Is this more about content or format?
There is no appointment viewing, everything is on demand.
And edge sells.
But baby boomers inured to the old ways control media and they'd like you to believe otherwise.
Fallon loses on both counts, content and format. He's a man out of date. And no one will put us out of our collective misery. The problem isn't that he's still on TV, but the fact that we have to read about him, when he's irrelevant.
Talk to Kimmel and he'll tell you that late night shows are all about creating content for online.
And what sells online? Credibility, honesty, irreverence, novelty, the aforementioned edge.
But if you read the record charts you'd think otherwise.
Not only do we no longer live in a monoculture, that which is thought to be big is small and if you're following the crowd, you're headed towards irrelevance.
But creators don't want to hear this. Because this means there are no rules, that you're on your own. Everybody wants someone who can push a button, make them a star overnight, but that paradigm has evaporated.
The end comes suddenly. We heard for years that people were going to cut the cord. Younger generations never had the cord. Their laptop is their TV, and YouTube is equivalent to cable, never mind Netflix.
Zaslav had to write off billions because of the cratering of cable. And Paramount lost so much value, you'd think it was run by Edgar Bronfman, Jr. (However, Bronfman's sin was to look too far into the future as opposed to being stuck in the past. He bought Vivendi's castle of sand, which turned out to be air.)
Nothing is forever. But when disruption is right in front of our faces, people miss it.
When there's new hardware, like the iPod, people can understand that. But when it's a trend, when it doesn't bang someone over the head, people just see what is in front of them and miss the big trend.
Big trend number one. The customer is in control. And you only succeed by letting people consume on their terms. Streaming outlets may think they're winning by dripping out series episodes every week, but this is antithetical to the way the public wants to watch. Sure, there are oldsters, hanging 'round the water cooler, talking up the show, but youngsters want to work from home, and if you make it hard they'll just default to YouTube, never mind TikTok or Instagram. Max and Apple, et al, are not competing against Netflix, they're competing against YouTube and social media and they're unprepared for this battle.
What is the number one rule of social media influencing?
YOU'VE GOT TO POST CONSTANTLY!
There are too many diversions. Getting someone to come back is nearly impossible. You've got to hook them and keep them hooked. Which is why you need a steady stream of programming, and only Netflix has figured this concept out, even though it's hiding in plain sight. The problem with Apple is very simple, the outlet just doesn't have enough content. Maybe ten or fifteen years from now they'll have enough of a catalog, but right now it's a bad proposition, you just can't figure out why you'd lay out so much dough for such a consumer unfriendly platform. That's right, I'm not paying for a week to week show, and the truth is even after it's completed I usually never go back, because there are so many options.
Jimmy Fallon is a nice guy.
Let's be clear, no one is that nice a guy, it's an image, Jimmy is hiding his real self. But in a world where everybody strips back the layers to reveal their truth Jimmy is out of step. And he doesn't know how to do it differently.
The worst offender here is SNL, lauded by the boomer media, unwatched by younger generations.
SNL's problem is there are just not enough broad tropes to make fun of anymore. People just don't get the references. Meaning a show like SNL can't survive, or must retool. Maybe SNL gets ahead of the audience, goes niche, so that when you see a skit you don't understand you go online to research history. Kids do this all the time, they want to be clued in.
As for the power of late night TV... That ship sailed long ago.
So what have we got?
A brief, flaky monologue and lame celebrity interviews.
Only monologues with edge work. Which is why Jon Stewart is triumphant. He's lost not a step, in talent and consumption. As soon as the show plays on Monday night, there are posts all over social media. What Stewart says is important. Because Stewart doesn't get down into the pit with these people, he laughs at them. He can see the underside. He's saying what we all feel, not broad tropes.
And the aforementioned Kimmel stopped worrying about pissing people off and spoke his truth also. Today appealing to everybody is a fool's errand. No one can reach everybody, because everybody is too different, you go for a niche and grow it.
So they took the band from Seth Meyers... Eventually they'll take everything but the desk, and then they'll take that too. Hopefully, Meyers will wake up first and quit, like Trevor Noah. The future is uncharted and scary, but sticking with the past is death. Start recalibrating now, because it takes a while to figure out your act and for the audience to understand and spread the word on it.
Now there's an audience for train-wreck. It might even scale. But your career is over with the last stunt. Eyeballs are not everything. How do you get people attached to you as opposed to the penumbra?
Being the host is not enough. You must have an identity, that people want to follow forever.
You can't be afraid of offending people and you can't worry about being canceled. And even if you are canceled, chances are there's enough of an audience to sustain you, i.e. Louis C.K. C.K. does boffo business, the only difference is he's no longer the darling of the mainstream press, a press his audience doesn't read/pay attention to anyway. The masses are telling him not to come back the same way they're saying Morgan Wallen has to do penance, maybe remove himself from the action for a while. Yet Morgan sells out stadiums. But I constantly get e-mail from people deriding me for noticing this. You've got to buy the left wing ideal, the northern ideal, the elite ideal... This is shooting yourself in the foot. Just like the sixties, you've got to think for yourself.
That's right. Artists don't choose a side, they lead.
Furthermore, all the goals of yore have disappeared. What comedian would want a sitcom? Who is it who actually listens to terrestrial radio? No wonder it can't break a record.
But the people most dedicated to the old systems are those who are invested in it. There's a guy from a station in Kentucky who claps back every time I write about terrestrial radio. But no matter what he says, I still can't find anybody under twenty who listens.
You've got to be willing to change your spots.
And that's tough for people on both sides of the curtain.
The audience wants to belong to a team, but is this to their detriment, do they write off that which is fulfilling?
Everybody's afraid to change.
And it's those who have changed who lead.
But leading is scary. Because you don't know if people will follow you.
Today you're no longer propped up by the system. YouTube and TikTok don't need your wares to make their numbers. They're free platforms, but you're responsible for the content. And sure, TikTok may give you a boost, a leg up, but ultimately the audience accepts you or not. You can't force people to watch, and you can't force them to listen. I get e-mail from people who've made money from being on a Spotify playlist, but never another penny, and no one wants to see them live, because not enough listeners heard the track and wanted to go deeper.
And when you walk into the woods bring as much money as you can. Because it's going to take a long time before you can refill your wallet, if ever.
There is no insurance. The gatekeepers of yore and the edifices they work for have almost no power. You can be on HBO, that does not mean anybody is going to watch your show. Hell, HBO is just one of the many choices on MAX. Are potential fans going to dig that deep to find you?
Only if their friends tell them to. And friends are dying to tell friends about great, and there's very little great out there.
The whole concept of a TV network is passé.
First they came for the cable channels and then they came for the networks, and the pipe providers, the cable companies themselves, know it's all about providing broadband, TV is in the rearview mirror.
Imagine if Jimmy Fallon swore. Started talking sh*t about Lorne Michaels. Then I'd be interested. To see him dance and play...WHO CARES?
And if I want to know what a celebrity has to say, I'll listen to a podcast. Traditional hype is boring and doesn't work. You've got a new project and it's the best one you've ever been in/created and let me show you pictures of my kids and tell a funny story about falling on the red carpet. REALLY? And it's the same thing, for every appearance.
But actors have been screwed by the internet. Turns out they're two-dimensional vessels, they're anything but heroes, which is why they can no longer open a picture.
And songs written by committee? Give me one out of tune track written in fifteen minutes and cut in an hour. It's about capturing lightning in a bottle, but too often there's no storm in evidence.
The audience knows all of the above, they don't even think about it, it's in their DNA, they've left the past behind. It's just that those being paid big bucks don't want to give up their power, visibility and money.
Whereas with no net, it's those building it online who are interesting.
The consumer is happier than ever before. Unlimited choice of what you want when you want it.
The creator? Keeps bitching about the system. IT'S SPOTIFY'S FAULT!
No, that's wrong, IT'S YOUR FAULT! If people aren't listening, you don't get paid. You got paid in the past, but those days are history. Big record contracts for few people. Stop knocking at an invisible door. Walk through it, adjust to reality.
But too many can't handle it.
The bottom line is Jimmy Fallon is a man out of time appearing on a time-stamped format. Would you invest in that?
OF COURSE NOT! Whether it be your money or your time.
That's not what we're looking for.
We're looking for the new and different, the edge, that which we want to tell everybody about.
And sometimes it takes ten years for the flames you're blowing on to become a conflagration.
If you want a guarantee, go work for the man.
And if you're not new and different, you can work for 20,000 hours and still no one will care. It's that creative spark we're looking for. That je nais se quois. That's nearly impossible to find and create.
But that's what we're hunting for.
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