This is the final edition of
The Morning BRIDGE ... this afternoon’s
Evening BRIDGE will be its final issue.
The
BRIDGE Quarterly will also cease publishing.
Our publisher,
Cody Maxwell, made the tough decision to recognize that business models have shifted and just breaking even isn’t
enough. Tough, because her superb marketing talents made
MediaCensus a big enough success that
SNL Kagan bought it from us.
If you are among the paid subscribers to
The BRIDGE Quarterly, you will be fully refunded ... or, if the invoice hasn’t been paid, simply forgiven (if payment is in the mail, it will be returned). Seems like that last chance to save did save some $s for many. (And, ignore that "SUBSCRIBE FREE"
above, please.)
All stories have an arc.
Yesterday, I started watching
The Bond Collection on
Encore ... seemed like a good time to escape with a surfeit of
Bond, James Bond. Thanks to
Showtime’s
Matt Blank,
Starz’
Cyndi Blanchette,
Scripps’
Henry Ahn and our other (though not enough) advertisers. Thanks to our more than 30,000 readers ... especially the ones who sent along threats, comments, complaints and the rare compliment. Some nice and informative
dialogues ensued. We’ll miss those.
Meanwhile: A few closing thoughts ...
• Kind of time to go when the world’s in a mess and changing at a rapid and radical pace proving
Joseph
Schumpeter right again. Interesting times, though ... so, we might continue to comment upon them from time-to-time ... we’ll revamp the landing page of
www.mediabiz.com to be more like a once-in-awhile blog (and allow for email distribution for those who want).
• Folks want news to be free; we thought we might be able to charge for real numbers ... but not right now. Once there was a unsaid pact ... vendors
wanted to talk to operators ... so they advertised. Now they don’t; consolidated buying power squashed any marketing beyond begging. Someday, we’ll all pay more.
• Back in the real world, the American political landscape since 2008 has been a real disappointment. One major
political party blew a chance via overreach and incompetence as the other major political party openly vowed to put its own path to power ahead of the United States of America ... and then abandoned the idea of governing in a quest for power that damaged the economy, the public and our
Republic. For shame ... on both parties ... and us, too. Treating those who disagree, but are as patriotic as anyone, as enemies is not just wrong, it is willfully stupid. Compromise is not a dirty word.
• Fascinating
Supreme Court set
of decisions on the
Affordable Health Care Act as
Chief Justice John Roberts – who went to the same Catholic boarding school as Cody – voted for his legacy and the health act “tax” while effectively truncating a
wide range of significant Federal powers. The fallout from these less recognized aspects will be intriguing.
• Always “amusing” to watch corporate titans plead for government help ... hat in hand to the
Congress like
Reed Hastings of
Netflix (don’t let
Comcast charge for someone else using its pipes ‘cause the internet should be free for us to exploit!) or
Charlie Ergen to the
FCC and
House (don’t screw me like
Falcone and
LightSquared! pretty please! and save me from those “vicious” cable and wireless
ops!).
• In other breaking news, the government continues to insist upon regulating yesterday ... or not.
• Retrans and Renewals keep getting more and more contentious ... over our last weekend,
DISH did drop
AMC nets;
U-verse didn't (yet, they're talking);
West Virginia Media Holdings dropped off DISH in four markets as power outages hit the state. The FCC keeps turning a blind eye. Going to get
worse.
• The world of major MVPDs should create a new more encompassing
Multichannel Provider Association ... the cable, satellite, telco, television and wireless infrastructures face too many of the same problems. Pretty funny: the
NCTA-SBCA-USTelecom-NAB-CTIA! (The world of not-quite-so-big MVPDs should do the same ... or fold more and various constituents into the
ACA.)
• At the same time, the two sides of programming
(live sports and news; entertainment) are fast becoming two unique content iterations with differing goals and challenges. All of these have, at the same time, devolved into giant conglomerates run by folks who all know one another which is why B2B advertising has virtually disappeared.
And, our own fault, we didn’t follow the new models of vanity ads, semi-real competitions and duplicative events.
• No advertising means hard, classy and remarkably comprehensive work by reporters/editors such as our
Matthew Colella can’t get paid
anymore; you can recruit him, though, at
matthew@mediabiz.com.
• Speaking of programming and politics, a survey by
NatGeo finds two-thirds of
Americans (of the 80% who believe in UFOs) think the President would better handle an alien invasion than his challenger.
• And a guy in Kansas is running for a school board seat on the platform that “evolution is a Satanic hoax.”
• So reality – and facts – have become subject to
conceptual attitudes and biases. Parallel universes do exist ... all right here and now.
• France shut down
Minitel ... time to move on.
• With that, we’re done. Comments welcome at
max@mediabiz.com.
• Have a wonderful 4th of July ... America’s best days are ahead of us ... if ... more and more of us remember “United We Stand.”•
