• A Change Is Gonna Come?
    For a couple of days last week, I was sequestered with some media brethren (compadres) at a client-sponsored offsite. On the first day of the media mind meld we were asked by our host to address the following question: "How do the different platforms stack up against each other -- and what could change in the next three to five years?"
  • The Spread: Drowning In A Three-Inch-Deep Pond
    The TV upfront is virtually over and done with for another year. The process worked again. The tried-and-tested approach delivered for all. Money got traded. The anticipated death of the 30-second spot was again disproved. Everyone seems at worst very happy and at best absolutely delighted. The truth is, the TV emperor has walked around with no clothes on. Yet his fan club -- media buyers -- compliment him on his stylish clothes of many colors.
  • Jack Myers' Think Tank: HBO's 'Big Love,' My Favorite Summer Series. What's Yours?
    Although I love FX's "Rescue Me," and there are excellent series on several other networks, including "Monk" on USA, "The Closer" on TNT and "Army Wives" on Lifetime, plus "Entourage" and "Flight of the Conchords" on HBO, "Big Love" has emerged from a shaky first season to become worthy of the HBO tradition.
  • You Don't Have To Be A Weather Channel To Know Which Way The Ratings Blow
    For the next three or four months the Weather Channel may have some blockbuster shows up its sleeve, but it's a bit tricky when Mother Nature is your head of programming. Of course, I'm referring to hurricane season.
  • Behold: The Anti-Paris
    What exactly is Paris Hilton? We appear to know plenty about who she is and what she does and does not do, but the question of what she is, is altogether different. There are probably endless ways to answer the question, but for my money she is one of the means by which a large chunk of society fulfils its needs (no matter how disapprovingly) for the trivial, the non-threatening and the trite.
  • Video Search: The Rightful Domain Of Television's Interactive Program Guide?
    Prior to Google's arrival on the scene and the initiation of its prime directive to make all forms of content searchable, video search would have fallen solely within the domain of television's Interactive Program Guide. However, the online mandarins (Google, Yahoo, MSN and AOL) as well as many broadband video destination sites and services -- such as Joost, Veoh, Blinkx, Clip Blast, Channels.com, Flurl, and Truveo, to a name a few -- have joined Google in its endeavor to create the consummate video search application, and for this quest have received an awful lot of press.
  • Being Their
    In some recent posts, I've made the case that television is simply becoming video, and that distinctions between traditional TV platforms and newer ones will soon begin to fade. I'm starting to think I was wrong. But I was also right. I was wrong, because there are some unique aspects to each platform that create different user experiences. I was right, because most end users (consumers) don't necessarily regard those platforms the way we industrial users (advertisers, agencies, distributors and content creators) do.
  • Absolutely, Positively The Last Time I'll Ever Bash The Upfront -- Promise!
    Has anyone else noticed something strange going on around here? I could pose that question almost every time I pen a column. In fact, I have many times before. But I usually reserve it for special occasions when contradictions appear to abound in the TV advertising marketplace. And I usually pose it around this time of the year, when the network television upfront is either in full bloom, or on the verge of wrapping up. But the inconsistencies I'm observing this year are more pronounced than ever before, so I've just got to ask it one more time: "Has anyone …
  • We Never Had It So Good
    Just for once let's not talk about money and the challenges we face, let's celebrate instead. The birth of "The Sopranos" coincided with the implosion of Web 1.0 -- and the show's death, the deal frenzy of Web 2.0. Web 1.0 gave us the first "TV is dead" headlines -- and by now you would only assume that the medium would have been a collectable artifact. But not so. TV is now in prime time.
  • Syndication, The Noun: A Pet Query
    Liberation day is upon us, so I thought that I would air a pet peeve: TV syndication as a viable, standalone category represented by a separate division within major media corporations.
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