comparison to making sure that the numbers continue to appease the folks who pay the bills. I’m looking forward to seeing if NBCUniversal has figured out how to manage that balancing act.
More Sports
With all the changes in the television industry, one thing is clear. Networks are ready to commit to anything we want to watch. The bad news is that a lot of us have really terrible taste in television. The good news is that, assuming you enjoy sports, there is going to be a LOT of sports available to watch.
Even with the decline in viewership numbers, which I’ve noted before are actually better than overall viewership numbers, sports remains the one bright shining spot in the television universe. It draws dedicated viewers who are faithful week in and week out. Advertisers love that kind of audience and will spend the dollars to get their message in front of those eyes. That audience also tends to have disposable income, so it’s that much more desirable.
How do I know we’re going to see more sports? Beyond the logic just stated, there is the increasing number of announcements from networks that they are all in. ESPN has announced a new service, dubbed ESPN Plus. For 4.99 a month you get access to live action events not airing on the main outlets plus on-demand archival events. Disney owns the sports network and CEO Bob Iger has acknowledged that the OTT service may be the future of the franchise, rather than the cable networks.
They’re not alone. Fox has been doing some reshaping of its corporate structure, including selling about half of it’s television/entertainment businesses to Disney. The reason? So it can focus more on sports programming, like getting more Thursday Night Football broadcasts of the NFL.
YouTube TV has got an eye on the sports category as well. The OTT service is almost a year old and continues to both increase channel selection and increase the price. But in the future plans of the service are both the MLB network and NBA TV. Even with the “skinny bundle” concept of offering just core stations in contrast to the cable/satellite industries all inclusive model, the service knows that having sports broadcasts can help the bottom line. Even if the subscribers never look at most of the other channels, getting them onboard with sports helps to underwrite everything else.
Even with the declines, sports broadcasting of all kinds tends to outperform any other form of programming. Money goes where the eyes are, and our eyes are on the games. So sports will continue to form a backbone for the next generation of television services. The question remains if there is an upper limit for our interest, and how soon we may reach that limit.
Call that the View From the Phlipside
Copyright Jay Phillippi, 2018
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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