2012
NBC News Production Adds Resonance to Events Surrounding the Killing of Osama bin Laden
“Inside the Situation Room,” which aired this week on NBC's "Rock Center," was as dramatic as any television procedural -- but it was with otherwise incomparable resonance that the NBC News program chronicled what Barack Obama called “the most important day of his presidency.”
Talk about keeping secrets from your spouse. Obama revealed to anchor Brian Williams -- who got unprecedented access to the president, his top advisers and the two conference rooms where they discussed and watched the secret Navy SEALs operation that killed terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden at his lair in Pakistan -- that the first lady had no idea what was going down until after it happened.
The hour-long program also revealed the president to be an A-list actor, giving off no outward signs that he greenlighted the operation as he toured tornado damage that day in Alabama, and that night attended the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. Even when comedian Seth Meyers made a prescient joke about finding bin Laden, Obama just laughed along, keeping the history-making secret close to the vest.
As a viewer, I was riveted as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Vice President Joe Biden, Leon Panetta -- then head of the CIA -- and the few other advisers who were privy described in emotional detail their thoughts and feelings about the raid -- and the especially dramatic moments when the first helicopter to land at the bin Laden complex crashed.
It was known as "Operation Neptune’s Spear," and some of those advisers were dead set against it, including Biden. But despite the lack of verifiable evidence of bin Laden’s presence, Obama was resolute in his decision. “The reason I was willing to make that decision of sending in our SEALs to try to capture or kill bin Laden rather than to take some other options was ultimately because I had 100 percent faith in the Navy SEALs themselves,” Obama told Williams in the exclusive interview.
Killing or capturing the man behind the 9/11 attacks and the 1993 World Trade Center bombing had been a top priority of two previous administrations, and after the choppers flew successfully back to their base in Afghanistan with bin Laden’s dead body on board, Obama called both former presidents Bush and Clinton with earth-shattering news that came in from the field as (OBL code name) "Geronimo KIA."
Hillary Clinton had also kept the plans secret from her husband. She had to keep a straight face as she attended a wedding the night before the raid and was asked whether the U.S. was ever going to get bin Laden, to which she replied that we would keep trying. “This was such an important secret to keep,” she told Williams. “No one in the State Department knew. I just felt a personal responsibility to keep it close, but that meant that I was basically, you know, having to consult with myself, to be honest.”
During their tense 40 minutes on the ground and after the firefight that killed the remorseless terrorist leader, the SEALs gathered up five computers, 10 hard drives and a trove of other storage devices. The content of some of them, just released, showed bin Laden plotting more attacks even as his organization was being decimated, lamenting the incompetence of some of his Al Queda lieutenants and affiliates and even the media-savviness of the terrorist organization, which apparently had a dislike for Fox News.
One of the letters just published by the U.S. Army's Combating Terrorism Center discusses the circumstances of an Al Queda spokesman releasing a message to the media. In it, he tells bin Laden, “I suggest that we should distribute it to more than one channel, so that there will be healthy competition between the channels in broadcasting the material, so that no other channel takes the lead. It should be sent for example to ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN and maybe PBS and VOA. As for Fox News, let her die in her anger.”
But bin Laden had much bigger targets in his crosshairs. He even strategized on how to kill Obama and thus make Biden president, calling him “utterly unprepared” to be the leader of the free world.
What he couldn’t have factored into that diabolical plot was Biden’s hours-long twisting of a rosary ring around his finger as he and the other insiders watched the raid go down in real time. That, and the skillful team of U.S. operatives that was finally able to take him down in short order.
As we look back a year later, and even as the triumph of getting bin Laden gets politicized and criticized, we can never forget the bravery of the commando team and the bold decision to launch their mission in the face of improbable odds.
Williams and Co. added invaluable insight into a day in history that ended in an unscripted manner, with hordes of people jubillantly descending on the White House to laud the demise of a man who represented pure evil.
Keeping Up With the Kardashians, the Bachelors, the Pawn Stars and All the Rest: Reality Gurus on How to Stand Out in a Crowded Field
Host Tom Bergeron uttered words that would not normally come out of his mouth on "Dancing with the Stars" during an insightful panel discussion on reality television.
Seems that a bit of unplanned reality disrupted the proceedings at the Hollywood Radio and Television Society's Unscripted Hitmakers luncheon at the Beverly Hilton on April 26.
The fire alarm and strobe lights went off in the hotel’s nearly-at-capacity International Ballroom as Bergeron sat on stage with the people behind some of television’s most successful reality programs.
Mike Fleiss of “The Bachelor,” Conrad Green of "Dancing with the Stars," Eli Holzman of "Undercover Boss," Kris Jenner of "Keeping Up with the Kardashians," Brent Montgomery of "Pawn Stars" and Bertram van Munster of "The Amazing Race" were in the midst of discussing their respective shows when they were interrupted by what at first seemed like a stunt worthy of a reality show.
Several dozen people made their way quickly to the exits -- but most stayed put -- as moderator Bergeron tried to assess the situation, which included a PA announcement that the commotion was in fact a fire alarm. With an expletive, the experienced host urged everyone to stay, and it turns out he was right. In short order, the PA system declared that it was indeed a false alarm.
"The headline: Idiot reality people don't leave burning building," Bergeron said, to laughter from the crowd.
What is in fact a bit alarming to those on stage was that ratings have leveled off for reality shows as the genre enters middle age -- or at least teenage-hood -- and producers search for new ideas.
"Competitive shows require a huge audience,” said Green. "It's concerning because such shows rely on being special. It's crowded. The stronger ones will survive, but the challenge is to innovate."
Bergeron asked Jenner, whose family lives not only with camera crews but in the glare of an intense media spotlight, whether there is a line that cannot be crossed.
"We won't do bathroom shots," she said. "We let it all hang out. We're strong personalities and we let it fly. I stop myself from editing. That's what makes it successful."
She noted that the program only shows 22 minutes out of a 24-hour period of moments in the lives of 12 people. "If there's a crazy moment, we see smiles on the faces of the crew,” she said, revealing that the family actually feels strange when they are not around. "I'm always patting my chest to see if a mic is on,” Jenner revealed.
"There's enough weird stuff that comes out of people naturally to keep it interesting," said Fleiss of "The Bachelor" series. "Just look at the number of people who come away heartbroken. It's incredibly high."
As for other low points, he admitted that the season shot in New York was not one of its best, that the main participant was inebriated much of the time and that the crew was burnt out.
"I feel that the audience could sense that, and moving forward, we had more sincere participants, both on and off camera," he said.
Casting is always a key issue for unscripted programs, and for shows like “Dancing” it's a nearly constant process. "The key is the feel of each cast. The danger is homogenizing it," said Green. "We are looking for marquee booking. We have the opportunity to change 12 faces."
"If I don't have a good cast, I have nothing,” said van Munster of “The Amazing Race.” He continually lauded CBS's support of his award-winning program, which wins the Emmy in the reality category almost like clockwork.
CBS has also been successful with "Undercover Boss," whose producer Holzman is launching “The Pitch” on AMC, being promoted during its acclaimed drama “Mad Men.”
"It's hard work. We embedded filmmakers into the offices," Holzman said of the program, which pits advertising agencies against each other to win a prized account. He said he's working on a new show about turning a home recipe into a supermarket product based upon his own experiences with a dessert treat.
"Are you taking jobs away from actors?," Bergeron asked of his panel -- a notion they almost uniformly laughed off, with some positing that the reality genre may have even served to make dramas better in what many have termed a new golden age of television.
"It's a misconception that you don't work as hard [as dramatic actors]," Jenner said, and Fleiss agreed, citing the long hours. "Every person has a strong work ethic and our show employs hundreds of people,” said Jenner.” It makes me feel good -- and we’re having the time of our lives."
Proving once again that it takes a lot to keep up with the Kardashians.
CBS's Most Valuable Employee for the Last 40 Years Is on the Mend After a Heart Attack and Bypass Surgery. He Cannot Wait to Get Back to Work. How a Modest Gentleman Has Risen to the Top, Thriving in the Shark-Infested Waters That Are the TV Business
Lionel Trilling, the wonderful teacher of literature, in trying to articulate the greatness of Chekhov, wrote, “Whoever tries to account for the peculiar charm of Chekhov’s work will sooner or later touch upon a certain personal trait of the author … modesty.”
When one thinks of the history of top CBS executives over the last 40 years -- Paley, Stanton, Wyman, Tisch, Stringer, Karmazin, Redstone and Moonves -- modest is not the word to describe any of them.
But modest is actually a fitting adjective to describe the one man who, I would argue, has been the most important CBS employee over the 40-year time span those executives were -- or are -- at CBS.
This employee first joined the network in 1969, and over the years has been responsible for market research, advertising research, program testing and audience measurement. Bottom line, TV is a business and CBS has thrived over the years by raking in billions of dollars in this business. So, bottom line, if one is responsible for market research, advertising research, program testing and audience measurement -- the latter being the currency that allows CBS to make the money it does -- then that person, arguably, is CBS’s most valuable employee.
That person is David Poltrack.
Many of us have been shocked to learn that the ageless Poltrack -- truly CBS’s Iron Man -- suffered a heart attack several weeks ago. Fortunately, he received treatment in a timely fashion -- a triple bypass -- and is eager to return to work. Said CBS in a statement to TVWeek, “Dave is doing very well. His recovery is going great and he looks forward to getting back to work as soon as his doctor gives him the green light. He expresses gratitude to all who have reached out to inquire about his progress.”
Not only is Poltrack modest, he’s a gentleman. And in any gathering of people in the TV business, he’s usually the smartest person in the room. He’s the secret weapon of Les Moonves, Nina Tassler and Jo Ann Ross, and I’d be surprised if any of them would not say so themselves.
Most folks who do quantitative analysis like Poltrack does are usually the bane of those in the creative community. But I’ve never met any creative executive who does not like Poltrack.
That’s because, by nature, Poltrack is a teacher and a mentor. He’s both a terrific listener and explainer. Remember the brainiac friend with the seemingly infinite amount of patience you always went to in school who could really make clear to you the arithmetic or algebra or geometry problem you couldn’t understand? That’s Dave.
In his spare time -- and I’ve never known anyone who works as hard as Poltrack, so I’ve never understood how he’s had any spare time -- he’s an Adjunct Professor at New York University. Has been for years. He’s taught marketing at the grad schools at NYU and Columbia and is a visiting professor at a grad school in Beijing and God knows where else.
He genuinely loves helping people learn. So for any reporter on the TV beat who wants to have the intricacies of measurement explained to him or her, Poltrack has always taken the time to explain those intricacies. He’s certainly made me an infinitely better reporter.
And he’s someone who’s always been right on top of the latest trends and the newest tools.
For example, check out this report of a public appearance Poltrack made just this past December. It’s by Bill Niemeyer, who writes about digital media for The Diffusion Group:
“CBS Chief Research Officer David Poltrack spoke at the UBS Media and Communications Conference on Monday and said (as reported by Multichannel News), ‘... a viewer streaming our program online is now worth substantially more to us than a person watching that program in playback mode and skipping many of the commercials. ... In fact, the value of the online viewer is now surpassing that of the live viewer as well. Poltrack added (as reported by MediaPost), ‘This is a significant tipping point.’
“Wow -- quite an observation coming from someone who's been the CBS research chief for 17 years. And he's right, this is a tipping point. It's no longer a question of whether online and other digital platforms like OTT can monetize video content better than TV (at least on a per-viewer basis); it's now a question of how fast can business practices and consumer behavior change to leverage this knowledge.
“How did CBS get to this tipping point? While widely known that online runs of primetime broadcast TV shows generate higher CPMs than live TV runs, the total revenue generated per show has been lower for online due to its lower ad loads. Poltrack says that CBS is now running 10-14 ads/hour for online programming, much greater than the 5-6 ads/hour when CBS and the other big four broadcast nets first started showing episodes online. And a lot lower than the nominal 32/hour of national ads, local ads, and promos seen in live TV.”
Poltrack has also made the astute observation that one of the effects of the Internet and social media is that if someone suggests or insists you watch some TV program they like or love, there’s a good chance you can watch it right then, online.
Over the years Poltrack has been quoted thousands of times. In a real sense, when it comes to talking about measurement and TV, Dave Poltrack is a brand unto himself.
But what none of all those words about Poltrack captures is the measure of the man. In Yiddish we’d say Poltrack is a mensch. Leo Rosten in his “Joys of Yiddish” says a mensch is "someone to admire and emulate, someone of noble character. The key to being 'a real mensch' is nothing less than character, rectitude, dignity, a sense of what is right, responsible, decorous."
Over the years, as various executives at CBS may have yelled and screamed and demanded this and commanded that, after all the histrionics have ended, they’ve turned to Dave, the dignified, quiet one in the room, and listened to his smart, sober, realistic assessments, and have acted accordingly.
One of my favorite writers, Somerest Maugham, once wrote the following about one of his characters. I’ve altered the quote a bit. It equally applies to Dave Poltrack: “The man I am writing about is not famous. It may be that he never will be. It may be that when his life comes to an end he will leave no more trace of his sojourn on earth than a stone thrown into a river leaves on the surface of the water. But it may be that the particular strength and sweetness of his character may have an ever growing influence over his fellow man so that it will be realized that there lives in this age a very remarkable creature.”
Dave, thank you for being the remarkable person you are. Get well soon and get back to CBS. Between you and me, what’s true today has been true for the past forty-three years -- they wouldn’t know what to do without you.
'Of course, you won't be able to lie on your back for a while, but then you can lie from any position, can't you?' Sparkling Dialogue, Wonderful Films. It's the TCM Classic Film Festival, Part 2
That line above is from “Charade,” the movie wherein Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant sparred in the best example of a romantic comedy meeting a mystery thriller since Nick Charles hooked up with Nora.
Written by Peter Stone and directed by Stanley Donen, “Charade” (1963) is usually compared to the movies made by Alfred Hitchcock. That may be because Grant had starred in Hitchcock’s “North by Northwest” five years earlier.
But “Charade” is much closer in tone to the wonderfully fun Thin Man movies, starring William Powell and Myrna Loy as Nick and Nora Charles. In those films the dialogue -- often written by France Goodrich and Albert Hackett -- crackled.
Bright dialogue is a hallmark of Stone, who was a playwright as well as a screenwriter.
The best anecdote about “Charade” was told by Stone in a commentary he made for the Criterion Collection release of the film in 1999. Stone says he originally wrote “Charade” as a screenplay, but could not find a studio interested in making it. So he turned the screenplay into a novel, and sold an excerpt to Redbook magazine. The next thing Stone knew, studios were tripping over each other trying to convince Stone that each of them would be the best place to make the movie.
Besides Grant and Hepburn, the killer cast includes Walter Matthau, James Coburn, George Kennedy and Ned Glass.
“Charade” will be on the big screen on Sunday, part of the third annual TCM Classic Film Festival in Hollywood.
Since I mentioned Hitchcock above, a must-see on the big screen is the TCM Festival’s presentation of Hitchcock’s “Vertigo” (1958) today, April 13, 2012. One of Hitchcock’s most intricate works, I am among many who consider it his best movie. The movie also has the most nuanced performance Jimmy Stewart ever gave, the best score Bernard Herrmann ever wrote, and the best title sequence Saul Bass ever created. Robert Burks, who won an Academy Award for his cinematography for Hitchcock’s “To Catch a Thief,” wasn’t even nominated for this film, though the look of "Vertigo" is exquisite.
I also would urge you to check out “Raw Deal” (1948) at the Festival. It’s one of the tough, hard-as-nails B-movies that define the film noir genre. It was shot by John Alton, the cinematographer whose work on a handful of movies helped create the look of film noir. Somehow, almost magically, it appears that he just turned on the camera in shot after shot in this movie, with no artificial lights set up anywhere. And the story is terrific too, with both Claire Trevor and Marsha Hunt vying for the affection of con Dennis O’Keefe. It’s one of several film noirs that Anthony Mann directed at the beginning of his career.
These are just a few of the remarkable movies that will be shown at the TCM Festival through Sunday. Others include “Chinatown,” “Trouble in Paradise, “Seconds,” “Fall Guy,” “The Scarlett Empress,” “Black Narcissus,” “Letter From an Unknown Woman” and "Gun Crazy," which originally had the wonderfully evocative title "Deady Is the Female" with the tagline "Nothing Deadlier is Known to Man."
Thank you TCM for letting us see these gems on the big screen.#
Theater, Cigarettes, Sex and Cinema. A Brilliant Movie Is Revived. The TCM Classic Movie Festival, Part 1
In the annals of film history, 1972 will forever be associated with “The Godfather,” Francis Ford Coppola’s huge popular and critical success. The movie won the Oscar for Best Picture of the Year, and rightfully so.
And yet. For only the second time in history, the director -- in this case Coppola -- who had nabbed the Director’s Guild's top prize for Best Director did not also win the Academy Award for Best Direction.
That prize went to Bob Fosse for directing the musical “Cabaret.” And oddly enough, that was also rightfully so.
Of course it seems absurd that the director of a film that wins Best Picture does not also win Best Director.
My contention is that “The Godfather” and “Cabaret” probably both should have won Best Picture Oscars that year.
In the past 40 years there in no doubt that “The Godfather” has remained a pop culture icon, and its influence continues today.
The movie version of “Cabaret,” on the other hand, if not almost entirely forgotten, is certainly not in the same league as “The Godfather” in our culture, high or low.
And yet. It is one of a handful of films that I would say are brilliant. Just as “The Godfather” transcends the gangster genre to speak to bigger issues about America, “Cabaret” is a musical like no other, as it transcends the genre to become a fascinating portrait of pre-World War II Berlin and a statement about decadence and where that can lead.
The movie of “Cabaret” takes place in Germany, beginning in 1931. It’s about a nightclub performer, Sally Bowles (Liza Minnelli), and the characters who populate her world, as the Nazis are getting stronger and stronger.
All of the musical numbers, save one, are performed in the cabaret, where Joel Grey is the emcee.
Cinematography and film editing are two hallmarks of “The Godfather.” Likewise, the photography of Geoffrey Unsworth and the film editing of David Bretherton are equally memorable in “Cabaret.”
Another thing I’ve read over the years is that both “The Godfather” and “Cabaret” were projects that were not easy to put together, despite the fact that “The Godfather” was based upon a mega-bestselling novel and “Cabaret” was based upon a Tony Award-winning Broadway musical.
Neither Coppola nor Fosse was first choice to direct their respective films. Nor were they the second or third choices either.
And the problems making the films didn’t stop there.
Coppola, for example, had huge fights with the studio executives over casting particularly, as they wanted Ernest Borgnine to play Don Corelone instead of Marlon Brando.
Fosse, for instance, was not pleased with the script by Jay Presson Allen, and brought in a friend of hers, Hugh Wheeler, for a rewrite. Furthermore, the initial preview screening of “Cabaret” was a bust, so the movie was re-edited before release.
One of the big surprises I had a number of years after “Cabaret” came out was seeing the stage production for the first time. The stage musical of “Cabaret” is not nearly as good as the movie version. Fosse, who also directed the original Broadway production back in 1966, clearly saw a vision of how he could use the medium of film to make “Cabaret” a far richer work of art. Part of that included having the team that wrote the songs for the stage musical--John Kander and Fred Ebb--deemphasize some songs in the movie version, while including some addional songs. Another part of that vision was going back to the source material that the stage musical was based upon: Christopher Isherwood's "Berlin Stories," and "I Am a Camera," a play--by John Van Druten--based on Isherwood's stories.
Another distinguishing feature of “The Godfather” is the vivid performances Coppola elicited from Brando, Robert Duvall, John Cazale, Richard Castellano and the rest of the cast. Likewise, Fosse was able to draw out dazzling performances from Liza Minnelli, Michael York, Joel Grey, Helmut Griem and other players in the movie. It’s by far the best Minnelli or York has been on the silver screen.
"Cabaret ended up winning eight Oscars--the most a movie has ever won that was not also named Best Picture.
Unlike Coppola, who’s made many movies, the chain-smoking Fosse -- who died in 1987 at age 60 -- only made five movies. Besides “Cabaret,” his autobiographical film “All That Jazz” is also a must-see.
The great Italian movie maker Federico Fellini once said, according to Vanity Fair, that his movies, like his life, could be summed up in “circus, spaghetti, sex and cinema.” For Fosse it would be in theater, cigarettes, sex and cinema.
Tonight, April 12, 2012, in Hollywood, at the historic Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, you can see a restored “Cabaret,” at the opening event of the third annual TCM Classic Film Festival. It’s well worth the effort to try and see it on the big screen.
Also scheduled to be shown tonight at the TCM movie jubilee is a wonderfully gritty film noir standard that rarely plays on the big screen. From 1948, it’s “Criss Cross,” starring Burt Lancaster in an early role that mesmerizes. His co-star is Yvonne De Carlo, best known to TV audiences as the mother in “The Munsters.” Here she’s the treacherous femme fatale monster. Also on board is the prodigious Dan Duryea, whose nasty roles were a noir staple. The heist in this picture is still one of the best ever captured on celluloid, and the movie’s director, Robert Siodmak, is one who should be much better known. A lot of film noirs, in my experience, fall apart at the end. This is one ending, however, that doesn’t disappoint or betray this fatalistic genre.
This is TCM’s third go-round presenting a film festival of classic movies here in L.A. Two years ago I saw a sumptuous print of “Sweet Smell of Success,” (1957) which contains Lancaster’s best role. Last year I had a lot of fun seeing, for the first time on the big screen, the remarkable “Dodsworth” (1936) starring Walter Huston, Ruth Chatterton and Mary Astor.
I’m not sure which movie or movies I’ll see at the festival in the next few days, but TCM has really outdone itself with its expanded offerings this year. In tomorrow’s column I’ll write about some of the other gems at this grand TCM moviefest.
In a Career That Spanned the History of TV Itself, Mike Wallace Became the Medium's Best Reporter and Best Interviewer. How He Came to Develop His Interview Style. Some Early Examples of the Bulldog Unchained
"I’m Mike Wallace and the cigarette is Philip Morris." With that introduction every Sunday night on ABC at 10:30 p.m., the nation was introduced to interviews by a TV reporter like no other. The interviews were so different, in fact, from most interviews on TV at the time that the program carried the name “The Mike Wallace Interview.” The show ran on ABC from April 1957 through September 1958. The program then ran another two years in syndication with more original interviews.
And you and I have the good fortune that those 65 shows in the collection -- 60 kinescopes and 5 audio tapes -- are available, for free, 24/7, on the Internet here. Wallace says in his memoir that “Of all the interviews I did in that long-ago era of black-and-white television, none was more stimulating for me than my conversations with the grand old man of architecture -- Frank Lloyd Wright.” Wright was 88 years old at the time.
Here's an excerpt of that interview -- which can be found here in its entirety -- that Wallace quotes in his memoir.
Another of the Wallace interviews in the Ransom collection worth watching is one with the great silent movie actress Gloria Swanson. Seven years before the interview Swanson had made her great comeback in “Sunset Boulevard,” and by the time of the interview, she was once again out of the public eye. It’s as hard-hitting an interview as any actor has had to endure, and Swanson doesn’t flinch at any of the uncomfortable jabs with which Wallace hits her. Take a look here.
And don’t miss the Ransom Center interview Wallace did with 12-year-old Leonard Ross (no relation to me).You can find it here. You’ve most likely never heard of Leonard Ross. The intro to his interview on the Ransom Center website says, “Leonard Ross, a 12-year-old California school boy who won a total of $164,000 on the game shows ‘The Big Surprise’ and ‘The Sixty-Four Thousand Dollar Challenge,’ by answering questions about the stock market, talks to Wallace about the effects of quiz shows on children, school, politics, eggheads, spanking, mothers, and Santa Claus.”
'The Artist' Scene Stealer Takes Spotlight as Hollywood Goes to the Dogs for Genesis Awards
Just as he did in the Academy Award-winning “The Artist,” canine star Uggie nearly stole the show at the 26th Genesis Awards, presented by the Humane Society of the United States. The 22 winners were announced Saturday, March 24, at a ceremony at The Beverly Hilton.
The Genesis Awards honor the news and entertainment media’s work in raising public awareness of animal issues and confronting cruelty. The majority of the categories recognize television work, including local and national news, newsmagazines, talk shows, reality series and documentaries.
The scene-stealing terrier came out on stage as host Carrie Ann Inaba of “Dancing with the Stars” opened the program in the packed International Ballroom, after guests were served, naturally, a vegan dinner.
Then they rolled the first tape -- black and white and silent, of course -- featuring Inaba and Uggie in a charming vignette about his life, going from rags to riches, from the shelter to being rescued and then coached by a great trainer. Thus, a four-legged star was born, and a message was imparted: Don't buy pets, adopt them.
In the feature film category, "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" triumphed over its animal-themed rivals "Dolphin Tale," "Rio" and "War Horse."
"The Colbert Report’s" satire on animal rights issues hit the right comedic note to win the prestigious Sid Caesar Comedy Award for the second year in a row, with bits such as wagging a satirical finger at whale preservation by suggesting that whales are the real persecutors of humans. In an acceptance speech taped at his anchor desk in New York, the show’s host Stephen Colbert made a series of animal noises that could be possibly translated as expressions of gratitude in their respective dialects.
As the awards unfolded -- presented by, among others, Cloris Leachman, Jason Ritter, Moby, Rose McGowan, Wendie Malick, Wilmer Valderrama, Michael Vartan and Sophia Bush -- and clips from the honorees were played, the scope of the issues that concern the Humane Society and its members became apparent. They range from poaching endangered species to shark finning to egg farm cruelty, wild horse roundups, cruelty of the Asian reptile skin trade, cockfighting, torture at cattle ranches and abuses that can be involved in online puppy sales.
There were also uplifting stories, including several about pairing abandoned pets with homeless people and giving them new homes.
"The Ellen DeGeneres Show" picked up Outstanding Talk Show for an interview with HSUS President and CEO Wayne Pacelle about dogfighting and puppy mills.
In the field of documentaries and reality series, the Morgan Freeman-narrated IMAX documentary "Born to Be Wild 3D" took the Feature Documentary prize for its celebration of people who rehabilitate baby elephants and orangutans orphaned by poaching and habitat encroachment.
"Gordon Ramsay: Shark Bait" received best TV Documentary for its fearless expose of shark-finning and the well-known chef's quest to have shark fin soup banned from restaurant menus. The California lawmaker who led the fight to ban it in the Golden State was given a standing ovation when Ramsay gave him a shout-out.
"Animal Planet Investigates: Captive Hunting Exposed” received the Outstanding Reality Series award for pulling back the curtain on "captive hunting” -- shooting tame animals that are trapped in fenced pens.
In the world of broadcast news, ABC’s “20/20” was honored in the TV Newsmagazine category for exposing inhumane conditions at an egg factory farm. NBC’s “Nightly News” was recognized with the Outstanding National News award for multiple issues, including the fate of horses used by smugglers to cross the U.S.-Mexico border.
Anchor Brian Williams, appearing on tape from New York, said he always liked to err on the side of the animal kingdom. He went on to poke fun at his well-known love for dogs, but not so much for cats. "I would refute that, but the last cat story aired on ‘Nightly’ in 1996," he said with a smirk.
It was another win for the Peacock Network as the Morning News Show award went to NBC’s Jill Rappaport of “Today” for a series of reports on the dedicated rescuers of homeless pets.
“We paid tribute to an amazing array of works that address animal protection concerns, but the real winners of the Genesis Awards are the animals themselves, who rely on these invaluable voices to speak for them,” says Beverly Kaskey, senior director of The HSUS’s Hollywood Outreach program and executive producer of the annual awards.
The awards show will premiere as a one-hour special on Animal Planet on May 5.
For a complete list of winners, go to www.humanesociety.org/genesis.
After 18 Months, We Parse the 2-Hour Season Premiere of 'Mad Men': Kinky Sex, Greed and a Song for iTunes
The two-hour premiere of the long-awaited fifth season of “Mad Men” was a huge education.
First, it answered the big question: Did Megan actually get married to Don in the 17 months that have passed since the dapper Mr. Draper unexpectedly proposed to her in the cliffhanger season four finale? Oh, yeah, they did. And from the looks of it, it appears to be a relationship based upon truth -- as it is revealed that Megan knows about his real identity as Dick Whitman -- and judging by the last scene, kept spicy with kinky sex.
At the surprise 40th birthday party she gave for her husband, a centerpiece of the episode, Megan may not have been able to seduce Don, but she blew away partygoers with her daring rendition of the 1960s French schoolgirlish love song "Zou Bisou Bisou,” which roughly translates to "sweet kiss,” and is already rising up the charts at iTunes.
The Sterling Cooper crowd that populated the party weren't the only ones charmed. AMC says the show attracted a series record 3.5 million viewers, 21% more than the number who watched the premiere of season four in 2010.
Master “Mad Men” storyteller Matt Weiner has proved that the wait was worth it. He seamlessly incorporated the struggle for civil rights that was blowing up during the mid-1960s, along with referencing the Vietnam War and the viability of a gay lifestyle in New York City while exploring the motivations and machinations of the key characters, with one huge exception. We can only assume that January Jones as Don's ex-wife Betty was not seen due to a shooting schedule conflicting with her pregnancy.
So back to the lessons learned:
-- Lane is a perv. After he finds a stranger's wallet in the back seat of a cab and decides to handle the return of it himself because it has nearly $100 in it (and apparently because the taxi driver is black), he discovers a picture of a buxom brunette. He later engages in the 1960s version of phone sex with her, and somehow becomes hopelessly enamored of Delores. What's up with that, Lane? Aside from dealing with your stiff upper lip wife, who seems to be completely consumed by worry about the family's financial situation, it's funny that this woman should be the one to rouse your inclination to stray.
-- Harry is a bit oversexed as well -- and he can be easily bought by a big wad of bills. Cases in point: his vulgar depiction of what he'd like to do to Megan in the swanky Draper apartment -- which she overheard him foolishly trumpeting in the office canteen; his almost-telling of his sexploits after the party to Roger, who didn't want to hear about it; and his acceptance of $1,100 in cash to give up his office to accommodate the petty, ladder-climbing Pete. Clearly greedy and not that bright, he asked if it was going to be a monthly payment.
-- Pete is as weaselly and as ambitious as ever, but a family man at heart who has moved out to the suburbs with wife Trudy and their new baby. This is proven on almost a daily basis on his train ride into the city with other men who complain about their marriages and kids and plot to come home as late as possible, or not at all. That won't be Pete. He is more concerned with getting a bigger office to impress all the clients he's bringing in to the agency and competing with senior partner Roger -- even stooping to playing juvenile practical jokes on him to trip him up.
-- Peggy is taking herself way too seriously. Her campaign for Heinz baked beans, an animated ballet of beans called "The Art of Dinner," was absolutely the worst advertising strategy the show has portrayed. But Peggy didn't have a backup plan and she didn't take it well that the client absolutely hated it -- and was much more in tune with the marketplace and the image of their product than she was. She mistakenly thought Don would sell the campaign to them anyway. Another bonehead move: Peggy made a major social gaffe by complaining to Don at his birthday party about her workload, leaving him pretty much speechless, only to be whisked away by Megan. She later admitted she shouldn't drink at work functions, or perhaps at all, and did apologize, but she really needs to lighten up.
-- Joan’s new baby and her visiting mother appeared to be getting the best of her -- until her competitive juices get revved up by the company's ad in The New York Times, poking fun at rival Young and Rubicam for their racism -- which she misinterprets as a want ad that will leave her out of a job. Joan sure does clean up nicely. That hot pink dress she wore into the office, armed with the unwieldy baby stroller model of the time, almost brought us to tears -- just like she broke down in Lane's office that she was lonely. Guess what, baby? Joan is almost back at work -- three more weeks, she said, and we can't wait.
-- Speaking of Joan’s son, Roger doesn't seem to be fazed that it's actually his bio-child. Roger appears to be almost completely marginalized in this episode, becoming the court jester of the office who even as a senior partner is reduced to peering at Pete's schedule and trying to undermine him while beefing up his popularity with clients by plying them with even more drinks. His marriage doesn't seem to be going all that well either. At least on her side. When, after Megan's party performance, he asked, "Why can't you sing like that?" she replies, "Why don't you look like that," referring of course to the ever-handsome Don.
-- Don is having a midlife crisis at the age of 40, even though his actual birthday as Dick Whitman was six months before then. In the 1960s, 40 was kind of old. Now, 40 is the new 25, maybe 30 -- and as we've noted, the newly married, season five Don Draper is looking exceedingly well. We hope this age storyline is dropped quickly as it didn't really grab us as anything that substantial. What's much more interesting are the two divergent takes of Don that are expressed in the show. One, by Megan, who says, "You're a dirty old man." The other, expressed by Peggy, is that Don is now patient and kind -- and she's very concerned about that.
We patiently await next Sunday's episode.
Connecting the Dots Between Steve Jobs, Ira Glass, Truth, Fiction, Theater and 'The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance'
The favorite entertainment of my grandfather on my mother’s side was the movies. I don’t remember ever seeing him read a book or a magazine or a newspaper, but he adored the movies. Especially Westerns.
My grandfather was a serial entrepreneur, and I think he particularly liked Westerns because so often they portray the individual vs. everyone else. And he liked that there were good guys and bad guys and not a lot of gray.
When I was eight he took me to the movie that’s been my favorite Western ever since: “The Magnificent Seven.”
Then, when I was ten, we saw “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.” It’s a John Ford Western, penned by James Bellah and Willis Goldbeck, and starring two Western icons, Jimmy Stewart and John Wayne, with a hugely entertainingly nasty Lee Marvin as the bad guy. The movie is about a topic that's garnering a lot of interest today -- bullying. It also included one of the most famous exchanges in movies:
Person A: You're not going to use the story, Mr. Scott?
Mr. Scott, a newspaperman: No, sir. This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.
Actually, a newspaper, in the West or anywhere else, should be in the business of printing the facts, not the legend. Such is the journalistic endeavor.
This subject has been in the news of late because one of the truly great showcases of journalism around, public radio’s “This American Life,” was bamboozled but good recently by one Mike Daisey. Daisey is the author of a theatrical monologue titled "The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs."
The monologue is about Apple and the Chinese workers who make its products, and abuses these workers have suffered making the millions of iPods and iPhones and other Apple products that so many of us love. Daisey has repeatedly said that the piece is non-fiction, based on what he saw on a six-day trip to China.
“This American Life,” in turn, did a show about the abuses Daisey claims he saw in China. And “This American Life” is not the only journalistic outlet to feature Daisey and his claims of abuse of Chinese workers in Apple's employ. He’s been on TV news shows, other radio outlets and even wrote an op-ed piece in The New York Times about the abuses he said he saw.
But another reporter, Rob Schmitz of public radio’s “Marketplace,” investigated and found out that Daisey has been lying, that he didn’t actually see a number of the abuses that he said he saw.
This revelation, in turn, caused “This American Life,” and its venerable host, Ira Glass, to devote an entire show to how the program, which bills itelf as a journalistic endeavor, was bamboozled.
That show, titled “Retraction,” was posted on “This American Life’s” website on March 16, 2012, and is one of the most compelling hours I’ve heard lately, and I urge you to find the time and listen to the entire show -- click here to find it.
Most fascinating on this show is Daisey himself, and his various rationalizations. He finally apologizes to Glass and the show’s listeners, as he admits that not all of his material meets journalistic standards of truth.
At the same time Daisey is adamant that even though he’s billed his monologue in the theater as non-fiction, because it’s done in the theater, it’s OK to fudge there.
In other words, even though he says to theater audiences that his piece is documentary, not docu-drama, that’s OK, because they are theatergoers and the truth is more elastic in that setting.
Ira Glass wasn’t buying it. Here’s an exchange between Glass and Daisey from the “Retraction” episode of “This American Life”:
IRA GLASS: Are you going to change the way that you label this in the theater, so that the audience in the theater knows that this isn’t strictly speaking a work of truth but in fact what they’re seeing really is a work of fiction that has some true elements in it.
MIKE DAISEY: Well, I don’t know that I would say in a theatrical context that it isn’t true. I believe that when I perform it in a theatrical context in the theater that when people hear the story in those terms that we have different languages for what the truth means.
GLASS: I understand that you believe that but I think you’re kidding yourself in the way that normal people who go to see a person talk -- people take it as a literal truth. I thought that the story was literally true seeing it in the theater. Brian [Reed, a producer on 'This American Life'], who’s seen other shows of yours, thought all of them were true. I saw your nuclear show, I thought that was completely true. I thought it was true because you were on stage saying, ‘This happened to me.’ I took you at your word.
DAISEY: I think you can trust my word in the context of the theater. And how people see it --
GLASS: I find this to be a really hedgy answer. I think it’s OK for somebody in your position to say it isn’t all literally true. … I feel like that’s what’s actually called for at this point, is just honest labeling. … [Y]ou make a nice show, people are moved by it, I was moved by it, and if it were labeled honestly, I think everybody would react differently to it.
DAISEY: I don’t think that label covers the totality of what it is.
GLASS: That label -- fiction?
DAISEY: Yeah. We have different worldviews on some of these things. I agree with you truth is really important.
GLASS: I know, but I feel like I have the normal worldview. The normal worldview is somebody stands on stage and says, ‘This happened to me,’ I think it happened to them, unless it’s clearly labeled as ‘here’s a work of fiction.’
Daisey clearly feels that at this point Glass is badgering him, and just repeats something he said earlier in the interview: “I really regret putting the show on ‘This American Life’ and it was wrong for me to misrepresent to you and to Brian that it could be on the show.”
Interestingly, at least one of Daisey’s colleagues in the theater agrees with Glass’ point of view on this. This comes from a post by Alli Houseworth on ArtsJournal.com that was posted on March 19, 2012:
“In 2010 I worked at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, when ‘The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs’ was ‘birthed’ at the theatre, and the following spring was the marketing and communications director who worked on the show at Woolly. Today, as an independent consultant, I write as a former marketing director who is no longer bound by the public statement of her institution in this matter, and what I would like to say is this: Mike Daisey, you should be ashamed of yourself. And to members of the American theatre: we should be disappointed in ourselves too.
"For months and months four major non-profit organizations across the US (Seattle Rep, Berkeley Rep, Woolly and the Public Theater [in New York City]) worked to put ‘The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs’ on the stage, bringing the story we all felt was so enormously important -- a story Mike told at least me time and time again was true. He insisted that ‘This is a work of non-fiction’ be printed in playbills.”
Later in the post Houseworth writes, “So to the producers of the American theatre, I urge you to boycott this work. Boycott Mike’s gorgeous, amazing piece of theatre that is based on a true story. Boycott it until you get the apology that you deserve and do not ever, ever re-mount it or produce a work of his again until you know for sure what is true and what is not so your audiences are never ever misled again. Stand by your desire to uphold the truth and value of art, of what you work so enormously hard for day in and day out, until you get an apology from the man who calls himself one of you, who is our field’s 'leading man' in the fight for theatre as truth and activism. He let us down and we deserve better.”
Houseworth’s post brought lots of impassioned response on both sides of the issue.
Commenter Kent disagrees with Houseworth and Glass, and wrote, in part:
“Hmm. I understand that you are upset and feel betrayed by this very public admission of wrong doing, but I think this reaction borders on the hysterical. Mike is not wrong that the context of the theater changes the equation of the way the facts were presented. If you think there aren’t equivocations and fabrications in other works of documentary theater you’d be wrong. Plays like The Laramie Project and Fires in the Mirror may not make stories up, but they do edit, arrange, and structure themselves to create a point of view, sometimes a point of view which may make a real person look foolish or wrong headed, when they aren’t. This is also a form of 'truthiness' for lack of a better word. Additionally, journalists such as Hunter S. Thompson and Tom Wolfe often fabricated or changed elements of their work to make a better story. David Sedaris, also a ‘This American Life’ contributor has been caught hyperbolizing his stories regularly, and Ira Glass has never retracted a single one of those.
“Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not apologizing for Mike’s behavior and I find the whole event more than a little embarrassing for the theater and the form. I also understand that there are huge differences between David Sedaris creating a story out of his life and Mike Daisey claiming he met people he didn’t. But the point still stands: context does indeed matter. Is it an article of faith that everything you see on stage is true? Ira Glass certainly seems to think so, but I’m not so sure. Someone is writing a point of view and that means that other points of view are not represented. By definition it can’t be journalism.”
Counters a commenter calling herself or himself “Bewildered”:
“>no one holds theater to a journalistic standard
“I keep seeing defenders of Daisey equivocating when it comes to this ‘journalistic standard’. Yes, Daisey’s work was in the theater, but he explicitly labeled it ‘non-fiction.’ Does ‘non-fiction’ mean ‘truth’ only if you’re a journalist? Does it mean ‘mostly truth’ if you’re a regular person? Does it mean ‘whatever I want it to mean’ if you’re an artist? You don’t have to be a journalist to understand that it’s wrong to go on TV, to go on the radio, to write an op-ed for the New York Times and tell stories about what you saw with your own eyes, when you didn’t see those things with your own eyes.
“Just to clarify, many of Daisey’s critics are not primarily objecting to his theater performance. We’re primarily objecting to his insistence that the performance -- an artful mingling of his own experiences and imagined experiences based on things he read in the news -- is classified as “non-fiction”. More than that, we’re objecting to his continued insistence in media outside of the theater (newspaper, TV, radio) that he really saw these things. He didn’t.
“Each time he wrote an op-ed/went on TV/was interviewed was an opportunity for him to disclaim: ‘remember, I’m not a journalist, I’m a performer, we all have different languages for truth, etc.’. Isn’t it odd that he waited until he was caught red-handed to remind us of this fact?”
Hey Daisey, I was telling all of this to an agent I was having lunch with the other day. Or maybe I wasn’t. No matter. Here’s the point. He, or she, whoever this person was, thinks you’d be great on a reality TV show they want to build around you. Man, you’re gonna love it. Please, call me. This debate wouldn’t happen there. It’s reality TV, my friend, and trust me, the only thing real about it that anyone cares about is the ratings. In reality TV, the director only shouts “Print” not after he has captured the legend, but only after he’s got the legend behind the legend …
After Spending $200 Million in 2 1/2 Years, Cable MSOs Have Given Up on Canoe's Big Ad Plans. It Was Touted as 'Groundbreaking.' TVWeek Looks at How It Ran Aground
Of all the young turks of media who emerged during the late 1980s and early 1990s, David Verklin was always the most gregarious -- outgoing, social, smart, articulate, a superlative communicator with seemingly boundless enthusiasm and energy.
We’re talking about the media part of the advertising world, which was for so long considered the step-child of that business, compared to the golden child that was the creative arm of the ad agencies.
But that began to change during the late 1980s and early 1990s, as the importance of the media part of an ad campaign became more apparent. Furnthermore, it became clear that media could be a profit center for agencies and their big holding company parents.
At the time Verklin was at a hot creative shop, Hal Riney & Partners in San Francisco. He arrived there in 1987, just five months after Riney had left ad giant Ogilvy & Mather to start his own shop. When Verklin showed up there were just 12 people at Riney handling the media part of the business.
Five years later, in 1992, Riney was handling the ads for General Motors’ Saturn brand, and the agency’s billings had increased from $65 million in 1987 to $350 million, according to Adweek . While many of his up and coming colleagues at other agencies were press shy about their work and what they were doing for their clients, Verklin, Riney’s media director, wasn’t.
With the increase in billings, Verklin’s media department had grown to 80 people. And Verklin was named 1992 Media Director of the Year by Mediaweek and its sibling publication, Adweek.
Near the top of the article, which ran in both publications, it said, “Verklin, a boyish-looking 37, is describing the all-star qualities that helped him win recognition as Mediaweek’s Media Director of the Year. ‘I present like an account person. I’m good at relationship building, I have a marketing orientation, and I’ve combined that with the skill of a media person…' ”
Verklin speaks in the article about the importance of good relationships. And then, the article notes, “This approach [of maintaining good relationships and treating people square] is paying off in spades. Riney got a lot of attention for its outdoor Saturn blitz. ‘But it was Patrick Media that came to us with that idea,’ [says Verklin.] ‘They knew we’d be able to do a straight deal. It’s a competitive advantage that helps us overcome being a mid-sized agency.”
Later in the piece, Verklin talks about his media philosophy: “We are leaders in longform communications -- :60s, [magazine] spreads, full-length [TV] programs. There’s a tradeoff between the higher quality of longer messages in return for less frequency. And we have an overall strategy of high-intensity media in return for shorter duration. If you stretch a limited budget too far, there’s a threshold where your media becomes invisible. We’ll advertise for a short period of time. It’s the only way to survive in the media environment of the ‘90s: you’ve got to shout louder.“
Near the end of the story the article says, “What’s next for Verklin? ... Down the road, Verklin would like to move up the agency ladder. ‘Very few media people have gone on to agency management,’ [Verklin says.] ‘Maybe in five or ten years.’ “
He didn’t have to wait that long. Within the year he was named managing director of Riney.
Five years after that, in 1998, Verklin and his wife were just putting the finishing touches on a dream project -- a home they were building across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco, in picturesque Marin County. But they never moved into the house.
Instead, Verklin was offered -- and took -- his dream job: becoming CEO of Carat Americas. After living in the Bay Area for 11 years, Verklin and his family moved to the East Coast.
Verklin’s skill set served him well at Carat. Along with Charlie Rutman, the well-respected media director at DMB&B who joined Carat shortly before Verklin did, they built Carat into a media power player. “The two of them, Verklin and Rutman, were the yin and yang of the business,” said one top media executive at a shop that competes with Carat. “David, the always eloquent face of Carat, with Charlie more the quiet COO kind-of-guy. They were a great team.”
Ten years later, in the spring of 2008, Verklin announced he was leaving Carat. Here’s what Ad Age wrote at the time:
“David Verklin once gave a speech in which he coined the phrase ‘the crackle of change' as a way to get at the digital transformation sweeping the ad business. The crackle caught up with the loquacious media thinker last week, when he announced that he's leaving Carat, the platform from which he became one of the industry's most visible figures during the past 10 years.
“Mr. Verklin's departure seems to be based on a number of different factors. There has been some tension between Mr. Verklin and Mainardo de Nardis ever since Mr. de Nardis came on as Aegis's worldwide CEO [Aegis owns Carat]. ... Those tensions were stoked, these people say, in part by Mr. Verklin's clear pursuit of other interests such as writing a book and becoming a media-business celebrity in his own right.”
The article added that some sources said Verklin was departing so he could head up a cable MSO joint venture called Project Canoe. The idea behind Canoe, the story said, “is to make a hyperfragmented market more scalable for advertisers and more universally measurable.”
All Verklin would tell Ad Age at the time was: "I am convinced that [in] the next three years an enormous amount of the focus will turn toward the TV set. I am convinced that the TV space is ripe for invention and reinvention.''
Verklin left Carat at the end of 2008. According to published reports, he had been making $1.5 million a year at Carat, and his severance, according to MediaPost, was $1.1 million.
In June 2009, the formation of Canoe Ventures was formally announced. It was a joint venture of the nation's six largest cable operators: Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Cox Communications, Charter Communications, Cablevision and Bright House Networks. Verklin, 52, was announced as the CEO.
Five months later, on Thursday, Nov. 13, 2009, Verklin felt comfortable enough in his new job to deliver a 20-minute speech -- billed as a “mini-keynote” -- at a conference in San Francisco called NewTeeVee Live.
It had been 11 years since he left San Francisco. That November day was beautiful, practically cloud-free, with the Mercury hitting 70 degrees, and Verklin told the crowd how pleased he was to be back in the City, and how lucky those in the audience were to live in the Bay Area.
And then he told them about Canoe.
“Its mission is clear, direct and simple. Open up and use cable’s unique two-way infrastructure to turn television into a platform, nationally.”
Then he said, “Write some of these numbers down. There are 101 [million] multichannel households in the United States. Seventy million of them are cable households. Thirty-one million get their TV from satellite. Canoe represents about 60 million of the 70 million cable households as of today.
“Canoe has a digital set-top box in over 32 million households as I speak to you today, and it’s growing rapidly. Canoe is also the ISP for over 35% of American households.
“We get it. We see it. We see the threat and we see the opportunity the digital revolution is creating. And if we act quickly, we intend to take advantage of it.
“The TV advertising business is a $60 billion business (annually). The cable MSOs get about $5 billion out of that $60 billion today.”
Then Verklin talked about what Canoe had to offer: “Let’s get specific. Two new features are coming to your television set. Interactivity and addressability. … Interactivity will come in four flavors. If you’re interested, write them down:
“Voting and polling. Request for information. T-Commerce. And telescoping.” He defined T-Commerce as buying product by just hitting a button on your remote control. Telescoping, Verklin said, is the ability of pushing a button on your remote while watching a commercial for an upcoming movie and getting the entire trailer. Or pushing a button while watching an auto commercial and getting a short video about the car.
“And addressability, [which] is the ultimate promise of the new platform called ‘television,’ " Verklin intoned. “No more diaper ads if you don’t have or are not expecting a baby. No more dog food ads if you don’t own a dog. And no more denture cream ads if you have a really good set of choppers.”
“This isn’t Buck Rogers stuff that I’m talking about, ladies and gentlemen. It’s merely a small technological evolution from video-on-demand, which has been used by 80% of all cable households with a set-top box.”
Verklin then said the MSOs would be able to carry off addressability because of the data in the 32 million set-top boxes that the owners of Canoe reach.
“Finally, when?” Verklin said to the crowd. “When? When’s all this going to happen? ‘David, you’re part of the cable operators. They’re slow and they never make anything happen. When’s this platform going to start?’ Faster than you think.”
Interactive advertising, he said, will come to 15 million to 20 million households by November 2010. “As for addressability,” Verklin said, “Canoe hopes to bring you a fairly basic version of it -- something called network addressability -- or national addressability -- into the marketplace in 100 days.”
So that was it. The vision and the promise.
Most of it never came to pass.
In July 2011, it was announced that Verklin was leaving Canoe when his contract expired at the end of last summer. It had been widely believed that despite all of the setbacks in getting product out, Verklin’s contract would be renewed. A number of sources said they believe that Neil Smit, who had replaced Steve Burke in running the Comcast MSO, had much input in not renewing Verklin’s contract. A Comcast corporate communications executive said Smit was not available to comment for this story.
Last month, on Feb 22, 2012, Todd Spengler at Multichannel News broke the story that 120 of Canoe’s 150 employees would be laid off, as most of what Verklin had outlined that November day in San Francisco -- addressability and four flavors of interactivity on a large-scale basis -- was being abandoned, having never been achieved. From now on, with the 30 employees left, Canoe will focus on ads for video-on-demand.
Verklin had been replaced by Kathy Timko, who had worked with him as the COO at Canoe. She’ll be among the 120 leaving the company.
The MSOs that own Canoe publicly said they were spending $150 million on the joint venture, including, according to a separate article in Multichannel, an annual salary to Verklin “commensurate with” the $1.5 million he was making at Carat when he left there. Sources say that, in fact, the MSOs will have spent closer to $200 million on Canoe from the time it was announced in June 2009 to the time all of the laid-off employees leave in May 2012.
What happened? How come this highly publicized venture that was to change the shape of a platform called “television” went south in what was a relatively short period of time?
TVWeek asked that question to a number of people who have intimate knowledge of Canoe, and their thoughts on the matter follow. All of the people we spoke with said they would only talk to us if we did not use their names, since they all have business dealings with the MSOs who make up Canoe’s owners. Oddly, even the one person authorized to speak on behalf of Canoe asked that his or her name not be used, saying that they are in the marketplace looking for a new job since they are being laid off by Canoe.
One statement concerning full disclosure. Several years ago Verklin and I met about my perhaps joining Canoe. Outside of a discussion with one other person at Canoe, nothing came of it.
“What happened with Canoe?” one source parroted my question. “About five years ago or so -- don’t hold me to an exact date, the MSOs did a study with McKinsey or someone like that -- it was basically a review of their business. And one of the outcomes was the recognition that the MSOs had ad inventory, but that it paled next to the inventory the networks have that gets passed through the pipes owned by the MSOs. So the question was raised, 'Is there a way for us to play in that sandbox?'
“That’s where Canoe came from -- out of this review that indicated a potential to marry up the technology of the cable industry -- most importantly the targetability of the data cable has -- with the massive amount of advertising revenue that comes through the networks. As Verklin mentioned in that 2009 speech we talked about -- at that time the MSOs were getting about $5 billion out of a pie of $60 billion. There’s surely opportunity there, the MSOs decided.”
Said another source familiar with Canoe: “The MSOs realized that they have a restricted territory in which they can operate. They can’t grow their territory unless they buy another MSO. They had -- and still have -- tough competition from satellite, and increasingly, from the Verizons and AT&Ts of the world. You can try and increase your share of market against your satellite and telco competition, but that will dilute your margins and profits. And they were maxing out on their revenue per sub with their triple plays and such. So, for them, the ‘Bingo!’ moment was to try and figure out how to increase their ad revenue. So they came up with Canoe.”
Yet another source put it this way: “Because of the billions that are spent on TV advertising, you’re always going to have companies looking for a seat at the TV ad table. The table has seats at it for television networks -- cable and broadcast, for TV stations, for MSOs, for media agencies and their clients. All those who do business and support national and local advertising. That’s the table those who circle the TV business want to sit at.
“Canoe clearly had an advantage. They had a seat at the table. Canoe was owned by the MSOs. They had access to ad inventory. They had access to data and technology. So, in a way, they had a much, much better chance of succeeding than an outsider who’d come up with a device that could enable addressability and interactivity. So the flaw wasn’t coming up with the idea for Canoe. It was the execution.”
So what about the execution didn’t work? There are varying opinions.
“Ultimately, Canoe was about national TV advertising. But where at Canoe were the national buyers and national sellers?” asked one knowledgeable source. “Yes, Verklin came from Madison Avenue, but at a high level. How many years since he’d really been in the buying and selling trenches? On the other hand, David’s not a cable operator with that background, which is very insular. You have no idea how insular. “
There were two major issues, this source said. “Where in Canoe was the national ad sales culture? I love David. I really do. Bright, bright guy. But I think Canoe needed to build a sales organization. The model at first was that Canoe was to sell the ads, and then that moved to a model where the networks would sell them. That’s more time consuming and more of a challenging sale. As important as the technology side of what Canoe was trying to accomplish was, I think David needed a No. 2 like he had Rutman at Carat -- an operational sales guy, not a No. 2 who was basically a technology guy, which is what he got.
“But the second big issue was the technology. Canoe would come out with product and technically couldn’t align all the MSOs. So one of the core issues was getting these technologies to work in the same fashion and work consistently and in the same way amongst all the cable operators. Big challenge that never got met.”
Another source put the issue of technology this way: “When you’re a cable MSO, the perspective from the engineering side is always ‘don’t do anything that might cause me a problem. Because if I have a problem we could lose subscribers. We know what that costs us. We have no idea what the real value is of your proposition. So leave us the f alone.’ In so many words, that’s their attitude.”
Unfortunately, said this source, Verklin wasn’t able to overcome that attitude.
More on the tech issues. In Verklin’s San Francisco speech he explained there was supposed to be two parts to what Canoe would do: addressability and interactivity.
Of the two, it’s addressability that’s the Holy Grail as far as Madison Avenue is concerned. It’s the making sure that only the dog owner and potential dog owner get the dog food commercial.
A number of sources on Madison Avenue said in their eyes Canoe basically failed because it never did the addressabiltiy. When technically they realized how tough it was to do the addressability, Canoe went directly to trying to do interactivity. The argument goes thus: First you do addressability, then you enable interactivity. Because if you’re reaching the wrong target, you’re not going to get a response on the interactivity.
Said one source: “Canoe fairly quickly understood that there was less of an internal obstacle among the MSOs to interactivity than there was to addressability. The core of that internal obstacle to addressability is that the MSOs want to build everything themselves. Nothing off the shelf. They say, ‘Anything not invented here we don’t want.’ Which is why every cable MSO has a different infrastructure.
“Building addressability is not only difficult, but you start to step on other people’s intellectual property. So building interactivity, that Canoe thought they could do. But even the Canoe solution for interactivity was built by a committee of MSO technical people. The graphics were 1980 Pac Man. It was embarrassing. And then, when the viewer clicked on something, the marketer in question would mail the viewer something.”
That last point seemed especially galling to some on Madison Avenue. Said one source: “The mail thing Canoe set up as its interactive fulfillment had two problems. First, we live in a world where someone pushes an electronic button and they expect instant gratification. Not a coupon or brochure or whatever delivered several days later in the mail.
“And the second thing is the cost of mail. People don’t realize when you’re talking a 10 dollar per thousand on cable TV that’s a penny an impression. Now you change the equation to -- including stuffing and production and everything -- somewhere between 50 cents and a dollar. That’s an economic shift that’s just flat-out untenable.”
One source, when asked where and when Canoe went wrong, said: “Right at the beginning. It was the chutzpah and naivety of the MSOs to get into this. Marketplaces exist for reasons. They are very efficient. They might be ugly, and you might not know all the hand signals and cocked eyebrows and whatever, but they work. So say what you will about the upfront, it enables trillions of impressions to be exchanged pretty easily for billons of dollars. It’s an efficient marketplace and people participate knowing what to expect.
“Anybody that tries to introduce something to change that marketplace generally finds that it’s not all that easy. Because anything that complicates the flow of the money, or that requires a shaving off of dollars, or of shares, or whatever it might be, the players in the marketplace are not interested. Basically, the networks aren’t interested and the media agencies are not interested.
“So the MSOs formed Canoe and hired Verklin. And he tried what, five or six versions of a business model. My sense is that any of them would have required heavy lifting by the networks, by the agencies and by the marketers, and none of the players actually thought it was worth it.”
This source continued: “I thought Canoe was an odd play. Most of the MSO members of the consortium are also partners in the cable spot business, through NCC. It’s a good business. They run it well, have brought some smart products to market and make some good coin. If not for the fact the MSOs seemed to want to make a big splash, I don’t know why they didn’t try doing some national Canoe-type things layered on top of NCC.
“But I think making a splash was part of it. I don’t know how you can have 150 employees with basically zero revenue while you spend $200 million, which Canoe did. They acted like a venture capital-funded start-up from 1999.”
Officially, here’s how the decision was made to change Canoe’s mission, according to a Canoe spokesperson who asked that his or her name not be used:
“New management and some other industry leaders have been reviewing Canoe’s mission and product roadmap.
“In the course of doing that we looked very closely at our technology, the processes, the product roadmap. We looked at current market trends, emerging market trends. And at the end of that analysis, the board of directors [i.e., executives at the MSOs that own Canoe] decided to completely redefine Canoe’s mission to be entirely focused on serving national programmers in the monetization of video-on-demand.
“By that we mean, first, through the current platform capabilities for VOD dynamic ad insertion. And, then, eventually, in support of TV Everywhere. Both VOD inside the home and TV Everywhere outside the home.
“So, if you think about that, it’s like a domino effect. Consistent with that focus, all the other businesses -- the business and technical initiatives that were going on at Canoe -- are no longer going to continue, including all of our activities associated with the ITV business.
“Therefore the redefined Canoe is going to be a much smaller, leaner organization. It will be engineering focused, based in Denver at our current technical facility. We’re scaling from 150 employees to approximately 30. The New York office is closing as of May 23rd.”
So Canoe is adopting a new mission and scaling down. The word scale, in fact, is a key one in discussing what happened to Canoe.
Canoe scaled up, in terms of people and expenditures, before it had a viable business model in place. Scale, in terms of homes reached on a national level, with addressability and then interactivity, was one of the major promises of Canoe.
On Madison Avenue addressability and interactivity have been talked about for years. One source told me: “I’m forever optimistic that we’ll get there with addressability and then interactivity. DirecTV and Dish have made great strides. They should have 15 million to 18 million set-top boxes by the end of this year. And you’ve got to like what the MSOs are doing individually with the interesting things they’re trying on advanced platforms, led by Cablevision, Comcast and Time Warner. So hypothetically, you take what DirecTV and Dish are going to have, you layer in the No. 1 market with Cablevision, and Verizon’s FiOS on top of that, and you could end up with 20 million to 23 million set-top boxes. That should be enough scale for marketers to try some very interesting ads.”#
Here's David Verklin's speech delivered on Nov. 13, 2009, at the NewTeeVee Live conference in San Francisco:
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