HBO Co-President Eric Kessler has some brave words to speak about cord-cutters:
HBO To Cord Cutters: You’ll Never See Our Shows
HBO has thrown its lot in with the Cable and Satellite companies, so it’s no surprise when he carries the party line:
Kessler is undaunted, saying HBO regards cord cutting as a temporary phenomenon that will go away once the larger economy improves.
I’m a cord cutter. Last year I didn’t exist, according to the Cable companies. This year, after my non-existent state was predicted to reach 10%, I am a temporary phenomenon. If any of them asked, I would tell them what I am: a constant media watcher/listener/reader who has figured out that immediacy is not important.
It started with VCR and then Tivo, ironically offered by Directv for my convenience. It continued with the realization of how much a night at the ARC Cinema cost me. It was switched on by Netflix, as my wife and I ran through six or more seasons of CSI and NCIS on the suggestion of friends. At that point it was easy to drop Directv. We never watched so why should we pay for it.
What Kessler and other Media Producers are trying hold on to (and monetize) is immediacy; the need to see it now, as it happens. Their content has always been worth the most on first airing and their job is to wring the most out of it for the next 12 months. Now, unfortunately for them, these cord cutters and theater avoiders are conceiving a different idea of what the content is worth. We, the 10% (catchy isn’t it!) are saying “we’ll take the 12 month later value pack please.”
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Update: Yelp cut my post on Lassens new store in Los Feliz, but apparently they can’t stanch the flood:
Lassen’s Los Feliz on Yelp
Down to 1 and a half stars now.
It started for me with Carl Karcher, founder of Carl’s Jr. He was a “conservative” supporter of all things hateful. After hearing about his support of the Briggs Initiative, I never stepped foot in any of his Restaurants.
In 1978, he provided $1 million USD to California’s Proposition 6, also known as the Briggs Initiative. He was the initiative’s biggest financial supporter. The proposition was a ballot measure requiring the termination of all gays and lesbians from employment in public schools. The initiative was defeated by over one million votes.
It was barely even a conscious decision. I simply didn’t want to be associated with that sort of sickness. I didn’t make the connection then that I would make now: by frequenting Carl’s Jr., I was helping supply Mr. Karcher with that $1 million.
Flash forward to today. I just had my first Yelp review deleted as “not within the guidelines.” The review was for a new Natural Food Mart only three blocks from me. It used to be the Nature Mart, but is now a branch of Lassens. Lassens is a pretend crunchy granola company owned by bigots:
Prop. 8 foes aim their ire at Lassen’s stores
I will never be shopping there, as you can probably guess. Nor will I be buying any product associated with Koch Industries, assuming that a few pennies from my purchase will be funding the Tea Party and extremely evil pseudoconservative lobbyists.
So…for three decades I’ve been an advocate of awareness shopping. I’ve never held back from telling anyone who’s interested why I will not purchase certain products or frequent certain establishments. I’ve waited for a coherent argument against this sort of thing, but nothing’s come up yet. All I get is:
- They have a right to their opinion
- They can spend their money any way they choose
- you’re not really hurting them – it’s all just symbolic
Sure, probably right on all counts. So? In the case of the Lassens donation, it always comes up that they are Mormons, ergo I am somehow impinging on their religious freedoms. I’m not buying that one either.
I suppose I just wanted to rant for a moment. I can understand Yelp’s side of things, and my post was not within the stated guidelines. It still gets under my skin, as it’s the first time I’ve publicly posted on this sort of thing. It’s out of my system now, so I’ll just go back to not funding hate.
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Many years ago I was a roadie. More exotic than the word implies, I was a Touring Audio Engineer and sometimes Tour Manager. I had been a music fan through the 60′s and 70′s, then I was swimming in it through the 80′s and 90′s.
Through the 60′s, Record Companies seemed able to uncover and sign amazing Musical Talents every day. These were in a wide array of styles and genres, taken into the mainstream and becoming part of the wider culture. An easy example is the Monterey Pop Festival of 1968: Jimi Hendrix, Hugh Masakela, Ravi Shankar, etc.
That was when the Record Companies were putting out a few dozen releases a year. Fast forward to my experience in the 80′s. They had narrowed the “popular” genre to whatever could rise to popular play on radio stations across the country. At the same time, they were signing thousands of acts and throwing them against the wall, the vast majority not sticking.
This led me to develop my “Theory of The Conservation of Talent.” It is my firm belief that there is a finite amount of musical talent in the world along with a variable yet limited number of musically talented individuals. One result of my theory is the decline of Record Company rosters, even while they throw out more and more releases. There’s just not enough talent to slather around on all of those CDs.
I was thinking about this lately when I read a studio executive bewailing the fact that nobody was coming out to the theaters anymore. The most succinct comment was: “stop making crappy movies and maybe we’ll come back!”
Does my Theory of Talent Conservation extend to other mediums? As studios tossed out more and more movies over the last century, have they run up against a wall of limited creative talent? Could someone (knowing more than me) apply it to the Art world or even to scientific fields?
Hard to say. Too many variables in every field, including the areas of personal taste and how one measures success. Some of my favorite former employers were dropped by or left major labels decades ago. Luka Bloom is still producing stunning albums. Dave Alvin is with tiny Yep Rock records and being hailed yearly as an American Treasure. On the movie side, I’m watching Anime and Documentaries on Netflix that make me believe that there is an ocean of talented film folk out there.
Oh well…jut a theory, subject to testing and correction.
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HBO Co-President Eric Kessler has some brave words to speak about cord-cutters:
