Category: rePosts

If the experiment had work we would be calling him a genius, but it failed and now the mob wants to crucify him. But I am actually confused ,  there are I believe three groups that are out for Jeff Zucker’s head. The Conan fans or people who did not like the way Conan has been treated, and the local affiliates whose bottom line was affected by this move, the third are the people who mcuban is talking about. It seems to me that this third group is in the minority.

What Zucker and NBC did was the EXACT RIGHT MOVE.
Business environments change. When they do, as broadcast network television has, and continues to, there are two basic choices. You can do it the way it’s always been done, or you can challenge yourself to change the game.
In the case of NBC, Jeff Zucker chose to take a risk and move Jay Leno from late night television to primetime. The upside was HUGE. Rather than risking tens of millions of dollars each season on pilots that never make it on air, and then watching those that do get aired fail far more often than they succeed, Leno in primetime could change the economics of primetime TV dramatically for the better.
Leno’s show would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars per hour instead of 2mm, 3mm or more per hour. A game changer. It was equivalent to CBS putting a reality show in primetime. Survivor worked. It changed the economics and ratings landscape of TV forever. A successful Leno show would do the same thing,.
But what if Leno to primetime failed ? What was the downside ?
The downside was that NBC could go back to business as usual. They could cancel and move Leno, just as they have done. Then they could go back to the old school way of lots of pilots, build a primetime schedule, and then pray some of the shows work. Rinse and repeat.
Going forward they will program the 10pm slot. They will get some hits, some misses. It will be expensive, but in a few years they will find a hit and recapture the viewers they lost. Just as every network has done in response to a down period. In a few years the Leno experiment will be nothing more than a memory. A big so what.
Thats what happens when ideas fail. They fade into memory and hopefully something is learned.
But there is a bigger message in all of this.
What I have learned from watching all of this is that corporate America has been neutered. No one has any balls anymore.
I have a saying, “No Balls, No Babies”. It was told to me by a blackjack dealer when I asked if I should double down on an 11. The message was simple. If you dont take the risks, you dont get the rewards.
Well that used to be the case. Its not anymore.
via Why are we condemning Jeff Zucker & NBC over Leno ? « blog maverick.

Declaration of principles
Published on January 16, 2010 in News. 66 Comments
Paulo Coelho
1] All men are different. And should do everything possible to continue to be so.
2] Each human being has been granted two courses of action: that of deed and that of contemplation. Both lead to the same place.
3] Each human being has been granted two qualities: power and gift. Power drives man to meet his destiny, his gift obliges him to share with others that which is good in him. A man must know when to use his power, and when to use his gift.
via Declaration of principles « Paulo Coelho’s Blog.

Too bad. Because if the tech industry really wants China to change the way it does business, a unified front might have been more effective. If the big U.S. tech companies all elected to stop aiding and abetting the Chinese in their attempts to rewrite history as it happens — and tacitly condone attempts to steal our nation’s intellectual property, one of the few areas where we still lead the world — it would be that much harder for them to do it.
via Google’s China problem (and ours).