As we head toward arguably the most welcomed holiday season in our lifetimes, the annual ascension of The Hallmark Channel to #1 status among U.S. linear TV networks has taken place and will likely be truth through the end of the year. According to online trade ads taken this week, since its Countdown to Christmas … Read more
I’ve frequently lamented that the concept of overnight ratings for television shows has virtually disappeared, the victim of both measurement incompleteness and industry apathy. In a world where the very existence of facts is open to interpretation, the reporting of them is, at best, skewed and sporadic. I’ve often called out streaming services and the … Read more
Today the latest example of putting lipstick on a pig was foisted upon the world, as Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg gleefully announced the rebranding of Facebook as “Meta”. An homage to the “Metaverse” it will attempt to service, Meta will be an umbrella title that will emcompass the company’s numeropus existing businesses, including What’s App … Read more
Last night, while Los Angeles dried out from a daylong soaking rain, I plopped down in front of the big screen, a plate of mushroom fettucini in hand, and watched Monday Night Football in a new way with more than a million strangers, though in truth all by myself. I’m reminded that I’m the latest … Read more
I’m proud to say that I have been a fan of HBO content for a majority of the 50 years it has been in existence. And for as much as Netflix and Chill may define our current times, “it’s not TV, it’s HBO” established the gold standard that Netflix now lays claim to. HBO was … Read more
The 75th season of the National Basketball Association opens tonight, the first in three years that is scheduled to run a full 82 games and in a traditional eight-month scheduling cycle. From mid-October to mid-June, 1230 regular season games and as many as 420 post-season games will be contested, providing more than 3000 hours of … Read more
They’ve lost their national accredidation. They’ve been accused of voluntarily watering down the quality of their product. They currently measure only a fraction of screens with a sample size approximately one tenth of one percent that of their largest rival. They lost one of their top executives to a highly significant client now determined to … Read more
Bela Bajaria is arguably the world’s most powerful creative executive. She’s so good she replaced a woman (Cindy Holland) who earned her company more than a trillion dollars over 16 years and in on a pace to eclipse that. How good is she? We simply don’t know. As Netflix’s head of global TV, Bajaria shepherds … Read more
A lot of file space was devoted here late in the summer to the saga of Mike Richards, my former Sony colleague whose rapid fall from newly anointed heir to Alex Trebek’s throne to the loss of an eight-figure salary and public shaming that had him reduced to a punch line by Labor Day. As … Read more
Frances Haugen started trending this past weekend and literally broke the internet in the next 48 hours. Call it the epitome of irony. Haugen, a former Facebook employee, gave a powerful interview to 60 MINUTES Sunday night and compelling testimony to Congress yesterday, blowing the whistle on what she described as a business culture that … Read more