The Great Sponsor Reveal...

Well, I just invested fifty-eight seconds in a spot…to finally see the name of the advertiser.

Why did I stick around till the end when 99 percent of the time I just zip past or change channels?  Because it jogged my mind – that I wanted to write this installment of DC to White Light.

It starts with one or two people in an agency “creative” group.  One thinks (or says to the other) “Let’s create some mystery.  Let’s tell a story and let folks try to figure out what it’s about.”

“Yeah,” he/she thinks or hears back from his/her creative partner, “we get this story line going about [place product here] and no one can figure it out till the end and we super the name and fade out.”

Then he/she suggests that the thing be done without ever revealing the sponsor, ignorant of 317 of the CFR and 73.1212 of the FCC rules, “It’s a tease.  We run it for awhile then finally we air the version with the sponsor payoff,” but settles for that closing reveal in each spot.

He/she/they take it up the creative the ladder, through legal, to the client – who has to be talked out of the logo being up for the entire spot – out to production and onto the air.  And what’s important to them?  The reveal.  It’s like they’re the first ones to think of it.

Get a creative life, will you?  Said another way, just how narcissistic are you or your client to think that 99.999% of the world actually cares enough about the connection you’re trying to make between Iowa-raised corn and your cereal to stick around, watch the end and muse to themselves, “Wow, I never realized that.”

I’m not suggesting that these folks are trying to HIDE the sponsor name altogether. They’re not out there pitching a POV or concept without being discovered.  I have a “warm spot” for those guys, but it’s not of this world.  The folks I’m talking about are just trying to be cute.  Inventive.  As if doing something that’s been done tens of times before is inventive. 

“Not with this product.  This is a first.”

One more time with the narcissism.  Very few people care.  If you want to sell something, be upfront about it and show me how that product is a hero.  How does it make my life better.  I’ll buy it.  But if you’re playin’ hide the logo with me, well, guess what…the zip button gets punched and I’ll never even see what the product is.  That’s a tough one to explain to a client.

It’s a zip/zap age.  And people are in a hurry.  Want to use that surprise reveal technique?  Do it as a ten second preroll online.  Ask a question or show a situation then show me the product as the answer.  Your answer will beat me to the “skip” button and I’ll get your message.  Make it :15 and I’ll bet I’m faster on the draw with the remote than you are with your reveal.

And one final thing:  When it does work, it only works once.

“Dummy.  That’s what we want.  The second time someone sees it, they automatically recall the sponsor.”

I don’t think so.  You may find some of that but you’ll find more zippers and skippers than recallers.

One last time.  As an appeal.  Show me the product solving a problem for me.  Don’t hide its name.  I’m in.

This blog brought to you by…

The Dreaded Public File

I’m choosing now to talk about broadcasters’ Public Files.  Why?   It’s renewal year for radio stations.  Some are already way down the path to another eight year cycle.  Others are busy trying to figure out the rules, some calling me to ask, “Now when do I run the renewal announcements?”

I’m not a lawyer.  I don’t even play one on TV…and I don’t give legal advice.  However, the programming, operations and tech sides of the business are closely intertwined with the legal world.

Let me say, first off, that broadcasting is the only business where companies have to help their competition.  They even have to help their detractors put them out of business.  What?  C’mon.  If you’re with a broadcast entity, you know the drill.  If you’re not, check out the FCC’s publication, The Public and Broadcasting. 

Everything you need to know – including how to find a “petition to deny” the renewal application of a station.  Anyone can do it.  Pick a station.  Go in and ask to see the public file.  Everyone has a right…you don’t have to identify yourself and you don’t need a reason.  The station even has to make copies for you at a reasonable price.  The public file has to contain all of the following (links are to the section of the publication that references the topic): 

• The License
• Applications and Related Materials
• Citizen Agreements
• Contour Maps
• Material Relating to an FCC Investigation or Complaint
• Ownership Reports and Related Material
• List of Contracts Required to be Filed with the FCC
• Political File
• EEO Materials
• “The Public and Broadcasting”
• Letters and E-Mails from the Public
• Quarterly Programming Reports
• Children's Television Programming Reports
• Records Regarding Children's Programming Commercial Limits
• Time Brokerage Agreements
• Lists of Donors
• Local Public Notice Announcements
• Must-Carry or Retransmission Consent Election
• DTV Transition Consumer Education Activity Reports

If you find any of the “folders” empty or lacking, you can go after the station for remediation – from fixing the problem to additional programming all the way to denial of a station’s license.

For many stations, the files coast quietly in a drawer somewhere, heavily guarded by the receptionist or possibly by the local librarian (under some conditions the files may be kept off site).  Seldom does someone ask to see them.  They’re most often checked by FCC field inspectors.  In fact, violations are a major source of revenue for the commission.  Many times the violations are for inaccessibility rather than lack of content.  Witness this FCC Notice of Apparent Liability.   (If you stop reading here, at least get a cup of coffee and click the preceding link.  It’s great reading!) 

Here are a couple more courtesy of Davis Wright Tremaine LLP, with whom my company has NO relationship:

Three $10,000 fines

$10,000 to $14,000 fines

and $9000 more

So, at license renewal time, the public file becomes extremely important.  And right about now, stations are scrambling to make sure everything’s in order – quarterly issues and programming reports, EEO materials, even the filing of records that you aired announcements telling people that they have the right to come see the records! 

It becomes a little panicky and you see a lot of jumpy and tense station management and employees.  In fact, walking into a radio station in the next couple of months and asking to see the public file is a sure way to send a GM to a cardiac specialist.

The public file is definitely integral in the license renewal process, both TV and radio.  Beyond that, there are other elements related to renewal – they deal with whether the station is actually compliant with all the rules.  Here are a few that are often found “out of tolerance” by inspectors:

Tower location!  You have to be kidding, right?  Nope.  I’ve taken the trusty GPS to more than one station and found the actual location off by more than a few seconds.  Yes, even being on the east pylon on Chicago’s Sears/Willis Tower is different from being on the west pylon.  Time to file for a minor change.

Power.  C’mon.  If you’re licensed 10kw, run 10kw.  If you do the math on 10.6kw, which is out of tolerance, you’ll see the increased coverage is almost immeasurable.  If you’re running 20kw and licensed for 10, hey, you’re probably really interfering with another station.

Pattern.  If you’re a directional AM, check the monitoring points.

EAS.  With all the brouhaha about EAS in the past year, if a station’s system isn’t working at this point, they deserve the fines

Logs.  Is there a designated chief operator and assistant?  Is he/she reviewing the logs?

Tower lights.  Duh.

Station ID’s.  Again, we’re not lawyers here.  But remember this:  Call Letters & Location.  That’s the legal ID.  Not call letters then “Boise’s home for sports” then location.  Check the rules or call your lawyer.  Oh yeah – if you’re WXXX-FM, don’t ID WXXX!

If you’re having technical problems, more than likely you can file for an STA (special temporary authorization).  Do it.  It keeps you legal.  You can operate “at variance” with the license till you get the problem fixed…and it’s legal.  If someone checks the file – including an inspector – you’re legal.

Now a couple of parting comments about the public file:  The whole idea of “…public interest, convenience and necessity…” in the broadcast licensing process is based on the scarcity of frequencies/channels available in the radio spectrum.  Even though there are thousands of media outlets now, it’s still true that not everyone can have their own radio or television broadcast station. 

Some pirates seem to think otherwise but, in fact, it’s physically impossible.  As a consequence, a broadcaster does have some level of obligation to the rest of us who have abdicated our claim to any frequencies in order for them to be able to operate their station(s).  Some may say that just playing music that listeners want is enough.  The Nicholas Johnsons of the world will demand that entire dayparts be devoted to needs and problems of the community.

The public file does force stations to select some issues to deal with.  It makes them think about what’s out there beyond the audio console and video switcher.  In that respect, it’s a reasonable idea.  Are there better approaches?  Absolutely.  Competition can go a long way.  Stations which identify major problems in a community often lead other station to cover the same story or to do some level of investigative reporting on other topics. 

Linked coverage, stations covering a topic superficially then carrying it over to an HD2 channel or to web pages or streams provide significant coverage while, at the same time, retaining their main channel for more general programming.  Viewers can even sign up for RSS feeds on selected topics.

And about the file, itself:  The FCC is considering requiring all stations to publish the public file online.  It would allow anyone and everyone to access it via the web.  I don’t see the problem.  Sure, everyone can see it.  So what?  And there’s an upside.  Scan an item and stuff it into an online file and it’s there.  Barring crashes, it doesn’t get lost.  There’s a log file that will tell everyone when the item was posted.  Look, if the rule is there, compliance is mandatory.  If there’s some set of steps or a procedure that helps you do that, what the heck.  As for everyone seeing it?  Let ‘em look.  Give a staff member “ownership” of it and challenge them to shine.*

One last time, let me say that if you’re a station operator and you have legal questions, call a (your) communications lawyer.  Call your tech consultants to get you “legal” on the operating side.  One more thing:  File on time.  And, if you haven’t read Red Quinlan’s The Hundred Million Dollar Lunch, why not?

*While they’re shining – or not – remember that regardless who you give ownership to, it’s the station's ownership who is responsible as far as the FCC is concerned.

Writers in the Sky

Huh?  Isn’t it Riders? 

Not this time.  I’m writing…and I’m in the sky.  Now, this is no big deal given the technology available.  But here’s what is amazing:  It’s a Southwest flight.  You know – those “line up coz we ain’t got seat assignments/peanuts here, we gotcher peanuts” guys that ferry 737s around.

In the past month, I’ve been on two other airlines, neither offering WiFi service.  Yet here I am on this little plane checking out the email and even talking to one of my servers…for five bucks.

Is it cable modem download speed?  Nope?  But it’s fast enough.  At least it keeps up with my typing.

I guess what’s important here is that in the tradition of Herb Kelleher, Southwest gets it.  Another carrier I travel on has embarked on a crusade to remove, cover, or change the plug of every outlet in the terminal.  Wish I’da bought stock in Graybar or whatever company makes outlet caps.  I’d be super rich from all the covered outlets.  Southwest?  I sat at the gate and plugged in as did about 20 other people.  That’s a perk on a Friday night when you need to get a last minute order out – or in.

Did I mention that I checked a bag (49.5 pounds) and carried one on, along with a set of wheels.  Didn’t pay a penny more.

And we left on time.  Southwest has a habit of that.  Somehow, they’re able to turn the plane around faster than the other guys, even the guys with the little RJ’s.  Go figure.  Let me add that there’s a blizzard going on in Chicago, our destination.  But they managed to get this thing in the air as scheduled and we’re due in on time.  I’ll let you know (if I don’t get this posted before we land).

I said earlier that Southwest “gets it.”  By that, I mean they get it as to what’s really important to travelers.  Then add to that the friendliness.  I won’t go into detail.  If you haven’t flown Southwest, you won’t understand.  What you will understand, though, is the attitude of their marketing.  Call Southwest for a reservation and you’ll hear, “You may be able to find a lower fare by booking online…”  Call one of the competition and you hear the same thing, but worded negatively, “Telephone reservations are subject to additional charges compared to online booking.”  Yes. Both say the same thing.  So which camp has the smart people working for it?

Back to the WiFi.  When you open it up, you can see inflight deals.  This isn’t an onslaught of popups.  It’s a carefully filtered list of offers and coupons, many of which are from establishments in the destination city.  Discount at a steak house and similar offers…and they close the circle – the redemption is/can be through your mobile device.  Yeah.  You do the WiFi, computer or phone, and then show your phone at the establishment and you’re saving money.  Yes, it’s a bolt-on from a third party provider.  But, the doggoned thing works – for ME.

I have to say, I’m a pretty cynical.  Not much impresses me.  Certainly, very little in the tech world does.  But this works.  Sure, it’s good for them.  But it’s good for me, too.  You get the feeling that the marketing folks actually test this stuff before they put it out there.  And one of the questions they ask is, “Is this helping YOU?”

I don’t see that with other carriers.  In fact, the opposite is true.  I’m sure they’d love it if we were all exactly the same height and weight, traveled with the same bags, had the same needs and, well, you get it.  One of them has napkins that say, “Planes change.  People don’t.  Our values are your values.”  Pure hype.  With 200 people on board, that’s 200 sets of values and they can’t all be the same.  The Southwest guys understand the differences.  They understand wants and needs.  Why, you’d think they were consumers, themselves.

So, Southwest, thanks!  For paying attention.  For letting me get some real work done on this trip.  Oh.  Gotta go.  The flight attendant just gave me two bags of honey roasted peanuts.  Time to stop writing and start eating.  After all, I have my priorities.

Do you Care What's Comin' Out the Other End?

Most of us in this crazy thing we try to call a business work on delivering video, audio, and their related emotions to remote locations.  I’ve talked about production values and their influence on the overall message but I want to talk about receiver locations and guessing – guessing on those locations, the ones of our followers, then guessing on their moods, their friends, viewing/listening conditions, time of day, even their blood alcohol levels.

Yeah, you gotta guess about it all because, somehow, you have to use it to calibrate your thinking.  What am I talking about here?  OK, here’s the “duh” version.  Valentine’s Day.  What content do you offer.  Go for the goulish?  Ripping hearts out and roasting them on a Smokey Joe™?  I don’t think so.

Now, if you start paring it down, you get more granular.  (Is that the department of redundancy department?)  You start asking about which love story to tell.  Or about which love song to play.   Then you ask about timing.  You think about followers as individuals as opposed to this monolithic group, all with the same feelings.

The bottom line is, you can try to figure out your audience really is – make that are.  You create an average and shoot for that.  You can treat them as individuals, too.  But if you don’t have separate channels to deliver different versions to each individual, you’re kinda stuck.

Sometimes you luck out.  You can upload for Youtube, Hulu, Brightcove and others along with MP4, H264 and WMV players.  Then you can offer additional versions for iPhones, Android phones, and, hey, if you wanna, broadcast TV.  NBC Sports and The NFL are taking a big leap by offering the Superbowl online for the first time.

In doing so, they’ve recognized that they have different channels…and they’re delivering content tailored to each medium and, in some cases, to specific devices.  Son-of-a-gun.  They broke the code.  The found out they could deliver different messages and they’re doing it.  It caters directly to their audiences.  Note the plural.  The rabid fan will have multiple screens open alongside the broadcast.  Heck, so will the rabid gambler, but you didn’t read that here.  But the point is that they’re offering multiple angles, replays, facts, stats and sideline views – if you want them.  Cannibalize the broadcast feed?  No way.

Of course, not every event has all of those channels to the viewer.  You can open them but the cost may be prohibitive.  In these cases, you just have to guess at what’s out there because there’s only one medium and one channel reaching your audience.

Flashback:  once upon a time, I had a phenomenal idea.  I mean brilliant!  I sure thought so and I convinced my boss and his boss that it was.  We’d do research to find out what preferences viewers had in adjusting their television sets.  (Yes.  We called them television sets.)  The plan was that we’d find out what they did to “misadjust” their sets and we’d predistort our audio and video in the other direction.  That way, our products – these were commercials – would appear as they should on the screen.

Well, we actually did some research.  At a fine little strip mall in Bloomingdale, IL, we found out that, at least in our slice of the world, people adjusted their television sets way around to the red and with much too much saturation.  It may have been the “Hey, I paid for color, I’m watching color,” thinking along with the dislike of the green component in flesh tones (and that’s not just Caucasian…green seems to be objectionable to viewers in just about all skin colors.  Martians, feel free to take issue) but that’s what we found.  And on the audio side, we found what nearly anyone drawn to this writing would guess – the smiling equalizer…boosted lows and highs with the midrange down about 6-9dB compared to either end.

And the plan?  Well, that should be pretty evident.  Rotate all of our materials around to the green (we figured about 15 degrees.)  Back down the saturation about 10 percent.  Then re-EQ the audio to a frown so that the receiver’s “smile” yielded an overall flat line.

Anyone see the problem yet?  Fortunately, my boss and I figured it out before we went any further…if people want more red, they want more red – in everything.  Including their corn flakes package.  Including their double cheeseburger.  If they wanted lots of highs and lows in the audio, well, they wanted it.
 
So what do you do?  You may have your own ideas…I’d love to hear them.  Mine is, shoot it “normal”, edit it “normal”, distribute it “normal”.  If Mary Elizabeth Dudenclaber decides she wants more red, let her add it.  If she wants green, let her have that, too.  It’s her call.  At the same time, you still have to think.  Old folks will remember “the day” when nothing went out without looking at it on a black & white monitor.  And most places still listen to a mono mix before releasing the content.  That translates to thinking ahead about viewer/listener conditions. 

Bottom line is, you have to know your audience and know your channels.  So many possibilities.  You put it out there in 1080i, full bandwidth. Top notch quality.  Twenty percent of the people are watching on receivers that can handle it, directly off air.  Another 40 percent are watching on cable.  Your 1080i is transcoded to 720i and is being pushed through a bunch of cable as a QAM signal where, at the receiver end, 80 percent of that 40 percent (32 percent for those of you in East Bumquat) feed the signal to a cable box and the rest feed to an integral receiver card or other processor.  And don’t forget the issues created by writing to a DVR’s hard disc and then playing it back.  Then there’s the group of satellite…and on I go covering all the ways of delivering.  Downconverted, upconverted, 16:9, 4:3, limited, “calmed”, 8VSB, QAM, NTSC, you name it.  Don’t forget cell phones, PDA’s and Youtube.  And it’s not just the end format, it’s everything that goofy set of numbers had to go through to get to the viewing screen.

So give it all some thought.  In many cases, You Don’t Know.  But if you do a little digging and thinking, you might figure it out.  If you know your audience, know their preferences and their preferred channels and modes, then you can try to match their preferences.  But don’t leave the color bar chart at home.

That "New" Thing Called Social Media

Social media.  A new way of communicating, it’s heralded.  Changing the way the world works.  Different.  Interactive.  Earthshaking.  Gotta have it.  Gotta do it. 

This is a new medium and nothing ever like it before.  Wow.  I have a single word:  NOT!

Social media have been available since the beginning of civilization.  Cave drawings in France?  Don’t try to tell me that’s not a social medium.  If 100 people lived in the cave and Jacques did half the drawings and Vincent the other, they were socializing and passing their thoughts along visually.  Best thing was nobody had to log on and enter a password to see them.  They just walked past.

Hey, I wonder if the LWxPJ I carved in a tree on Hewitt Avenue is still there.  Definitely using social media.  And I’m pretty sure it could be called interactive because as I recall, ole PJ saw it and had her brother scratch it out.

No…the social media rage isn’t new.  Just the medium is.  And the medium makes for broader dissemination and allows more interaction.  But the emotions remain the same.  I’m sure if you posted something on the board in the post office (hey…any connection there?) back in 1490 that said, “Isabella is a witch for not giving me the money to sail,” you’d get a broad range of responses from sympathy to, well maybe one of the queen’s guards asking if anyone knows where that guy Chris lives.

So the emotions, the feelings have always been there so what else?  Brevity?  No.  Remember the tree?  Or check out a bathroom wall.  The longest I’ve seen is the 5 lines of a limerick.  How ‘bout anonymity.  Don’t think so – or police wouldn’t spend time trying to track down taggers.

It’s gotta be the immediacy and the breadth of the distribution.   My guess is that maybe 50 people knew that LW was sweet on PJ based on the number of people that walked down Hewitt Avenue and might have actually noticed.  And it probably took weeks for them all to see it – if they even did, based on PJ’s rush to eradicate the posting.

Post it on the web and it’s out there NOW.  Pretty much everywhere.  Well, isn’t that special.  The sarcasm is because I think that posters think that their words are the be all and end all…that the world hangs on them.  They love the fact that the whole world can see their thoughts instantly.  And somehow, that translates to a feeling of power.  Of influence.

Well, as I write this, I know doggoned well that these words’ll be out there all right.  But power?  I don’t think so.  Influence? Doubtful. 

And why’s that?  Well, one set of initials carved on one tree might get some attention.  Carve 100 sets of initials on every tree on the block and what you get is, “Who cares?”  And that’s where we are with social media.  

Let me suggest that if you think your friends reeeeeally care that you just sat down with a bowl of ice cream and you’re tired, you’re wrong – unless you’re sharing the ice cream with Will-i-am or Angelina.

The “Marry Me” sign behind towed an airplane gets attention.  Put one hundred of ‘em in the air (air traffic control be damned) and the meaning drops to nada.  

So we’re all screaming as loud as possible, all vying for attention.  And, given that we each have X hours a day for social activity, that means the more folks who enter the fray, the less time we have to spend with any one of them.

Let’s just take a different tack altogether.  If you’ve read Robin Dunbar’s Grooming, Gossip, and the Evolution of Language, you may recognize some similarities between his conclusions and the use of digital social media to broaden one’s trust of others.  Yes, I can make that connection.  If I have 1000 Facebook friends (I don’t.  I once had someone offer to “friend” me because of the small number I did have), after a period of sharing info, posts and the digital equivalent of chatter, I begin to trust them and they begin to trust me.  AND, I can weed out the ones that don’t live up to my expectations/needs or violate my trust.

Aha!  Now we arrive at a reasonable explanation for the success of digital social media – building one’s circle of trust.  That makes sense, certainly more sense than using the medium to outshout others on the topic de jour.  An expansion of trust.  An extension of the herd.  McLuhan would be proud.

George Eastman - Where Are You When We Need You

George Eastman
(courtesy infosociety.com) 

There are eras and then there are eras.  One of the latter has come to an end as, apparently, the Great Yellow Father’s suicide note prophesized…”My work is done, why wait?”

George Eastman’s short note speaks volumes about Eastman Kodak and its role in imaging today.

Here was a company continually on the cutting edge.  Partly through shrewd vision on the part of its founder and his successors and partly from being pushed by industry demands, Kodak was the crusader for higher quality images.

Under George Eastman and folks like C. Kenneth Mees, films became faster and sharper on a regular basis, almost according to Andy Grove’s law.  Anyone remember the fanfare behind Double-X and 4-X?  (No, that doesn’t refer to adult films that may or not have been made on it).  Tri-X?  Plus-X?  Panatomic-X?  Kodachrome (the last roll of which was recently shot by Steve McCurry.  And, by the way, that wasn’t Kodachrome 10.)  Mr. and Mrs. Ektachrome and all their kids?  Kodacolor and Ektacolor? The C22 and C41 processes that made that made those films possible and put processing everywhere and anywhere, including the basement darkroom.  

And the timing...how about when 5247 and 7247 were introduced? They revolutionized low light motion pictures. Add in 7250 400T for TV newsgathering.  It turned coverage on its head while getting rid of the talking head anchors.  Or the whole CRI (color reversal intermediate) concept that 5249 brought, eliminating one, two, or even three generations between camera negative and release print?

Eastman Kodak brought it all.  And cameras, too.  From the Brownie to Hawkeye on through the Retina series and the Ektra – which made Leitz’ Leica look like a toy in comparison, Kodak led the way.

Unfortunately, the world has changed.  I’m talking about the business world.  Entrepreneurs – the visionaries – get to run a company just long enough for the VC’s to pull the plug on them if they veer off the business plan they funded.  George Eastman probably wouldn’t have made it if he started today.  However, if he were alive  today and still running the company, I’d bet you a bag full of 828 Verichrome Pan it’d be a different operation.

• Eastman probably would have embraced Edwin H. Land and his instant photography process.  Land once said, “It's not that we need new ideas, but we need to stop having old ideas.”  That’s right up Eastman’s alley.  As important, Land also said, “The most important thing about power is to make sure you don't have to use it.”  Maybe the Kodak of recent times should have noted that.  Interesting to note that Kodak did do business with Land and Polaroid, well before Land’s invention of the Polaroid Land camera…but they didn’t embrace the instant photography concept.  At least not until…
• They violated 10 or more major Polaroid patents when they finally did get into the business.  George Eastman would have known his patents inside out and would not have gotten hammered by the Polaroid suit which cost Kodak hundreds of millions of dollars and shut them out of instant photography after they spent other hundreds of millions getting in
• Xerography was known about in the 30’s but the chest-thumpers in Rochester didn’t embrace that, either, choosing to pursue the Verifax photo method of copying instead.  Sad when people tell you there’s another solution out there – that a selenium drum and some carbon can replace silver in imaging – especially when you just bought a bunch of silver mines.
• He would have teamed up with others, as he did with Edison to pursue digital imaging and would have been a leader instead of foundering in right field trying to play catch-up ball.

Kinda hard to do when you have to make the “Q” every three months and stockholders big and small are waving their certificates clamoring for more.  Just as hard when you’re so full of yourself, so arrogant, that you think you’re untouchable.

Remember that little company called Fuji?  Kodak brushed them off until Fuji made significant inroads into both still and professional motion picture photography.  Ilford and Agfa?  Same thing.  Even Ciba and Ansco, known more for their commercial dyes, made inroads though it’s probable that Kodak’s thinking was that keeping them around would keep the anti-trust wolves away.

But Kodak¹ really stepped in it with digital.  You have to ask, was it arrogance?  Did they think that brute force would keep the silver-based imaging world alive?  Relying on Chinon rather than its own development people, Kodak got caught flat-footed as Canon and Nikon sensor development compounded quality.  Over and over Kodak's “new models” were Canon and Nikon's “last year’s.  Consumers – discriminate and non – well, got the picture.  (Pun intended).

On the professional side, Nikon and Canon already had the market saturated with lenses and accessories for its film SLR’s.  It made digital bodies easier to sell.  After all, if you have 4 lenses, an array of filters, bellows or closeup lenses, integrated flash systems and the like, the upgrade to digital was a heckuva lot less than starting from scratch with a camera whose mount wouldn’t accept your current lenses.

Once they stepped in it there wasn’t a road to recovery.  So their reward was the bankruptcy they entered this past week, even though they tried to sell off 1100 (count ‘em!) patents in the digital world.  Sure.  They held a bunch of them.  But they held them too long and the value just wasn’t there. 

And what are they looking at now?  High end ink jet printers.  It’s catch up ball, once again.  I hope they’re successful.  I really do.  A lot folks are in it and Epson’s really good at it.  As for you and me, it’s unlikely we’ll be buying anything with the Kodak logo unless it’s the backprinting on a huge inkjet print we order from someone else.  Maybe Eastman's work really is [finally] done.

¹ It’s nobody’s name.  It’s the sound George Eastman thought the first shutter made.

Production Values

I’ve been giving presentations to various clients, organizations and civic groups for a number of years.  When I talk about content, my stunner – the one I hope is the takeaway for attendees is – “Nobody cares what kind of car brings their pizza.  They care about the taste of the pizza.”

And the translation?  Pretty simple.  Content is still king.  Delivery method doesn’t matter.  It’s that simple.  But, just for a second, I want to take it one step further.  I want to tie content to emotion.  I’m kidding, right? 

I can’t imagine why you’d think that.  Content usually begets emotion.  You see a news report about a theft or kidnapping and it evokes emotions.  Will kisses Alicia in the office and you have feelings about it.  Chris Rock lays a one-liner out there and everyone watching laughs.  Content brings emotion.  Uh, it’s not a McLuhanism.  It just is a fact.

Please!  Take one step backward and ask, as a producer/director/writer, what’s the goal?  To tell a story and trigger the desired emotional response(s)?  It’s true of fiction.  True in a lot of other places, too.  Not sports?  You bet, it is.  The excitement of a runback or two base hit into the vines; inbounding for a three-pointer with seconds left on the clock – all immediately generate feelings in the listener or viewer. 

In fact, sometimes it’s all about emotion.  I recall one sportscaster who couldn’t see Stuart Appleby on the screen without dredging up the tragedy that he experienced in his wife’s death.  That went on for years.

However, what a lot of folks don’t realize is that it takes a lot of elements working together to bring about the intended feelings…and a number of things get in the way.  Top of the list?   Production values.

Aw, Len, you’ve got to be kidding.  Just objectively tell the story and let the feelings generate themselves.  Oh yeah.  Right.  Just like pro sports expansions, the proliferation of video tools to just about everyone has diluted the production gene pool.

Now who’s kidding whom?  Telling the story is an art and the sum total of the aural and visual content generates the feeling.  Remember Mom or Dad telling a Halloween story…and their eyes got bigger, their voice became more urgent as the monster got closer? 

Well, by and large, production values have been forsaken.  Or have they just never been learned.  When the cost of entry to the production world was high and therefore limited the number of producers, directors, editors, scorers and the rest, there was commitment to telling the story.   The limited number of stories, then, meant a higher number of viewers/users of any single show/film/event.  Don’t agree?  Just look at the difference in the definition of a network “hit” in 1992 and twenty years later.  A six rating wouldn’t have lasted to the second commercial break in ’92.

The point here is that is that the fewer number of programs and greater number of viewers for each generated – or paid back – more production dollars.  That, in turn allowed for better production values.  NOT!  The values are still around.  They may be built into the switcher or step printer or the faders of an audio board.  The problem is the paucity of people who know coax those values out of the gear.  And that IS caused by the low cost of entry.

Anyone with a few, and I mean really few bucks can get a video camera of sorts and become a producer.  With youtube.com and break.com, you’re even a distributor.  But, by and large, you’re really not a producer.   You’re a, uh, let’s call you an “objective content generator.”  Your camera looks at a scene or person and you press a button to capture it.  The scene tells the story as best it can, with no help from you.   But you’re not creating or encouraging any emotions.  You’re letting the field-of-view do that.  And you’re doing nothing to help out.

Look.  If you’re a news stringer, pay no attention to what I just said.  We need more reporters who let the camera tell the story and don’t try to shoehorn in a political, religious or other emotional point of view.  Tell the damn story with facts.  Of course, even that can be tampered with.  In the distant past of grad school, a partner and I took footage of a major riot and cut it two ways…one pro-police and one pro-demonstrator.  Both were totally plausible and would have easily been broadcast as actualities.  Both were lies. 

And it’s troubling when I read quotes like SVP at Associated Press Daisy Veerasingham saying, “We are getting onto story-telling.  Just turning the camera doesn’t work in the 21st century.  Our subscribers and their viewers want informed narrative--and we will provide it.” What’s an informed narrative?  Does that mean a slant, angle, or coloration?  That’s for another blog.

Back to production values…I’ve seen a gang of content in the last couple of years.  A lot of it, decent.   Some really good.  The greatest percentage was just plain poor.

How so?  Well, start with framing and camera moves.  Let me be brief:

• What’s the center of interest?  Make it the center of interest!
• Effects for effects’ sake?  Why?  Don’t you have a story to tell?
• Lighting has, by and large, become available light.  Throw in the occasional LED on-camera lamp (don’t use the balancing filter indoors…it’s way too much fun watching someone’s face turn from red to blue as they move from the camera luminaire into the coverage of a house lamp) and you’re done.
• Enuf with the verite`.  Handheld to be cool really isn’t.  If it’s important to the situation, great but usually it’s not.
• Transitions?  At least make them fit what you’re trying to do.  Psychologically, a dissolve really does translate to a passage of time.  Argue that it’s conditioning if you’d like, but it works.

Whines:

Center of interest?  I frame everything just the way I want it.  Center of interest doesn’t just mean framing.  It’s contextual.  From a framing standpoint, of course center of interest means to include what you want the audience to see in order to tell the visual story you want to tell.  There’s more to center of interest.  New Year’s Eve.  The center of interest?  C’mon.  It ain’t tough.  What’s the center of interest? 

How ‘bout the countdown to the new year.  Yet at least one production – a BIG one – dumped the countdown most of the time, choosing instead to show full screen promotions for their owned properties…vacation spots, television shows…plush animals…you name it.  Between those and commercials, the countdown was on screen for less than seven minutes from 11:30 to Midnight.  (Yeah – I put a clock on it.  Don’t DVR’s really honk you off?)  Oops.  They missed the point of why they were there.

But I don’t have time for transitions.  NFL playoff game.  Fast cutting to keep up with the plays, the players, action on the sidelines.  Suddenly, after a touchdown, there’s a closeup on the football resting on the tee.  In a fast but absolutely beautiful move, there’s a defocus and dissolve to an MCU of the placekicker.  It was perfect.  Told a great story.  More importantly, I didn’t even realize it.  I was another 30 seconds into the game before I told myself that I needed to go back and look at it.  A production element that added to the excitement and tension of the game, didn’t get in the way of it, and was executed under about as much production pressure as you’ll find.

Audio: I’ve long given up on a seamless network rejoin or backtimed audio up to the hour.  Same with commercial breaks.  Up- and down-cutting is now de rigueur and, I suppose advertisers understand. Maybe they just build it into the buy.  They must because they’re allowing it to happen.  Silly me – I think about the emotional carryover (wait…now he’s REALLY BSing me) of a down-cut.  Does anyone think less of the Vegematic® because the spot was down cut?  Maybe not.  Does anyone think less of an expensive washer or dryer or automobile?  Underneath it all, maybe!  Hello, Kenmore…are you listening?  And, apparently they accept loss of lip sync, too, though if they did any research on how loss of sync affects credibility, they’d be crowing to every network ops manager in the business.

And when was the last time the VU meter hit zero?  I mean the “zero” on the left, not 0dBm.  I watched a radio program guy fool with his automation system for over an hour trying to butt up his network news join with the local ID.  He finally succeeded in smashing them together, no breaths, no nothing.  A different PD gave me an explanation – they use so much heavy compression that if there’s any dead air (to him a few milliseconds was dead air) the recovery would bring the noise level up to unacceptable levels.  Anyone else see the problem here?

Remember as you employ any of these that the production values you approve may get in the way of what you’re trying to say.  That hurts advertisers.  It may drive listeners or viewers away.  That hurts YOU.  And, more importantly, at least give passing thought to production values at all levels.  Even with that little handicam, it’s possible to reposition, reframe or reblock and tell a better (meaning one that’s more like the one you want to tell) story.  Move a light or turn one on…or off!  It might just get your point across in a stronger way and to more of your viewers.  Isn’t that what you’re after?

There’s Rain in Them-There Clouds

“We’re running in the cloud.”  “Cloud is the answer.”  “Wow.  It’s cloud computing.”  It’s been a long time coming.  But it may vanish pretty quickly.

I can hear the grumbling.

Where am I coming from on this?  After all, what could be better than foisting off all of the technical infrastructure on someone else.  Let them worry about the apps.  Let ‘em worry about the storage.  And the clincher:  Let ‘em worry about the security.

Now call me crazy – Hey! I heard that! – but turning over data to “the cloud” is a lot like moving all your chickens onto another farmer’s land…one that’s even more attractive to foxes than your own.

“They’ll never get hit,” you say, “They know security…better than we do.”  Wanna bet?   Fact is, you’re putting your valuable data in the hands of someone outside your organization who has access only to the same security information and guidelines that you do.  That YOU do.

Apple escaped malware and virus attack for years because the penetration was small; that changed as penetration grew and the Mac universe became attractive to hackers.  The cloud is the same way. 

And your operation is going in the opposite direction.  By that, I mean that if they’re getting bigger at a faster rate than you are, “they” are a bigger target.  So, unless you’re really big, you’re a smaller target than those cloud offerers.  And, of course, if you are “really big”, well, shouldn’t you be looking at an in-house cloud.  Of course, that’s tantamount to putting a diffuser in front of a snoot on a Fresnel luminaire then spotting it down.

You may argue that if they have access to the same security options, you expect them to use them and thereby keep you secure without you having to spend any time on it.  Welllll.  Remember one other thing.  Your data has to get to them and back.  A very vulnerable step in the process.  It eliminates the Internet as an option.  VPN’s?  Not much better.  That leaves truly private lines.  I won’t call them networks because they shouldn’t be.  They shouldn’t do anything but connect you and them.

Are you getting that – and paying for that – now?  If not, wow!  You’re laying it all out there for anyone who wants to watch your payroll figures, development ideas, emails, and patent applications parade past them in true TCP/IP style.  Worse, in FTP, delivering your data in neat, fully functional files.

Yet we continue.  Clients insist on the cloud, seeing it as a major cost saving – fixed costs and variable.  Cut jobs, cut office space, cut electrical. Get a monthly bill that’s service rather than cap-ex.  Couldn’t ask for more.  Then, one day, you can’t get into your “system.”  It’s “over there,” somewhere.  But it’s gone.  Or, a delivery of 100,000 rolls of paper towels you ostensibly ordered shows up, actually set up by a hacker, along with the invoice.

One company is bragging of their 99% uptime.  Anyone do the math on that?  It’s more than 85 hours of DOWN time a year.  And if that comes in 10 minute increments, well, the old saying, “glued, screwed and tattooed” comes to mind as workers have to reconnect with the app or data.

There are a lot of ideas that are terrific on the surface.  Then you look a little deeper…c’mon, it’s called due diligence and it’s what you’re expected to do…and find the pitfalls.  If you know the risks – and your CEO knows them, too, what’s the Daniel Boone quote “…be sure you’re right, then go ahead….”   But when you have 20 seats all vying for the same connection to get data they need to give to the CEO – your CEO, make sure you’re within reach of the phone because if the path or server fails, that phone’s gonna ring…and it won’t be a radio station cash call.

Thumbing Your Nose at Brand Contacts

I was in a meeting last week – one of those consulting, “come sit and listen then tell me what you think” kind of meetings. Because much our work is confidential, these folks’ll remain anonymous.

The company offers a service, both online and via the phone.  Their meeting was one of those infamous “rally” sessions about growing the business.  Eye-opening is an understatement.

Let’s start with the top of the list.  If you don’t mind, just read it and then ask yourself if you see anything wrong.  You may have to think about it awhile.  Here goes:

One of the folks in the session projected a path – or paths – for a prospect to follow to acquire the service.  In typical PowerPoint™ style, the slide built different options.  As path three “flew in” from the right in bright green type with a jagged accent cloud surrounding it, the presenter boasted, “…and now we have a way of offering [the service] and a prospect will never have to talk to any of our representatives.”

Applause followed and then a couple of questions after which the kudos fell upon the presenter.

Now that said – what’s the operative word in that scenario?  “Flew in?”  Maybe you think that those sorts of builds are distracting.  How about “green?”  Green type is seldom easy to read, especially over white.  Or maybe it’s the distracting accent cloud that surrounded the fly-on.

Well, you may disagree, but the operative word to me is “have,” as in, “…never HAVE to talk to any of our representatives.”

These guys were proud of the fact that they had eliminated contact.  Hearing them talk about eliminating mistakes, ensuring consistency, and, of course, one more time, “growing the database,” you’d think they were on to something.  I prefer to think they were ON something.

Sales managers/DOS’s:  are your line folks so bad that you’d rather have a javascript applet get your business for you?   GM’s and CEO’s: What’s wrong with your sales department?

And the same for all other departments who think the panacea for them is removal of people from the process.  Even internally – for example, some IT folks pride themselves in an automated help desk.  Between an FAQ feature on their intranet and an automated phone tree that “guides” the caller to some semblance of the right answer, your time saving is their time wasted. 

This is usually discovered when the CEO is under a crunch, with an assistant who is out ill.  The CEO has a problem with his laptop so he calls the number that’s displayed prominently above the screen.  I can promise you – he’ll press 2 buttons on the phone pad then the switch hook and, after he receives a dial tone, your number.  Trust me.  You really don’t want that.

Besides, isn’t it better for you, all the way around, to have contact with folks directly?  People get mad at machines.  People they don’t know are machines.  “That jerk in IT” becomes Bill after Bill takes the call and offers help.  And the next time there’s a contact, it’s on a person-to-person basis.

Now, back to the outside world.  Let me give you the best worst example I can recall.  A major airline lost a bag of mine.  After the expected time in line I was given a receipt with both a phone number and web URL to track my bag.  “Pretty cool,” I thought.   Not so fast, Lennie boy.

I logged onto the website and was greeted to a parsing error.  Couldn’t open the page in IE, Firefox or even Chrome.  So I decided to call the number.  On the telco dial pad I went through a number of keystrokes to tell them what I wanted to do (didn’t want to check my mileage balance, didn’t want to book a new flight, didn’t want to enter a flight number for a previous flight that didn’t credit me my miles and so on.)  Now before you interrupt me, yes, I regularly pressed “0” in search of a human. 

Finally it asked me if I wanted to check on a “misplaced” (they’ll never say “lost”) bag.  I had to enter the flight number and press # then the bag claim number and press # after which (including a couple more presses of “0”) it agreed to transfer me to an agent.  A real live agent.  A couple of clicks in the earpiece.  A little music.  And then the busy signal.  That’s it.  That’s the customer service I was looking for.

According to Integrated Marketing 101, they missed a big chance to solidify their relationship with me rather than whittling it to nothing.

Then the opposite happened.  It was a tech company.  I was traveling and a station was having an STL problem.  I had no manuals with me.  The station’s local technician was away, and the box just quit.  I got as much info from the operator on duty as I could then called the manufacturer.  Got a live person.  Hello?  Live person.  I was shocked, especially since, my index finger was already positioned over the 0 on the dial pad.  And that live person, after they asked my name, referred to me by name as they asked what my problem was. 

She told me who the contact person would be and said that he was on the phone.  Could I hold.  Yep.  About 30 seconds later, the manufacturer’s tech worked through the problem with me and we arrived at the most logical source of the problem…and he asked if I wanted to conference with the station operator to get it done.

Now these guys make good stuff.  And they charge for it.  And maybe that’s why they can afford to give that kind of service.  But I think it’s the other way around.  They provide the service and, therefore, they can charge more for their product because they deliver this kind of what I thought was terrific support.

So as you move forward, ask yourself, “Do I really want to eliminate those contacts – those opportunities to make a prospect a customer and a customer a better one?  Do I want to build a wall between my department and others instead of co-opting the relationship and building their reliance on my folks?”

If you answered yes to either of those, welcome to the year 2002.  Otherwise, get in the Delorean, fire up the flux capacitors and get yourself into the 2012 world.

EAS - Take a Giant Step "Back to the Future"

The national EAS test has come and gone. I’ve been through about 400 or so posts about what went right (the event did happen, it brought the tech community a lot closer together and spotlighted the common goal of success, a majority of decoders did trigger, there was no Mercury Theater of the Air panic by the citizenry and no actual attacks were initiated during the test period) and what went wrong (missed relays - including an entire state, daisy chains that looped back on themselves, cable and over-the-air test info either duplicated or non-existent, dropped audio, poor audio, reverb/echo/feedback audio and a few others).

The recommendations for moving forward are coming from every direction:

• Scrap the whole system and start over

• Keep the system as-is, the test went well

• Modify the system to (place your favorite verb here) and then ____ (about 50 different ideas)

• Make it smartphone-centric

• Make it satellite-centric

• Make it Internet-centric

• Increase the number of PEP’s

• Decrease the number of PEP’s

• Run more frequent national tests

• Take it away from the government

• Turn it all over to the government

After fielding calls from a number of clients – before, during and after the test – it becomes abundantly clear that KISS (keep it simple, stupid) was made for this.

First, stop and think of what the test was about. This wasn’t CAP. It wasn’t a series of chlorine tank cars on their sides in Omaha or Denver. It was national. It was to see how the system works when there’s an emergency that affects the entire country. That’s it. It sought the answer to a simple question: Can the POTUS (or his/her designate) get a message to all of us in case of emergency. This message may take 30 seconds or it could continue for days or even weeks. After all, we don’t know what the emergency might be and/or what instructions need to be given or citizen actions need to take place.

So now think about KISS. We’re certainly not doing that. The relays and daisy chains work – to a degree – but they take time and every level is subject to error. If you know that you’re going to have a 5% error factor in every layer of relay, which is better: 10 layers or 2? Doh!

So how do you do that. Whew-boy. Here’s where I get pummeled for talking about that positive step backward…to AM radio. To AM being the platform for launching all national alerts.

I must be kidding, right? Well would a kidder go one step further and suggest reexamining 500 kilowatt operation. Now I must really be kidding. Nope. Here’s the thinking:

As was proposed years ago, many of the clears could operate at 500kW. Yes, some may have to directionalize to protect neighbors to the north and south. A few would have to protect one another. But with a little study, we could get to a .5 mv/m or at least 100uv/m coverage* of the entire country with few – very few – facilities. Fewer facilities means fewer mistakes. Remember, this is for national alerts. Yes, the “PEP’s” (not so primary anymore) would be involved and each station would be part of a chain, but with all stations monitoring the 500kw operators, there’s be only two – count ‘em, two – links. Not bad.

Now, a couple of other advantages:

Contrary to using satellites, the web, or cellular as the base platform, 500 kW transmitters with tube modulators and finals are much less susceptible to EMP. Many AM towers are some distance away from cities’ population centers…less likely to be affected by nuclear or EMP attacks (wow – this IS going backwards). In fact, the only real danger would be if an enemy attacked us with CFL light bulbs.

Now the forgotten selling point: give me a little wire, let me unwrap a 1N34A from its lead-foil package and attach it to a crystal headphone and I’m listening to AM. No discriminator, no limiter, no D/A converter, NO BATTERY. Now someone’s going to say that I need a tuned circuit – and offer to sell me a 365mmf variable – but, believe it or not, in many cases, one station will dominate, at least enough for communication to take place. Yeah, if you live in Itasca, IL, halfway between the WBBM and WGN towers, I don’t want to hear from you. Go buy yourself a ferrite loop and tuning cap. And don’t bring up preemphasis. It’s not a factor here. The words will get heard.

Heck, you could even go digital! CW that is. I just don’t want to be the telegraph operator if they direct cathode-key the final.

Your counter to that argument should be, “Wait, you said national emergency and that AM’s should be the primary platform.” That’s true. The recommendation is that the super power AM’s provide the initial link. So the entire discussion of individuals and their 1N34a’s shouldn’t apply. Well, take the whole emergency thing one step further. It’s an actual emergency. EMP or other types of non-ionizing or, worse, ionizing radiation has limited or prevented travel while, at the same time, wiping out all those MOSFET gates, TWT’s, and maybe even good old bipolar transistors. Let’s hope it never gets to that point but if it does and my local FM’s and lower power AM’s are off the air, I’d sure like to unwrap the lead from around that little gem, hook it up, and find out if it’s safe to drive the heck out of town.

OK, back to EAS. High power AM can work. Because it’s just simple. Now – why won’t it happen? The filings and counterfilings, suits and countersuits that will ensue as stations seek upgrades, the jealousy of owners locked out of a power increase because of an overlap, and the thinking that complex is better than simple. Or the thinking that complex employs more people than simple.

But remember, to reach the entire country, the fewer hops the better. And this one has just 1. That’s probably its downfall. The president communicates to the 500 kilowatters and everyone monitors them. Just doesn’t sound complex enough to work.

Then I think of DaVinci’s words, “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” If you do a study of 1400’s Italian you find the translation actually means KISS.

*Important to note that man made noise certainly has impact here. Power lines, ignition noise and those great compact fluorescents will definitely be a problem. But then, there’s a lot of this country where power lines and ignition noise aren’t problems…and CFL’s can at least be turned off – if there’s any electricity at all.