TV’s Biggest Chance And You Blew It, Jay
By Harry A. Jessell
TVNewsCheck, Jan 15 2010

Hey, Jay, put a lid on it.

You have nobody to blame but yourself for the mess you and NBC have made out of latenight TV.

Last September, the fourth most-watched channel in the 500-channel universe handed you five hours of primetime and gave you an unprecedented opportunity to reinvent broadcast television and cement your place in the TV firmament.

Instead, you opted to drag the Tonight Show format to 10 o’clock and pretend it was something new. You couldn’t think outside the box that Steve Allen constructed and Johnny Carson perfected.

Last April, when Ed Ansin at WHDH Boston was making a fuss, I defended you, urging affiliates to give you a chance. Surely, you would not disappoint. You would think of something fresh, something that would save NBC and lead millions of viewers to affiliates’ late newscasts.

You had options. How about a bona fide variety hour with acts from across the broad spectrum of American culture, high brow, middle brow and low? In our fragmented media world, you could have been Ed Sullivan, the guy who anoints America’s best in opera, dance and popular music by simply allowing them to appear on your stage.

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Interesting commentary from my buddy Harry Jessell, Editor and Co-Publisher of one of my favorite online publications  TVNewsCheck

TVNewsCheck – The Business of Broadcasting

JESSELL AT LARGE

Genachowski Hires A Broadcast TV Hitman

By Harry A. Jessell TVNewsCheck, Dec 11 2009

How serious is the FCC about stripping away broadcasters’ spectrum and giving it to wireless broadband operators?

So serious that it will heap all sorts of onerous regulations on broadcasting to speed its demise. Then, when all the stations are dark, the agency will walk in and take the spectrum. No fuss.

That’s crazy talk.

Maybe. Maybe not.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski just brought in Stuart Benjamin, a Duke law professor on sabbatical, as a “distinguished scholar in residence,” a role in which he will advise the chairman on spectrum and First Amendment issues.

In announcing the appointment, the FCC released a short bio, which said that Benjamin had clerked for former Supreme Court Associate Justice David Souter and worked as attorney-adviser at the Justice Department and as an associate with Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe. His BA and law degrees are from Yale. That’s all pretty impressive.

The bio also noted that he is co-author of Telecommunications Law and Policy and numerous law review articles.

Thanks to the Internet, it didn’t take long to dredge up some of the professor’s writings.

Get a load of this one: “Roasting the Pig to Burn Down the House: A Modest Proposal,” which Duke published last May.

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My buddy Harry Jessell has developed a great online publication with TVNewsday and I have been a fan for as long as I can remember.

Here is an interesting story I read earlier today I though you’d find of interest.

Obama Puts Squeeze on TV Industry
By Kim McAvoy
TVNEWSDAY, Dec 10 2008, 3:24 PM ET

The Obama crowd is not waiting for Inauguration Day to begin managing the FCC-regulated media.

At a meeting in Washington last Friday, Obama transition team officials demanded that broadcasters and cable operators establish or help fund call centers to handle the anticipated flood of complaints and questions in the wake of the analog cut-off on Feb. 17, 2009.

The transition officials, led by one-time National Cable & Telecommunications Association President Tom Wheeler, had invited representatives of the broadcast, cable and consumer electronics industries to the meeting to discuss what needs to be done to ensure a smooth and successful DTV transition.

According to industry sources, Wheeler, who heads the Obama review group looking at the FCC and other agencies, suggested that it makes sense for the various segments of the TV industry to pick up the tab for the call centers.

Broadcasters are the beneficiaries of billions of dollars worth of free spectrum and cable operators are gaining more subscribers because of the DTV transition, he said. He also noted that the consumer electronics industry is reaping billions of dollars from the sale of DTV products.

In addition to NCTA, Wheeler once headed the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association. Today, he is managing director of Core Capital Partners, a high-tech investment firm.

He was joined at the meeting by fellow transition members Larry Irving and Larry Strickling.

Irving is the former head of Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration and he serves on the transition’s Commerce Department review team.

Strickling comes from the Obama presidential campaign and was the FCC’s Common Carrier Bureau chief under former FCC Chairman Bill Kennard. His role on the transition is unclear, but his name has surfaced as a possible FCC chairman.

Sources say that Wheeler, Irving and Strickling ran the meeting.

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