Citizen Brand

A sign of the apocalypse

CBS Cancels The Guiding Light

April 1, 2009

-By Marc Berman

Veteran CBS daytime soap The Guiding Light, the longest running daytime drama in the history of television, will broadcast its final episode on Friday, Sept. 18, 2009.  

The serial debuted in a 15-minute format on NBC radio on Jan. 25, 1937 and moved to CBS (airing concurrently on broadcast and radio) beginning on June 30, 1952. The radio show ended in 1956, and The Guiding Light ultimately expanded to 30-minutes in 1967.

Ten years later it became a full daily hour.
 
“Guiding Light has achieved a piece of television history that will never be matched; it has crossed mediums, adapted its stories to decades of social change and woven its way through generations of audiences like no other," said Nancy Tellem, President, CBS Paramount Network Television Entertainment Group. "This daytime icon will always be an indelible part of CBS's history, with a legacy of innovation and reputation for quality and excellence at every step of the way.  While its presence will be missed, its contributions will always be celebrated and never be forgotten."
 
There is no word at present what CBS will fill the weekday hour with.

(Courtesy: Mediaweek)

Paul Newman

Let's take a break from the chaos that is our political scene this week and pay homage to an authentic American, Paul Newman.  Newman , one of the finest actors and humanitarians of any generation, died today at the age of 83.

If Paul Newman was in a movie, you knew it would be good.  And he kept it real for decade after decade performing a wide range of characters, each of them memorable in their own right.  He wasn't one of those actors who succeeded because he played the same character each movie.  He could play the good guy, the bad guy, the sentimental guy or the tough one.  Every one was believable.  And he made everyone else in the movie with him better.

If all he had accomplished in his life was his movie career, we would still be honoring him.  But he accomplished so much more.  He and his wife, Joanne Woodward, were married for 50 years plus.  Woodward is a fantastic actress in her own right.  He loved fast cars and was in racing for a time.  But I believe he would tell us his most important achievement was Newman's Own.  

The food company he started as "a lark" with a friend has turned into perhaps the greatest example of cause branding by a company ever.  100 percent of the proceeds from the more than 150 food items manufactured and sold by Newman's Own goes to charity.  100 percent.

Paul Newman may have died, but he left a legacy that will live forever through his movies and through his philanthropy.  Here's looking at you, kid.  Thanks.

It is time to get serious

The final act of the longest presidential campaign in the history of the United States has begun.

Our attention spans are being challenged.

Lipstick, hockey moms, pit bulls and pigs.  Is this really what we want to determine who our next President will be?

Are we left to listen to 30 second ads that go beyond distortion?

I celebrate my 53rd birthday on September 12.

All I want for my birthday is for my fellow Americans to wake up and tell the candidates, their confidantes, the pundits and the media to give us two months of serious discourse on what we need to do solve the real challenges we face.

It is time to get serious. 

Jayhawk Journalists

I attended a great reception Wednesday night with the Kansas City area alumni of the University of Kansas Journalism School.  I was the official host since I secured the venue, but that is all I had to do as host.  The J-
school staff did the rest.

It was a great and diverse group of people of all ages who all had one very important thing in common - we are all "Jayhawk Journalists."  There were newspaper and magazine people in the room; television reporters and anchors; some of my fellow marketing and public relations pros as well as Dean Ann Brill and many of the J-School faculty.  Each of the faculty members took a little time to update us on their areas and what students are doing today.  A lot of great work being done across all areas of the school.

I also picked up a couple of new blogs to read and pass them on to you here.  Whitney Mathews is a 2006 grad from KU and is the web producer at Fox 4 News here in Kansas City.  She has a very active and fun blog at MyFoxKC.  Also, my good friend and associate dean at the J-School, David Guth, has ventured into the blogosphere with Snapping Turtle.  What David may lack in frequency, he will more than make up for in content.  I am looking forward to being a guest lecturer in David's fall class on elections.  A great year to talk politics for sure.

If you have read any good blogs lately and think I should be looking at them, please pass them on.

Horse Race Journalism

As the famous line goes - "We have seen the enemy and it is us."  We want to believe that we are paying attention to presidential candidates and their stands on issues so we can make informed and competent decisions in the voting booth.  But we can't help ourselves.  We get sucked into the "horse race."  Who is ahead in the Zogby Poll today; the New York Times poll tomorrow; and, the Nickelodeon/ESPN/O Magazine Poll due out tomorrow.....

As Super Duper Tuesday approaches, the latest national polling shows Barack Obama surging and closing the gap on Hillary Clinton.  It shows John McCain building a lead over Mitt Romney and it seems clear that Mike Huckabee is submarining Romney by splitting the "conservative" vote.

Polls are instructive.  They do give us a sense of where things stand at that moment in time.  But then we need a new poll right away to keep the buzz going....is Obama still surging?  Is McCain really starting to pull away from Romney or will the next poll tell us something different.

And so it goes.  The media serves as the drug dealer on the corner feeding the horse race frenzy.  Read this piece by Jay Rosen over at Pressthink to go a little deeper on this subject.  As you will see in Jay's piece, the media hasn't faired so well in their horse race predictions this year which has further contributed to this once or twice in a century electoral experience.  Of course the media's lack of success has also caused us no shortage of roller coaster rides as they attempt to fix their errors.  Jay points to one ray of sunshine in this exchange between Tom Brokaw and Chris Matthews on the night of the New Hampshire Primary:

"“BROKAW: You know what I think we’re going to have to do?

“MATTHEWS: Yes sir?

“BROKAW: Wait for the voters to make their judgment.

“MATTHEWS: Well what do we do then in the days before the ballot? We must stay home, I guess.”

Matthews was being the realist: Without who’s-going-to-win, “we” might as well stay home. Brokaw (now long retired as the face of the NBC brand) gave him an apt warning in response: “The people out there are going to begin to make judgments about us if we don’t begin to temper that temptation to constantly try to get ahead of what the voters are deciding.” But he was speaking as if the media had a mind and could shift course."

A novel concept indeed.....let the voters vote and then report on how they voted.

The nerve of those voters

All of us here at Citizen Brand - that would be me I guess - have to be willing to admit when we may have gotten ahead of ourselves.  But wait, I don't think we did.  Barack Obama still looks like the real thing from this vantage point.  So what exactly happened in New Hampshire the other night?

What happened was nothing more than what had been predicted to happen for a few weeks - Hillary Clinton would win New Hampshire and so likely would John McCain.  And that is exactly what happened when the voters spoke.  It is what happened between Iowa and New Hampshire among the media; the pollsters; the pundits; and the consultants that needs to be questioned. 

Think about it.  Two of the least ethnically diverse and not exactly wildly liberal states in the nation have said an African American or a woman should be President of the United States.  Forget the horse race the media foists on us every four years and focus on what has happened in the first two official contests of the 2008 Presidential election.  On the other side of the aisle, Republican voters have given the nod to a true evangelical and the straight talking, shoot from the hip, Vietnam POW.  Obama, Clinton, Huckabee and McCain are not the kind of candidates we are used to seeing in the race for the White House.

Lost in the shuffle right now are the two guys who we have been conditioned to seeing in the race - John Edwards and Mitt Romney.  Two white guys with good hair and good talking points.  Either one of these guys might make a good president.  But after seven years of the gang that can't shoot straight with us, the USA is ready for a big change.  And the differences on display for us with the Obama, Clinton, Huckabee and McCain variety hour have a little something for everyone.

Thus we have seen a different winner in every contest thus far.  (Wyoming GOP went for Romney by the way.)  Which brings us back to those pesky voters.  In 2008, I believe the more the media and the pollsters try to tell us what they think is going to happen, the less likely it is to happen.  If New Hampshire taught us anything, it may have taught us to wait for the votes to be counted and then see who the winners will be.

Voters are on to the exit pollsters.  After waiting 45 minutes to cast a secret ballot, the last thing any right thinking person should do is tell a complete stranger how they voted and why.  Let 2008 be the death of the exit polls.  Good riddance.

On to Nevada, South Carolina and 20 or so other states by February 5.  This is fun.  And it is important.

Whitlock on tour

Don Imus is off the air and Kansas City's Jason Whitlock seems to have taken his place.  He's everywhere but his message is a compelling one.

The Don Imus affair

Don Imus was wrong to say what he said.  The Rutger's womens basketball team is right to meet with him and start a conversation.  We need more of that around the issue of racism in America.  It still exists and we all know it.  We just don't want to talk about it.

As Michael Corleone said in "The Godfather" -- we are all part of the same hypocrisy.  Media pundit Jeff Greenfield hit the nail on the head when he appeared on The Don Imus Show on Tuesday morning.  Greenfield said he and everyone else who ever appeared on the Imus show never once stopped to say that perhaps the comedy on the program went over the edge.  Greenfield said his fellow pundits and the big time politicians love the Imus show because they have a chance to do long form interviews they can't do anywhere else.  Now, of course some of those same people are lashing out at Imus for what he said.

Regardless of our ethnicity, religion or any other label we can put on people, we all have been guilty of either making a bad comment about someone or sitting by quietly while others make comments.  That is the hypocrisy we all have to own up to.

There is another side to this whole incident.  And I will turn to Kansas City Star sports columnist Jason Whitlock to discuss it.  Please read this column.  It is worth the time.

Home Movies

Ken Burns is at it again.  The man who turned the historical documentary series into the original must see TV is going to do the same thing for our national parks that he did for the Civil War, Baseball and Jazz.  Kurt over at National Parks Traveler tells us all about it.

This series will have a special twist.  This series produced and directed by Burns and written and produced by Dayton Duncan is looking for help from all of us.  I will just borrow Kurt's description of what they want:

To help them tell this story, they would like to collect home movies of visits to National Parks by families and individuals for possible use in the film. They are looking for home movies from the time period of the 1920s through the 1980s and are most interested in footage of families and tourists in the parks.

    If your home movies are used in The National Parks, you will receive a DVD of the series. If you happen to have footage of the Yosemite firefall and it is included in the series, you will receive the DVD, plus your choice of one other Ken Burns film. If you have home movies you would like to submit, please follow the criteria listed below.
    * Home movies from the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s.
    * They are most interested in families and tourists in the national parks, not scenery without people.
    * Do not send original footage: VHS or DVD copies only, please. THE MATERIAL WILL NOT BE RETURNED.
    * Clearly mark the tape or disc with your name, address, phone number and e-mail (if available), so they can contact you if your footage is selected.
    * Include a brief description, e.g., the Smith family, George and Martha, Bill and Sally, in Grand Canyon, 1955.
    * Send to the address below by August 1, 2007:
    Anne Harrington
    WETA
    2775 S. Quincy Street
    Arlington, VA 22206

My family visited Rocky Mountain National Park almost every year when I was growing up.  I still go every year now.  And I have the proof in some home movies from the 1950's and 1960's.  Look for the Swenson clan when this series debuts in 2009.

    If your home movies are used in The National Parks, you will receive a DVD of the series. If you happen to have footage of the Yosemite firefall and it is included in the series, you will receive the DVD, plus your choice of one other Ken Burns film. If you have home movies you would like to submit, please follow the criteria listed below.
    * Home movies from the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s.
    * They are most interested in families and tourists in the national parks, not scenery without people.
    * Do not send original footage: VHS or DVD copies only, please. THE MATERIAL WILL NOT BE RETURNED.
    * Clearly mark the tape or disc with your name, address, phone number and e-mail (if available), so they can contact you if your footage is selected.
    * Include a brief description, e.g., the Smith family, George and Martha, Bill and Sally, in Grand Canyon, 1955.
    * Send to the address below by August 1, 2007:
    Anne Harrington
    WETA
    2775 S. Quincy Street
    Arlington, VA 22206

My family visited Rocky Mountain National Park almost every year when I was growing up.  I still go every year now.  And I have the proof in some home movies from the 1950's and 1960's.  Look for the Swenson clan when this series debuts in 2009.

A moment of silence

The next time you settle in to watch a little TV, you need to take a moment of silence before you use your television remote.  The co-inventor of the remote, Robert Adler, died this week.  Adler, along with his co-inventor, Eugene Polley, won an Emmy Award for creating the device that has made it possible for us to have hundreds of channels accessible to us on television.  Do you think for one minute cable and satellite television would be where it is today if we had to get up from our chairs and couches to change the channel 50 times a night?