Well, It WAS TACO Tuesday

There was once a time when I was actively in enough demand for my skill sets where companies I was interested in working for would gleefully describe their perks during our negotiations.  During my pas-de-deux with Game Show Network the effusive HR consultant who championed my candidacy piad particular homage to the fact that they had just opened a new on-site rooftop cafeteria with “gourmet” meals at discount prices, and that per the chairman’s wishes every Tuesday would feature a complimentary taco bar.  This apparently meant a lot more to the millennial coders who worked excessively long hours on the company’s digital game development, for this was how more progressive Bay Area companies in that world were able to attract and retain talent.  But for some of us old school TV farts it was a pretty cool idea, and as I quickly learned it was a big internal political plus if you made sure to clear your calendar and be there to avail yourself of the company’s largesse.

So it was with more than just a tinge of irony on a Taco Tuesday where yet again our excuse for a free world leader was holding the country’s emotions hostage by providing a doomsday countdown clock to sending a civilization back to the Stone Age–enough so that two people close to me were actually planning to rush out and fill up their gas tanks fearing that option would no longer be available to them this morning–that another far more deserving but arguably less well known president was out of a job.  As DEADLINE’s ever-intrepid Nellie Andreeva “exclusively” reported in the midst of the “final” countdown:

Sony Pictures Entertainment’s layoffs are impacting high-level TV executives. John Zaccario, President of Game Show Network, will transition out of his role later this summer after 18 years at the company…Zaccario’s exit stems from a consolidation move to bring GSN together with the studio’s game show production group under Suzanne Prete, President, Game Shows.Under Zaccario’s leadership, GSN grew into a top 10 cable network and a top five general entertainment network. 

It wasn’t just the fact that yet another connection to my fast-fading Sony days is now heading for the same rear-view mirror that I’ve been relegated to that disturbed me.  It was the fact that it happened to a really good guy who was also an extremely effective leader and a trusted comrade-in-arms.  Zaccario rose to the presidency after serving as its head of ad sales during an era where said digital business was growing exponentially and broadening the network’s appeal well beyond the alter cockers and shut-ins who were the de facto gold cards on the TV side.  Both in terms of demography and socio-economic status the average viewer to umpteen reruns of FAMILY FEUD hardly commanded a decent CPM.  But Zaccario’s ability to blend the business propositions of linear and digital–a skill set he learned while rising through the ranks in ESPN’s well-respected sales operation–created opportunities and partnerships that otherwise would have never been a possibility for a network with the profile that GSN had–and still has.  He even found ways to bring some of those advertisers to my quirky ideas for “lost gems” that delivered more net revenue for far fewer viewers than the higher profile competition reality risks that my immediate superiors were hell bent on pursuing.  That helped secure my employment even more than showing up for Taco Tuesday.

But that digital gaming business is no longer part of Sony’s plans, and being a Top 10 cable network in a world where cable networks in general are seen as albatrosses by competitive conglomerates is right up there with the old admiral of the Nebraska navy analogy.  And that point was underscored by current studio czar Ravi Ahuja in a memo he released yesterday morning which Andreeva’s deputy Anthony D’Alessandro actually did break:

Said Ahuja in an email to staff this morning, “Over the past year, we have sharpened our strategy and clarified where we believe the greatest opportunities exist. As we lean into those priorities, we need to operate with greater focus, speed, and alignment to strengthen our differentiated capabilities. To support our growth, we are aligning our organization with where the business is going — not where it has been. 

Beyond the inner circle of Culver City-based entertainment companies, this wasn’t quite as big a deal as what was transpiring elsewhere around the world.  The antics of yet another deadline extension that has anyone with the capacity to be remotely objective concluding a president who hasn’t exactly delivered on his promises demonstrating why he’s equated to The Boy Who Cried Wolf were a far bigger deal.   Especially when one learns from the less politically skewed lens of REUTERS’ Gursimran Mehar that the cooler head that prevailed was actually another country’s leader:

Pakistan, a mediator between the U.S. ⁠and ⁠Iran, on Wednesday requested that U.S. ⁠President Donald Trump grant a two-week ceasefire and extension to a deadline he ​imposed on Iran to end its blockade of Gulf oil, while U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran intensified ‌during the sixth week of the ‌war…