Team Conan

Jeromey Balderrama

There is so much crap going around about the Tonight Show wars between Conan O’Brien, Jay & NBC. Such good writers have weighed in on this, that I can’t really add much – but I do want to say this: I’m on Team Conan all the way. 

If there’s something I can’t stand, it’s poor performance being rewarded – and with that I don’t understand why NBC thinks how rewarding Jay Leno’s slumping ratings by moving him back into the Tonight Show is a good idea. This just goes to prove that the heads at NBC have no patience, react in nothing but knee-jerks, and are just heartless with the wrong people.

NBC set Conan up to fail from the beginning, by brining in another LA-based show (Leno’s) to compete for guest talent.  By giving an outlet to Leno fans in denial, NBC encouraged these people to stop watching the Tonight Show. I understand they didn’t want to risk Leno going across the street to ABC or Fox, but they could have set up Jay to do some relief pitching when the Tonight Show is in reruns with a similar comedy show, or even allow Jay to do some periodical specials (like the weeknight SNL’s). Instead they set up Conan for failure, then stab him in the back on his way out.

I’ve definitely been watching the coverage over the last few days and I did want to share a few gems from this week:

First you have to see Jimmy Kimmel appearing on Jay Leno’s show Thursday night. For Jimmy to say what he said to Jay’s face – I have the utmost respect for Kimmel and when I start boycotting Jay’s Tonight Show, I’m turning the channel to ABC now.

Check out this article from the New York Times in 1992, when Jay Leno had the same thing happen to him. If you changed the names from “Letterman” to “Leno” and “Leno” to “Conan” you’d swear this was written last week. This just goes to show what a hypocrite Leno is.

Of course you can’t miss Conan’s original statement from Tuesday, which is seriously the must classy punch-in-the-face one could give.

This is all Jeff Zucker’s fault, and Maureen Dowd of the New York Times does a prefect job explaining why.  How this debacle does not result in his firing is beyond me. Under Zucker’s leadership, this network has been run into the ground.  This goes back to them not having any patience, resulting in the cancellation of many great shows like Studio 60 and Journeyman that likely would have developed into worth successors of NBC’s drama cornerstones like West Wing and ER. Let’s be frank: how many Law & Orders can you gravy train off of?

And it wouldn’t be a pop-culture moment if you didn’t have a Downfall parody:

They don’t make videos like this anymore

Jeromey Balderrama

I came across the latest OK Go video, which made me miss the time when music videos had a great deal of creativity in them.  I don’t mean to sound dated, but you really don’t see the diverse thought and efforts in music videos (if they even show them anymore) as you see with OK Go.  If you remember, these were the guys that did the “Treadmill Video” (here it goes again) as well as some awesome choreography in “A Million Ways“.

All of these are worth a look.  It’s too bad that these are more rare these days.

Hate the BCS? Take out your frustrations on Twitter

Jeromey Balderrama

Social media tools are changing the way that we communicate and interact.  Unfortunately for a much-despised BCS (College Football Bowl Championship Series), it makes it all the more easy of playoff fans to take swipes at their enemy.

If you don’t follow college football, here summary: The BCS is a computer-based system that creates the official college football rankings based on a complex set of stats (# of wins, conference position, strength of schedule, etc).  The results are used to determine who will play in the national championship game.  The problem with this is that many times teams with 1 losses have been placed in the championship game, while undefeated teams get shut out.  This year is especially contentious, as there are 6 undefeated teams, but the BCS has pretty much come out and told TCU, Boise State and Cincinnati that they have no shot for the championship game.

With the success of March Madness in College Basketball, combined with the fact that Division 2 & 3 football have a playoff, it’s puzzling why College Football hasn’t adopted a playoff system. One of the popular playoff alternatives is "the Wetzel plan", which puts together a criteria for a 16-team playoff.

Earlier this week, I saw the story in Deadspin how the BCS has employed a new PR firm, whose first actions was to establish a Twitter and Facebook presence in this Social Web World.  This makes enough sense, but they’ve committed two serious errors in judgment: 1) Forgetting that they’re a controversial and much-despised, and would likely have more critics than fans; 2) Actually engaging their critics by baiting them into debate, without fully participating in the conversation.

Hilarity ensues: For the past few days, it’s been a fun game to do a search by the BCS’s username: @InsideTheBCS and see them make a straw man claim, then watch their critics go to town on them without any response.  Check it out below:

bcs

What’s been great is that the critics have actually been presenting good arguments.  There are a few personal attacks here and there, but for the most part the responses have been well-reasoned (for as much as you can be in 140 characters or less).  The problem is that @InsideTheBCS doesn’t really respond to any of the valid points, it pretty much continues to make their contentious, canned responses that they’re given phrased differently.  They do respond to some users, but mainly when they have the canned answer in their wheelhouse.

Let this be a social media lesson to brands/organizations, especially unpopular ones: Unless you’re willing to engage in an authentic conversation with your critics, then controversial groups should probably stay away from social media.  Having your PR Firm running this interference is only hurting you in the court of public opinion.  Worse yet, it’s banding your enemies together.  While I’ve always hated the BCS, I really didn’t care much about this issue until three days ago – when it became entertaining to have this conversation.  Something tells me that the people doing PR for the BCS are having a very lousy week.

EA’s Brass Stones

Jeromey Balderrama

I was playing Madden on my X-box the other day (but let’s face it, that’s all I ever do with my X-box from August to Christmas), when after choosing my play I saw the following on my pre-snap screen.

DSC00382

Wow EA, talk about ballsy.  Is it not enough that Madden is the most popular sports franchise of all time, and that suckers like me continue to shell out $60 each season for the equivalence of roster updates?  Now you’ve resorted to showing me ads on the game that I paid for that obstruct the game experience?  Thanks jerks!

Look, I’m fine with you inserting ads into the game where it’s realistically done so.  I’ve come to accept the “Sprint Recap”, and the “Snickers Chompion Coin Toss” for two reasons: 1) It doesn’t interfere with my actual game play; 2) Because this is done during regular NFL games and is a sad reflection of the level of sponsorship in the NFL.  The league is pretty bad when it comes to in-game ads, but I don’t see ads streaming across the jumbotron before the QB is going to snap the ball.

Seriously EA?  I understand you’re not a charity, but there has to be better ways to get revenue than this.  Quit killing your golden goose, or before you know it it’ll stop laying eggs.