Twittersphere

Fire David Letterman v. Jumpstart His Ratings

Kenneth M. Kambara on June 18, 2009

Updated:: 18 June 2009 10:53 EDT

Overshadowed by rather serious events in Iran and subsequent stutter-steps by mainstream media in its coverage, David Letterman got into a dustup with Sarah Palin over allegedly tasteless jokes about her 14 year-old daughter, Willow.  The Huffington Post has a 1:43 compilation of the affair::

1"43"' Compilation of clips, including Bill O'Reilly fingerwagging.
1"43"' Compilation of clips, including Bill O'Reilly fingerwagging.

Dave went to great lengths to apologize and Sarah Palin accepted his apology on Tuesday.  Old news.  Now, one group is clamoring for Dave’s firing.  Just to be clear here, Dave is protected by the First Amendment’s right to free speech, but that doesn’t guarantee employment.  Ask Don Imus about how big media can frown on inappropriate humour. The FireDavidLetterman site announced that Olive Garden supposedly dropped its sponsorship of The Late Show::

fireletterm

In a Politico article, according to Sherri Bruen, the company’s guest relations manager::

“We apologize that Mr. Letterman’s mistake, which was not consistent with our standards and values, left you with a bad impression of Olive Garden.

but, this HotAir post finished the paragraph with this::

“There will be no more Olive Garden ads scheduled for The Late Show with David Letterman in this year’s broadcast schedule.

We have not yet finalized next year’s advertising plan but will consider our valued guests’ opinions when doing so.”

The context being that the contract was already allowed to expire and no ads were planned.  So, they caved to pressure.  Or, did they?  Apparently, the sources confirming the pulling of the ad sponsorship weren’t authorized to speak for the company and the NY Times reported there was no such decision.  The Politico article was updated and the title revised from this::

beltway2

to “Olive Garden Backtracks on David Letterman Ads.”  Well, as the story d/evolved, quel surprise, comments from the Twittersphere started to trickle in, some defending Olive Garden, some critical of the chain, and a handful advocating a boycott for allegedly pulling the ads {recent} and for sponsoring Dave {2+ days ago}::

og-tweets1

Olive Garden is in a tough PR spot.  If their online demos {Quantcast} are fairly similar to their customer base, their market trends towards being white, female, 18-49, with 0-2 kids, making under $60K, and with some college.  In other words, moderates.

Dave.  Well, he’s getting a bounce from all of this.  According to the NYTimes Media Decoder blog {16 June}::

“In preliminary national ratings, Mr. Letterman pulled in 700,000 more viewers than Mr. O’Brien Monday night, 3.9 million to 3.2 million, his biggest margin yet over his new competitor. Mr. Letterman routinely trailed the former ‘Tonight’ host Jay Leno by a million viewers or more.”

O’Brien still owns the coveted younger demos.

Update:: Video of Fire Letterman Protest from New York magazine

Twitterversion:: #newblogpost #Palin supporters want #DavidLetterman fired. Advertiser #OliveGarden flinches? Dave gets ratings boost. http://url.ie/1qzi  @Prof_K

Song:: Lolita – Throw Me The Statue

Video:: Directed by Matt Daniels

AmazonFail & the Twittersphere

Kenneth M. Kambara on April 13, 2009

 

 

 

Image Credit: Bill Thompson

This blog is cross-posted here.

Twitter was a hotbed of activity this weekend. There was the Mikeyy worm {See Tweets on the Mikeyy hashtag-#mikeyy} and now the word of AmazonFail is spreading & I’m sure attitudes are being formed. TemporaryVersion has an overview of the AmazonFail fiasco. From what I have been able to ascertain, Amazon created a policy of excluding “adult” content from some searches and best-seller lists. When queried on this by a director of an erotic writers association, Amazon Member Services offered up this response::   

In consideration of our entire customer base, we exclude “adult” material from appearing in some searches and best seller lists. Since these lists are generated using sales ranks, adult materials must also be excluded from that feature.Hence, if you have further questions, kindly write back to us.

Best regards,

Ashlyn D
Member Services
Amazon.com Advantage

One of the issues is the definition of “adult content.” Those familiar with the MPAA rating system for films in the US know how ratings are determined by power in the industry. If you’re an indie filmmaker with risqué content, well, good luck. You’ll get a judgment and you’ll have to live with it. If you have the backing of a major studio, no problem. The MPAA will negotiate with you on a scene-by-scene basis. There are serious implications for getting a more “restrictive” rating, since distribution deals often hinge on appealing to the widest possible audiences. A more restrictive rating almost guarantees lower box office revenues. See This Film Is Not Yet Rated for more on this. Here’s a long trailer::

The Amazon controversy is surrounding “gay” content being deemed as “adult.” One author documents his story and voices his concerns. Like with film in the US, media content on Amazon being deemed as adult content has the effect of limiting reach to potential customers. The core of the controversy is what are the criteria for being deemed “adult.” It doesn’t seem to be evident & I can’t make sense of it. DVDs are not affected and I’ve seen different editions of the same book treated differently. For example, Anaïs Nin’s Delta of Venus 2004 edition paperback isn’t ranked {presemably as it’s adult content}, but the original 1977 hardback is {Amazon.com Sales Rank: #156,857 in Books}, albeit only available used through private sellers. Amazon has stated that there in no new adult policy and the rankings issue is a glitch. Nevertheless, the the above quote makes it clear that Amazon reserves the right to categorize content as “adult,” as it sees fit.
Enter Web 2.0.
There’s interesting sleuthing going on. Jezebel.com has a AmazonFail section and is compiling a list of titles deemed adult & a pictorial comparison. The story wasn’t picked up by the press until Web 2.0 made it a story. I’m sure Amazon is scrambling on how to deal with this PR nightmare, as consumers are spreading negative word-of-mouth and urging boycotts. I’m quite interested in seeing how this story evolves.
If this is a glitch, I think that this really shows that Amazon needs to be more up-front and explicit about what “adult” means. If Amazon was trying to be content restrictive, will they fess-up, ignore the issue, or cover it up? Given how Web 2.0 spreads information and opinions, coverups and hoping things will blow over might be adding fuel to the fail.

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