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Junkie
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It's all a big sham put on the public. ABC knew a few people would get their panties in a bunch over it. ABC knew that the sensationalist media would fawn over the story for hours and hours. ABC knew that while the media ran with the story they'd be playing the clip over and over again. Viewers and listeners would hear "desperate housewives" and "Monday Night Football" (both of which are on ABC) over and over again. The negative publicity (if you can call it that) generates so much interest in the show that a lot of people will watch it this sunday. They might even tune in to watch MNF as well to see if they do something again. They generated millions of dollars in free advertising and nothing they did violates FCC standards. The FCC cannot fine them for this because nudity was never shown. Foul language was never used. Now they can apologize and say "it won't happen again" while they attempt to hide the dollar signs in their eyes and think "they bought it"
The owner of the Dallas Mavericks runs a blog. He made some excellent commentary on it, calling it an "apologevent." It's kind of long but it is an insightful opinion by someone "in the loop."
Another thing. I was watching ESPN news last night and that story got looped quite often. They showed the whole clip each time. Guess who owns ESPN? That's right, ABC. I think it was a well thought scheme and I applaud them for making a mockery out of the FCC and all the pissed off puritans.
http://www.blogmaverick.com/entry/1234000897020769/
Quote:
Ok newspapers, radio stations and shows, cable networks, any and all entertainment related news shows, listen up. Im with the PR department of the broadcast network. We all know that the FCC is getting persnickety (bet you havent used that word in a sentence recently), about nudity and language. Let us first say, we cant thank them enough.
The environment is perfect for both of us. We want as much media coverage of our programming as we can possibly get. You need things to cover. So here is the deal. From our end, we are going to create “Apologevents”.
An Apologevent is where we plan an event that we know we will have to apologize for. The Apologevent will be designed to entice all the “Im shocked by anything” viewers to call their local stations, their newspapers and of course Inside Edition, The Insider, etc to remind them of how inappropriate the Apologevent was and how shocked they are.
In exchange for the story we ask that TV outlets stick to the follow guidelines and schedules .
First, you are going to tease the Apologevent in promotions for your show. Then you will report that you got calls and emails about the Apologevent. If you have extra time to kill, you will have a poll about the Apologevent on your website and you will report the results. Then you will show the Apologevent.
Then you will ask some people on camera what they thought of it. Then you will show the Apologevent again. Of course, we will gladly make the participants available to comment on the Apologevent. Then you will end the coverage of the Apologevent by saying that our network has officially apologized for the Apologevent. We dont know how it happened, but we are looking into it. Then you will add that we are working hard to insure it doesnt happen again.
Then you will be required to do a followup story the next day. The story behind the Apologevent. We will provide you with whatever video and access that you need.
Then 5 days later, or the following Monday, whichever comes first, you will do the aftermath story. This one is completely up to you. If we can help with any of our other celebrities to comment on how it turned out to be no big deal, we are glad to.
Of course , we promise not to do this too often. Even we at the network cant get away with this more than 1x a quarter.
My goodness. Can we (and you “we’s know exactly who we are) get any more hypocritical ?
We create media standards that probably 1 pct of the population can actually live up to. I dont know anyone who has melted or exploded from saying or hearing a curse word. In my group of friends I know fewer who have never cursed or honestly think they will never curse again. Heck, I mean hell, even curse words from when I was a kid arent curse words on TV anymore. You can say Hell all you want. When i was a kid, it was H-E-Double Hockey Sticks or out comes the soap. Damn was very, very naughty and disrespectful. Not any more.
Whats even crazier and more hypocritical is that we can use a derivative of any curse word and not have a problem at all. Frickin’... Go for it. F’in. No F’in way.. No problem. You are full of Shinola. Let er rip. FUBAR…Make em figure out what it means. My fave is MOFO…Acronyms are a blast !
Of course you can also say “He used the F word” or “The S word slipped in an interview”. Its kind of a protected and accepted abbreviation. No one has to explain what either means to anyone over 10. Its ok to conjure about 250 ways to make someone think exactly what we want them to think without saying what the FCC and other watchdogs say we arent allowed to say ! Which leads to the very deep question:
If someone makes you think a curse word in your mind without physically saying a curse word, did either one of you curse ?
How long will it take for a college to come up with a class about that.
You can also conjure up almost naked images. Show a woman from behind. Her head and a naked back only. Hair down to cover the suit tied behind her neck. Untie the back so it hangs down. Slide over to give us a glimpse of her from the side. You know what happens next ? We all will pretend that she is naked.
We know she isnt . Doesnt matter. If you show a woman who is pretend naked at the wrong time on tv, it creates a firestorm. The media goes nuts. Thanks once again to the FCC. Isnt the FCC wonderful ? Everyone reports that a network showed a woman pretend naked when we were expecting to see football. We have an Apologevent. Just what networks love to drive publicity. Its a dream come true.
But what about all the kids that saw the woman pretend naked ? Of course they had no idea that this was so big a deal until we told them. Which made them all go on the internet and download pictures of the pretend naked scene.
Not understanding what the big deal was, they realized they have to share all of this with their friends. Kids love to talk about meaningless things their parents make a big deal over.
The kids have a problem. Their friends will consider them lame if they send pretend naked video., so they find a real naked image and combine it with the fake naked and now they are cool.
Why do we let the FCC be so hypocritical. Is there some secret National Association of Broadcasters lobby asking them to do it because they know the fines they pay or might pay are miniscule relative to the value of advertising, marketing and promotion they get from an Apologevent ?
Or is it that we as a nation like to think we are more sophisticated than say the Canadians. In Canada real naked on TV is ok. In Canada curse words on TV arent so bad. In the US, fake naked is bad, fake cursewords are ok.
What makes this funny is that as a country we LOVE the bizarreness of it all. We listen to Howard Stern to see just how he is going to get around all the restrictions on potty, flatulence and sexual humor. We listen and watch conservative commentators to see just how indignant they are going to pretend to be about the fake naked and curse words. Whats more fun then to listen to Bill O Reilly or Rush Limbaugh to hear how many different ways they can restate the unforgiveable cursewords using fake cursewors. laughing at the fact they are making us think of the curseword in our head.
How excited in anticipation do we get wondering what Jay Leno, David Letterman, Jimmy Kimmel, Conan OBrien, Carson Daly , The Craig Kilborn Show, Dennis Miller and John McEnroe will do every night to make fun of the fake naked or cursewords.
We tune into all the Tabloid shows like Inside Edition to crack up over how many times they show the fake naked and replay the cursewords, with beeps on the audio. We all know that beeped audio is ok because we can lipread the real curseword easily since we have heard the fake curseword version so many times in other reports. These shows are the best because they ask celebrities what they think about fake naked and cursewords, and we get to hear big time celebs use fake cursewords to replace the real cursewords.
Then we buy Star, People and US Magazines because we know one of them will have uncovered pictures of the fake naked that proves it was fake, or a picture of them uttering the cursewords, hopefully with a hand gesture to go with it. If we are really lucky, one of them has found a picture , unearthed by a close friend, of the first time the person used the curseword and the friend talking about how they were young , stupid and drunk at the time. If the magazine really hits the big time and happens to uncover a picture of when they were first fake naked, or heaven forbid real naked (but with the real parts blurred to make it fake naked) and not yet a celebrity, then the friend who unearthed the picture will comment about how they were young, stupid, drunk and also poor at the time.
Isnt this all fun !
Some celebs are really smart. They make themselves available for commentary about the fake naked or cursewords and then put out hints that they too might someday do fake naked or real cursewords. This alerts the media to follow them all the time , just in case they do fake naked or utter real cursewords at a time they can catch them on video.
This would mean the celeb has created an Apologevent and the whole cycle starts again to play out unless a bigger celebrity creates an Apologevent and bumps the lesser celeb from the airwaves
How much is an Apologevent of fake naked or cursewords worth ? A whole lot of marketing worth a whole lot of money
Thanks FCC. You are a wonderful marketing partner
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If you made it this far you should check out some other entrys on his blog. He has some great opinions on file sharing and attacks the RIAA.
Last edited by kutulu; 11-18-2004 at 11:02 AM..
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