The Wall Street Journal reports today on TV networks and studios currying favor with bloggers. Blogola, they call it. Back when I was a TV critic, I never went on the network junkets; I wanted to be just another member of the audience and not get starstruck; when I started Entertainment Weekly, in my brief reign, I wouldn’t allow TV critics to write features about the stars they criticized. But, Lord knows, times have changed. Critics matter less. Shows are smaller. Bloggers are, truly, just viewers and fans: real people. So who’s going to pass up a chance to hobnob with a star and take home some TV schwag? All this also indicates that mass TV continues to fade as even the networks realize they are selling to niches.
Speaking of shrinking TV, note that NBC — which last season essentially surrendered the 8 o’clock hour to reality junk rather than producing fictional and comedy TV — now continues to skulk:
NBC made it own schedule public yesterday, and it was, by its executive’s admission, a conservative lineup with only four new hours set for the fall. Kevin Reilly, the president of NBC Entertainment, said that adding more new series now was unwise because it is so difficult to market new shows in the fall.
Yes, you can only bribe so many bloggers and that takes you only so far.
This was kind of inevitable, but really won’t amount to much, I don’t think. It’s kind of like U.S. automakers, if THEY were to try courting bloggers. The proof is in the PRODUCT, not the PUBLICITY or the PROPOGANDA.
I can’t believe Reilly actually said that. Um….is there a BETTER time to try a new series than the fall lineup? Maybe, like, mid-summer…?
What he really should have said was: “…adding more new series now is unwise because it’s difficult to market new shows in the fall…particularly when they STINK…”
This is a brilliant strategy on the part of the networks utilizing it. For a fraction of what it costs to schmooze hardened TCA schnorrers, these companies can get starstruck bloggers to say anything they want about a given program. So what if the show sucks? If it does, it’s going away no matter how much the network spends. The key is the full cooperation of the blogger, who has in essence sold his/her credibility (if they ever had it to begin with) for a T shirt.
And BTW, don’t YOU produce “reality junk” yourself, as opposed to fictional and comedy TV? Please explain why there’s is junk and yours isn’t.
[...] Jarvis via BuzzMachine covered it with his own perspective as he started Entertainment [...]
What is the opposite of “blogola”? Bloggers who disdain a show, and write vindictive prose simply as revenge; what do we call *that* drivel? Or worse yet, are wined and dined by the show’s competitor to write it?
Payola, blogola’s namesake born in the 1950s, did not have a negative equivalent; how could you “negatively-promote†a record, would you “un-play†it? Blogging, however, lends itself as powerfully to negative forces as to positive ones.
Ergo, blogola could be as effective in killing a TV show as in promoting it. So, is there a term for that?
Thanks.
I think that the implication of the article and the impression I am getting from you “professional/old-school journalists” is that you assume that all fans and viewers are ignorant and pushovers should a network or studio deign to pay attention to us and frankly that’s very insulting on your part. There is as great a diversity of thought amongst fans (be they casual or rabid) as there is amongst old school mainstream media critics, maybe greater because there are certainly more, casual viewers, potential fans and fans who can blog out there than those of you who are getting a paycheck from a corporation. If you bothered to look in on the many forms of new media where fans and casual viewers discuss their enterainment options, you might be amazed at the depth of insight of some of their observations and what an indepenent-minded lot they can be.
I happen to know of certain old media critics who shall remain nameless in the film industry who the studios do court with junkets, ridiculous amounts of swag and fawning flattery in exchange for a positive review. The difference between them and the alleged blogger who is bought off is that these critics cost a lot more and perpetrate a greater fraud on a larger segment of the audience than a mere blogger who is lucky to get a few promotional crumbs from BigEntertainmentCorporation and a few dozen page hits.
Here’s my take-home point for you to consider…since when did you manistream journalists cease to be “real people” like the rest of us and do you even consider that that may be contributing to the ever dwindling number of you who can collect a paycheck for what a blogger can do for free?
Sorry, VDO, but my point is that you are getting used, cynically used. Nobody cares about what you say in your ad posts; nobody reads them. What they want is your links so you can influence Google and Technorati. They are buying your voice so a computer will hear you. I’m all for the new voice of the people — but i want to hear your real voice, not your prostituted voice, bought so it can fool a machine. That’s sad.
[...] Jeff Jarvis links to an article which shows that some bloggers do reap material rewards if they̵…So some bloggers receive attention from commercial interests. Not the worst thing – I’m glad someone is getting attention for something – but it does make one wonder whether some bloggers openly try to cultivate that attention. I don’t think they can be blamed for wanting an audience generally. I mean, I want that, and I don’t sit around thinking about being rich and famous, although I do joke about it. The reason for wanting an audience is perhaps more basic than wealth or honor – it’s really about getting certain ideas, or a certain way of conducting a conversation, out there. One can see that the repetitive character of our media and education comes from a passivity intrinsic to populism. Populism has a “live and let live” character in peacetime that is itself an extreme: in times of war or in times its timidity is challenged, a far uglier side which can be considered “fascist” comes about which is, of course, another extreme.In any case, I bring this up because if you wonder how it is that people can watch the news saying the same thing over and over, many times not even in different ways, or if you wonder why politicians’ talking points are the same, it’s because of that “live and let live” mentality – education requires work, one has to say “I don’t know this” and then make a real effort to know it. Identifying “this,” though, might mean one has to look beyond what one is presented. In a world where popular opinion is everything – the market is indeed democratic – to “look beyond” is not a simple task, and few of us can even conceive of where deeper questions would lie.The point is, wanting an audience can be something more than needing attention. It could be about saying “this is my world, and I want to make sure my views are well-represented before I go.”If that’s the case, a blogger may make money, but endorsements have to come wholly from his own experience. If he’s selling something to you, it’s more of a product recommendation from first-hand experience. He cannot exist as a salesman in any sense, although that will inevitably happen. People do have to go to conferences and meet others and we all get awestruck. And taking gifts and donations isn’t the worst thing. Openness is the cure-all in the case where one stands for something, but is human.But I suspect that what’s problematic about these bloggers – and I’m not condemning them, Jarvis I think has the situation exactly correct, they’re fans and it’s nice to see networks cater to someone – is that without a clear set of ideas or some sort of “rule” guiding them, they can endanger their voice and all of ours.If the only people who blogged were cheap viagara salesmen and people who needed my credit card number to help reclaim their fortune in a foreign country, then I might, being a good blogger who wrote solidly and thoughtfully, change the perception of blogging.I might also not achieve that, and be buried with a medium that was only as good as the majority of users.Look, generally speaking, I think one, as a blogger, has to be open but also has to be aware that one’s voice is oneself. It is possible to sell it away, and that sale happens not by getting stuff, but by not questioning oneself at all. It doesn’t look to me like it is possible, when moving from almost nothing to a heck-of-a-lot of something, to keep credibility because of one’s own lack of confidence.Aristotle has a virtue that Sachs terms “greatness of soul” – the question is whether one loves honor appropriately, and the greater the soul the more one can handle being fawned over, etc. It is a moral virtue that concerns the public wholly, and if this society weren’t wholly private, I would feel more comfortable with bloggers taking “bribes” and still being smart about it, since I would know that being schmoozed alone couldn’t affect someone.In my case, I don’t know how it would affect me, and I don’t trust myself, for I would probably worship the person who gave me a free DVD of anything. So I’m glad to not have the question come up at all. [...]
[...] myself of sleep* and to express my gratitude for living in Boulder. I do not practice any form of blogola here and none of the Boulder products I feature have paid me for the reviews. As if that [...]
[...] attempt to share a little bit of what I love about living in Boulder. I do not practice any form of blogola here and none of the Boulder products I feature have paid me for reviews…as if that [...]