There is one solution to the trollery and slander on this website. No anonymous accounts. Everyone known and standing behind their words. Short of that, the only coherent response is to call the liars liars and the trolls trolls and the bots bots. And block em. The end. | | | | Was Renee (played by Laurie Holden) a Russian Spy? Tell me now or I have re-watch. Not a chore.
(FX Networks) | | | | |  | “There is one solution to the trollery and slander on this website. No anonymous accounts. Everyone known and standing behind their words. Short of that, the only coherent response is to call the liars liars and the trolls trolls and the bots bots. And block em. The end.”
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| | rantnrave:// NETFLIX is king of the OTT hill. The tectonic plates of television and film are moving and colliding. Old ways won't suffice. There will be new entrants. HULU had a massive headstart with television catalog and its just starting to surface with originals that matter like HANDMAID'S TALE. But, they need more and fast. These services need execs that can produce and acquire as many as hundred shows a year. As more competition surfaces the winners will likely continue to grow and consolidate. As consumption moves more and more to OTT, traditional advertising opportunities in the most premium content will likely change and reduce. Every minute consumed on Netflix (or a similar service) vs. traditional cable means a minute more of ad-free watching. APPLE is not likely to go commercial heavy. Neither is AMAZON. The generation that grows up with OTT just has a different expectation and relationship with their services. The highest value consumers are in the ad-free tiers. This isn't some rant about the death of TV. I f***ing love TV. It's about the transition. I'd bet on television executives like FX's JOHN LANDGRAF in the new world order as much as anyone. He may have the best creative (and daring) track record in television right now. TV and film catalog can be the bedrock of viewing hours on OTT but originals grow subscribers. What if an epic show like THE AMERICANS (please tell me if RENEE was a Russian spy?) had been OTT-only on a service like Hulu? When Handmaid's Tale won their EMMYS, the rumor around town is that subs at Hulu grew 10-15% in one 48 hour period. What's the lifetime value of a subscriber for these kinds of services? $250-400 as ARPU rises and churn falls? The asset value just grows. What about movies? I spend a lot of time with film executives. They like to say "the middle is dead." Which is why we see blockbusters until our eyes fall out. It's like eating chicken every day. Overload. Would a PULP FICTION even get made today? Creative innovation often comes from the outside and big companies buy them. DISNEY did with MIRAMAX years ago. But instead of thinking that those kinds of movies are dead. Why not flip the script you've been acting out for decades? Case in point, execs DAVID GREENBAUM and MATTHEW GREENFIELD, they head up production for FOX SEARCHLIGHT, a creative beacon in a sea of popcorn movies. Oscar nominations and wins. They had quite the stellar year with THE SHAPE OF WATER and THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI (my fav film of last year). As great as those movies were, even with nominations, they grind out it to get to $50-60 Million. It just so happens that Disney is trying to buy 21st CENTURY FOX. It just so happens that Disney doesn't really make content like these guys make. Or like Landgraf does. What if those films had been OTT-only releases on the mouse's forthcoming streaming services. And what if we got rid of the ridiculous rule that only films in a theater can be nominated for an OSCAR? My guess is that those movies could have had exponentially bigger value-impact in growing subscribers for a service, and thus asset value growth, than a theater release ever would. Yes, you have to contend with filmmakers who demand theater releases. There may be a workaround, but it's also trying to put the genie back in the bottle. And what about those popcorn movies? Imagine how many subs BLACK PANTHER would drive if only on "DISNEYFLIX" as RICH GREENFIELD calls it. And SOLO (a fun movie no matter what you heard) might have been a huge hit vs. a financial flop. Again, originals grow subs. Originals that hit a chord or zeitgeist, really grow subs. And the direct relationship with the audience without middlemen. And what about my pal, Landgraf? Open the vault and let him run like crazy creating more stuff for FX and for those new services. Television is still a huge business but 7 days a week in primetime has finite room. It's the little changes that matter in big ways. Netflix makes TV shows and films. That isn't new. But the little things they did differently, now commonplace to this generation mattered in big ways... If you want more about the changes and effects in the advertising environment read my dear friend KEN AULETTA's book, FRENEMIES: THE EPIC DISRUPTION OF THE AD BUSINESS (AND EVERYTHING ELSE). Ken is THE epic storyteller of media history. And if you're up for a podcast, here he is interviewed by another pal, BILLIONS creator BRIAN KOPPELMAN. Ken is so smart. He got thrown out of high school. I'm not smart but I got thrown out too... Please shoot me right now. Please... Rooting for the DEMS is like having RUDY RUETTIGER at, say, QB. I love Rudy. He had heart and drive and never gave up. But he wasn't winning the football game for you. Where is the QB? This while the MERCERS and KOCHS build data empires and 50-year roadmaps and donors concentrate on a few house seats... The guy that hates THE RED HEN... Happy Birthday to CHARLES FULFORD. | | | - Jason Hirschhorn, curator |
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 | The New York Times |
| Trump officials deserve public shaming. | | |
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 | Esquire |
| This century's John Ford has reinvented the genre for an era in which drug cartels, developers, and fracking companies divide the riches. | | |
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 | Medium |
| For the second time in a week, my phone buzzed with a New York Times alert, notifying me that another celebrity had died by suicide. My heart sank. I tuned into the Crisis Text Line Slack channel to see how many people were waiting for a counselor's help. | | |
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 | BuzzFeed |
| A bird emerges from the ashes. | | |
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 | The Verge |
| How a meteorite hunter’s obsession took him from the mountains of Colorado, to the Bundy Ranch, and eventually landed him in jail. | | |
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 | New York Magazine |
| The most popular American, whose legacy is the primary target of Donald Trump, has, for now, virtually disappeared from public life. | | |
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 | Vanity Fair |
| Lisa Nishimura, the streaming giant’s head of documentary and comedy programming, is changing the way filmmakers and viewers approach nonfiction TV. | | |
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 | Quartz |
| No one is perfect--and trying to be can be extremely psychologically damaging. | | |
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 | PSFK |
| In this interview, sensory design and fragrance expert Olivia Jezler shares her insight on the potential for scent, when integrated into retail design, to provide more meaningful and engaging experiences for consumers. | | |
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 | POLITICO Magazine |
| … And D.C. hits them right back. | | |
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 | Om Malik |
| I have always been fascinated by QVC and Home Shopping Network (HSN), and how effective they are in moving product and reshaping inventory. It is no surprise that those two are central to one of my favorite movies, "Joy," which is about self-made entrepreneur Joy Mangano. | | |
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 | Vox |
| A psychologist explains why humans are so terrible to each other. | | |
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 | Harvard Business Review |
| In the software age, switching costs are lower. | | |
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 | How We Get To Next |
| Post-war artists sold us a vision of a luxurious, automated suburban lifestyle. | | |
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 | The Root |
| Artist manager Sophia Chang—who, as a Korean-Canadian woman, was an anomaly within an anomaly in the male-dominated world of ’90s hip-hop—advocated fiercely for the Wu-Tang Clan and other artists behind the scenes, helping to shape the very foundation upon which hip-hop’s golden era is built. | | |
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 | GeekWire |
| Convenience. Portability. Access. All are reasons that consumers have embraced digital content. The ability we have to rapidly find an unimaginable variety of reading, viewing and listening material, and easily take it with us, has propelled non-physical media. Quality. Ownership. Persistence. All are drawbacks, and in some cases unforeseen side effects, that dog digital media. | | |
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 | Institutional Investor |
| The money, ego, psychology, and outrage behind the controversial trend of urban mega-mansions. | | |
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 | The Intercept |
| These fortress-like AT&T buildings are central to a secret NSA program that has monitored billions of communications, documents and sources reveal. | | |
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 | Billboard |
| If you’ve been following music-tech news this year, the recent influx of investment and M&A activity in the Indian music streaming market might have caught your eye. | | |
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 | Wired |
| The American Dream is the small-business dream: Work hard and achieve success. But the American promise is one of shared prosperity, as encapsulated in the idea that "what is good for General Motors is good for America." And for that, you need big businesses to be listed on the stock exchange, owned by the public at large. | | |
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 | YouTube |
| | | | | | one of my favorite rock songs of all time. Pure, simple, raw. "Ya got Bad Luck!" |
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