Media Musings

This morning CNN launched its long-awaited streaming service, unimaginatively called CNN+.  Yes, I subscribed; don’t admonish me.  I’m a bit of a news junkie, I’d like to think I’m a thorough observer of all things media, and I once worked for the company.  For less than six bits a week, I now have access to … Read more

Where there’s a will, there’s a way.  Where there’s two Wills, there’s chaos. And perhaps it was all designed to be reminiscent of another time when ABC needed a WTF incident on live TV to breathe life into a struggling franchise. Will Packer was tasked with reinvigorating an Oscars awards broadcast that had hemorrhaged more … Read more

The Oscars are being given out tonight, restored to its Hollywood venue, a full-fledged red carpet and rife with anticipation that TV rating downtrends of recent years will be reversed. A lot of attention has been paid to a precipitous ratings decline that reached dumpster-fire proportions last spring, when the muted Union Station affair failed … Read more

It has been a pretty eventful week for my friends and aspirational colleagues at the Nielsen Company. In the same week that their board rejected a buyout offer from Elliott Management that was reportedly $6 billion below the previously reported valuation, they were informed by the Media Rating Council that they still would not reinstate … Read more

This is sort of a milestone for this space, the 150th of these exercises since we started dabbling roughly ten months ago.  As I have struggled to find a voice and an audience, topics have wavered between, as one astute observer shared with me, “pop culture, media insights and a personal journey”, three words have … Read more

I’m gonna preface this one by reaffirming that many of the current executives and staffers at The Nielsen Company are longtime professional and personal friends, whose talents and humanity are unparalleled.  None of what I’m about to write should be taken as judgement on those of you I already know. The company and those in … Read more

MEMO TO:  FRANCES BERWICK, CHAIRMAN, ENTERTAINMENT NETWORKS, NBCUNIVERSAL TELEVISION AND STREAMING FR: STEVE LEBLANG, MEDIA CONSULTANT RE: THE COURTSHIP — S1 E2 Dear Frances, These are the types of internal memos that are difficult for me to write, since I attempt to be creator friendly.  Months of research, development, casting and post-production goes into the … Read more