Tag: media

To the surprise of no one who can read a ratings book, my former employers at KTLK have at long last spared Twin Cities radio listeners a third hour of Sean Hannity. The downside of course is that that same audience will get a third hour of Jason Lewis. … Oh, come on. That’s a joke.

As has been reported previously, based on the most recent Arbitron ratings, Clear Channel’s expensive, heavily promoted experiment with FM talk in the Twin Cities has not been going well. Explanations for the station’s brutal under-performance all fall under the heading of, “Your guess is as good as mine.”

The Top Three: (1). On Day One the idiots put Lambert on the air. (2). The underlying psychology of right-wing talk is heavily dependent on associations with a “winning team”. Team Conservative has badly screwed the pooch over the past six years, and as a consequence fewer and fewer listeners are eager for its’ company. (3). The KTLK line-up was monotonous. The same talking points at the same pitch hour after hour.

The “Hannity factor” plays big in that last one. No one cares if I call Hannity a dim bulb. But, to put it kindly, the guy brings nothing new to the table. Ever. Worse, he really is a performer who appears to have no concern at all for the accuracy of his “information”. Nevertheless, Clear Channel and KTLK were stuck with him via his syndication deal. (They made Hannity and Hannity’s people big promises to run him both live and at full length when they yanked him away from KSTP-AM.)

Like most businesses radio runs on leverage, so the assumption is that Hannity’s godawful performance meant leverage slipped from him to KTLK’s management, and in turn they felt brave enough to screw him.

It is known that Lewis has been campaigning for that third hour, the 4 to 5 p.m. slot — a warm-up before prime-time drive-time. Now, beginning March 5, he has it.

Interesting piece today from former Rake writer Al Eisele on The Huffington Post.

He’s entirely correct in citing another terrific piece of work by the upper echelon of mainstream journalism. But do keep on reading, as Eisele’s readers rip HIM for giving the MSM a nano-second’s break from the hellstorm over their far more egregious failures. Common theme: A cut-’em-a-new-a**hole story on something like the treatment of returning vets should NOT feel like an exception that proves the rule.

And do check out this link to a chat between PBS’ “Frontline’s”: Lowell Bergman and Steve Talbott on issues related to their excellent, four-part … MSM … series, “News War”. Part 3 premieres next Tuesday.

I don’t currently subscribe to either XM or Sirius satellite radio. But there have been times I would have sold my mother to the Arabs, (to quote Woody Allen), for anything that offered relief from the unmitigated crap that qualifies as “local broadcasting” across huge swaths of the continental USA. I mean, westbound out of Minnesota you can get maybe as far as Pierre S.D. before the “charm” of the voices of colloquial America have you pounding your head on the steering wheel.

One big reason is that “local broadcasting” in the heavily-consolidated, Clear Channel-take all, post-TeleCom Act of 1996 age means there are very few actual locals on “local radio”. Instead you get a hell of a lot of Rush Limbaugh, regional Rush Limbaugh-wannabes and syndicated Christian/bigot preachers inveighing against homosexuals and the U.N. All that and soulless, whitebread “radio-country” crap. (Would it kill these alleged country stations to play Hank Williams and Lucinda Williams? The Drive By Truckers? Come on!)

The long-predicted announcement that XM and Sirius are planning to merge gives Congress an opportunity to right a few of the big time wrongs that followed the TeleCom ’96 Act. As Cong. Ed Markey, chairman of the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, told the Wall Street Journal yesterday, “In light of the dramatic consolidation of radio ownership in the U.S. terrestial radio marketplace in the wake of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, I believe the merger of the only two satellite radio companies must be assessed with an eye toward ensuring that it does not have a similar deleterious effect on diversity on the dial and localism in radio coverage and reporting.”

“Deleterious effect” Well, amen to that, Congressman. Markey is probably just blowing brave smoke, but he seems to understand the bland, monopolized and, I dare say, politicized mess that 11 years of unchecked consolidation has brought. More to the point, what with the new, Democratic-controlled Congress having oversight over approval of this proposed merger, it is possible to re-think 21st century radio.

The trick, it seems to me is creating a legal template that assures true(r) diversity — not just different call letters for programming that all comes out of some New York or San Antonio studio. The best way, it seems to me is by finding a way to keep satellite subscriptions low-to-non-existent, and using that competition to force stagnated, ad-choked terrestial radio to clean up its act.

One proposal worth exploring seriously is a la carte programming. As in, let me pick 20 satellite channels for a buck, or 50 for $5, or something like that, instead of insisting on $13 for everything, and see what happens. Like many of you, I’m maxed out on monthly subscription fees. But ask yourself, wouldn’t you pop for satellite radio if it only cost you the price of a couple espressos a month?

The other is squeezing local stations onto the one big satellite system. Don’t get me started on the way Congress and the FCC never get tough with terrestial broadcasters — WHO PAY NO MONEY, EVER, FOR THEIR LICENSES. I think it’d being amusing to watch {the parent companies) of big local stations, like, say, WCCO, KSTP or KFAN, bidding for a priority spot on a satellite, if each Top 50 metro area was only going to get one, or two. (Clear Channel of course owns a fat chunk of XM).

Since terrestial broadcasters haven’t paid Dime One for the right to print money from the public airwaves, maybe they could pay cash straight to the government kitty for spots on a bird — required of XM/Sirius as a condition of approval.

I haven’t bought into satellite to this point because, A: I’m a cheap bastard. B: It hasn’t been portable enough, yet. (but its getting there.) C: I’ve got hundreds of CDs that’ll get me from here to there just fine, and without 30 minutes of commercials every hour, and finally, D: Some of the best hours of road-tripping I’ve ever enjoyed came with a serenade no more expensive than a sunroof open to the whistling wind.

Brother. Everyone following the next great transition at the Star Tribune ought to read this posting on MnSpeak.

The high key vernacular — phrases like, “leaving in droves” and such — are standard with disgruntled, PO’d sales reps at every TV and radio station in town. So take that with a grain of salt. But the poster’s anger at the de-contenting of an influential public utility — the primary source of the broadest range of news in this market — is heartfelt. And what I always like to remind bystanders at this point in one of these outbursts over brutal cost-cutting is that the Star Tribune for all the ominous clouds on the horizon, is still turning profits your average widget factory would kill for.

One caller here to Slaughter Central reminds me that when the Avista deal went down in December, Moyer said he was staying on in part because he received assurances that his management team would remain in place, (except Anders Gyllenhaal, who had already bailed for south Florida). Does his change of mind now suggest he believes that promise is no longer operative?

As the note says at the top of the post, MnSpeak editor, Matt Bartel, a diligent fellow, has a high degree of confidence that the writer is in fact a Star Tribune employee.

Minnesota Republicans regard thousands of hours of Al Franken speeches and air-checks as manna from heaven. They are certain their decent, rigidly traditional, God-fearing, Bachmann-ite base will develop chronic, moral whiplash from the volleys of vulgar imagery Franken has thrown at poor Norm Coleman and Republicans in general over his career. But judging by the non-reaction reaction to Repoublican party chairman Ron Carey air-quoting Franken calling Normie a “buttboy”, they may have to dig a little deeper for something that truly offends modern adult Minnesotan sensibilities. Since most of us get a joke, have watched primetime sit-coms and lived through Jesse Ventura, our threshold for shock is higher than your average butt.

Political reporters with whom I spoke prior to Franken’s Valentine’s Day announcement were grumbling a bit. They weren’t so hot on being denied physical access to him in the studio at the moment he declared his candidacy, [there was a pool video feed, hosted by WCCO], and they didn’t much like his very Hollywood junket-style one-on-one interviews the following day. Not real upset. But some.

Their thinking being that like our last celebrity politician, the Honorable Mr. Ventura, the boys and girls who are going to cover Franken for a good chunk of the next 21 months — TWENTY ONE MONTHS! — wanted to see if he can take a hit. They wanted to see how low his flashpoint really is set, and whether the aggregate effect of so much professional impertinence in one room for a mass press conference would prompt an early, out-of-the-gate, persona-defining meltdown. (Think: Denny Green after blowing a game to the Chicago Bears.)

It didn’t work that way. By all accounts, Franken’s first few days reminded Minnesota’s political press corps that this is not going to be “Apocalypse II: Jesse Redux”. Beyond that though, I was curious if the local corps and their managers have examined their consciences in the years since Ventura left the stage and re-thought the gotcha-crazed pack mentality that had them following the big lunk everywhere short of the men’s room in hopes that — “Please, God!” — he would say or do something buffoonish enough for the top-of-the-10.

“Well, I know I’ve done some personal re-thinking since the Ventura era,” says Don Shelby, who more or less big-footed ‘CCO radio’s half hour with Franken. [Shelby says it was his aggressive producer, and not him.] “Ventura was a novelty who turned himself into a joke and the joke was on us. And any reporter who hasn’t looked at that and admitted that that is what happened is kidding himself.”

What Ventura never figured out was how to play the media’s catnip attraction to him for his benefit — beyond goosing his appearance fees for wrestling acts and whatever. As Shelby and WCCO-TV’s Pat Kessler and KSTP’S Tom Hauser and the Star Tribune’s Dane Smith all acknowledged, Franken is a much brighter bulb, a much savvier student of media than Ventura. Which means, doesn’t it? I asked, that the press corps’ radar will have to be set to “11” in order to avoid becoming a primary component in the Al Franken for Senate free media strategy?

“I don’t know. Franken isn’t coming out of blue on us,” says Hauser. “He’s a much more known quantity. And let’s not forget that none of us really paid Ventura any attention until the last month of the campaign. After the debates. Until then he was just a radio station publicity stunt. This will be different. And in terms of why we covered Ventura like we did, I don’t see Franken making the mistake of taking things as personally as Ventura, who really was a loose cannon when it came to how he responded to criticism.

“I’ve had him on ‘At Issue’ twice, I think. Once before 9-11, where he was very funny and got off a lot of good jokes, and then once after 9-11, when he was very serious and thoughtful. I think 9-11 changed a lot about how those of us in the media look at this stuff, too. I mean before it was all Monica Lewinsky. After, well, there are a lot more important things going on.”

What Hauser says he took away from his first date interview Thursday was that Franken understands the importance of, “separating his comedic past from his political future.” The (sad) irony being that Franken the jokester-satirist, the guy calling buttboys buttboys, is a far better guarantor of free media than any thoughtful analysis of U.S. Mideast policies.

“He’s going to have to walk a fine line between getting attention for being a serious candidate and getting attention for being Al Franken.”

The Strib’s Dane Smith came away from his 30 minutes with the impression that Franken is determined to be taken seriously. “There are some concerns here,” says Smith, referring to the Star Tribune, “in terms of fairness to other possible candidates who don’t have his name recognition. But you know how we do these things, when they announce every candidate gets a 1-B piece that is a pretty straight-forward opportunity to say who they are and why they’re running. The other stuff comes later.”

Smith cautions any celebrity candidate who assumes the local media will be a kind of inexhaustible ATM machine for profile-building to remember that, “Ventura left office a pretty unpopular figure.” Point being, the public is now appropriately suspicious about another self-serving, “Its All About Me” act.

“But I don’t mind telling you,” says Smith, “I was impressed by how knowledgeable and business-like Franken was in our interview. I mean, he is a Harvard grad, and that comes across.”

“That’s the biggest difference between Ventura and Franken,” says WCCO-TV’s Kessler. “All the butt boy jokes and whatever else he’s said, the guy really does know his stuff. I read his latest book, [“The Truth: With Jokes”], and its very thoughtful. You don’t get the impression talking to him that this is just another vanity candidate.
Wait. Did I just make that up? That’s pretty good!”

Shelby too was impressed. “I’ve known [Franken] for a long time and there has always been this serious side to him. You graduate summa cum laude from Harvard and there’s something going on there. So, again, the comparison to Ventura isn’t exactly appropriate.

“But, yes, it would be wrong if there weren’t a higher level of restraint on the part of the press this time because of the way the tail wagged the dog with Ventura. And let’s not forget this is a campaign. We covered Ventura as an elected official. For that reason I think the Franken news cycle will slow down quite a bit here after this first rush.”

Shelby and Kessler’s boss, WCCO-TV news director, Jeff Kiernan, wasn’t yet on the job when Ventura-mania struck in 1998, “So I don’t have the perspective Don and Pat have. So I’m trusting their judgment on these things as we begin here. But we understand the celebrity angle well enough to guarantee equal coverage. We certainly do not intend to give Franken any more or better coverage than say, Mike Ciresi, if he gets in the race.”

An example of Franken’s new, more modulated demeanor is him declaring that for the foreseeable future he will refrain from calling Norm Coleman George W. Bush’s butt boy. “Lapdog” will do for the time being.

Upon hearing this morning of the latest departure/replacement at the Star Tribune, this time publisher J. Keith Moyer — I placed a half dozen phone calls to what I consider the usual suspects … plus. I expected to listen to another wave of stunned dismay. Wrong.

Those Strib employees who weren’t either busy trying to make a deadline, or eager to avoid comment of any kind, essentially shrugged. “Moyer, too.” A bit like the announcement earlier this week of Nancy Barnes replacing Anders Gyllenhaal in the top editor’s job, the trenches-level employees at the place have significantly greater concerns than the shifting of chairs on the management deck.

It seems fair to say the level of anxiety is extraordinarily high in Strib land. Ownership of the paper will switch hands certainly within the month, a “movement” toward early retirement/buyouts has not been discouraged and, more critically, no one has any way to assess new owner Avista Capital Partners’ commitment to newspapering as opposed to rank profit-seeking and profit-taking. With all that on their minds, the sight of another well-compensated executive, parachutes packed, leaping from the forward hatch is of comparatively little concern.

But the appearance isn’t calming. As one reporter put it, “If you’re inclined to worry about what comes next, and a lot of us are, on some level you have to look at Moyer and ask yourself, ‘What does he know, really, that we don’t, but should?’ ” The underlying assumption being that as Gyllenhaal jumped to Miami he had some kind of heads-up to McClatchy dumping the Star Tribune eleven days later.

Not that knowing what either Gyllenhaal or Moyer know/knows is a hell of a lot of consolation to the salary men and women, who have far fewer career options.

Finally, give me credit for not using, “rats”, “sinking” and/or “poop deck” anywhere in this piece. That would be cheap.

This from a Stribber on today’s Barnes-for-Gyllenhaal announcement.

Barnes …

“1) is the first woman ever named to the executive editor post at the Star Tribune

2) leapfrogged over Gillespie — which is a big blow to Scott, a great guy — but in fact that follows a pattern around here of managing editors not following in their bosses’ footsteps.

3) some of us are just breathing a sigh of relief it wasn’t Monica “who cares about words? they only muck up design” Moses

4) Be careful what kind of “dragon lady” gossip you listen to about Nancy from Stribbers. A lot of it is the typical bullshit thrown around about strong women bosses. Unlike the muumuu brigade you remember at the PP, she is tough but no tsk-tsker. She plays well with the boys and gets things DONE, which I really admire.”

Okay. I hereby give Barnes 15 minutes worth of benefit of the doubt/presumption of innocence.

I suppose it’d be base and sexist of me to throw in at this point the crack made by another(Y-chromosome addled)Stribber, “Well, I’m willing to say she’s better looking than Tim McGuire.”

Cloddish bastard!

Nancy Barnes, currently the Star Tribune’s Deputy Managing Editor for Content, was named Anders Gyllenhaal’s replacement in a 2:30 announcement to the staff this afternoon.

Her in-house competition was assumed to have been Monica Moses, executive director of Product Innovation and, Scott Gillespie, managing editor. At least for the time being both remain in their current jobs.

Publisher Keith Moyer made the announcement and made a point of praising Gyllenhaal’s stewardship of the paper. Gyllenhaal is leaving to edit the Miami Herald. According to employees present for the announcement, Moyer had to prompt the staff to tepid applause for Gyllenhaal’s performance.

There was no Q&A, and several reporters with whom I spoke say the Barnes announcement, while interesting, doesn’t begin to provide the answers the staff is most interested in, namely, how many of them will survive the transition to new owner Avista Capital Partners, expected within the next two weeks.

In a related development, Star Tribune union employees were notified that the company will NOT extend a five day window, commencing on the date of Avista’s takeover, for current employees to file for a voluntary buy-out. There had been hope that the five-day process might be extended, and/or the new owners might sweeten the terms of the buy-out to attract more departures.

One veteran employee guesstimated that 15 colleagues might grab the current offer.

MPR’s Kerri Miller had NPR’s Ken Rudin, (a.k.a. “The Political Junkie”), on last Friday morning. Both are plenty hip to horse race politics so the conversation and calls, even with Pledge Week breaks, enhanced my drive up I-35 to Duluth.
They talked up Obama and the presidential slates. The obvious stuff. But it was the discussion of the Al Franken candidacy — to be announced Wednesday, reportedly, as he signs off his Air America show — that caught my interest most.
Miller and Rudin seemed in agreement that Franken’s quest was problematic as a consequence of the vast trove of broadcast “baggage” his primary rivals and Norm Coleman might/will throw at him. He has, after all, made endless outrageous assertions against conservatives, Republicans and Norm Coleman. Miller and Rudin seemed to be imagining Franken’s hyperbole playing endlessly as attack ads against him, pruning his credibility, diminishing his gravitas and keeping him permanently on the defensive.

Its an arguable point, because there’s no question Mike Ciresi would take that offensive if he needed to. Likewise Coleman in the general election, if Franken gets that far.

What was disappointing about the Miller-Rudin analysis — which in fairness to them was brief, what with Bill Kling Inc. pleading for your disposable dollars, (and did you know you can also sign over the deed to your home and your childrens’ college funds to MPR?) — was there was no recognition of an evolved definition of “baggage”.

I admit a certain appeal for Franken. Partly because he seems at least as viable as any other name the Democrats have tossed against the wall to date. But also BECAUSE of his baggage, or I should say, what his baggage is not.

When I think of “baggage” today, in 2007, in the aftermath of the gross manipulation of intelligence, (i.e. lying), that preceded the Iraq invasion, in the aftermath of the Tom DeLay-Jack Abramoff-Duke Cunningham-Dusty Foggo scandals, no-bid contracts, Dick Cheney’s secret energy task force — the one with “Kenny Boy” Lay offering sage counsel — and on and on … and on and on … hours of tapes of a professional satirist making, OK, occasionally sophomoric jokes at these culprits’ expense doesn’t even begin to register as “baggage”.

More to the point, is there a voter in Minnesota who doesn’t think of Franken as a comedian? Some may not think him funny. But they understand he’s in the business of making jokes. And if the jokes started as early as they did, back when Team Bush was riding high and so much of the rest of the pop infotainment/mainstream media illuminati were playing cheerleader, Franken’s jokes/baggage may very well qualify as courageous rather than intemperate.

As far as I know Franken’s “baggage” has nothing whatsoever to do with incidents of deceit, fraud, contempt for the Constitution or lack of “support for the troops”. (I’m sure he’s got tapes of his USO visits if anyone challenges him on that.) His baggage is that of a very well-known, well-understood pop culture icon saying pretty much what he has always said. In other words, stuff that needs very little defending.

I’m reminded of a joke I think Warren Beatty made about all his hedonistic womanizing baggage were he to run for high office. I’m paraphrasing here, but the joke has some reporter asking Beatty at a press conference, “Sir, will you confirm or deny you had sexual relations with [fill in the blank]?” To which Beatty was advised to respond, “I’ve done everything and everyone. Next question.”

Franken doesn’t need my campaign advice, but it seems obvious the trick he needs to pull off is convincing voters the two sides of his personality are not only compatible, but in fact a bona fide asset on the modern, post-Team Bush political stage. Namely, that he is both a guy with a fundamentally comic, satirical nature AND a thoughtful, honest, well-connected student of policy and government. (Everyone who thought his radio show insufficiently funny, was probably reacting to his wonkier moments with government officials and think tankers.)

Also, knowing the kind of flame that draws press moths, Franken’s “baggage”, that element of newsworthy unpredictability, is precisely the sort of thing that may draw significantly more free media than your garden variety political careerist.