What would Peter do?
Liz Smith is reporting that many ABC News employees have switched their blue “Never Never Ever Give Up” rubber bracelets to a new lighter blue model with the inscription, “What Would Peter Do?”
This caught my attention, not because of its worshipful nature (a la “What would Jesus do?”), but because it so beautifully reflects the mood in the industry right now — a longing for the days when everything was predictable and (seemingly) safe. That is certainly not the case today.
In the last week, 24 television stations — and I assume around 2,000 people — learned that they’re being sold. On Monday, Emmis Communications reported it was selling nine of its 16 stations for $681 million to LIN TV, Gray Television, and Journal Broadcast Group. And yesterday, Raycom Media announced it was buying Liberty Corporation’s 15 middle and small-market stations.
Writing in Media Daily News, Wayne Friedman noted that these deals are taking place in a time of diminishing spot sales.
A slow-moving station sales market has been blamed on the weakening local TV advertising sales marketplace.
To some, this may appear to be the apocalypse, but I view it as both the natural maturation of a high-margin business and a time of unprecedented creativity, as we evolve from a Media 1.0 world to Media 2.0. There has never been a time like this in history, and if you aren’t excited, you’re not really paying attention.
We all need to get out of the past, and that’s why these bracelets are so meaningful. Conjuring the ghost of Peter Jennings may seem noble and all that, but the truth is that his memory is representative of something bigger — something we’d all do well to let rest in peace.
This entry was posted on Friday, August 26th, 2005 at 8:47 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
August 26th, 2005 at 10:49 pm
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If you put "endorsed by Steve" in the subject line I can all but guarantee you will be approved and your blog will be listed.
Regards,
Steve Davidson
High Class Blogs
www.highclassblogs.com
August 27th, 2005 at 9:07 am
Dear readers,
I’m not going to apply for this, because it’s a reciprocal link bunch of bullshit. This low-class crap has been around since the search engines first started counting inbound links for ranking.
The deal is that they will list me and even — ta-da — give me an award, as long as I put a link to them on my site. It’s a corruption of everything I believe in regarding the blogosphere.
Finally, if Steve wanted to include my blog due to its content, or if he wanted to give me an award, he’s free to do that.
High class? Hardly.