The Affari Edge Blog

One of my all time favorite pastimes is college football. There’s just something about the atmosphere, the competition and the buzz it creates every Fall that gets me excited! Of coarse, when it’s football season, I am in my super sports fan state of mind. I watch as many games as possible, constantly hit sports web sites and chat it up with other fans on a pretty constant basis.

I had a conversation yesterday with one of my best friends whom I talk college football with daily. We were talking about college sports betting and he sent me a link to an article about sports betting in today’s society. The article suggested there be a SportsCenter-like show on ESPN that talked solely about game lines and sports bets. I replied, “anything but the same programming running over and over again reporting the same news every hour,” when it hit me. ESPN is in the middle of what I call ‘The MTV Effect’.

The MTV Effect is a new wave movement in television programming that happens slowly over time. We all remember when MTV was MTV - music television. Music countdowns, endless videos and Matt Pinfield (now that’s music television). Now it’s nearly impossible to squeeze a video in between The Hills and the two millionth episode of The Real World. Still, the station is successful, but as most of the old-school MTV fans would agree, MTV has officially ’sold out’ and turned its back on what it really was meant to be.

Now, I’m not saying that ESPN has reached a stage as severe as MTV, but I definitely foresee ESPN taking the same steps. For example, ESPN has aired several reality shows such as The Contender and Dream Job. As a huge sports fan, it is my opinion that this is not the programming that I want to see on ESPN. I could tolerate it if they had these programs on a separate ESPN channel - even running them on ESPN 2 would be fine with me, but running these reality shows (and sitcoms such as The Bronx Is Burning) during prime ESPN hours is unbearable. Honestly, who watched The Bronx Is Burning besides Yankees fans?

ESPN started as a fair, balanced sports broadcasting channel that reported sports news, scores and highlights. Anchors used to be reporters who actually reported the news in an entertaining way - periodically throwing in jokes, one-liners and catch phrases.

Now, many of the personalities on ESPN are sports reporters. Normally, this wouldn’t be an issue, but the sports reporters that are actually on the air don’t report - they preach their opinions and tell viewers what to think and believe - the objective view is gone. If an athlete isn’t very cooperative with the sports media, he/she will most likely be bashed on sports programming. Barry Bonds is the perfect example. His standoffish way of cooperating with the media eventually led to his demise. Once they got a whiff of steroid allegations, they crucified him. Bonds will go down as one of the greatest homerun hitters of all time, but thanks to the sports media (especially ESPN), he will be most remembered as a ‘cheater’.

Even ESPN’s programming has taken a biased approach at delivering the news. If it’s baseball season, the entire country will only hear about 4 of the 30 teams: the Yankees (NY), Mets(NY), Red Sox (Boston) and Cubs (Chi). (Notice any coincidence in those three cities?) Regardless if these teams are 20 games under .500 or 20 games ahead in the pennant race, they will get more publicity and screen time than any other team. The same goes for every other sport - ESPN only cares about who is popular. ESPN would rather air a 10 minute segment on the shading and pigmentation of the Green Monster’s paint job than spend 15 seconds showing two highlights from a White Sox/Indians game.

There’s ESPNU (that broadcasts college sports), ESPN News (that’s 24/7 news) and ESPN 2 (that seems to only broadcast poker these days). I suggest they create ESPN Bandwagon. This is where the SportCenter that plays 20 times a day should be broadcasted. Ratings would be through the roof in all of the major markets like New York, Boston, Chicago and LA. Then ESPN’s SportsCenter would actually be able to make time to show highlights of every game instead of mentioning the rest of the scores during the last 5 minutes.

Maybe I’m just bitter because I saw a similar change happen to MTV. Maybe I don’t want to cross ESPN off of my favorite channels list. Maybe I’m tired of staring at the scored on the ‘BottomLine’ to get my sports news. It’s just disappointing that ESPN has gone mainstream and left fans across the country in the dark. The MTV Effect has already begun at ESPN. Maybe I’ll write the programming director a letter asking for a ESPN Nick to launch in 2008…

While killing some time during a lunch break, I stumbled across an interesting column from ESPN’s Pat Forde regarding the antics of two college football coaches at press conferences. The first came from Oklahoma State head coach Mike Gundy, who spent several minutes ripping into a columnist for The Oklahoman after she wrote a column regarding the toughness of OSU’s starting quarterback Bobby Reid. The second story referred to Navy head coach Paul Johnson challenging an unnamed fan (and indirectly the reporter who asked the question) to come to his house and talk football, or find one instance in the past four years where Johnson praised his coaching ability when the team won. If someone could do that, he would kiss the person’s butt at city dock.

With the overzealousness of both coaches at their individual press conferences, it’s easy to see why Forde would be upset with what both gentlemen did. Gundy spent a considerable amount of time ripping into the columnist instead of praising his team in beating a tough Texas Tech team. Johnson got a little graphic when trying to deflect the thought that when Navy wins he pats himself on the back and when they lose he blames the kids. Throughout the column, Forde brings up several good points including the double-edged sword of praising and criticizing a player in the media, calling out coaches who claim they don’t read or listen to the local media (trust me, they do), and asking for a little more professionalism from coaches in a public forum such as a scheduled press conference. The problem with Forde’s criticism is while he makes some very valid points, the company he is working for (ESPN) is making what Forde is criticizing perfectly acceptable.

In it’s 28 years of existence, ESPN has turned the sound bite or the incredible piece of video footage into a sportscasting art form. When it comes to coaches losing their top, ESPN has seen its fair share of antics. And I know this because ESPN KEEPS SHOWING THESE ANTICS OVER AND OVER AGAIN! Whether it’s former Dallas Cowboys‘ coach Bill Parcells leaving a press conference regarding Terrell Owens in a huff, former Indianapolis Colts‘ head coach Jim Mora snarkingly screaming, “PLAYOFFS?!?” when his team was in a tailspin several years ago, or Tampa Bay Lightning head coach John Tortorella claiming the idea one of his defensemen purposely injured the opposition’s defensemen as, “BULLS–T!”, ESPN doesn’t mind showing an expletive-laden press conference when one comes along. And it’s not just press conferences.

Sometimes, a coach just melts down, like Asheville Tourists manager Joe Mikulik did in 2006, or Mississippi Braves manager Phillip Wellman did in 2007. Hal McRae has thrown telephones, Lou Piniella has launched bases, and even the usually even-tempered Roger Nielson once through a stick on the ice because he didn’t like a penalty called against his Philadelphia Flyers. The grand master of all meltdowns is Bobby Knight, who could single-handedly have an ESPN show devoted just to his blowups in the 40 years he has coached college basketball. As big of a sports fan as I am, I didn’t just think up of these legendary mental lapses in judgment– I saw them on ESPN (or other sports highlight shows and networks to be fair to ESPN).

But in today’s culture, and really since the early 1990s, showing these meltdowns as “highlights” only adds to the problem. The videos have never been shown to teach someone a lesson, or to get the idea across that “this is a bad idea folks”. Instead they were lampooned and laughed at, and we the viewers laughed along. Along with the coaches going bananas we were treated to football players doing silly end zone dances, bench-clearing brawls in baseball, and wackier attempts at dunking a basketball in the NBA and NCAA. With the endless looping of these “highlights” the idea of showing how a team won or lost a game has turned into how one guy said, “LOOK AT ME!” louder than anyone else in the game. ESPN is not the only guilty party in this issue, but it has certainly led the way the past 15 or 20 years. And if anyone doubts me, please remember ESPN once put together a Top 10 video list of the biggest coaching meltdowns for crying out loud.

Whether or not you agree with Forde is not the issue here. The issue is Forde is panning something ESPN profits on. More outrageous moments in sports, especially in a controlled environment like a press conferences, equals higher ratings which leads to higher ad revenue. In the crystal-clean Disney World ESPN lives in, it actually pays to be nasty. And in a world like that, a guy like Forde needs to realize he falling on a double-edged sword when he tells coaches to behave better in public.

I sat down last week to write about the new show Kid Nation, but honestly, I didn’t know what to write about. I began ranting on what I did and didn’t like about the program, but I felt more like a critic writing a column than an ad professional writing a blog. The truth is, I really don’t know how to react to the new show that I was so excited to see a week ago.

From an advertising stand-point, I don’t really know how to react about the prime time opportunity. The show seems like it will draw a very interesting audience. After receiving very mixed reviews last week, I am eager to see if the show gets better and draws steady numbers, or if it fizzles out and crashes within weeks. I noticed the premiere show had limited commercial breaks making me wonder just how much inventory NBC actually sold. An interesting trend that I’ve seen on blog sites and article message boards is some popularity among younger demographics. Many message board replies read something similar to “my 11 year old and I loved it”. This suggests that the show may have found an interesting niche demo - parents and their children (or especially mothers and children). I haven’t had a chance to research any hard, statistical data that confirms this, but from what I’ve seen thus far, this seems to be a basic profile of who will watch this show every week.

After watching the first episode, I expect that I’ll tune in again this week. The social experiment that the show is molded around is still quite interesting to me. However, I noticed something in the very first episode the kinda of ruined it for me. As is true with any experiment, all variables should be controlled in order to maintain the experiment’s validity. There were two problems I had with the way the show/experiment was run.

First, claiming the children were on their own with no direction or adult supervision is a bit ridiculous. I don’t really believe that the children are not given a helping hand by the adults in the production - in fact, I’ve read accusations that many of the lines were spoon-fed to the children by the production team. I understand how promoting a show with “40 kids, zero adults” makes the premise more appealing and interesting, I just don’t completely buy the notion that the children are completely independent.

To be honest, I’m not really too upset about this first issue. What really ruined the first episode for me was the ending. In each episode, one of the 40 kids is selected to win the “gold star” worth $20,000. Before the star was mentioned or explained to the kids, everyone acted like their true selves - older kids were cocky, stuck up girls were self centered and the kids told the town leaders exactly how they felt. Once the star was given away and explained, the kids didn’t care about anything but the money, and previews from future episodes show kids who were not the ‘ideal citizens’ in the first episode who seem to be highly motivated now. Unfortunately, it seems like money and greed are going to play major roles in this society instead of team work, leadership and genuine friendship.

Last week, I created a lot of buzz for the show among my peers and friends. Many of them tuned in and watched the first episode and their feedback was mostly negative. Many of them didn’t even finish watching the show, claiming the children were “annoying” and “hard to take seriously”. Many of the individuals I talked to claimed they would rather watch reality TV with more drama, which in turn led me to assume they preferred older personalities and participants (such as those found on The Real World).

I am looking forward to this weeks episode and reading more reviews after a second show has aired. I think I will continue watching throughout the season, as long as the experiment doesn’t get much more ‘contaminated’ by outside sources. The extra adults and the $20,000 bribes really made me question the show’s integrity. Hopefully some new storylines arise and some twists and turns come up. I already expect some of the town leaders will be impeached in the coming episodes. I foresee Michael, Greg and Sophia rising to the occasion and possibly taking over the town before it’s said and done.

I started seeing the TV commercials a couple of months ago. Slightly overweight, slightly older men, doing what men do (watching football, barbecuing, etc.). The voice-over guy comes on to say, “Gusto is back” as the beer that made Milwaukee famous, Schlitz, is back.

I’m a self-confessed beer snob. I buy those micro-brew India Pale Ales, pricey double-bocked German lagers, and spiced pumpkin ales during the winter. Quite a turnaround from my college days of ten years ago where a 12-pack of Miller Lite for $6.99 was just fine for me. I’m not the only beer snob in my family or circle of friends, but I’m one of the few who doesn’t mind a good old-fashioned blue-collar beer every now and then. And for me, now is a good time to like those beers.

Blue-collar beers are making a comeback. Born in upstate New York, Genesee Cream Ale is my poor man’s poison of choice. Further north you’ll find Black Label and Narragansett returning to store shelves. In the Midwest it’s Old Style and Falstaff joining the legions of cans of Old Milwaukee and Pabst Blue Ribbon. So why the sudden influx of these less-than-finely hand-crafted brews once thought dead in the 1980s? Well, there’s a number of reasons, and the first is money.

The cost of living is higher, and salaries and wages aren’t necessarily following the trend. What’s a beer drinker to do? If you absolutely have to have some beer in your fridge, you can’t splurge $13 or $14 every week for a 12-pack of the usual micro-brew stuff. Especially since a 12-pack of Genesee (bottles OR cans!) is just $7 after taxes. But the money aspect has more than the economy on its side. Most beer drinkers start drinking when they’re 15 or 16, or if you’re good you at least wait until college to start. If you’ve been through college you know some times you only have $20 a week to spend on groceries and other necessities, so in comes the cheap beer and that special micro-brew beer will just have to wait until you get a job. Besides, who wants pumpkin ale with Ramen noodles?

With such a young base of drinkers looking for cheap stuff, beer that’s even cheaper than the college-standard Miller Lite and Budweiser, major breweries have an incredible fan base to tap with these old names. And this generation of young folks, with their i-pods and blogs, has no shame in dabbling in historic stuff. Retro is in, as evidenced by sports teams bringing back jerseys and logos from 50 years ago or movies like Transformers getting made into summer blockbusters. So it would make sense for a tried and true brand like Schlitz, to return to the market with this new generation of consumers eager to snatch it up like all those other “retro beers”. But here lies the problem: Schlitz’s ad campaign says everything BUT that.

I passed by a billboard today advertising Schlitz. Besides the usual “Gusto is Back” campaign, I saw the line, “Gentlemen under 55 need not apply”. I nearly drove off the road in shock to the campaign. While most of Schlitz’s hardcore drinkers probably are 55 or older, why would Schlitz (brewed by the Pabst Brewing Company) go out of its way to discourage 20 or 30-somethings from drinking their product? Does Schlitz really think there is a line in the sand, daring younger people to cross to try their brew? I’m not seeing it. And maybe it’s because at 29 (and very soon to be 30) I have no desire to be my father’s age (very soon to be 65). I look forward to my older, senior years, but when I reach them! Not now while I’m still young, spry, and able to weight lift in the morning without throwing my back out.

I’m not even sure Schlitz is sure at who they’re going after. One trip to the Schlitz page at the Pabst Brewing website shows this confusing description of what Schlitz is:

Schlitz is one of the undiscovered gems of American beer and today, young adult consumers are embracing the brew because it has stayed true to itself and hasn’t “sold out”. When you’re ready to discover something new (or old in this case), reach for a Schlitz and see what we mean when we say it’s “Just the Kiss of Hops”.

First, this sounds like something painfully written by a 46-year-old guy pretending to be 16. Young adult consumers are embracing Schlitz because it hasn’t “sold out”?!? NO THEY’RE NOT! THEY’RE EMBRACING IT BECAUSE IT’S CHEAP! This curious description of the beer undercuts the current ad campaign. Young adult consumers are embracing the beer, but Schlitz doesn’t want anyone under 55 to enjoy it? This ad campaign is further undercut by the website Schlitz then sends you to.

Go ahead, click on the “advertising” link. Amongst the collection of classic and new Schlitz ad campaigns, old-timey background music is playing. Now I like classical jazz and big band music, but some of this stuff is MUCH older than 55 years old. I’d be willing to venture some of this music is 70 or 80 years old, which would make the majority of Schlitz’s target audience DEAD.

The ad campaign still confuses me, and the conflicting messages on the billboards and the websites confuses me even more. Perhaps it’s as simple as Pabst targeting Schlitz for older drinkers while keeping Pabst Blue Ribbon securely in the hands of younger drinkers. If that’s the case, that’s a smart business move by Pabst. But in terms of advertising, I think Schlitz is missing the boat here. While the baby boomer generation is growing into the largest consumer demo in the nation, a perfect audience for Schlitz, excluding the younger crowd will likely make Schlitz a dinosaur again in 10 or 15 years.

One of the few network TV shows I’m looking forward to is a FOX creation called “Back to You” starring Kelsey Grammer and Patricia Heaton. My main interest in the show comes from wondering if it will be based on true stories or situations from TV news rooms, much like “Frasier” and “WKRP in Cincinnati” had some truth to the hilarious plot lines. Whether the show is actually funny and entertaining is yet to be seen though, as some people are hoping this sit-com can save the sit-com genre.

In an interesting article at Forbes.com, “Back to You” producer Christopher Lloyd (no relation to the actor) lays out why sit-coms have suffered in the ratings and in the general interest of the public over the past few years. Lloyd hits one component of this fall from grace right on the head: sit-coms became cookie-cutter shows in the late 90s and early part of this decade. Thanks to the success of NBC’s “Friends” and “Seinfeld”, and ABC’s “The Drew Carey Show” in the mid 90s, the stereotypical loser main character and his/her friends would sit around a coffee house/diner/bar and complain about their lives. One or two wacky jokes or plot twists would make the 22-minute shows entertaining and ratings winners for years. Then came the impostors: “Caroline in the City”, “Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place”, and the rather forgettable “It’s Like, You Know…”. Add to the fact that numerous sit-coms earlier this decade featured role players spun off from hit comedies (Jason Alexander, Michael Richards, Matt LeBlanc) the sit-com over-saturation was bound to collapse as the TV drama experienced a revival (CSI, Cold Case, the various spin-offs of “Law & Order”).

But it goes much deeper than just over-saturation, and Lloyd hints at this point here. It all comes down to great writing and character development. “Friends”, “Seinfeld”, and “The Drew Carey Show” all featured distinctly (and no exactly stereotypical) different personalities in situations you or I have been in before (or know of someone who has been in that situation). While the situation may have turned out differently for us in the real world, on TV it either comes out all good in the end or leaves us hanging for the next episode or next season.

Lloyd points out that the “new comedy” approaches of single-camera TV isn’t necessarily the answer to the problem, and he’s right. While comedy shows such as “My Name is Earl” or “The Office” feature a different style of comedy, it still comes down to writing and character development. We all know someone like Jason Lee’s Earl character, or his ex-wife Joy played by Jaime Pressly. We also all work with someone like Steve Carell’s character Michael or Rainn Wilson’s Dwight on “The Office”. Humor and personalities we can relate to is a winner. That’s why shows like CBS‘ “Everybody Loves Raymond” and ABC’s “According to Jim” hung around so long.

I can’t say if “Back to You” will be a hit, or the default “savior” of network comedies, but the writers of the show and other new comedies can take a lesson from current hit network comedy shows and from history. I already mentioned “Earl” and “The Office”, but even “The Simpsons”, “Family Guy”, and more and more “American Dad” manage to make the audience laugh, think, and feel despite the fact they are adult cartoons. And the sit-com has been through this routine before. Everyone thought it was dead in the early 90s when the success of “The Cosby Show”, “Family Ties”, and “Growing Pains” led to a glut of feel-good family-friendly shows. But with “Friends” especially, and the maturity of “Seinfeld” and the quirkiness of “The Drew Carey Show”, network sit-coms were refreshed with new ideas that were vastly different from the kid-tested, mother-approved programs of the 80s.

With a few new ideas in 2007 and 2008, the sit-com can be revived simply because in times like these America needs a good laugh.