Stuff!
Whenever I’m on a plane and see everyone (including me) scrambling to put carry-ons in the overhead, I think of George Carlin. In a famous comedy routine, he’s the one who said:
“Their stuff is shit; my shit is stuff.”
For a wonderful five minutes of Carlin explaining about “Stuff,” go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvgN5gCuLac. It was at Comic Relief 1986 when Carlin was 49.
.I Got Rhythms
I find that my circadian rhythms have changed as I’ve gotten older. Maybe it’s my biological clock. Lots of nights, I sleep a few hours, wake up and stay up for a while then go back to sleep for two or three hours. And I feel like I could use a nap around 4 o’clock. If I wait a few hours until I get home, I can have a successful nap…which frequently means that when I wake up, the ice has melted.
I’ve always been a “night-person,” but now, in the fourth quarter, dark-light/day-night seem to have melted into each other.
They Know When You’ve Been Bad or Good…
In fact, the streaming services know what you watched, where you saw it, what ads you didn’t skip through and they sell your usage data for big bucks.
Talking with first-generation digitals, they take it for granted that their every move online is tracked and used by someone. It’s just the world they live in. it’s the world we all live in too, much to the chagrin of those of us who grew up assuming we have a modicum of privacy. Well, we don’t.
Get over it.
Companies are constantly using data from what we watch. Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, was quoted in the New York Times last week:
It is a “digital daisy chain of data-gathering on viewers. Many streaming customers are unaware that the sitcom titles they prefer, the ads they do not skip, their email addresses and the serial numbers identifying the devices they use are being harvested and distributed. Others willingly opt in to, say, have a record of their recent cooking show binge, watched through Amazon Fire TV, transmitted to an advertiser that can then deliver a recipe book ad to their laptop or tablet.
But recent research suggests that even when viewers try to shield their information, it is sometimes tracked without their permission and shared with corporate giants like Facebook, Google and Netflix.
Roku is an extreme example. More than 3000 channels are now streaming there, but providing paid content isn’t their biggest moneymaker. It gets more revenue from ads and selling data than from sales of its streaming players. It sells information about its viewers so we can be sold more stuff more efficiently. And last week, Roku spent $150 million to buy Dataxu, a company that helps advertisers automate campaign placement online.
Similarly, AT&T’s advertising and analytics unit, Xandr, just bought Clypd, a platform that can send targeted ads to multiple devices in a single household. (Those names are branding gone wild.)
The Octopus Tentacles of Walt Disney
Disney+ is about to become a big dog in streaming. The ballyhooed service comes on board on November 12. It will cost $7/month on less than $6 if you buy it on an annual basis. That is comparable to Hulu.
Streaming services vary considerably in price. Options like Crackle are free and ad-supported; cable replacement services like PlayStation Vue can range up to $75 per month. Generally, services like Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Video cost between $8 and $12 per month. (Amazon Prime members get complimentary Amazon Video access). Looking to pay for just one network? Amazon Channels provides this option.
Disney+ has contracted with monster global ad agency Publicis and will be able to collect major consumer data.
In case you’ve lost track (as I had) here’s some of the videosphere that the Walt Disney Company owns these days and will be able to use on Disney+:
- Hulu
- 20th Century Fox
- 21st Century Fox
- FXX
- Fox Movie Channel
- Disney Channel
- Disney Junior
- ABC
- ABC News
- National Geographic
- A&E Networks
- The History Channel
As long as we’re looking at Disney, here’s the whole picture: The Walt Disney Studios includes Walt Disney Pictures, Walt Disney Animation Studios, Pixar, Marvel Studios, Lucasfilm, 20th Century Fox, Fox 2000 Pictures, Fox Searchlight Pictures, and Blue Sky Studios. Disney’s other main units and reporting segments are Disney Parks, Experiences and Products, and Walt Disney Direct-to-Consumer & International, publishing, merchandising, music, and theater divisions; and Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, a group of 14 theme parks around the world.
So what? So, $60 Billion annual revenues; $15 Billion in net operating income and over $100 Billion in assets in 2019. They got the media muscle to make or break just about anything. And they do.
While we’re counting huge numbers, here are the top ten countries with the highest GDP:
- United States (GDP: 21.41 trillion)
- China (GDP: 15.54 trillion)
- Japan (GDP: 5.36 trillion)
- Germany (GDP: 4.42 trillion)
- India (GDP: 3.16 trillion)
- France (GDP: 3.06 trillion)
- United Kingdom (GDP: 3.02 trillion)
- Italy (GDP: 2.26 trillion)
- Brazil (GDP: 2.26 trillion)
- Canada (GDP: 1.91 trillion)
Maybe someone should have shown this to the 45th President before he spent 1000 days messing with the international economic order.
The Stupidity Report
(from an online source I didn’t write down and could never find again)
Exciting Discovery Plan
The lead archaeologist on our 2015 expedition into the lost city in Honduras was Dr. Chris Fisher from Colorado State University. Many of you will remember him from my book, Chasing the Lost City in Honduras, and/or from Douglas Preston’s Lost City of the Monkey God.
Chris is a world-recognized expert on the use of LiDAR for archaeology. For several years, Chris has been pursuing an ambitious project to use LiDAR to scan the entire world. He’s calling it the Earth Archive project and the first scan is planned for one of the last undocumented regions, Chirbiquete National Park in Colombia, deep in the Amazon.
They plan to do it in January 2020. I find it absolutely fascinating, not just because a new lost city might be found, but because the project is an innovative discovery idea that can establish a baseline for archaeology, ecology, earth science, and preservation.
Chris did a terrific presentation at a Ted-X session. I want to help any way I can (short of going into another jungle!). When you hear Chris and read about the project might be interested in being part of it in some way also. It’s a nonprofit and can use financial assistance.
Poniewozik Nails Trump
I just read the new book Audience of One: Donald Trump, Television and the Fracturing of America by James Poniewozik, Chief Television Critic for the New York Times. I was hoping it would be the definitive book on the man and the medium. It’s definitely insightful and puts a twist on the television brain of the Donald, but there’s more to the story that I know our Media Burn book will uncover.
Here’s one of the best paragraphs from Audience of One, describing Trump’s 14-year network prime-time career on The Apprentice:
All the theatrical power of TV is invested in making one aging man look desirable, one skinflint look generous, one lucky rich boy look self-made, one checkered business career look flawless, one accumulation of set dressing look like reality.
Poniewozik sums up Trump and TV well. As far as I know, nobody has done it better… so far.
The Puzzle Answer
From my dad’s PY-O-MY Letter, 1957 (What day is it when the day after tomorrow’s yesterday, then “today,” will be as far from Wednesday as that day was which was “today” when the day before yesterday was tomorrow?)
I’m so sorry I started this Who’s-on-First thing. It baffled me and I guess it did you too. I got fewer replies than almost any puzzle I’ve included in the five+ years of my PY-O-MY editing tenure. Maybe it was too confusing. I had thought the answer was Wednesday, but nobody agreed and I’m insecure enough to want to call the whole thing off. Next time I’ll offer a prize.
What Ever Happened to PY-O-MY?
Wandering the Internet recently, as I do all the time, I came across this item for sale on the website of Gilster/Mary Lee:
PY-O-MY Coffee Cake Mix (twelve 13.25-oz. packages)
PY-O-MY Coffee Cake has been a favorite in kitchens across America and beyond for over 70 years! It is no wonder that people will look far and wide to purchase PY-O-My Coffee cake; it is easy to make, but tastes like you spent hours slaving over a hot oven! Coffee cake is a traditional treat that is delicious in the morning with your coffee. You can also eat it as an afternoon or evening snack. When company comes over, you can set out a plate and listen to what a great cook you are!
Go ahead… fill the air with a delicious, mouthwatering aroma of freshly baked PY-O-MY Coffee Cake!
And, Shhh…No-one has to know you didn’t make it from scratch!
PY-O-MY Coffee Cake Mix is packaged in 13.25-oz. boxes and comes in a case of twelve. (Available now for $29.50.)
Gilster is the flour miller that bought PY-O-MY mixes and the company’s private-label contracts with food chains less than a year after our dad died in 1967.
I went to their website and in the history section, found these two product images:
Needless to say, it brought back a few memories. My dad worked mostly at home in the office he built as an addition to our house, usually on the night shift. I was his “right-hand man” from the time I was 8 until 18. Those products were developed in those years and we test-tasted so many brownies, blueberry muffins and icebox pies (icebox pie?) that I swore off all of them until I was in my forties! For the record, Gilster has discontinued all PY-O-MY branded products other than coffee cake.
The Kids
I wonder if in 30-40 years my kids will be talking/writing about all the successful and not-so-successful TV and video business ideas THEIR dad did when they were young. Maybe it will skip a generation to Maggie, Charlie and their cousins, Oliver and Eliza. They’re all wonderful now. Maggie and Charlie live about half an hour away (if traffic cooperates) so I’m thrilled to be with them and savor the growth at least once every week.
As always, hope springs eternal with and because of this group. It’s a big part of what keeps us going. Here’s to a healthy November to you and yours.
-tom
PY-O-MY 
love it all Tom…keep up the great work!
“Thirty days have September, April, June and November… BUT only One day is to be remembered ! The first day of every month…….!!!!!!!”
Tom, I actually read what you write and get pretty worried, anxious, omg, etc. etc. etc. BECAUSE I try to ignore everything! You seem to handle all this change so well!! I hope I don’t stop reading your stuff though!!!