28 July 2000

THE BAD: Leave it to me to get into the middle of a controversy, one of the parties to which is my employer. But I have been pretty much on Time-Warner's side in its battles with Disney over cable TV and what will soon (5 years) be broadband TV/Internet. When Time-Warner smacked Disney by pulling ABC off of its cable package when the negotiations for other Disney-owned networks went south, my feeling was that it was a fair battle of titans. T-W was disingenuous when it put up that Disney had taken away ABC from the cable subscribers and Disney was disingenuous when it said that this was just the evil T-W empire throwing around its muscle. However, I also agreed with the court that forced T-W to put ABC back on the cable package.

Access to the wires that "broadcast" all media must be regulated by the government or it can reasonably be said that the corporations that own the wires (and there are a number of types of wires in play) will control content to the detriment of competitors and more to the point, to the detriment of the public.

That said, Disney's video presentation to Congress this week was a joke! The regulation of cable, the Internet and broadcast TV has nothing to do with the AOL/Time-Warner merger. In fact, it is one of the realities of the merger that AOL brings Internet marketshare to the table and not a whole heck of a lot else, other than a lot of smart people who work there and have built the company up over the years. If AOL had nothing to do with Time-Warner, Disney would make every single argument they made about regulating Time-Warner. And they have some good arguments. None of which are any more valid now than they were a few years back. Disney, Viacom, News Corp, Time-Warner and now, maybe, Vivendi are the big dogs of the entertainment game. News Corp has focused on satellite. Time-Warner focused on cable. Viacom and Disney have pretty much stuck to being content providers. C'est la vie, guys. How much Time-Warner pays for The Disney Channel to appear on your TV is not a matter of vital national importance. At least, not in specific. In the abstract, Disney should be given a fair deal, based on how much it brings to the table compared to how much others bring to the table.

This is, I keep writing, a tie of evolution. And with great power comes great responsibility. There is little doubt that the FCC has to regulate some of that responsibility. Every doomsday scenario that Disney plays out in their video presentation could happen, whether via Time-Warner or anyone else. But the idea that this has anything to do with AOL/Time-Warner coming together. Please!

To see the video, click here.

THE UGLY: There is a brutal piece on Martin Lawrence in Thursday's Suck, claiming to have a source on the set of Lawrence's currently shooting feature, What's The Worst That Could Happen? This guy tells Suck that Lawrence's behavior is not exactly sane on set. In fact, it reads like the very worst of Eddie Murphy when he went crazy early in his career. I always defended Eddie's choice to have his posse--made up mostly of family--around. Of course, when you bring body guards to a private party. Well, get a clue. Though living in a cone of silence, Murphy seems to have pulled back on the kind of onanistic on-set tendencies that caused a lot of people to hate him in the old days. You just don't hear these kinds of stories anymore. Perhaps Martin Lawrence will also find some inner peace. But in the meantime, if you want to get your hair standing on end, check this out by clicking here.

RADIO RADIO: George-N-Dave Fest is back this Saturday. Starting at 11 a.m. PST on KABC-790 in L.A. or on the Web at kabc.com.

GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY: The 10th Annual UCLA Festival of Preservation kicks off today with a presentation of The Times of Harvey Milk, with director Robert Epstein and real-life participant Tom Ammiano in tow at the DGA. Also coming this month are Charles Burnett and his 1977 classic, Killer of Sheep, Delbert Mann and Bo Goldman among others for the Goodyear Television Playhouse, Efrain Gutierrez's Chicago Love Is Forever and great directors Budd Boetticher and Stanley Kramer and some of their best films. For more info, go to www.cinema.ucla.edu/screening.html and check it out.

BAD AD WATCH: Have you seen the display ad for Thomas and the Magic Railroad? Is Peter Fonda stoned out of his gourd or is it my imagination? And don't even get me started on the tube with the magic dust that is dangerously close to Alec Baldwin's nose. Actually, the indentation under Baldwin's nose makes the straw indistinguishable from his face. And with The Klumps fresh in mind, the angry train coming up behind Thomas seems like a very raunchy joke in the making as well. Or maybe I've been doing this too long.

"ROTDs, Big & Strong"