Category: media

United stock rebounded – just like BP’s did

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

At the close of trading today, United’s stock traded at $79.67 per share. That’s the same United Airlines whose stock dropped after social media buzzed about a passenger getting dragged off a plane.

Remember that story? Remember the tweets and Facebook posts about how upsetting it was that a passenger could be bumped from a flight, then roughed up to boot? Remember the days of self-inflicted bad PR? United became a cautionary tale for a few days. Yet, if you bought 1,000 shares of United on April 18 and sold them today, you’d be almost $12,000 richer.

British Petroleum had a much more dire disaster on their hands when the Deepwater Horizon oil rig blew in April 2010. The day of the disaster, April 20, BP traded at $60.48 per share. By June 25, 2010, share prices had plummeted to $27.02. Yikes. Yet if you bought 1,000 shares at that nadir then sold the day before Thanksgiving at $41.47, you’d have an extra $14,000 in your pocket for Black Friday (less whatever you paid to get a really nice beat-down rod to help with the crowd at Wal-Mart). While BP has never hit the pre-spill peaks, the stock has stayed relatively solid since.

For these companies, you have to wonder how much internal panic there was when each respective problem hit. In each case, a few news cycles getting raked over the coals meant short-term stock drops. It’s hard to be patient and ride out the storm in those cases. Yet in each case, the stock rebounded. People kept pumping gas at BP stations. When United’s flights came up as the cheapest alternatives for a given route, people still bought tickets.

Social media vitriol might seem like it burns with white-hot fire. But fires eventually burn out. That’s worth keeping in mind the next time some outrage du jour clogs up news feeds.

TV sportscasting is getting it wrong

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

Tony Romo is now the top color commentator for CBS football games, and Phil Simms is out.

The New York Daily News reminds us that Romo is getting this promotion despite no experience in sportscasting.

(Sidebar: It’s funny, isn’t it, that Romo had to toil as a little-known backup quarterback for years before taking on a job that generally goes to a top, high-profile draftee, but he walked right into a job that normally goes to someone who toils for a couple of years at a lower level?)

Romo might be good. He might suck. But he would have to suck awfully bad to get people to turn off the channel, wouldn’t he? People will tune into CBS to see football and tolerate the announcers. No one is turning the dial to figure skating on Sunday afternoon. So Romo’s “qualifications” and “abilities” are actually irrelevant. Unless he pulls a Jimmy the Greek, he’ll be fine.

Speaking of sportscasting, this week the Dodgers opened their season and will play the year sans Vin Scully for the first time since the 1940s. Scully’s style of calling television games was different, as anyone who watched Dodgers broadcasts will surely recall. Sitting alone on the microphone, Scully would talk and tell stories – like a talk radio host without the ferocious outrage – while incidentally mentioning the game action. It worked especially well on television.

To watch Scully succeed this way begs the question: Why do TV announcers spend so much time describing the action that viewers can see? Think about it next time you watch a game. Then, for extra fun, count how many times they read graphics to you. Michael Kay of the YES Network is particularly guilty of this sin (though I have probably watched so many of his games that my bias may be showing).

It makes sense why they do this – many sportscasters get their start in radio, where there is no visual support. But one would think that some media outlet would try something different. After all, television news programs stopped presenting the same way as radio news. We have had televised sports for something like seven decades, why do we still adhere to radio-era traditions? This is especially true for football, America’s made-for-television sport.

There might be a new model emerging from networks that use “whip around” coverage. The MLB Network does this particularly well with MLB Tonight, where a host and two in-studio analysts watch each night’s action and comment over teams’ local broadcast feeds. Their easy, joke-filled banter makes it fun to watch, mirroring conversations you might have watching games with a bunch of friends. And it’s different from most baseball broadcasts, where an announcer narrates events as you watch them.

This could work for a single team, as well. Wouldn’t that be more fun to watch than some former athlete rhythmically rattling off recaps of the obvious during breaks in the action as most color commentators do? Think of the familiarity and rapport fans could develop with the on-screen personalities.

Television sports is not a high-risk place to experiment – generally, ratings are driven by the games more than the broadcast. CBS gets that, which is why they’re willing to stick Tony Romo in a broadcasting booth with only a few postgame interviews under his belt. It’s time to try something even bolder. The radio era is over.

It’s time to try something even bolder. Sportscasting should evolve past where it was during Vin Scully’s rookie year.

Dumb politics

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

Last week the Boston Globe quoted me in their story about young conservative activists (despite the fact that it has been more than a decade since I organized campuses for the Leadership Institute). Reporter Dugan Arnett picked just about the perfect quote to sum up our discussion:

“There are always people who are going to say, ‘This is my ticket; I’m going to make sure my campus burns down, I’m going to be on Fox News a bunch, and that’s going to be my path to the spotlight,’ ” says Jim Eltringham, formerly of the Leadership Institute and currently a Republican campaign consultant. “The problem is: That’s a spotlight that burns out quick.”

Our discussion centered on how some campus activists welcomed controversy for controversy’s sake, provoking outrage on purpose to gain attention with little substance behind the actions. It seems like a lesson some in Washington need to learn, too: In a piece on Medium, I argue that there’s a direct link between this type of superficiality and last week’s Republican failure on health care .

ESPN’s bad week

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

In a post at Medium, I reacted to Jayson Stark’s long piece assuming that America needed baseball players to speak out on politics. The short version: We disagree. More than that, his assumption – that political rifts have created wounds in need of healing – show disconnection from the broader public who, honestly, just doesn’t care about politics.

Then came this week’s news: ESPN expects to lay off a good on-air talent. The two stories have a common thread.

It would be tempting for anyone on the center right to point to ESPN’s socially progressive programming choices and blame that for alienating its core viewership, but the reasons are a bit more nuanced. ESPN’s tunnel vision and lack of self-awareness has prevented it from adapting to a new media environment. Once the sole source of 24 hour sports on TV, ESPN’s networks now compete with national sports channels run by Fox and NBC, regional sports networks, and – notably – networks run by sports leagues themselves. On top of that, Major League Baseball, the National Hockey League, and the National Basketball Association all offer direct-to-consumer online packages.

That ESPN missed these changes suggests they overestimated their value in consumers’ minds. Like Jayson Stark, they’ve misread the public vibe.

Getting out of the bubble

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

NBC’s 90th anniversary show last weekend featured a heavy dose of former and current stars sharing memories of how certain shows were so “important” or “ground-breaking.”

“Come on,” I found myself thinking at various times. “This is television. This is passive entertainment we watch because it’s easier than reading and we don’t feel like putting on pants and going out.”

On Medium, I wrote about NBC’s inflated perspective – and how such a mentality might bleed over into the news division. But it isn’t hard to see how this would happen – and it doesn’t come from a place of arrogance. Anyone who works in a field, or in a given place, runs the risk of an altered perspective. People who work at NBC for years, and develop an understanding of its history, could be excused for over-inflating its importance (especially on a program designed to showcase the network’s programming). Similarly, it’s understandable why someone in the news division might conflate any attack on a media outlet as a full-on assault on the First Amendment.

Cultural bubbles exist. And while they may not pop easily, you can at least see outside of them, if you’re looking. For reporters, that’s going to become even more important in the coming years.

That’s not to say that television shows have not had meaningful cultural impact, nor that criticisms of the press could devolve into the erosion of press freedoms. It just means that the occasional dose of bubble-popping perspective is healthy and necessary.

Ghostbusters 2016?

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

In the run-up to the new Ghostbusters movie, much of the marketing had a clear undertone: “Go see this movie so the anti-woman internet trolls won’t win,” it seemed to say. In fact, in an odd parallel with the 2016 presidential campaigns, this message has eclipsed any discussion of the movie’s actual quality.

Lost in the discussion about whether a female-led Ghostbusters franchise reboot can succeed is this: Why is “Ghostbusters” considered a franchise? There was the excellent original movie in 1984 and a cash-grab sequel in 1989. There were tie-ins: the toy-driven kids’ cartoons from the mid-1980s through the early 1990s and the 2009 video game with  a plotline that, on the big screen, could have been the third part of a trilogy. Importantly, most of these center on the same characters as the original movie.

But media coverage of this year’s reboot seems to accept the idea that Ghostbusters is on par with the likes of Star Wars, Star Trek, Marvel’s Cimematic Universe, Superman, and other film properties with long track records of success. That’s just not true. As an example, when Star Wars: The Force Awakens hit theaters last year, it was the seventh movie in a lineup that enjoyed mixed critical reviews but scored big box office numbers across multiple decades, and – this is important – inspired an expanded universe of new characters. Ditto with recent Star Trek movies, which recast characters while, incredibly, keeping the old ones. And that’s in a universe which has enjoyed multiple successful spinoffs only tangentially related to the adventures depicted in the original televeision series. Again, until last week just about every successful incarnation of the Ghostbusters centered around the same four original characters.

That creates really unreasonable expectations of Paul Feig’s Ghostbusters 2016, which flushes the old story completely in a very limited universe where the old story was pretty much the only story.

If the new Ghostbusters see their box office returns dip, don’t blame sexism. Blame Sony Pictures’ green light to build a new house on a pretty shaky foundation.

 

Obama doesn’t have to go to Nancy Reagan’s funeral, but I wish he would

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

Vice Presidents are supposed to be U.S. Government’s designated funeral attendee. There’s no reason President Obama should feel obligated spend his time there. The demands that he drop everything to pay respects to Nancy Reagan, and before that Justice Antonin Scalia, are shrill and senseless. They delegitimize the numerous valid criticisms of the President.

With all that said, don’t you wish he had gone?

After winning the 2008 campaign with soaring rhetoric of ushering in a new era of cooperation in Washington, Obama promptly reminded Congressional Republicans, “I won” when they expressed concern over his policies. His reelection was far from a rousing national endorsement; his campaign’s groundbreaking GOTV efforts squeezed every ounce of support from an electorate with mixed feelings.

This is the current President, but it could just as easily have been our former President. The left despised George W. Bush just as the right despises Obama, and W similarly squeaked through a close reelection relying on base voters. The man who claimed he was “a uniter, not a divider” saw a more fractured Washington in his rear view mirror when he left office than the one he had found eight years prior.

It adds up to 16 years of acidic national politics, and the choices for 2016 don’t appear likely to end the cycle.

With his days in the White House slipping into history, a warm gesture by the President to the other side would offer some glimpse of the idealistic young Senator we got to know in 2008 – and, perhaps, bandage some of the wounds. Scalia was beloved by thinking conservatives; Reagan was the First Lady to the man who, as more time passes, may prove to be the last pinnacle of post-World War II Republican Party success. Showing up at these funerals would have symbolized more than condolences; it would clearly tell the other side, “Hey, nothing personal and no hard feelings.” President Obama probably didn’t understand the significance of these two figures to his opponents across the aisle; otherwise he might have rethought his schedule.

(From a calculating, partisan perspective, it would also give the digital cheerleaders and opinion leaders within his base some motivation. “Look how magnanimous our Dear Leader is,” they could crow on Twitter.)

With eight years of sins on his record and almost two decades of political acrimony as a backdrop, surely these overtures would be rejected by some and ignored by still more. That doesn’t make them any less right. Eight years later, it would be nice for the President to go the extra mile and stand up for real change – especially because he doesn’t have to.

Does Clinton run anything by anyone?

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

The other morning, news outlets carried the clip of Hillary Clinton doing her impression of a lie-detecting dog, barking from a stage in Reno.

This is the predictable result:

This is an obvious response. So glaringly obvious, it’s incredible that Clinton ran her little Lassie impression by any one of the people she pays to help her seem more relatable. If she had, surely that person would have told her to skip the canine theatrics.

One can only imagine the poor, cringing communications staffers, watching from backstage, as Clinton diverged from the script and ventured into animal kingdom. It shows not only a lack of discipline, but a lack of self-awareness. It’s why Clinton is losing her grip on the Democratic nomination (again) and why she shouldn’t beat any Republican who isn’t named Trump in November.

Remember the greatest GOP field in history?

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

A year ago, it looked like 2016 would be a good year to be a Republican.

While the Democrats had pretty much resigned themselves to the reality that Hillary Clinton (and baggage which, despite early polling, made her a general election crapshoot) would win their nomination, the Republicans enjoyed an embarrassment of riches. There were seven multi-term governors, most of whom could point to a record of conservative reforms in purple-to-blue states. There was one freshman Senator whose background as the sone of immigrants read like an instruction manual for acheiving the American dream, and another whose libertarian leanings offered a fresh prism through which to view conservatism. A former CEO and a retired neurosurgeon offered unique and diverse perspectives. Other candidacies, especially those of Lindsey Graham and even Ted Cruz, seemed more like attempts to bring certain issues or viewpoints into the discussion. And other candidates, like Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum, and Jim Gilmore, were obvious grasping for book deals or gainful employment.

But a funny thing happened to the Dream Team on the way to Iowa.

The most obvious element is Donald Trump blowing up the race, but Trump is more accurately labeled a symptom than a disease. The Republican Party came down with what the folks at the Mayo Clinic might call Three Stooges Syndrome: There were so many candidates trying to get through the door, no one made any progress among the electorate.

With so many candidates, it has been easy for a loud, celebrity self-funder like Trump to swoop in and make waves. He didn’t have to spend last summer doing the behind-the-scenes organization building and fundraising that keeps most candidates out of the limelight. When Trump roared, he filled a media vacuum and shot to the front of a crowded field.

He wasn’t – and still isn’t – particularly popular among Republicans. The problem was – and is – that so many candidates in the big crowded field had a legitimate shot to win the nomination with just the right breaks. Even now, there are seven candidates left in the race today and all but Jim Gilmore and Ben Carson can honestly chart a path to victory. Sure, they aren’t all particularly likely paths, but until the money runs out why not give it a try? What does Jeb Bush or John Kasich have to lose by hanging around?

The candidate with the most reason to drop out right now, oddly enough, may be Marco Rubio. His debate gaffe is not necessarily fatal, but it makes his climb a bit steeper. As a relatively young guy, there’s time for him to make a second run in four or eight years after rehabilitating his image. At the same time, he has to look at the primary calendar and think – accurately – that he has a better shot than Bush or Kasich.

Meanwhile, look at even a partial list of people who have already bowed out: Rand Paul, Chris Christie, Carly Fiorina, Scott Walker, Bobby Jindal, and Rick Perry. In another year, those profiles would make for a compelling primary slate on their own.  In this cycle, they are also-rans.

 

 

The aging, bitter childhood detective

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

CBS will welcome detective Nancy Drew to its programming lineup soon, but not the Nancy Drew you might remember from the dusty shelves of your elementary school library:

The drama, which is in development, is described as a contemporary take on the character from the iconic book series. Now in her 30s, Nancy is a detective for the NYPD where she investigates and solves crimes using her uncanny observational skills, all while navigating the complexities of life in a modern world.

And, promises the network, she will not be white; Drew could be Brazilian… or Chinese… or somethin’ weird. It’s the age, though, that Katrina Trinko of Acculturated has an issue with: “[I]f Nancy’s ethnic and racial background was irrelevant, her age and independence were not. And that’s what the new TV series completely misunderstands.” Trinko points out the appeal of Nancy Drew books to girls in the elementary-to-middle-school age range, offering a role model in the wise-beyond-her-years sleuth able to outwit the adults in her life.

Yet the new Nancy Drew allows CBS to offer kids an important lesson: No matter how full of promise your life seems, eventually the weight of adulthood crushes us all. Your dream job as a kid will turn out to be a dreary, soul-sapping endeavor that bleeds a little more hope from your reservoir each day.

Why should CBS stop with Nancy Drew? Maybe the clean-cut Hardy Boys could go for a gritty, modern reboot. Older brother Frank would have his act together and boast a cushy, if uninspiring, job monitoring crime statistics in the Bayport mayor’s office. Younger brother Joe would run what had been their late father’s detective agency, but now with a low-life clientele who pay him to tail cheating spouses or dig through trash cans looking for reasons to evict tenants. Their lives would intersect when a city council candidate asks for Joe’s help doing shady opposition research, and he stumbles on a corruption scandal that goes all the way to city hall. (Rhea Perlman would make guest appearances as Aunt Gertrude.)

Does anyone think Encyclopedia Brown would have kept solving crimes for a quarter a day (plus expenses)? Flash forward to see Leroy Brown running IT for the Idaville police department while secretly pining in vain for police chief Sally Kimball. The neighbors on his cul-de-sac include Bugs Meany, who has trained his dog to do his business on Encyclopedia’s front lawn, and shady investment banker Wilford Wiggins, who constantly tries sell Encyclopedia suspect financial products or recruit him into one of his several fantasy football leagues.

And who wouldn’t want to see a surly, middle-aged man-child version of Nate the Great – unemployed, living with his parents, and constantly catching flack from his successful cousin Olivia?

Maybe CBS is onto something here.