"The View From the
This Week's Podcast
My name is Jay Phillippi and I've spent my life in and around the media. TV, radio, the movies and more. I love them, and I hate them and I always have an opinion. Call this the View from the
Apple Speaks
There are few events in the modern media world guaranteed to generate more excitement, buzz or discussion than when Apple let’s us know that an announcement is coming. Before a member of the anti-Apple community rises up to challenge me with Google or whoever else, let me ask a question. Does anyone else out there, ANYONE, have the kind of “sex appeal” that Apple brings to everything it does? I’m not a member of the Apple cult. I’ve owned Apple products and liked them fine. But I don’t see what is so special about most of their products that I should pay the high prices demanded. And I’m not someone who puts much value on owning the “right” brand names. Just not me.
But when Apple debuts something, it’s always worth a look. Even when they’ve come up short (which they have done more often than their fans want to admit), their lesser products were interesting if nothing else.
And this week they have an announcement. Early this week Apple will unveil their streaming service. Now they’ve been trying to break into the movie/TV business for a decade now. It was one of Steve Jobs’ unfulfilled dreams. Apple TV has been a tepid success at best. This version of the project has been underway in some form for about two years. Here’s the fun part, nothing has leaked so far. Price, structure, even what channels will be available on the service are still up in the air. We do know that they will be providing a wide range of original series, including ones from J.J. Abrams, Reese Witherspoon, and a show starring Brie Larson from Captain Marvel, among others. While the question of HBO availability is unanswered as I write this, we do know that Netflix will NOT.
There are a lot of challenges still in front of Apple. As I mentioned, they haven’t set the world on fire in their previous attempts. Plus Amazon has a multi-year head start and has established their Amazon Channels as the team to beat. It’s not often that Apple has to play catch-up. It will be interesting to see how they do.
Finally, there is the Steve Jobs factor. A curious coincidence has shown up in the past. When Jobs left the company, Apple has struggled. They have had their greatest moments when he has been the visionary. Jobs passed away eight years ago, and this may be the biggest new idea the company has had since then.
The one thing guaranteed this week? It’s going to be interesting.
Television's Demise?
Everything is not always what it seems. We prefer simple explanations even when that gives us a false understanding of complex issues. I like to repeat a saying popularized in this country by Mark Twain. “There are lies, damn lies and statistics”. Our moment in history has a greater reverence for statistics than Twain could have imagined. The issue is taking the time to look at what is being presented.
As an example, let’s look at television. The common refrain is that television is dying. Broadcast network viewing is down. People are cable cutting, leaving cable and satellite television in greater numbers. Seems pretty obvious, right?
What got me started thinking about this was a recent snark-fest by the director general of the BBC, Tony Hall, aimed at the Netflix show “The Crown”. Hall made a big deal out of the fact that ithad “only” seven million viewers despite its big budget and promotional buzz. He compared it to the lower budgets and larger audiences for the broadcast network’s shows. What’s ridiculous is the apples and oranges nature of the comparison. The potential audiences are so different that it makes the comparison useless.
But that’s not the only useless statistic floating around television. Yes, people are not watching TV the old fashioned way as much (unless you’re in the 65+ category). They are watching streaming video. But what still makes up the largest percentage of WHAT is being watched? The programs from the television networks. Television programming remains the largest portion of our weekly media usage. Smartphone app/web viewed media is second, and somewhat to my surprise, terrestrial radio, that’s the old school radio, is the third largest segment of media usage.
A recent survey in the United Kingdom may shed some light on this as well. Almost 1 out of 3 viewers there use streaming as their primary way to watch television. 63% of younger viewers believe they get better value through streaming over traditional delivery. I would expect the numbers in the U.S. to be close to that as well.
Which brings us back to the original question. How is television doing? Given that the definition of what television is has changed (Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime? Television or not? They are trying to compete with and create product modeled on the older technology), it becomes more and more difficult to set our parameters for success. If we set aside the question of how the programming is delivered, then it looks like the reports of television’s death, much like the rumor that swirled around Mark Twain, has been greatly exaggerated.
How much do you love the movies? My personal love is not a secret. I watch movies every week and have reviewed hundreds of them on The View From The Phlipside website. Watching them at home is fun. I can stop and start them, get up and walk around, make as much noise as I want, and the refreshments are a whole lot cheaper. Having said that, there is nothing like the experience of the “big screen”. Even I had forgotten the wonder of the movie theater experience until three years ago when I got to see David O. Selznick’s iconic “Gone With the Wind” on a proper theater screen for the first time. A movie that I had mocked in the past showed me all of its epic grandeur in the theater.
So I look forward to the chance to sit in the theater with a big tub of popcorn, (which you don’t start eating till the movie starts), waitingfor the lights to dim, the music to swell and a new adventure toroll out before my eyes.
With that in mind, you would think that I would be thrilled to discover a new app that helps you get free tickets to the movie theater, right? Well, first off, my enthusiasm is dulled by the unfulfilled promise of MoviePass, the program that I grudgingly had to acknowledge had lived beyond my prophecy of their demise. Burn me once… Plus, I am old enough to realize that nothing is really free. There’s a hook in there somewhere.
In the new app PreShow there is not one but TWO hooks. Created by Stacy Spikes, one of the founders of MoviePass, the smartphone app offers you the chance to earn free movie tickets. How do you earn them? That’s hook number one. You have to watch advertisements on your smartphone. 15-20 minutes of advertisements. That would be a deal breaker for a lot of people right there. But there’s a creepy hook number two as well. The app, using facial recognition software and your phones camera, watches you watching the ads. If you set the phone down, it pauses for five seconds and then shuts down the session. Your phone watches you watching the ads to make sure you’re not scamming the system.
While the logic of the system makes sense from a business point of view, I can’t see people getting excited about this at all. Fifteen to twenty minutes of advertisements is enough to sink the concept all by itself. Having my phone watch me watching them? It’s enough to make me reach for my home movie collection.
Call that the View From the
Copyright Jay Phillippi, 2018
Theme music for "The View From the
Kevin MacLeod (