Posts by: randomduck

beers at 1500: the list

author randomduck | timestamp 02/03/2010 | categories 2 Comments

Welcome to post number 1,500. In this post I will discuss an article I found today at Gadling I’ve deemed “The List”.

Y’see, the editors at Gadling have cobbled together a list of the top 24 cities for drinking beer. They obviously put a lot of time and thought into the cities mentioned, and have good defenses for the selected villes.

Referring just to The list, I’ve been to and had a beer in:

  • Portland, OR
  • San Francisco, CA
  • München, Germany
  • Boston, MA
  • Montreal, Quebec
  • San Diego, CA
  • Seattle, WA
  • New Orleans, LA
  • Burlington, VT
  • Northampton, MA
  • Baltimore, MD

11 of 24. It’s better than I thought I’d do, for sure.

And I can vouch for the beer culture in places like München (duh, home of Oktoberfest), Boston, Seattle (home of the sublime Mac & Jack’s, whose ale is one of the best beers I’ve ever had) and Northampton (a small city for which I have a great fondness: great music, great people, great beer).

But there are questions. As Geoff mentioned to me today, London isn’t on the list, and it’s definitely a great city for drinking beer. Same goes for Oxford (pints and punts on the Thames = priceless). Any country that places a high value on a proper ale, hand pumped and poured at a proper temperature should have some representation on this list.

But my initial reaction to this article was “I really want to travel to the cities I’ve missed – and revisit the places I’ve been before.” Once there’s a little flexible income saved, perhaps a road trip or two is in order – we’ll see.

And it needn’t be limited to locations on The List. I’d love to try a brew in Moscow, or sip suds in Sydney. Even trips to Tröegs Brewing or Bell’s would be fun. As my cycling friend Dereck says, “the real trick is not knowing the towns to drink in, it’s to know the town after you’ve been drinking in it!”

Makes sense to me!

However, right now, a nice, hot cuppa tea awaits.

So, how about you, dear readers: how do you see the list? Where have you had a beer, and where do you want to go to try one? And if beer isn’t your drink of choice (and for me, coffee is still the toppermost of the poppermost), what is? Comment away!

categories food, random

categories

thursday list-o-mania: airports

author randomduck | timestamp 25/02/2010 | categories 0 Comments

A quick list of airports I’ve been to (in an airplane – departing, arriving or connecting):

United States

Canada

Europe & the UK

categories random, travel

categories

random olympics: how not to broadcast a showcase event

author randomduck | timestamp 16/02/2010 | categories 6 Comments

I need only look at last night’s abomination of a broadcast from the National Broadcasting Corporation to see some of the worst possible chop-shop, dumbed-down sports broadcasting ever put on TV. This four-and-a-half hour long exercise in broadcast futility can be broken down thusly:

The showcase event of alpine skiing, the men’s downhill, featured six racers out of 64 starters. These included:

  • Two of four starters from Team USA (including Bode Miller, the bronze medal winner).
  • Two of four starters from Team Switzerland (including Didier Defago, the gold medal winner).
  • One Norwegian (Aksel Lund Svindal, the silver medal winner).
  • One Canadian (Robbie Dixon, who crashed out of the race).

During this coverage there were four commercial breaks of 2:30 per break. The six racers accounted for a grand total of 11 minutes of racing time, plus about 4 minutes of interviews.

(Congratulations, by the way, to all three medalists, who raced to the most closely contested downhill in Winter Olympic history. And welcome back to the good side of media coverage, Mr. Miller.)

The next segment was a feature on polar bears who, as far as I know, are not competing in the 2010 Winter Olympic Games. This was around 10 minutes, all told.

The following segment of speed skating had problems due to no fault of NBC, but that of broken Zambonis at the Richmond Oval.

There was about 12 minutes of coverage of snowboard cross, which featured one of the most compelling final rounds I’ve ever seen on a slope, be it skiing or snowboarding. This round was shoehorned in between rounds of…

Pairs figure skating! Yup, there was tons of figure skating on NBC last night. And that also meant way too much commentary from Dick Button, who sounds increasingly like Abe Simpson complaining about the applesauce in the Springfield Retirement Home. At least they have Scott Hamilton doing the play-by-play (he at least understands the athletic aspects of modern figure skating).

And the quality of skating, save for the top two pairs, was woeful. I mean, it was awful: crashes, slow-pace, spinning to a stop, the works. If these were truly the best the world had to offer, it’s a sad statement about modern figure skating. Seriously, it looked like Jamie Salé and David Pelltier were ready to bust out of the broadcast booth, strap on their skates and show these clowns how to actually skate with feeling and ability.

Back to my point: NBC dedicated more than half of the night’s broadcast to figure skating, showing many of the pairs in a sport that is so made-for-TV silly as to be painful. Granted, I enjoyed watching the two Chinese pairs who finished 1-2, as they looked like they actually were skating to win. So that was, what, almost 9 minutes of compelling coverage?

Otherwise, there were interview pieces (about 20-25 minutes of ‘em), the worst of which featured Chris “I Can Only Really Broadcast NFL Football” Collinsworth interviewing Lindsey Jacobellis, the U.S. snowboarder whose hubris in 2006 was legendary. And Collinsworth asked her the same questions she’s been asked over the past four years, getting the same answers as every other interviewer. Why did NBC fly this clown to Vancouver?

Oh, and there was over one hour of commercial time during the 4.5 hour broadcast time. I guess that NBC Universal wants to recoup as much of the financial loss as possible.

NBC, you remain pathetic.

categories mass media, random, skiing

categories ,

random olympics: nbc’s dumbed down games racket

author randomduck | timestamp 15/02/2010 | categories 1 Comment

For years, I’ve been critical of TV coverage of the Olympic Games by the United States media.

They think that the average American is stupid.

No, seriously – they do. Thee assume that, as a whole, we know nothing about sports other than baseball, football, basketball, NASCAR and hockey. They think that we’re only interested in Team USA and its athletes, or barring that, the athletes who “overcame every obstacle to get to the games.”

What’s lost in all of this? Showing the beauty of the competition as it unfolds, on its own, with the venue and the athletes as the stars.

That brings me to the National Broadcasting Company – a.k.a. NBC. They have exclusive U.S. broadcast rights for the Olympics Games, both summer and winter, through 2018. This means that any and every bit of live or same-day-delayed footage of the Games, be it TV or internet, must be distributed by them.

As such, it sucks – big time. Let’s break this down:

NBC has five networks at their disposal for the 2010 Olympic Winter Games: NBC, Universal Sports, CNBC, MSNBC and USA Network. They also have the online presence of NBCOlympics.com.

There are a large number of events at the 2010 Games, many of which run simultaneously throughout the day, so it would seem that NBC, with their large investment in the games, would flex their collective broadcast muscle to show as many events as possible in as complete and immersive a way as possible.

But they don’t – and they won’t.

Here’s how they don’t:

Say, for instance, you are like me and get all of your TV from over-the-air broadcasting (i.e. no cable, no dish). There are two NBC networks available for Olympic broadcasting: NBC and Universal Sports. And how are they using these networks?

NBC is showing sliced-and-diced coverage: coverage where events are shown in a non-contiguous manner, with rapid-fire switching between events and frequent interruptions of coverage with so-called “human interest” stories about Canada, culture, athletes with “inspiring stories,” et al. The only events with more-or-less contiguous coverage are daytime events that have lower viewership, hockey and figure skating. If you are a fan of alpine skiing (like me), bobsled, luge, ski jumping or long-track speed skating, the coverage is “custom fit” to showcase Team USA and “select favorites for the events.”

Ugh.

And it gets worse when you count in Universal Sports, a usually wonderful network that is now saddled with “talking head” shows, where commentators blather on at length about sports and athletes without showing a shred of actual competition. During prime time, Universal Sports shows reruns of pre-Olympic competition that has zero bearing on the day’s competition in Vancouver and Whistler.

In a word: pathetic.

When you add in the cable networks, it gets even more warped. The combined power of CNBC, MSNBC and USA Network are showing hours upon hours of hockey (in all fairness, they’re showing both the men and the women) and some curling (ooh – curling, the most non-athletic event at the Winter Olympic Games!). Furthermore, they seldom show Games coverage is NBC if showing something on their flagship network, and haven’t yet scheduled anything in prime time to challenge the mother ship.

And just when you thought that was absurd enough, there’s the internet factor. NBCOlympics.com is the go-to place for internet coverage of the Games in the United States. They seem to offer a gold mine of great content, including live streams of skiing, speed skating, hockey, curling, ski jumping, luge, bobsled – the works! They even offer full event recap footage, with all of the competitors shown – hot dog!

But….

If you try to access this content and are not a subscriber to a cable or satellite TV service, you are shit outta luck – “no content for you!” screams the National Broadcast Company. Sure, there’s some online video content available, but it’s all the “fluff piece” human interest interstitial bits, a montage of “hugs and tears” from the previous night’s figure skating competition, a bit on the science of the slap shot, and other things that have nothing to do with the day’s events.

If this is a direct result of the impending merger of NBC Universal and Comcast, consider me angry. Furthermore, this preferential content system is a slap in the face of net neutrality, a cause I believe in most strongly. If NBC’s argument is that people using non-cable internet providers “aren’t paying for content,” then riddle me this: I’m paying for my DSL connection, therefore I’m paying for access to content. Where’s the difference between that and cable TV?

Furthermore, if I had cable-provided internet and TV, why would I be watching events online if they were also available on TV broadcast?

I understand that NBC is a business and has a lot of money invested in broadcasting the Olympics. In fact, it’s estimated that they overpaid for the broadcast rights to the 2010, 2012, 2014 and 2016 Games to the tune of over $200 million.

I also understand that their two over-the-air networks are governed by the FCC and must provide a public service. And I see their mauling of the content on NBC, combined with the complete waste of their Universal Sports network with pointless talk shows, to be a misuse of their FCC license.

So why can’t NBC simply ignore the focus groups that state that their target audience for Olympic coverage is women, age 25-64, who want to see “pretty things” on their TV? Why can’t they assume that the average viewer will understand a new sport if given the opportunity to watch it, warts and all, seeing a lot of the field and learning to spot good moves from bad? Why can’t they flex the muscle of their five TV networks and spread out the coverage, offering simultaneous and full coverage of as many events as possible?

That was the promise of NBC when they first took over broadcasting of the Olympics with the 1992 Summer Olympic Games and the “Triplecast,” a pay-per-view set of three cable channels that showed simultaneous event coverage. And in the 1980s, the previous tenders of the Olympic flame on TV – ABC and CBS – showed more coverage of more events, without breaking to-and-fro between events, teaching people about the sports as the broadcast went along.

That’s how I became hooked on alpine ski racing: watching the 1984 Winter Olympic Games from Sarajevo, where brash Bill Johnson showed up ski racing’s Austrian royalty to win the downhill, and the Mahre twins raced to gold and silver in their final international competition. It was compelling without resorting to “sob story” tactics, while showing all of the top racers and not just the cherry-picked Americans. It made me say “I want to do that!”

And I can’t see this current means of presentation of one of the most compelling competitions around being as compelling to tomorrow’s athletes. Once NBC took the reins, the slice-and-dice methods of Dick Ebersol took over, and the quality of the broadcast went down as a result.

What NBC fails to realize is that great competition is compelling in and of itself. Remember Picabo Street? She was charismatic and compelling on her own, without the help of an “After School Special” biography before each of her races. Same thing with Alberto Tomba, the macho Italian whose rise to fame in the 1988 Winter Games was unprecedented. And how about the “Battle of the Brians” – Orser and Boitano – from the same year? The sport drove the narrative, not the other way around.

So please, NBC: respect the viewer and serve us a multi-station buffet of Olympic choices, rather than spoon-feed us carefully repackaged tripe. You still have almost two weeks to make things better, and there are four years until Sochii (and two until London) for you to make amends. Please do.

Otherwise, you’re all but dead to me.

categories mass media, random, skiing

categories , , , ,

random olympics: tragedy and sport

author randomduck | timestamp 12/02/2010 | categories 4 Comments

By now most of my readers (hello, readers!) will have heard of the tragic death of Georgian luge athlete Nodar Kumaritashvili during a practice run at the Whistler Sliding Centre this morning. My thoughts are with the entire Olympic family, the teammates and coaches of Kumaritashvili, and his family and friends.

That said, I hope the IOC and VANOC don’t cancel the luge events, nor do I hope they “dumb down” the track by altering the ice density or lowering the start location. There is a race to be held, there are athletes who are ready to race and are willing to accept the risks inherent to their sport. Let them compete as a tribute to their fallen comrade.

That’s the one issue with the Olympics: unlike the year-long elite race series for these events, the Olympics allow lower-level athletes to compete on the same field as the best in the sport. While nations like the U.S.A., Canada, Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Norway have a tough time winnowing down which elite athletes will represent them at the Olympic Games, other nations send athletes who aren’t usually on the World Cup or similar race circuits – and some who have never competed on a regional (let alone a world) stage. These athletes train hard, but don’t have the same abilities or experience as the elite-level competitors.

You’ve seen these folks with their “unique shot at glory” before:

  • Eddie “The Eagle” Edwards of England, the sad-sack ski jumper who could barely navigate the airport hallway, let alone launch himself off a ski jump back in 1988.
  • The Jamaican bobsled team – also in 1988 – who qualified for the games but were thoroughly outclassed by every other team on the track.
  • The nordic skiers from Kenya, who fielded their country’s first Winter Games squad in 2002.
  • One-person alpine ski and skating teams from Israel, South Africa, Greece, Lebanon and other nations not traditionally thought of as winter sports meccas.

All of these developments brought along safety concerns, some of which were addressed by the governing bodies of the individual sports (the IOC defers to a world governing body, when possible). For example, after Eddie “The Eagle” and his dangerously near-crash “jumps,” the FIS (governing body of all kinds of skiing and snowboarding) drew up minimum competency requirements to compete at the Olympic level. But not all sports thought it necessary to do so, including the bobsled and luge federations.

With the track in Whistler now seeing record luge speeds in excess of 155 kph, there’s discussion within the International Luge Federation of setting speed limits for new tracks (including the one under construction in Sochii, Russia, for the 2014 Games). And I admit that this is a prudent measure to take for future track construction.

But at this point, they should accept the track they have in Whistler: it’s one for the elites of the sport. If a team determines that the venue isn’t safe for its competitors, said team should pull its competitors but not declare the track “unfair.” The competition is a test, and not all will pass (morbid as that sounds).

Elite athletes in events such as luge, skeleton, bobsled, alpine skiing, snowboarding, skicross, ski jumping and speed skating all accept that there is risk involved in their chosen sports. Injury and, sometimes, death are part of the equation, and these athletes live their lives on the edge every time they mount their sleds, pole out of the starting gate or fly off the carved precipice of snow and ice. They train for years, often for most of their waking hours, to minimize the chances of getting hurt while also learning to push the limits of their bodies and equipment.

Spotlight events, such as the Winter Olympic Games or World Championships, bring the adrenaline and danger of these sports into the living rooms of hundreds of millions of people every few years, many of whom are only casually familiar with the events they watch. So the shock factor of things going wrong is perhaps higher than it is for the die-hard fans of these sports, and with the media’s ever-critical eye focused on these showcases of sport, the questions are always raised: are things too dangerous? Is it necessary to even hold these events, given the risk?

I say it is. These are elite athletes, even if the “elite” status is only within their home nation’s borders. And they are at the Winter Olympic Games to compete against the best in the world.

So let the games go on. Let the luge races happen. Do it for the memory of Nodar Kumaritashvili.

categories random

categories

surviving snowmageddon

author randomduck | timestamp 08/02/2010 | categories 1 Comment

This winter has been a real winter in the District of Columbia. Rather than overreacting to the chance of an inch or two of snow, this winter has packed two storms that have dumped a grand total of 40 inches at The Burrow. Other, smaller storms have dumped an additional 7 or so inches, making this the snowiest winter we’ve seen here since moving into town back in February 2003.

DC is still not a town that likes snow. It has a great deal of influence from the southern states, where frozen, fluffy precipitation is more of an abhorrent anomaly than a regular visitor. So many DC residents are ill-equipped for the stuff.

They own nary a shoe that can withstand deep, cold layers of slush on the ground.

They use umbrellas during snowfall, which makes those of use who grew up in snow country giggle as they pass.

They tend to think that monster-size four-wheel-drive vehicles are invincible. (Wait – that’s common everywhere.)

And their snowplow drivers tend to have a tough time remembering how to operate the large blade that’s attached to the front of their vehicles.

I have to admit, the current administration here in DC is dealing with the snow far better than its predecessor. When we moved to DC, it was immediately after the “Blizzard of 2003,” and our street went unplowed for over a week, as DC plow drivers routinely were intimidated by the snowpack. Eventually, plows from New Jersey were hired to finish the job (which they did in a matter of two days).

This time ’round (as was also the case with December’s “Snowpocalypse” storm), the local plows have done a decent job of clearing the roads. The same can’t be said about many homeowners clearing their sidewalks (it’s now been 43 hours since the snowfall stopped, and owners technically have 8 hours from the cessation of snowfall to clear their walks), but DC’s usual strategy is to “let it melt.”

Have I mentioned that it’s not cleared freezing since the storm, save for in sunny areas, and that the overnight hours have refrozen everything? Heh.

As far as sprite and I are concerned, we’ve done well. We had plenty of food and entertainment on hand, shoveled the walks throughout the course of the storm, and are very thankful that most of DC has its utility supply lines underground – thus no loss of electricity or phone, unlike our suburban neighbors who have lost power and cable TV during the storm.

Today I’ll take my mountain bike out onto the snow-covered streets to enjoy my snow day – should be fun, if slow.

categories outdoors, random, washington, dc

categories

cycling log: 18 january 2010

author randomduck | timestamp 19/01/2010 | categories Comments Off

Activity: road cycling
Location: Dupont Circle > Glen Echo, MD > Seneca, MD > Dupont Circle
Distance: 49.3 mi. (flat to rolling)
Duration: 2:54
Weather: sunny and mild, northwest wind, 45-50 degrees
Climbing: 3,500′
Avg HR: 149 (max 187)
Type: aerobic

Given Monday’s holiday and the lovely, bluebird weather, it seemed like a great opportunity to take another ride on the newly-cleaned bike. The previous day’s rain had washed away much of the remaining snow and road salt, it seemed, and while the roads were damp, the sun was bright.

I rode from home, meeting the PPTC gang at Glen Echo just as they were shoving off on the official club ride. The route was one I know all-too-well, given it’s one of the old reliables when I want to go on an impromptu ride. The pace with the group was a bit fast, as folks who are in better mid-winter shape drove the speed up a tick higher than some of us (okay, namely me) wanted, but that’s fine. I rode with the group until the fork in the road in Seneca, where the others continued to get in their own 50-mile run (as well as a rest stop at mile 25), while I looped back toward DC, sans rest stop. So, aside from a quick stop in Glen Echo (as well as the requisite stop signs and traffic lights, most of which were brief trackstands), it was a non-stop 49.3 mile ride – not bad. And the average pace was decent for mid-January.

The best part? I was home around lunchtime, which meant I got to spend the lovely, sunny DC afternoon with sprite as we wandered around our fair city.

categories cycling, workout

cycling log: 16 january 2010

author randomduck | timestamp 19/01/2010 | categories Comments Off

Activity: road cycling
Location: The Plains, VA > Marshall > Upperville > Airmont > The Plains
Distance: 64.5 mi. (rolling)
Duration: 3:28
Weather: partly cloudy and mild, 44-50 degrees
Climbing: 4,000′
Avg HR: 152 (max 186)
Type: aerobic

The PPTC “Mild-Mannered Meander” ride was one of those rides that was lengthened out of practical necessity. Originally scheduled to be 48 miles, Sunday’s threat of pouring rain made many in the group decide to ride the original, longer version of the cue sheet.

And it was a great ride. There wasn’t a lot of “attack mode” in the group, save for Al, who rode off the front from the beginning and never really looked back. The rest of us rode mostly as a unit, save for the leader, Mark, who made a wrong turn along the way and met us at the rest stop in Upperville (where the BBQ slow-cooking in front of the town store was very inviting).

I was really only in shape for 59-or-so miles, as the group pulled away from me at that point and I didn’t quite have the extra energy to rejoin them. It’s the off-season, so that’s expected. But I only finished about two minutes behind the lot, so it’s not bad at all. I’m happy with how this ride went, for sure – but the cleanup of the bike, with all of the snowmelt and road salt residue, was hellish.

categories cycling, workout

one image says it all

author randomduck | timestamp 13/01/2010 | categories Comments Off

I'm with CoCo by Mike Mitchell

categories mass media, random

categories

nbc: building a bridge back to the 20th century at conan’s expense

author randomduck | timestamp 12/01/2010 | categories 2 Comments

Conan O’Brien got screwed.

Let’s face it: when NBC, currently mired in a ratings abyss, decided to “fix” its primetime programming lineup by booting Jay Leno to 11:35pm (“10:35, Central and Mountain”), moving Conan’s Tonight Show and Jimmy Fallon’s Late Night 30 minutes later, they showed that they have no concept about how to program for the future.

But to do that, it’s good to know about a few things: integrity, tradition, and innovation.

Integrity used to be something that NBC’s programming department showed with precious few wavering moments. They stood behind a strange sitcom, developed by Larry David and starring Jerry Seinfeld, which became one of the signature shows of the 1990s. They developed a Thursday night TV juggernaut around that show, as well as other innovative programs like Cheers, Friends and ER.

And in 1993, they stood behind a geeky comedy writer from Boston who had inherited the gigantic shoes of David Letterman. That man was Conan O’Brien.

Conan’s show misfired on launch. He’d never spent much time in front of a TV camera, having spent the better part of the previous decade writing for Saturday Night Live and The Simpsons. He was awkward and nervous, and his show seemingly shot every comedy arrow into the air in the hopes that one would hit a target. The ratings sagged, and logic suggested the NBC should fire Conan, hire Greg Kinnear (who was hosting the show following Late Night), and move on.

But Conan managed to eke out a niche, growing the show into his own idiom, and had a successful run. NBC stood behind the strange, ginger-headed comedy writer, and it worked.

Granted, this was at the expense of the original oddball of Late Night, David Letterman. And in an act of almost zero integrity, NBC decided that the man who was best qualified to take over for Johnny Carson at The Tonight Show was not “mainstream enough” – yet they never had the balls to tell that to him directly. Instead, they took the passive-aggressive “we will do anything and everything to keep him” route, saying that Dave was “perfectly suited” to follow Tonight under its new, “safe as milk” host, Jay Leno.

Dave, showing an incredible amount of self confidence and integrity, sought greener pastures where he could advance his career and carry on the legacy of Carson (which was, in its own time, edgy and offbeat – everything that Dave was and Jay wasn’t). And since 1993, CBS has provided a home for him at the Ed Sullivan Theatre in New York City, where The Late Show enjoys a continued run.

Dave, Conan, Jay and others whose shows didn’t enjoy long-term success (Chevy Chase, Pat Sajak, Joan Rivers and, to a lesser extent, Arsenio Hall) carried on a tradition: an hour-plus long comedy/variety show airing after the late local news. It’s a tradition – indeed, an innovation – that NBC pioneered in 1954 with Tonight, when Steve Allen transformed what was Broadway Open House into a staple of late-night TV: a show that featured comedy, celebrity interviews and a variety of musical and theatrical acts. It learned as it ran, evolving from Allen, to Jack Parr, and eventually to Carson, who built the show into a late-night powerhouse. It even survived a wholesale move from NYC to Los Angeles in 1972, and grew even more in popularity.

The Tonight Show continued to thrive under Leno’s helm, and though his first year of hosting was uneven and saw ratings fall once pitted against Letterman, he eventually grew the show into the ratings leader in its time slot. NBC knew that 11:35 was a prime hour for late-night TV dominance.

In 2004, NBC arranged a “peaceful transition of late-night power” when it announced that, effective June 2009, Jay Leno would hand over the reins of Tonight to Conan O’Brien. Everything was set in place, and in 2008, Jimmy Fallon was announced as the successor to Conan at Late Night. And when Leno became increasingly uneasy with the prospect of retirement from TV, NBC arranged a new Jay Leno Show to air weeknights at 10:00pm, before the late local news. Again, it gave the appearance of innovation, even if many (myself included) thought it was a bad idea.

And now, after half a TV season of The Jay Leno Show having performed “as expected,” and seven months of The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien having grown into a new evolution of the brand, and ten months of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon allowing its host to learn (a’la Conan) how to command the late-night TV stage, NBC is taking the coward’s way out.

Instead of telling Leno that “it’s been great, but we need to move on,” they want to move his primetime show back to 11:35, in a 30-minute format, pushing Conan’s Tonight and Fallon’s Late Night back by the same 30 minutes. It would have Tonight airing in early morning in the coastal markets.

Wisely, Conan says he’s had enough. In shades of Letterman’s handling of NBC’s disrespect toward him in 1992 and 1993, Conan has decided that the tradition of The Tonight Show, the integrity of both Tonight and Late Night, and the many hours of creative work put into the new show are being disrespected by NBC and its head of programming, Jeff Zucker.

“Like a lot of us, I grew up watching Johnny Carson every night and the chance to one day sit in that chair has meant everything to me. I worked long and hard to get that opportunity, passed up far more lucrative offers, and since 2004 I have spent literally hundreds of hours thinking of ways to extend the franchise long into the future. It was my mistaken belief that, like my predecessor, I would have the benefit of some time and, just as important, some degree of ratings support from the prime-time schedule. Building a lasting audience at 11:30 is impossible without both.” – Conan O’Brien

Zucker kowtowed to the local NBC affiliates, who found the flagging ratings of Leno (he often finished last against reruns of shows like CSI: Miami and Numb3rs) hurting their news viewership, which meant fewer advertising dollars. Many of these affiliates warned NBC about putting Leno on in primetime, and some (namely NBC’s Boston affiliate, oddly the hometown of both Leno and O’Brien) threatened to not broadcast Leno’s new show.

(In hindsight, they should’ve trusted their instincts, these local affiliates.)

I wholeheartedly agree with this. Rather than innovating, NBC is standing by the familiar at the expense of innovation. As David Carr wrote in a scathing commentary in his New York Times business column, the blame for this backward, regressive move lies entirely at Zucker’s feet:

“[I]t was Mr. Zucker who decided to fix the network’s problems in prime time by putting late night franchises in play and it was, in the end, Mr. Zucker who decided that the solution to bailing out a leaky boat was to blow more holes in the bottom.”

To use a phrase that was popular in the 2000 presidential election, NBC is building a bridge back to the 20th century.

Conan, you have left the ball squarely in NBC’s – primarily Zucker’s – court. Your statement showed a level of class and maturity that NBC and Jay Leno would be hard pressed to match. And I hope you’re given a chance to play ball, preferably at 11:35, not necessarily at NBC.

All I can say is: I hope that NBC continues to wallow in the ratings cellar (though I wish well of Heroes, Chuck, 30 Rock and The Office – as well as Jimmy Fallon, even though I’m not a big fan of his show). And I doubt I’ll ever watch anything with Jay Leno ever again.

categories mass media, random

categories

Page 1 of 12312345...Last »