LB's Rambles

Fandom of the Opera

If you enjoy opera, and you're curious about the technologies involved in producing and distributing the Metropolitan Opera to television, movie theaters and mobile devices, you would have enjoyed a breakfast this morning featuring Mark Schubin. He's a Fellow of the Society of Motion Picture & Television Engineers (SMPTE) and also the engineer in charge of the Met's media department.

Schubin was the featured speaker at one of Bill Sobel's SobelMedia breakfasts at the Samsung Experience in NYC, presenting a lively talk and slideshow called "Fandom of the Opera." If you think that opera occupies a relatively small and obscure niche in our culture, Schubin will disabuse you of that notion. Some of those live broadcasts have reached as high as #11 at the box office in the weekly movie attendance figures - and that's impressive (not to mention lucrative). Super Bowl popularity? No. But pretty impressive all the same.

Schubin's presentation has some pretty amazing statistics - and you can see most of his slides here, courtesy of his website. Some of the material is pretty amazing; you wouldn't believe the amount of work involved, not only in producing a show using up to 16 HD cameras, but providing simultaneous titling translations in a variety of languages.  I also wasn't aware of the important role opera has played over a span of more than a century and a half, in terms of media development - most of the important inventions were foreshadowed by operatic experiments. Interesting - and highly entertaining - stuff.

Defining the Future of Video

We have all seen article after article about the cnages in the way we consume entertainment. Those changes are forcing massive shifts in the way that entire industries - recording, broadcasting, movies - define themselves and earn the money they need to stay alive. Is the future of television and video consumption to be defined by the ever-evolving hardware and software that make it so much easier for consumers to choose what they see or hear and when to do so?

Well, yes, rather clearly. But more than just the development of portable players and file-sharing software, perhaps it all can be explained by looking at the connections on the back of your television. That's one of the points made by Philip Leigh, of Inside Digital Media, in a column today for MediaPost's Online Video Insider blog. He sees the change as evolutionary - an evolution that has taken place over the past thirty years and continues today - and explains why that back panel on your TV is so important today. It's an interesting take.

Keep It Transparent

Last week was not a good one for those of us who have worked in the often-unjustly-maligned field of video PR creation. First Medialink, a pioneer and leader in the field, completed its transition into a mere arm of The NewsMarket. Then On The Scene Productions essentially shut down and filed for bankruptcy.

What went wrong? Among other factors, the perceived lack of transparency in the way too many television stations and other outlets used packaged videos. Back in my network days, producers were happy to get raw video footage they might not otherwise have gotten - say, video of an assembly line - in these video releases, for which proper credit was given. But some stations were lazy. They would take and air narrated releases without telling their viewers the source of the materials. And that, to be blunt, was less than honest.

Doug Simon, whose D S Simon Productions is a leading company in the video production field, has an excellent article posted on Bulldog Reporter's Daily Dog blog. (For the sake of transparency, I should add that he's a friend and even lives in my town.) I think he makes some important points about transparency - and the need to maintain that kind of honesty while emphasizing the importance of well-produced corporate or organizational videos, particularly in a world where online video and YouTube have become important. It's worth your attention and your comments.

Marxist Television?

What's going on here? I don't watch much TV, so maybe I was missing something. But at my breakfast place this morning, they had their TVs set - silently - to "The Price is Right," a quiz show I think has been around since I was growing up. And for some reason - I have no idea why - EVERYONE on the show was wearing Groucho noses, complete with eyebrows, glasses, nose and mustache. Everyone. The host, the contestants, the studio audience. EVERYONE. Without the sound, I can't explain the homage to Groucho Marx - any of my readers know what was happening?

I mean, I love the Marx Brothers, most of whose movies are still laugh-out-loud funny. But Groucho died in 1977, 32 years ago. A lot of the people on today's TV show weren't even born then.

If it rekindles interest in their movies, that's great. I own a dozen of them because, fortunately, there are two big collections now on DVD available through Amazon. The first, "The Marx Brothers Silver Screen Collection," contains all five of the earliest movies, the ones where Zeppo Marx was the romantic lead. The second, "The Marx Brothers Collection," has seven of the later films, including "A Night at the Opera," still one of the funniest movies ever made - back when it was still revived and shown in theaters, the New Yorker used to give it the blurb, "The Marx Brothers happen to Il Trovatore." If a new generation is discovering these movies, then being surrounded by Groucho noses is a small price to pay.

Goodbye, Charlie

I am both saddened and pleased by the news that Charlie Gibson is retiring from his post as anchor of ABC's World News Tonight.

I am saddened, because Charlie - an old friend and colleague over my years at ABC - is a top-notch newsperson and reporter. I don't much like what "news" - broadcast news in particular - has become, and I think Charlie's skills and judgment will be sorely missed. He was, and is, an honest reporter who makes every possible effort to be both fair and accurate.

I am pleased, however, on Charlie's behalf, as he surely has earned the pleasures of semi-retirement. I know he has no intention of fading away, and I hope that he will be able to pick and choose subjects that interest him as worthy topics for news specials.

I would add that, in addition to his skills as a reporter, Charlie Gibson is a gentleman through and through, a good person to have as a friend, with a fine sense of humor - another quality that will be missed.

I have also worked with Diane Sawyer, who will be taking over the anchor seat from Charlie. She is another top-notch, no-nonsense newsperson. I had the pleasure of working with her on a number of occasions when she took over the anchor seat while Peter Jennings was off or on assignment, and she too is a thoroughgoing professional. There aren't too many left like her and like Charlie - and that's a pity. I wish her well.

News Bragging Rights: Here We Go Again

Once again, we've had a significant news event - the death of pop superstar Michael Jackson - that has resulted in incredible traffic for online news sites as well as mainstream media outlets.

For now, I'm less interested in discussing whether the Jackson coverage has been excessive, an argument that certainly could be made given the number of other significant events going on in the world: the turmoil and bloodshed in Iran, the legislative trainwrecks in Washington, etc.

But it is interesting to see, once again, the significant coverage role played by online media. Certainly, first word of Jackson's death was carried by AOL's gossip site TMZ - while the sites of most major news organizations were trying to be sure the story was confirmed before they put it out.

That's certainly a responsible position to take. As it happens, TMZ had the story right - but suppose it had been wrong? All the same, there's a good deal of commentary today on the usual post-report claims and jealousies. The crush of Jackson-related tweets was enough to cause major problems at Twitter, which circulated not only accurate reports but also unconfirmed (and later discredited) rumors about other performers, nor was it the only service to have problems. Some of the claims made by established media were, to put it kindly, a bit out of line, as Robin Wauters noted at TechCrunch.

Overall, I think I'd have to subscribe to the views offered by Catharine P. Taylor at BNET media - particularly her wider observations on what worked - and what didn't. We're likely to see a great many more analyses before we get through this tidal wave of coverage.

Where Did You Watch?

Where were you for today's Presidential inauguration? Chances are, if you're reading this, that you did as I did - you were watching on the Internet. If you were on TV, I'll bet that you had a web browser going as well.

Crain's New York Business agrees. CNN set a record for streams; MSNBC wasn't far behind - and those are the ones who have released preliminary figures. Some 32 million viewers ONLINE between those two outlets.

Apparently, some sites were flat-out overwhelmed by the traffic. I tried to watch ABCNEWS.com coverage, but got nothing (after an initial ad) except a spinning globe. Switched over to Fox.com and watched the whole thing, nicely streamed - no commentary (in the part I watched, anyway), just a live stream of the events.

Crain's quotes CNN as saying "another coming-of-age event for streaming video online." Absolutely right. And CNN even incorporated Facebook into users' capabilities. We have seen the future, folks, and it is now.

Digital Delays?

Boy, this sure was unpredictable, right?

Our political class, seeing that television is developing from old-style analog to new-and-improved digital, set a hard and fast date - February 17, 2009 - on which analog, over-the-air TV would no longer be provided. Only digital signals would be permitted over the public airwaves.

With less than one month to go now until that date, that same group of politicians has suddenly discovered, to its horror, that there are still millions of homes out there that aren't ready to make the switch. Or, as the Daily Dog puts it, they're "careening towards PR disaster."

Now remember, people with cable aren't affected. People with satellite dishes aren't affected. Only people still receiving TV signals over the air via their rabbitear (or home) antennas are affected.

But suddenly there is a flurry of would-be legislative activity to ease the transition, perhaps by delaying things for a few months, or - surprise - distributing more government money in the form of more coupons to help people buy equipment needed to make the switch. TV stations are having nervous breakdowns. So are the communications giants. For those of us old enough to remember "The Perils of Pauline," it all sounds entertaining (if more-than-vaguely familiar). Please pass the popcorn.

In the Soup with Marx

The Marx Brothers, that is, and "Duck Soup." Reading through various blogs today, I came across this column by Bill Moyers and Michael Winship comparing the current year, 2009, to the situations lampooned in the Marx Brothers' classic movie, made in 1933. They draw a lot of inferences - I'm not sure I'd agree with their assessment that "Duck Soup is now seen as one of the great antiwar comedies of all time" - but it did serve to remind me that "Duck Soup" has always been one of my favorites. I still think its humor holds up, which, after 76 years, is pretty remarkable. And if you haven't seen it, here's your opportunity:

Hat Tip: Instapundit

The Leno Move

As you are probably aware, NBC announced last week it is moving Jay Leno from his late-night spot to a five-day-a-week, 10 PM end-of-prime-time slot - in essence, replacing an hour of prime-time drama/entertainment with the much less expensive to produce Leno show. The move has been discussed and analyzed, praised and condemned. Is it the beginning of the end of prime-time television as we have known it? Or is it a bold move to reinvent the network television business?

I've seen two analyses in particular that I think are worth sharing and considering.

The first is from media analyst Shelly Palmer, who - among his other credentials - is the President of NASAS, the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. He provides a detailed analysis of the likely effects of the move on NBC in particular and on television in general, depending on how the Leno move works out.

The second comes from James Joyner, the editor of Outside the Beltway, and it interests me largely because Joyner is writing it from the perspective of a viewer (or non-viewer) - and yet reaches pretty much the same conclusions regarding the changing nature of television, as the industry struggles to adapt to a time-shifted, multi-sourced world. I suspect that a growing number of people no longer make "appointments" to watch a particular program at a particular time, preferring to watch at their convenience. We will see more of that as technology continues to develop - and that makes a complete re-thinking of the network's role an ever more critical necessity.