tony of all media

New York, New Yorker Sweep Mag Award Noms

noreply@blogger.com (TONY OF ALL MEDIA) — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 22:40:00 +0000

On the heels of the Oscars comes the almost-as-glamorous National Magazine Awards (better known as the "Ellies"), and nominees were announced today by the American Society of Magazine Editors, with New York and The New Yorker garnering the most noms (with 10 each) followed by Nat Geo (with seven). Up for Magazine of the Year, which recognizes overall achievement in both print and digital media, are New York, The Atlantic, Fast Company, Glamour and Men's Health (for us, this is a toughie, but we'd have to narrow it down between New York and Men's Health). Design nominees are Esquire, GQ, Martha Stewart Living, New York and Wired (our vote: Esquire, which has really shaken up its design lately, with strikingly effective results). The General Excellence prize is broken down by circulation category, the largest being mags with more than 2 million circ; the nominees there are ESPN, Nat Geo, Real Simple, S.I. and (har-dee-har-har!) Time (our pick: Nat Geo). To keep this year's competition extra exciting, eight mags are first-ever nominees, and they are: Architect, The Boston Globe Magazine, The Boston Review, Food Network Magazine, Garden & Gun, Military History, Orion and Out. (Here's the full rundown of nominees, from ASME.) See you at Lincoln Center for all the festivity on April 22!

Facebook Does the Right Thing and Pulls Plug On More Than a Dozen Antigay Hate Groups

noreply@blogger.com (TONY OF ALL MEDIA) — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 04:51:00 +0000

Until today, you could, unbelievably, go on Facebook and join groups with sweet, warm-and-fuzzy names such as "I HATE GAYS" and "Kill All Gays" and "STOP AIDS!!!!! KILL GAYS AND NI*GERS!!!!!!!!!!" No more, after David Badash of the blog The New Civil Rights Movement complained to Facebook, which then, quite rightly, immediately yanked them and a dozen other despicable hate groups. So, attention all cretins, hillbillies, illiterates and other assorted goobers: even in this country, there are limits (though you might not have heard about it on the Fox News Channel) to "free speech" ... though, clearly, no restrictions on inbreeding, ignorance and strident stupidity.

Liz Cheney Is So Misinformed, So Screwy She May Just Make Sarah Palin Look Like Golda Meir

noreply@blogger.com (TONY OF ALL MEDIA) — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 00:47:00 +0000

When you're idiotic enough - as Liz Cheney, daughter of Dick, was - to label members of Obama's Justice Department the "Al Qaeda Seven," only to then get smacked down by a whole gaggle of your fellow Republicans, including Condi Rice and Kenneth Starr, then all we have to say is: please, please keep talking. NY magazine this week features an in-depth profile of the elder Cheney girl (the one who's married and not gay and, therefore, acceptable to the right), who is, in fact, being groomed by neocons as the Next Big Dick. Karl Rove is quoted as saying that Cheney "likely" will run for public office, either from Wyoming or Virginia. (Who knew everybody's favorite beautician Sarah Palin would turn out to be the sensible, palatable distaff right-winger?)

Nutjob Who 'Pulled a Kanye' During the Oscars? Someone Who Used to Work in Newsroom (Duh)

noreply@blogger.com (TONY OF ALL MEDIA) — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 15:32:00 +0000

Those watching the Oscars telecast Sunday night might recall have it seared into their memory that during Best Documentary Short director Roger Ross Williams's acceptance speech, he got ambushed by some crazy, redheaded broad whose mic was eventually cut off (but not fast enough). Who was that nut anyway? As Editor & Publisher is reporting, it was Elinor Burkett, a former Miami Herald features writer who'd been a producer on "Music by Prudence" but was removed from the project over creative control. (Or, maybe because she's a raving, hysterical loon?) You just knew it had to be somebody who'd worked in a newsroom, right? Sometimes, we think instead of recruiting from Columbia or Northwestern, these news orgs ought to just stand outside the patient-discharge door at Bellevue, or, in the case of some places we've worked, Betty Ford. (Check out the YouTube clip of the woman who will forever be known for "pulling a Kanye" at the Oscars. "Can you just let the WOMAN talk????" Doesn't she look like someone you'd just love to sit and have a cup of coffee with? Where's that hemlock?)

The Oscars, Even More Boring Than Jay Leno (Hell's a Block of Ice, as Bullock Beats Streep)

noreply@blogger.com (TONY OF ALL MEDIA) — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 14:44:00 +0000

In a year that saw perhaps the most exciting Super Bowl ever and a Winter Olympics by those boring old Canadians that had us transfixed by even curling, we were expecting something a bit more, well, thrilling from last night's big Oscars telecast, even considering it was a cinematic season in which that glorified Lifetime movie beloved by born-again cretins everywhere "The Blind Side" was nominated for (gulp) BEST PICTURE. By the time last night's singular surprise moment rolled around - the first woman, Kathryn Bigelow, winning Best Director for "The Hurt Locker," which also shut out the monster "Avatar" for Best Picture - it was 'round midnight and the Ambien had already begun to kick in. The typically serviceable hosts Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin were most certainly not in their best form, reading off a script that seemed slapped together the night before and that was barely worthy of the main stage of The Comedy Cellar. (Maybe Alec's well-publicized personal issues were at least in part to blame?) Neil Patrick Harris's Big Opening Number schtick is getting tiresome at this point (and we're a fan!). Tributes to just-croaked John Hughes and horror movies were ill-conceived. And while the staging was stunning with those dripping Swarovski crystals front and center at the Kodak Theater, the direction of the show was an unqualified mess, with the camera almost never "in the right place, delivering confusing angles and five-seconds-too-late cutaways," as Daniel Fienberg writes in his spot-on HitFix review this morning. The only thing the director did right: showing "The Hurt Locker" star Jeremy Renner in close-up. A LOT. Maybe it's a good thing all those Cablevision subscribers were blacked out, so they wouldn't be forced to endure these nearly four hours of the Chinese water torture of awards shows, plus Oprah Winfrey. (All that said, big ups to Bigelow and Mo'Nique for shattering those ceilings. And as for Best Actress Sandra Bullock? Well, let's just say it's times like these we wish we were a member of the Academy: so we could torch our membership card in protest.)

ABC Fades to Black in 3M Homes (on Eve of Oscars!) After Cablevision Squabble, Giving NY'ers One More Reason to Hate Jimmy Dolan

noreply@blogger.com (TONY OF ALL MEDIA) — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 05:39:00 +0000

We were shocked to see that ABC suits followed through on their threat to yank the net from 3 million New York area homes served by Cablevision at midnight Saturday because of (yet another) squabble between a broadcaster and a big cable operator over transmission fees. After all, Time Warner Cable and Fox worked out their differences this past New Year's Eve without anybody fading to black ... and as everybody knows, those are two damned nasty, stubborn media giants. Bottom line: everybody (seriously, every person on the planet) hates the cable companies with an unbridled fury. They are, after all, money-grubbing, price-gouging sleazeballs that seem to have learned everything they know about customer service from the U.S. Postal Service and everything about fair pricing from the usurious credit card companies. And everybody really hates Cablevision's toad prince Jimmy Dolan and everything he touches. ABC honcho Bob Iger cavalierly pulling his net's programming from millions of suburban homes in the country's biggest media market (on the eve of THE OSCARS, no less!) could be his riskiest move since betting (wrongly) that viewers would want to wake up to George Stephanopoulos every morning. But chances are, the consumer will direct his wrath at Cablevision, not at Iger and ABC. The consumer doesn't care anything about transmission fees: all he knows is, when he flips on Channel 7 and sees nothing but black, it's his cable provider's fault. TV viewers increasingly have options for how to see their favorite shows, be it via satellite, streaming video or through the phone company. Thus, quite obviously, the cable fat cats need the content providers a helluva lot more than the content providers need them. In short: you're toast, toad prince.

Somebody Forgot to Tell Graydon We're in a Depression: VF Oscar Party Bigger Than Ever

noreply@blogger.com (TONY OF ALL MEDIA) — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 01:05:00 +0000

No, just like you, we've never been invited either ... though the magazine's publicity people did send us a cap once with "VF Oscar Party" emblazoned across the front and "press" on the backside (perhaps it should've read: "I've written about VF for 20 years and all I got was this lousy cap"). Here, VF's most famous exer, Toby Young, takes to his blog to report that even in this Great Media Depression, when magazines are as thin as the plot line of "The Blind Side," VF's Hollywood issue (at a bulky 314 pages) and its famous Oscar shindig (hosting some 1,500 of Tinseltown's royalty, and Pam Anderson) are still hot. A couple of years back, we had lunch with Graydon Carter the very day his mag, for the first time ever, canceled its Oscar bash, due to the writers' strike. Lest anyone doubt how all-important this little soiree is to the P.T. Barnum of magazine editors, the guy truly looked as though a family member (or maybe Si Newhouse) had croaked. Now, his little wingding is bigger than ever. And on the subject of things that are bigger than ever ... we hope they ordered enough shrimp cocktail and mini quiches for Mo'Nique and Gabby Sidibe.

Hitchens Reveals Bisexuality (Real Revelation: That Man or Woman Would Sleep With Him)

noreply@blogger.com (TONY OF ALL MEDIA) — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 18:27:00 +0000

Why is it always people like Christopher Hitchens (or Rep. Eric Massa, or Sen. Larry Craig) who turn out to be curious about ... dabble in ... enthusiastically practice the love that dare not speak its name? Why is it never, say, Taylor Lautner, or Sen. Scott Brown, or Chris Jacobs from "The Insider"? We've always been a big fan of Hitchens's brain, his bravado and his considerable writing talent ... but c'mon, the guy has about as much sex appeal as Gerard Depardieu at the beach. (Those Vanity Fair images of Hitchens showering up in preparation for a makeover are still, sadly, seared into our memory after all these years.) Alas, as has been demonstrated time after time, love, as well as lust, are most definitely blind: how else could Norman Mailer have ever taken a lover?

Lawsuit Against 'Doctors' Show Finally Sheds a Light on Burning Issue of 'Pearly Penile Papules'

noreply@blogger.com (TONY OF ALL MEDIA) — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 15:38:00 +0000

It's been awhile since we all had a good frivolous lawsuit over penises to keep us distracted from real problems in the world like unemployment, earthquakes, killer whales and "The Real Housewives of New York City." (Did you happen to catch last night's season premiere on Bravo? A gaggle of clucking hens so offensive, so monstrous that for a minute we thought we were back at our old job.) We had to howl this morning when we came across this item on HuffPost about a 21-year-old man in Minnesota who's suing producers of the syndicated show "The Doctors" for allegedly "tricking" him into going on TV to have "pearly penile papules" removed from his unspeakables. He says he's been subject to "relentless embarrassment and harassment" ever since (well, duh). Our favorite line: he claims he was "persuaded to sign release forms despite his hesitation" and "was rushed onto the show's set in front of a live audience." (The "at gunpoint" is only implied.) We gotta wonder: at what point in that lead-up did this dude possibly say to himself, "Hmm. Maybe it's not the best idea to go on national television to talk about ... pearly papules on my penis?? Why, I could very well be the subject of relentless embarrassment and harassment!!" (Next week on "The Doctors": Lady Gaga goes on to finally have that extra penis removed.)

Nat Geo, NY Lead Digital Ellie Noms; Mag Slag Tina Brown's Print Cronies Throw Her a Bone

noreply@blogger.com (TONY OF ALL MEDIA) — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 16:33:00 +0000

In recognition of the fact that digital media are killing their core business, the magazine establishment this year (wisely) introduces a digital iteration of its esteemed National Magazine Awards (better known as "Ellies," after Calder's somewhat hideous, elephant-inspired trophy). This morning, Sid Holt, CEO of the American Society of Magazine Editors (and our former boss, and a right standup dude), announced the finalists, and Nat Geo (with five noms), New York (four) and The Atlantic (three) lead the pack. Hashing it out for the top award, General Excellence in Digital Media, will be: Nat Geo, The Atlantic, Martha Stewart Living, Wired and New York. (Our pick: New York, which does hands-down the very best job online, both with its mothership nymag.com and assorted blogs including Grub Street and Daily Intel. Incidentally, we did a piece on NY's digital business for Ad Age last fall, when the mag named it Magazine Website of the Year.) And appreciating that magazine types just love a horse race, we went through and counted up which publishers dominated the noms; they were (drumroll) Conde Nast and Time Inc., with six each. The most interesting thing to come out of all this: while most of those up for Ellies are digital offshoots of print brands, five online-only titles are in the running for the first-ever Digi-Ellies (Epicurious, The Daily Beast, Slate, Tablet and the very catchy-sounding Yale Environment 360). Our question: when ASME decided to include non-print brands, what, exactly, did they determine constitutes an online "magazine" versus, say, an online "newspaper" (or for that matter, an online "pamphlet," "brochure," "flyer," "handbill" or "leaflet"?). Our point: anybody paying any attention knows that, whatever you want to label it, HuffPost (presumably considered an online "newspaper" by the ASME judges, in a category with the Times) whips The Daily Beast's hide on any and every level you'd care to name: content, design, traffic, engagement, buzz and execution of business plan (it actually has one; TDB does not). TDB, it seems to us, continues to be little more than a vanity project for Tina Brown and Barry Diller, and its being included in this contest alongside more deserving digital titles seems little more than smoke blowing by Tina's old print cronies. Yes, we know: shocking that the magazine world would be so political (just like all the other industries - movies, TV, book publishing, advertising - that hand out these self-fellating awards every year). And so, you may correctly ask: then why are we, and everybody else, writing about them?

Keith McNally Has Zero Clue Who Tori Spelling Is (If Only the Rest of Us Were That Fortunate)

noreply@blogger.com (TONY OF ALL MEDIA) — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 05:30:00 +0000

The buzz over New York's cover story on Murdoch this week overshadowed the magazine's fine feature on the restaurateur Keith McNally. McNally has, of course, created some of Manhattan's best-loved, most iconic grub joints, including Pastis, Balthazar, Lucky Strike and Odeon, and is opening yet another next week with Pulino's. We enjoy a good meal as much as the next guy, but have always found all the attention heaped on eateries and their cult-inspiring curators to be beyond pretentious ... and never has the hot-spot restaurant thing seemed more trite, more of another time and place than now, considering the crackup of the global economy (and, quite literally lately, the globe itself). But Benjamin Wallace's McNally profile is a diverting good time, sporting a few interesting revelations. For one: McNally's Minetta Tavern does not deliver, but it does deliver to one Anna Wintour. McNally (a longtime celebrity restaurateur, boasting many actual celebrities - media bigwigs, movie stars - as friends) is reported to "stare blankly" when told Tori Spelling is trying to secure a res for eight, having not a clue who this person is (duh, Keith: New York Times Best-Selling Authoress, that's all!). We were encouraged to learn that McNally also thinks all this foodie stuff is bullsh*t at times. About Danny Meyer's book "Setting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business," McNally comments: "I would rather be shipped off to Iraq than write or read a book like that," adding, "There's categorically no sillier or more pretentious title for a book. I'm just relieved Dostoyevsky didn't use the same title for 'Crime and Punishment.'" (Snap!) But most endearingly, McNally, despite his decades-long string of successes in the impossible world of New York restaurants, still thinks every place he opens will be a flop. He muses: "I think everything hangs by a thread, whether it's a relationship or one's business or one's health. That's the way it is, and I think it's not a bad thing to think that, and then maybe deal with it. Everything, everything hangs by a thread." Surely nobody knows that better right now than the hordes of old-media hands who've helped keep McNally cooking all these years.

Media Are Killing Children: 'Hannah Montana' Alone Said to Diminish IQ By At Least 50 Points

noreply@blogger.com (TONY OF ALL MEDIA) — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 16:37:00 +0000

A new study suggests that children and teens spend almost as much time (more than seven hours per day) using media as they do sleeping, which could be hazardous to their health. Overexposure to television, internet, mobile devices, social networking sites, videogames, movies and magazines has a propensity to make a child violent, obese, ADD prone, sexually active before his or her time, and an abuser of tobacco, alcohol and other drugs. On the upside, the report found that content promoting safe sex tended to encourage teens to follow suit. (If only Lynn Spears had been watching back in her day.)

Sufferin' Sappho! Lesbianic Scandals Abound!

noreply@blogger.com (TONY OF ALL MEDIA) — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 19:26:00 +0000

Nothing like a good old-fashioned lesbian sex scandal to take our minds off sundry natural disasters and crashing Toyotas and "We Are the World 2" and the fact that Rupert Murdoch doesn't look like he's going to die anytime soon. And today turns out to be an embarrassment of sapphic riches, with not one but two major news items about allegedly lady-lovin' ladies we love. First, the Daily News reports a rift between "Brady Bunch" stars Maureen McCormick and Eve Plumb (and the subsequent axing of a "Brady" reunion project) over Maureen's apparent suggestion the two experimented with scissor-sistering back in the day. (Is it just us, or has Plumb, like Tina Louise from "Gilligan's Island," always seemed to take herself way too seriously for a long-since-forgotten ex-sitcom star? Put us on Team Maureen.) And this just in ... despite her recent protests to the contrary on Andy Cohen's Bravo show, our very favorite "Real Housewife" Kim Zolciak (of "Tardy for the Party" fame) is head over hooker heels for DJ Tracy Young, says Towleroad, which has the picture that may prove it. Sam Ronson and Lindsay Lohan, eat your heart ( ... or something) out.

Another Reason to Always Wear Your Pajamas

noreply@blogger.com (TONY OF ALL MEDIA) — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 18:22:00 +0000

A-Coop May Be the New Katie Couric (Who'd Figure CBS Would Hire Another Girl Anchor?)

noreply@blogger.com (TONY OF ALL MEDIA) — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 15:32:00 +0000

This morning's Big Media LOL Moment: the Times reports that with the contract of TV news's equivalent of box office poison Katie Couric set to expire next year, CBS hopes to boost the ratings of its up-in-flames evening report by tapping none other than the only individual viewers have demonstrated they want to watch even less than Katie: Anderson Cooper. Rather like enlisting the head of Toyota to turn around General Motors.

What If You Spent $100K a Year on Coffee for WSJ Staff and STILL Produced a Piece of Sh*t?

noreply@blogger.com (TONY OF ALL MEDIA) — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 14:58:00 +0000

So, New York mag's much-anticipated cover story on Rupert Murdoch is out this morning, and we just took the time to plow through it over our Eggos (not to be confused with Murdoch, which would be Ego). Our estimation: a fascinating bit of inside baseball on the wretched News Corp. empire and that craggy, shriveled, septuagenarian Satan who runs it ... but like all such stories, reads as though it were written mostly for people who work in and write about media. (Does anyone outside the business - especially New Yorkers, who constitute most of the mag's readership - really care that much about the burning succession question the piece gets so bogged down in?) What will be interesting to New Yorkers is Murdoch's very clear intention to put his old enemy Pinch Sulzberger and the once-and-future-beloved Times out of their misery. Which, of course, is a fantasy of Murdoch's akin to his whipping Google into submission. The Times is in a bad way, no doubt about it ... due not only to the big Reset happening in regard to traditional media but also to the fact that the paper has for the last decade-plus been run by an indisputable idiot. (Having written about and toiled for any number of lobotomized media machers over the years - we did work at The Nielsen Co. after all - believe us when we say that few can hold a candle to Sulzberger when it comes to an almost strident stupidity.) Someone asked us recently if we could foresee the day when there is no New York Times: a patently ludicrous proposition. The Times is, of course, way too valuable (if greatly diminished) a media brand, and we can all rest assured that any number of charitable (and power-mad) fat cats with money to burn (Bloomberg, Geffen, maybe even Soros?) would snap it up given the opportunity. So much has been written (including in this New York piece) about the Journal's fight-to-the-death battle with the Times on Murdoch's watch, particularly when it comes to its newly beefed-up local coverage. (A new metro section rolls out next month, having lined up Bloomingdale's and Bergdorf Goodman as charter advertisers.) Murdoch's investment here (which one source describes in New York as "a spear-thrust right at the Times") is, on its face, folly, clearly little more than an ego trip: have consumers of content ever cared less about local news at a time when global crises (the worldwide economic crash, assorted wars, nutso jihadists, our gasping ecosystem, various end-times cataclysms like earthquakes, tsunamis and the Kardashians) are what's got us rapt? Meanwhile, has the Journal's core constituency and editorial reason for being - Wall Street - ever been as impotent? The Journal, as anyone paying any attention knows, is a right-wing joke of a rag, and never more so than under Murdoch's crafty, sinister hand. (What can one say about a paper who put in charge of its political coverage a columnist who once wrote that Sarah Palin's "experience enables her to understand the concerns of most Americans"?) We're told by a source in the New York piece that when it comes to the Times battle, Murdoch will "be completely irrational about spending." (And that, according to the mag, includes an $80 million makeover of the Journal newsroom and a $100,000 annual coffee budget.) For those of us who have documented Murdoch's vain, injudicious little newspaper adventures over the years (particularly that charity known as the New York Post), won't it be fun to sit back and watch the Prince of Darkness flush a few more million down the toilet on that privy known as The Wall Street Journal? (Good thing Journal scribes will be so hopped-up on all that six-figure caffeine: super alert and on task to report their own demise.)

Toyota Owners Loyal to the Death (Literally!)

noreply@blogger.com (TONY OF ALL MEDIA) — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 13:37:00 +0000

Interesting piece in Ad Age this morning about the fierce effort afoot to firm up support among Toyota customers following its mass recall/alleged coverup/crisis-management nightmare. Despite the bleak headlines for the automaker, Toyota has sought to put the brakes on all the bad p.r. with a big social-media blitz (having even established something called the "social-media response room") ... though, naturally, it remains to be seen whether a Facebook campaign can ultimately keep those heretofore famously loyal Toyota owners staying put with a brand that's quickly becoming about as coveted as the Yugo. As Sally Hogshead asks: "How loyal will Toyota fans be once they receive a letter announcing: 'You are entitled to (x-dollars) from Toyota' " as part of a class-action lawsuit? In other words, especially in this Re/Depression, cash might turn out to be more persuasive than spin, "brand loyalty" be damned.

Listen Up, David Archuleta: You're No Fantasia

noreply@blogger.com (TONY OF ALL MEDIA) — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 22:17:00 +0000

(Hey, if they'll let Sarah Palin write a memoir ...) The Dish Rag has the scoop on the most anticipated literary achievement since Jenna Jameson's autobiography ... while it also poses the scorching question, ahead of her hosting gig on "SNL" tonight: "Did Jennifer Lopez's Catsuits Kill Her Career?" Nah, we're pretty sure it was just the bad music and bad acting.

Sally Quinn Loses Her WashPost Column, Then Claims She Didn't Want to Write It Anymore Anyway, Has Got MUCH Bigger Napkins to Fold

noreply@blogger.com (TONY OF ALL MEDIA) — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 19:19:00 +0000

Uh-huh ... and if you're gullible enough to buy that, then you may also be under the impression that Sally's frothy rise as a "journalist" at the WashPost and as DC's most famous party thrower (a lifetime of expertise on folding napkins properly, mixing the perfect gimlet and figuring out who to seat next to that gassy gasbag/war criminal Kissinger: score one for feminists everywhere!) had everything to do with her reportorial talents and nothing to do with the fact that she was boning Ben Bradlee. You may or may not have followed the big dustup tempest in a demitasse over the last few days involving Quinn using her column to drone on, in mind-numbing detail, about her war with DC bloggers over a family drama involving dueling weddings (oh brother). After the Post yanked her column, Quinn had the balls to tell Politico she was HAPPY to be sh*tcanned, that the column was never meant to be a permanent fixture, and that it "wasn't working" for her anyway ... all about as plausible as those disgraced politicians who suddenly retire to "spend more time with the family." Quinn's column getting dumped is not her first very public humiliation: you may recall her brief, disastrous run as a CBS anchorchick in the 70s. Here's a YouTube clip featuring her unintentionally hilarious on-air debut, in which it appears somebody slipped Rohypnol into her coffee cup and that Portuguese may, in fact, be her first language. (Can't imagine why she didn't become the Christiane Amanpour of her day.)

Is Il Mostro Murdoch Losing Grip on Empire?

noreply@blogger.com (TONY OF ALL MEDIA) — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 23:23:00 +0000

Well, seeing that he's about 102, he's gotta go someday, right? (Never mind that little pact with Satan.) A longish Gawker post this afternoon (but one well worth your time) breaks down how this despicable, power-mad little Aussie troll, despite big moneymakers for News Corp. like "Avatar," the Faux News Channel and that Sarah Palin book about makeup tips or something, has essentially let his bilious empire devolve into "turmoil, factionalism and infighting," threatening its global stranglehold on our media and entertainment and sapping Murdoch of his prized political influence. This, as New York mag next week also plans a big investigation into Murdoch's crumbling power. While there's no denying everybody's favorite right-wing fat cat has had a long, long string of good fortune thanks to his pandering to our uglier, basest, most taste-bereft instincts, we've always thought "the all-powerful Murdoch" was largely a hyped-up p.r. fantasy. For anybody bothering to keep score, Murdoch's had as many misses as hits. Yes, he owns The Wall Street Journal, that rare print brand that's figured out how to get readers to pay for its web content; but he also operates a money-bleeding rag in the New York Post, not to mention that digital dog MySpace. And while he may boast the incendiary, ratings-grabbing crapfest known as Faux News, he also owns that unmitigated disaster called the Faux Business Network, with its cast of some of the biggest bubble-headed idiots outside, say, New York's WABC/Channel 7 News and its national viewership of approximately 15. On the Fox broadcast network, meanwhile, the long-indomitable "American Idol" is at about 14 and three-quarters minutes now and counting (with Simon Cowell's swan song right around the corner), while "24" and "Glee" are also quickly losing their charm. And as for the movies, well, for every "Avatar," Murdoch's Tinseltown charges churn out a colossal stinker like "All About Steve," or "Bride Wars," or (shudder) "Amelia." (Come to think of it, we think the guy should go to the chair on the basis of "Amelia" and that Sarah Palin book alone.)

Griffin Plays Mean Lesbian Stereotype on 'SVU'

noreply@blogger.com (TONY OF ALL MEDIA) — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 22:02:00 +0000

Everybody's favorite fly in the ointment Kathy Griffin is at it again ... this time playing a wisecracking (duh), strident and mad-as-hell lesbian activist (read: stereotype) on "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit." (Here's a sneak peek.) Of course, Kathy's done such a masterful job playing herself over these years that seeing her in this dramatic, scripted role is a bit jarring (or maybe it's just the face work that made us jump?). Even though Kathy's an experienced actress (having appeared in "Suddenly Susan," "Pulp Fiction" and that Slim Shady video), she comes off as somewhat stiff here, we think. (Maybe she needs to work on her acting muscle as much as she has her actual muscles lately?) Nevertheless, we'll be watching next Wednesday ... if only to see Kath put the moves on an extremely uncomfortable-looking Mariska Hargitay in what could be that rare thing for an NBC series these days: an exciting, buzzworthy moment. Fans of Griffin's who checked out her fantastic memoir know that the two go way back, Kath having been Mariska's acting teacher in L.A. years ago, back when nobody knew who either was ... and having, as readers know, let her pupil fall FLAT ON HER ASS after a game of "trust" gone horribly wrong. (Let's hope they just stick to the script this time.)

On the 6 ... Feet Under: Jenny From the Block Dead, Buried and Forgotten, Defamer Declares (Plus, Add Harold Ford to Dearly Departed List)

noreply@blogger.com (TONY OF ALL MEDIA) — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 03:02:00 +0000

Seems old Fanny-Lookin-Like-Two-Pigs-Fightin-Under-a-Blanket, the woman who was once the "ennifer" in Bennifer and now better known as Mrs. Marc Anthony (and isn't that impressive), has been dropped like she's hot, right on that bodacious Bronx bootay, by her record company. This, on top of music sales that rival those of Kathie Lee Gifford ... plus, a couple of really embarrassing televised performances (that unfortunate tumble on the AMA's, that ridiculous New Year's Eve catsuit) ... and, as if all that weren't enough, her latest movie, on the heels of a string of cinematic stinkers, getting pushed back (and back ... and back ...). So, in recognition of this most remarkable profusion of failures, those sweet, sweet kids over at Defamer have proclaimed one Jennifer Lopez about as relevant as, well, Mr. Marc Anthony (or, now that we think of it, the "Ben" in Bennifer). At this point, we're pretty sure Selena has a better shot at a comeback. AND ON THE SUBJECT OF THINGS THAT ARE DEAD ... carpetbagging, tax-dodging, flip-flopping, spotlight-snatching, anti-gay, conservative-suck-up scumbag Harold Ford moved one step closer to total political oblivion in New York State tonight with a disastrous appearance at the LGBT Center in the Village, where he faced a justifiably hostile crowd of torch-wielding gays, as Towleroad is reporting. UPDATE: Ford says he won't go after Sen. Gillibrand's senate seat after all. Can't imagine what might've thrown cold water all over those ambitions.

Hell Freezes Over AGAIN: First the N.Y. Times, And Now WashPost Reports ... a PROFIT??

noreply@blogger.com (TONY OF ALL MEDIA) — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 01:44:00 +0000

We really thought we'd been staring at the computer screen far too long today after coming across this news that Washington Post Co.'s profits QUADRUPLED in Q4. This, days after the New York Times, of all places, said it netted a profit. What's the deal with all these gimpy old print brands suddenly raking it in? Well, you could save a few nickels and show a profit, too ... if, like the Times, you laid off all your experienced, "overpaid" staffers, replacing them with, say, a bunch of ragtag freelancers and green, minimum-wage twentysomethings who turn around and perform journalistic malpractice on your website. (The epidemic of junior, even entry-level hires being put in charge of news orgs' web content is an alarming - yet, in this economy, not so surprising - trend that's turned some old-media brands' digital extensions, the very assets they ought to be refining right now, into laughingstock, afterthought sidelines ... ones that are cheapening these brands and, we expect, hastening their demise.) But back to the quarterly results: the Post Co. (which has instituted the same "Chainsaw Massacre"-like slashing every other publisher has, by way of buyouts, merging operations and forcing wage apes to bring in their own Charmin) is also mightily, uniquely (and mercifully) aided by the fact that three-quarters of its revenue comes from sources other than print ... which is a damn good thing, since WashPost's ad revs tumbled another 9% in the quarter, while at-death's-door Newsweek was off (drumroll please) another 36%, definitely qualifying it for nonprofit status at this point. Even in this historic meltdown, it takes impressive, Magazine Publishers Hall of Fame-worthy talent indeed to destroy one of the best-known media brands ever.

With One Tweet, Conan Wrings Jay's Giant Jaw

noreply@blogger.com (TONY OF ALL MEDIA) — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 00:38:00 +0000

Score another one for Team Coco. Deposed late-night prince Conan O'Brien became a Twitterhead today ... and with just a single message snagged some 100,000 followers, more than three times that of Jay Leno, as blog ZAP2it is reporting. And even though much has been written over the last couple of days about the all-star lineup for Leno's return to "The Tonight Show" next week, we have our doubts, considering that show's once-devoted audience is now so scattered, Letterman's ascendent ratings and Coco's likely return to TV in the fall, that Jay will ever return to solid, longterm dominance in the daypart. (Yeah, we know, he'll likely kick ass at first ... but remember, "The Jay Leno Show" also got passable ratings in its first week.) All this has us thinking: wouldn't it be a hoot a year or so from now if NBC, when it discovers that "The Robyn Byrd Show" is drawing a bigger crowd than boring old has-been Leno, were to beg Conan to come back? Don't laugh: the way this circus has played out, anything is possible, Lord knows. And with Conan's nemesis, that dimwit/failure Jeff Zucker, no doubt relegated to the dustbin of network TV history by then (if there's a God) and if the price is right, who knows? Coco might just think about jumping back in the sack with that neutered old peacock after all.

Prejean the Sequel: Another Bimbo Beauty Queen From Cali Rails Against Gay Nuptials, Warns Buggers That They'll Be Put to Death

noreply@blogger.com (TONY OF ALL MEDIA) — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 01:27:00 +0000

Shocking that in this supposedly modern, liberal-minded nation, such Dark Ages views actually exist (and proudly so!) in the year 2010. But amazingly, yet another California beauty ugly queen has come out against gay marriage ... and what's more, this one's telling gays to heed the Bible's warning they will be put to death if they don't knock it off, as Towleroad is reporting. We have a lot to say about this one ... seriously, a lot. But as it's somewhat off-topic for our little media-centric gabfest, and because what we ended up having to say about this matter began to rival, well, the Bible for sheer word count, we were inspired to go and start a companion soapbox, Too Hot for T.O.A.M., where we can really go off on whatever we want, whenever the occasion warrants. A word of warning: for those of you who think we come off as somewhat, um, opinionated, or bombastic, or crusty on this blushing flower of a blog, you ain't seen nothing. (There goes that Supreme Court appointment we always dreamed of.) Enjoy.