September 26, 2007 - Movies Based On Movies

October 1, 2007

Attack Of The Traditional Media Blogs

As we navigate the fall, there is a new phenomenology in the e-journalism air.  After years of whining and kicking and biting (some of it still going on), both the Los Angeles Times and Variety are ... copying the blogs. 

It's fascinating to watch ... big, relatively high budgeted, very smart people squirming about, recreating things that were attempted in places like Gawker Media and Movie City News years ago and either embraced or discarded.  But even the things we have embraced often are misunderstood by the majors, failing to grasp the major difference in the economic realities of a site this size and their mega-watt expectations.

It's not just MCN.  Some of these lessons go back to roughcut.com, a business owned by TNT Cable and, by extension, Time-Warner. 

1. Ad Sales People Who Are Used To Selling At A High Price Point Are Not Going To Be Anxious To Sell Relatively Low Priced Internet Ads. 

Yes, MCN innovated last season with an Oscar ad buying option that included smaller, but well-read, sites.  But we did it without taking a dime from the sites for brokering the deals.  (It helps that we don't have an ad sales department to pay salaries to and that our entire effort in that regard was a single offering that had none of the variables that ad sales at places like Variety handle like a Rubik's Cube every day.)  And we had a realistic idea of how much money studios would pay for advertising on these sites. 

In one case, a site that had a major ad broker the year before earned more than four times as much with us ... but that amount was still chicken feed in the world of the trades.  And, of course, had the same site been brokered by an ad sales company, they would have seen half the income or less.

Variety has decided to move forward this season by bringing a few people on board, including Kris Tapley, who was a part of our blog ad umbrella last season, and to presumably offset expenses by brokering ads for these folks.  I wish them luck.  It's not that Kris' site or any of the others are not valuable ... but as Variety has already acquired a rep around town this year for being unusually vampiric already -- and finding more resistance (see # 4) -- they should find the turf pretty well iced over. 

Like the LA Times' maiden attempt at The Envelope last year, I suspect we will see ads on these pages ... but as added value to bigger buys, avoiding outright embarrassment.  And so long as the web players being brought in have a minimum guaranteed, they will be fine, even if it comes out of Variety's pocket. 

2. Many Site Owners Have A Grotesquely Exaggerated Notion Of What Their Ad Space Is Worth.

There are many fine websites out there with, again, many smart people behind them.  But we were turned down by a number of sites for the package last season ... and watched very few ads turn up on those sites through the season, while we sold out the opportunity. 

In looking at this season, we have considered expanding our secondary package to more sites.  But the reality is that as you discuss various very good sites with studio execs and consultants is that many of the sites are not on their radar and thus, not worth a lot of money.  At some point, the cost in time in administering a package overwhelms the value of brokering a package.

3. Blogs Are Lightning In A Bottle, Better When Brutal,
And Very Hard To Sell.

I was shocked to read in LA Observed that the LA Times already has 27 blogs.  Variety has a dozen ... and more on the way.

The lesson that we have already learned at MCN -- and Gawker Media learned before us -- is that a successful blog is a very specific, unpredictable thing.  But what we do know is that people have to choose to engage with that blog every day and that that very few of even the successful ones reach past small cult status.  Moreover, people get bored very easily.  And the more competition in a narrow niche space, the harder to be the breakout blog.

As we have learned in the movie biz niche, the best way to find an audience has proved to be extreme writing with more than a dollop of gossip mongering.  And a big part of that is the "gotta see" phenomenon.  People slow down for car accidents, just as they watch car chases on local news channels.  And the more people who talk about it, the more that others feel they have to slow down and watch simply to remain a part of the relevant conversation.

But here is the rub for Traditional Media blogs ... they can't be LA Times Goes Wild or Variety Says F*** YOU! sites.  Industry advertisers don't like that.  And alternating bites with kisses is not quote enought to make it work. With due respect to the perceived popularity of Nikki Finke's blog these days ... you see a blog-specific ad buy for her page once a month or so.  Aside from that, it's all LA Weekly site ads.  (I am sure that Nikki will fight this notion -- because perception can be reality in this town and no one knows that better than Nikki -- but just look at the ads.)  Buyers know they are finding a studio and agent audience on that page ... but advertising there suggests support ... and execs never know into whom or what institution Nikki will stick her shiv ... and if they are the source, even more reason to keep their distance.

4. Quantity Is Not Quality.

When you keep adding blogs to a community that is established, confusion is often more the response than embrace.  Yes, there will be people who go onto the blog and post and participate.  But again, it's about the number of people and the passion of participation.

The New York Times had great fortune last year with David Carr blogging about the Oscars ... a subject that he treated as Wonderland to his Alice.  And he got lost in the rabbit hole a few times.  But overall, it was a unique treatment by a very smart guy who was willing to be both abusive and self-deprecating and was a fun read.  And as "The New York Times," there was a unique built-in audience as well as immediate rapt attention from a web community who embraced the blog as a symbol of web recognition by The Big Show ... and appropriately, loved David.

Could the LA Times mirror that success with an Oscar blog by Claudia Eller or perhaps Goldstein or Horn?  Probably.  Especially if those well-established members of the community were willing to piss off some friends now and again.  But as the paper learned with Tom O'Neil last year, a person without roots at the paper can be very dangerous ... and as of this writing, the oft-repeated word at the paper is that they can't wait for O'Neil's contract to expire so they can "launch" him.  And in his case, they pay both for his sycophantic nature and his need to prove he is not a suck up by attacking some.  Attacks dogs are fun, but they have a short shelf life.

Interestingly, The Envelope (or TheEnvelope.com) is being reconceived with more web-savvy talent.  And really, I wish them well.  One of the first things to come down the pike was a more open attitude towards the rest of the web.

That brings us back to Variety, which seems to have had a scorched earth policy about internet competitors.  Complaints of stolen original reporting without credit to the source have risen dramatically in the last year.  And the trade's willingness to link -- in its many blogs -- to competitive sites appears to be limited.

Even more fascinating is what seems to be a cultural divide between Peter Bart and the web-interested side, led by publisher Charlie Koones.  Bart keeps slamming the web and its growing pains in his columns and Koones' team keeps on exploring the future, initiating new blogs, hiring away bloggers from competitors, and embracing ideas like an ad sales umbrella.

5. Things Change

The experience of these things and more, which these two majors don't seem to have taken notice of, suggests trouble for many of the initiatives at both papers this year.  But nothing is for sure, since the players involved are all individuals who could rise. 

The aforementioned Ms Finke is a classic example of someone who was established, but often fired, unable to find a stable home ... and in blogging, however much I object to her editorial choices, has found her place in the sun.  She was born to being an in-town gossip, slamming and squealing her way to must-read status in many quarters.

The biggest danger in both places is overstated expectations.  The internet is a niche business.  And being strong in a niche can be a very nice place to be.  But it is not the high-flying world of huge ad sales during the award season for the trades or major papers through the year.  As you know, those sales are falling off, so all Traditional Media is scrambling for new revenue sources.  And after these experiments, they will keep scrambling.

What could amuse us at Movie City News more than The Los Angeles Times, which just a few short years ago attacked us with misinformation - claiming falsely we were gouging studios with our screening program on which there was not only no profit, but which we staffed at our expense - starting their own awards screening program. We got out of that game in part because of that unkind and inaccurate attack, but also because so many others were doing screening series that they became, for the most part, irrelevant in servicing our community. Good luck with yours, LAT. From what we hear, you may be the first not to have studios pay for overhead... and that, we think, is a good precedent.

One answer for Traditional Media may be a hard look at TMZ, the Time-Warner company that has abused all of the rules long set by Time-Warner magazines.  They will have to avoid being sued, but it seems that they may have landed at the exact moment when people became so used to mega-corporations having so many tentacles that they don't connect, say, People to TMZ and hold one accountable for the other.  Or maybe it's just Pat Kingsley retiring. 

But best of luck to all. 

And if there don't seem to be many answers in this piece ... what?  Are you dumb?  Why would I give away answers that I need for my own business?  We have more experimenting to do, too. 

E ME

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