Back with our third week of Stupefy from Highfield. Thank you for responding with your comments and thoughts so far, it's greatly appreciated. This newsletter is intended to help busy people navigate a chaotic media landscape. We're just getting started. Let's get to this week's news.
- Convenience-watching
People look at me like I'm crazy when I say I don't watch shows built for binge-watching. But with the news that FilmStruck, the classic film streaming service, is being shut down by WarnerMedia, we may all soon get to feel what it's like for convenience to be the sole reason the world is exposed to ideas. These shows are engineered specifically to be the easiest and most addicting way to deliver more of what you already know. Sound familiar? Phones have already become the new smoking. I wonder if binge-watching will become part of that backlash or if it's just too hard for the parents to resist and too easy to keep watching.
- The face of music-as-algorithm
Sony just made a big bet on this face to drive to big streaming numbers. With no music out and an association with Lil Pump, this kid Dominic Fike set off a bidding war among labels that ended up getting him a reported $10 million deal. If Post Malone nudged the sound of hip-hop one step closer to middle-of-the-road easy listening soft rock on his way to dominating streaming, then Dominic Fike looks like an attempt to kick the sound all the way while maintaining very obvious image-based signifiers of hip-hop to appeal to a generation for whom hip-hop is undoubtedly the beating heart of pop culture. Joe Coscarelli of the Times describes him as "Jack Johnson with face tattoos." The music is...not good. Hype plus face tattoos plus a sound so generic and bland it can wallpaper any Wal-Mart. This is our future, get used to it. There may be more Dominic Fikes.
- Inside Psy-Group
Pitch documents used by an Israeli intelligence firm called Psy-Group to win the Trump campaign business have leaked. And they are absolutely fascinating. If you like spycraft, technology, media, politics and science-fiction, please have a read through. Psy-Group, headed by ex-Israeli intelligence operatives, offers "campaign intelligence and influence." A dark mutation of market research, direct advertising and lobbying, Psy-Group uses social media to change the minds of specific influential people. In this case, they proposed to identify 5,000 delegates and other influential people who were either pro-Trump (a,k.a. "Lion") or pro-Ted Cruz (a.k.a. "Bear") in the lead-up to the 2016 Republican National Convention. Psy-Group proposed to then influence them through their "proprietary influence+ process...delivered through authentic or authentic-looking 3rd party platforms."Most fascinating for people like me are the project roadmap, staffing plans, costs and timing.
- Streaming eating legacy
Cheddar, the streaming network that is a millennial answer to CNBC, bought Rate My Professors from Viacom. Already positioned as the post-cable network for young people with their acquisition of MTVU earlier this year, adding Rate My Professors brings user-generated content thanks to an average of 6 million college-aged users rating 125,000 instructors a month. The MTVU-powered live network reaches over 9 million students already on 600 campuses. I have to admit I've never watched Cheddar. But how fast will legacy networks start getting eaten by streaming and over-the-top networks tailor-made for audiences who have never even bothered watching cable? "Rate My Professors coupled with our OTT networks and CheddarU network makes us the defining media company for a new generation that has no relationship with legacy cable news media,” says Cheddar CEO Joe Steinberg.
- Pivot to quality
Last week I mentioned the backlash to the infamous pivot-to-video trend media publishers may have been fraudulently led to believe was the future of their business. This week shows some media companies are making changes to stop chasing views. It could effect jobs and advertisers. Buried in news of Refinery29's layoffs is this nugget from Variety: "Refinery29, which targets a millennial female audience, is going to cut back on content 'with a short shelf life,' according to the execs."Refinery29, in laying off 10% of staff due to a revenue shortfall, is rolling back its investment in short-from eyeball-chasing content pumping video that soars on social and consolidating its ad sales team to focus on more high-quality sponsorships over adtech. From the founders: “'While this type of content has been driving views, it has not yielded a great monetization strategy to justify the same level of continued investment.' Von Borries and Stefano wrote that they see sustainable growth in 'premium, evergreen' programming, and plan to produce more video (both short- and long-form) on that front."
Links
Red Scare Leans Into Nothing—A podcast that offers a critique of feminism, and capitalism, from deep inside the culture they’ve spawned. Who Is Omar?—How the 24-year-old founder of @houseofhighlights flipped sports media on its head. Alessandro Michele, Fashion’s Modern Mastermind—In just three years, Gucci’s creative director has shifted the industry’s course, altering the way the world sees value, gender and even identity.