FLANNEL SHIRTS, SUSPENDERS ON TOP: TPE gets credit for locating this video tribute to Pennsylvania Guys.
Related: WaPo today on the latest in Jay-Z metropolitan parody -- the Welsh "Newport (Ymerodraeth State of Mind)."
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
IT'S NOT JUST ELVIS AND NIXON: We don't normally link to Talking Points Memo around here, but when they do a slideshow of politicians' often-awkward encounters with musicians, we feel obligated to do so. Michael Jackson staring at Ronald Reagan! "Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) and James Brown at the 90th birthday party for Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-SC)!" Paul Simon (in a very odd leather ensemble) chatting with Harry Reid! Salt-N-Pepa, Michael Bolton, and Jerry Nadler!
YET, NO MENTION OF ENDING BEER SALES AT THE 7th INNING: A surprisingly thoughtful list of the 50 worst ideas in sport (I especially like the rationale for No. 1: The Color Barrier, No. 17: Leaving Travis Henry Alone at the Team Hotel, and for including my favorite photograph in all of sports history). A slideshow, I'm afraid.
WAIT, WAIT, I NEVER HAD A CHANCE TO LOVE YA*: Spacewoman and I just finished the second season of Breaking Bad on DVD, and now we're going to have to wait, probably until a week or a few days before the fourth season premieres on AMC, to get the DVDs for Season 3. That got me thinking about the curious alchemy of TV season DVD release dates.
As a viewer, it seems that the best time to release a full-season DVD is long enough before the start of the next season premieres that a person can get completely caught up and catch the new season in real time. For a number of shows, however, that's not the model. Shows like Weeds, Chuck, Breaking Bad, and Mad Men, among surely others, seem to hit the market on DVD as part of the promotional crescendo for the following broadcast season, so if a person wanted to catch up, he or she would have to cram a whole season into just a week or less in front of the TV. Marathons are only fun if you want to run them. I am sure that in making this complaint, I am thinking too much like a viewer and not enough like a company with a financial interest in the show. But I'm not exactly sure what I'm missing.
Who has an incentive to do this? I understand the value of using the DVD release to create synergistic marketing. Promotions for the DVD tend to remind people of the broadcast season and vice-versa, and the effectiveness of this synergy is probably greater the higher the percentage of DVD buyers are obsessive rewatchers. But if a network wants to grow the audience for its product, one would think that the countervailing interest -- allowing people to get up to speed so that they can begin watching the broadcast version -- would trump the cross-promotional benefit.
Networks (or their broadcast executives), of course, may not make the DVD release-date decisions. I don't know for sure, but I imagine that the production and distribution companies would have some role in that decision. Those companies, superficially, might have an interest in withholding the DVDs long enough to prevent viewership of the broadcast season, thus ensuring the purchase of another season's worth of DVDs the following year. Except that I think that's wrong -- to the extent that the licensing fees for the broadcast rights fund the production itself, hindering broadcast viewership seems like shooting oneself in the foot. And DVD producer/distributors might even benefit from increased popularity of the broadcast version. Plus, if there really were competing incentives, one would expect that the broadcast partner would write some deadlines for DVD release dates into the broadcast licensing contract (just as networks write earliest-allowable DVD release dates into those contracts, so that the DVDs don't compete with the broadcast versions of the same shows). And that's not to mention the numerous instances in which the broadcaster is a partner in the production of the DVDs.
So who is it, exactly, who benefits from making me wait until -- what, May 2011? -- to watch what everybody says is an intense and brilliant season?
*Yes, that's a White Lion tag. So?
As a viewer, it seems that the best time to release a full-season DVD is long enough before the start of the next season premieres that a person can get completely caught up and catch the new season in real time. For a number of shows, however, that's not the model. Shows like Weeds, Chuck, Breaking Bad, and Mad Men, among surely others, seem to hit the market on DVD as part of the promotional crescendo for the following broadcast season, so if a person wanted to catch up, he or she would have to cram a whole season into just a week or less in front of the TV. Marathons are only fun if you want to run them. I am sure that in making this complaint, I am thinking too much like a viewer and not enough like a company with a financial interest in the show. But I'm not exactly sure what I'm missing.
Who has an incentive to do this? I understand the value of using the DVD release to create synergistic marketing. Promotions for the DVD tend to remind people of the broadcast season and vice-versa, and the effectiveness of this synergy is probably greater the higher the percentage of DVD buyers are obsessive rewatchers. But if a network wants to grow the audience for its product, one would think that the countervailing interest -- allowing people to get up to speed so that they can begin watching the broadcast version -- would trump the cross-promotional benefit.
Networks (or their broadcast executives), of course, may not make the DVD release-date decisions. I don't know for sure, but I imagine that the production and distribution companies would have some role in that decision. Those companies, superficially, might have an interest in withholding the DVDs long enough to prevent viewership of the broadcast season, thus ensuring the purchase of another season's worth of DVDs the following year. Except that I think that's wrong -- to the extent that the licensing fees for the broadcast rights fund the production itself, hindering broadcast viewership seems like shooting oneself in the foot. And DVD producer/distributors might even benefit from increased popularity of the broadcast version. Plus, if there really were competing incentives, one would expect that the broadcast partner would write some deadlines for DVD release dates into the broadcast licensing contract (just as networks write earliest-allowable DVD release dates into those contracts, so that the DVDs don't compete with the broadcast versions of the same shows). And that's not to mention the numerous instances in which the broadcaster is a partner in the production of the DVDs.
So who is it, exactly, who benefits from making me wait until -- what, May 2011? -- to watch what everybody says is an intense and brilliant season?
*Yes, that's a White Lion tag. So?
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
A FLAVOR SAVER AND MORE: On a slow summer day, we are not above throwing up a blog post just so people can discuss the attractiveness and future of Jon Stewart's new beard.
Monday, July 26, 2010
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, MR. ELTON JOHN? Nigel Lythgoe is apparently returning to helm American Idol, and if so may junk all the existing judges in favor of folks like Justin Timberlake, Chris Isaak, Harry Connick Jr. and, yes, the gentleman in the title of this post.
Well, it's at least a better idea than the new Bieber Rule, insofar as changing the judges may bring back more adult viewer-voters, and end the dominance of the tween power-dialers. Hmm.
Well, it's at least a better idea than the new Bieber Rule, insofar as changing the judges may bring back more adult viewer-voters, and end the dominance of the tween power-dialers. Hmm.
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