The Rage Diaries

Fiscal fitness -- how suggestible are you?

Results of three-plus years of research by Information Resources Inc. into DVR vs. non-DVR households show purchase of new package-goods products in DVR households was about 5% lower than in non-DVR households for IRI's industry bestselling "Pacesetter" brands and that about 20% of all brands in the study lost statistically significant volume in households with DVRs.

-- "Study Finds Mixed DVR Effects," Advertising Age, Mar 24, 08

What do DVRs have to do with fiscal fitness?

Why we are re-upping our subscription to HBO

Right here, baby.

All of y'all need to be watching The Wire. Get the back episodes on NetFlix if you must, but get schooled before January 6, 2008.

The WGA strike and you

Curious as to how many episodes of Chuck you can expect to see in these still-striking times? Interested in pondering the cosmic unfairness of a TV landscape in which Las Vegas has the biggest stash of new episodes left*? Check out the Ausiello Report's list of TV shows and remaining new episodes.

 

*Although I should point out that Las Vegas now features Tom Selleck, who has proven that he's still mas que macho 90% of the dudes working on TV today. So there's that mitigating factor.

I (heart) mutlichannel commerce!

Perhaps the two margaritas I've just knocked back have loosened my fingers on the keyboard too much, for I'm about to confess one of my favorite pop culture products ...

The Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders: Making the Team II, now airing on CMT.

Part of my fascination stems from the quasi-religious self-abnegation and fervent adoration that the aspiring DCCs on this show exhibit. It's a unique subculture, and y'all know how I love examining the internal rules that define any group of people who identify with a specific type of membership.

So because I am taken with the whole Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders thing, I decided to learn more. Enter Deep in the Heart of Texas: Reflections of Former Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, by former DCCs Suzette, Stephanie and Sheri Scholz. Only thing is, this book is available used, and it's not in my library system.

Enter Amazon.com. I found the page for the book and noticed that the first seller was Blue Rectangle ... which happens to have recently opened a store in Alameda's little downtown. A quick phone call later and I was talking with someone at Blue Rectangle's warehouse; she got the book shipped over to me and I walked over to the store and paid a little less than I would have if I were to have had it shipped.

And then, I spent a delightful evening reading about how in the early 1980s, the cheerleaders dealt with the punishing schedule and crazy weight-control requirements by adopting an all-cocaine diet. Good times! And they were made entirely possible by a combination of online and offline commerce. Gosh, I love multichannel retail.

This whole Britney thing reminds me ...

.. that I don't find her or her antics nearly so interesting as I do the Disney and Nickelodeon star-making machines. The process for finding the children who will star in the shows that will bring Nickelodeon $800 million a year just in advertising dollars is rigorous.

Read "Tween on the Screen" (NYT, Apr 8, 07) for an idea of what being a child actor is like (Dan Schneider, a former child actor who is now Nickelodeon's J.J. Abrams, Josh Schwartz and Dick Wolf all rolled into one, recalls being treated "as a living prop"), and what makes for a successful kid show.

Then surf over to Entertainment Weekly. There were two good articles in the Jul 20, 07, issue: "The Making of a Kid Star" and "Where Are These Tween Stars Now?" The underlying message in both seems to be that unless the kid's got a strong support system at home -- and the natural brains and maturity to understand that they're engaged in a professional marathon, not a sprint -- they're not likely to make an easy transition from the tightly-controlled tween factories at Disney and Nickelodeon.

Delightful contradictions

So New Yorker writer Rebecca Mead has a new book out, one that seems to have been inspired by her entertaining Apr 21, 03, article "You're Getting Married." I have not picked up the book yet but the NYT review seems to take a dim view of the Mead-backed idea that maybe, we lose our heads when we plan a wedding:

For her, the American wedding is an exercise in cheap sentiment and pricey self-indulgence, orchestrated by an industry that cunningly plays on the romantic delusions of the betrothed. She has the darkest possible view of its preparatory rituals: by flipping dreamily through Modern Bride and Martha Stewart Weddings, a bride is trying to create a new self “whose skin always glows with happiness, whose life is one of such grace that the fine china will always be in use.” Registering — for water glasses, an ice-cream maker, the usual tchotchkes — is an exercise in “licensed covetousness.” By her analysis, the betrothed throw themselves into wedding planning because they know married life will ultimately be a letdown. Au contraire, Rebecca — come over some night for homemade ice cream and see!

-- "One Perfect Day: the Selling of the American Wedding," NYT, May 13, 07

You all know how I feel about Martha Stewart Weddings, and I think we can all see the glittering claw that cut the tidy conclusion in that paragraph. So let's talk about how amusing it is that this big ol' book about the wedding industry has come out at the same time there's a big press push for Isaac Mizrahi's line of wedding dresses for Target.

A quick surf through the offerings: it's like the J. Crew bridal line for people who balk at dropping $300 on a wedding dress. And bearing in mind that you're looking at wedding dresses that are $150 precisely because they're mass-produced for a bargain customer, the user comments expressing outrage over craftsmanship and quality are head-scratching.

Mead's new book intrigues me because it seems to be part of the rapidly-growing nonfiction genre I like to think of as "Does Spending Money In Tacky Ways Come Naturally To You, Or Did The Big Bad Companies Make You Do It?" Is the wedding industry stocked with ripoffs? Sure. But how does that make it different from any industry that caters to the commercial aspects of a social milestone? I'd argue that some scrapbooking companies are also fleecing people with prefab kits for new babies or newly-minted graduates. And don't even get me started on the foolishness that swirls around funerals. Otherwise you'll be here all day reading my NASCAR coffin story.

As women delay marriage and the institution trends toward a partnership of equals, it seems like we've seen more emphasis on the bride as an out-of-control egomaniac. Tune in to a show on the Style network and she's a style-impaired sociopath. Planning and throwing a wedding is assumed to be a solely female venture -- the groom rarely comes in for grief over his tastes or spending decisions -- and popular media thinks of her as an entitled spendthrift. Clearly, all that autonomy has gone to her head. Reel her in!

Does anyone see a gap here between who these women are and how they're being depicted? I am beginning to suspect a little backlash here. I also suspect a little disappointment on the part of people who are under the impression that things like education and money should insulate you from the dread possibility that you'll pay four figures for a crinoline that Scarlett O'Hara would have rejected as too attention-getting. Then again, I am the type of person who thinks that yes, spending money in tacky ways does come naturally to some people. Sometimes, there's no blaming the companies for what the customers want.

Reruns running out of time?

Between my TiVo and iTunes Music Store, I ... really don't care whether or not it's sweeps or re-run season. So I am part of the problem: according to Variety's "TV Rerun Ratings Eroding," viewers like me are reducing the profitability of reruns because we just don't tune in. Variety nails the factors that have led to rerun ratings dropping to less than 60% of their original audience. They are:

• "Networks have abandoned repeat-friendly genres like comedies and non-serialized dramas."
• DVRs
• DVDs
• Serial abuse -- i.e. reruns are already used to plug holes in the prime time schedule.
• Year-round programming from different channels

For a look at how this will ultimately affect networks in a business sense, read this post from MediaPost's TV Watch.

As for me ... well, I had been hoping CBS would re-run How I Met Your Mother so I could see what all the fuss was about. But now ... I think I just may rent the DVDs instead. That way, I can control the pace of viewing, watch them in the order I please, and not have to bother with fast-forwarding through commercials.

You keep on keeping on, plucky AP&T!

Our local utility is also our Internet and cable service provider. I have never been so grateful to have an alternative to Comcast as I was when I read the Consumerist post "No Sopranos For You: Comcast Says Switch To Digital Or Lose HBO."

A few things to take away from that post:

1. There is no difference between the non-digital line-up and the digital line-up, so it appears that Philly-area customers will be paying at least $60 more per year for the privilege of ... keeping the same cable channels. Well played, Comcast!

2. Wow, those "kill your television" commenters are annoying. I take tremendous issue with the thesis that people who watch TV are somehow wasting their life in a way that people reading the Left Behind series or playing a MMORPG for hours every day are not. TV-watching is not as passive an experience as Macluhanesque types would have you believe; there's a lot of community action around the viewing.

3. What is really interesting: how the DVR has really altered the way we look at TV. A lot of commenters have said, "If it comes down to paying more or waiting until the DVDs are available on Netflix ... I'll wait." A lot have said, "I just download what I want to watch on iTunes." Users are moving away from appointment watching and toward on-demand viewing.

Oh, to be able to study the subscription rates around the Philadelphia area as this rolls out. I'd love to see if there's a corresponding shift to downloaded content or Netflix rentals or DVD sales.

A stronger stomach than I have

"Whatever It Takes: The Politics of the Man Behind '24,'" (New Yorker, Feb 19, 07) was an eye-popping look at the minds behind 24 and the unintended consequences of that show. Among the troubling anecdotes:

[U.S. Army Brigadier General Patrick Finnegan, the dean of the United States Military Academy at West Point] Finnegan and the others had come to voice their concern that the show’s central political premise—that the letter of American law must be sacrificed for the country’s security—was having a toxic effect. In their view, the show promoted unethical and illegal behavior and had adversely affected the training and performance of real American soldiers. “I’d like them to stop,” Finnegan said of the show’s producers. “They should do a show where torture backfires.”

[...]

Finnegan told the producers that “24,” by suggesting that the U.S. government perpetrates myriad forms of torture, hurts the country’s image internationally. Finnegan, who is a lawyer, has for a number of years taught a course on the laws of war to West Point seniors—cadets who would soon be commanders in the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan. He always tries, he said, to get his students to sort out not just what is legal but what is right. However, it had become increasingly hard to convince some cadets that America had to respect the rule of law and human rights, even when terrorists did not. One reason for the growing resistance, he suggested, was misperceptions spread by “24,” which was exceptionally popular with his students. As he told me, “The kids see it, and say, ‘If torture is wrong, what about “24”?’ ” He continued, “The disturbing thing is that although torture may cause Jack Bauer some angst, it is always the patriotic thing to do.”

It is more than a little disturbing to think that this country's leaders are turning to 24 -- a show in which a cougar once featured a prominent role -- as a factual resource on modern statecraft. For more insights on what this article says about the people who make 24 and the people who think it's ducky, read Peter Carlson's great column in today's WaPo, "Jack Bauer of '24,' The Interrogator's Marquee de Sade."

And to get a more accurate look at how U.S. citizens are using torture, apparently we would do well to check out Rory Kennedy's Ghosts of Abu Ghraib, airing Feb 22, 07, on HBO. New York's Feb 26, 07, review, "The Ad Hoc Behavorial Laboratory," shines another light on this dark and disturbing chapter in U.S. history.

75% of the way there

Three more holiday-themed TV movies assessed for your viewing pleasure over at Teevee. We reveal -- to the surprise of nobody -- that we absolutely adore Dolly Parton and think she can do no wrong; she is the lotus that blooms out of the mud, pure and pristine and gleaming while everything else wallows in filth around her.

Fortunately for all of you who enjoy a merciless fragging, we also deliver one of those to another movie.

Don't forget you can also check out our parts I and II of this series.