Today's athlete is a media monster. http://buzzmanager.wordpress.com/2008/12/04/are-athletes-using-social-media-to-its-full-potential/ Whether they like it or not, big salaries in the entertainment business mean big time fame. That fame comes along with a lot of judgment also. We hold our athlete's in this country to the highest of standards. They're Gods as long as they win games and live the way we think they're supposed to live. As soon as they have a loss or don't live the life we as spectators expect, WATCH OUT! We'll turn on you in a heartbeat! This being known, athletes try to live up to our expectations and this takes marketing. They marry celebrities, land endorsements, do cameos, start apparel companies, have reality shows... anything to stay in the public eye. Sports managers are smart enough to know that the more famous the athletes, the better to negotiate a salary. Tiger Woods is an amazing athlete and more importantly a smart business man. Tiger understands golf in the public eye. He knows that in order to make big money in the sport he has to act accordingly. Golf is known as an older white conservative sport. Tiger is very good at working this angle considering. I believe he wasn't ready to do the family thing yet but may have made a business decision. Being the whole package would impress endorsement opportunities like Accenture and TAG. It made him the "All American Boy". But all good things must hiccup. He cheated.....a lot. This lost him a lot of endorsements and he'll have to boost his reputation to get them back. This is where a good publicist can make or break you. Athletes are no longer people, they are products as well and must take close care not to harm their image.

Lamar Odom is another fine example of the "New Athlete". He wasn't even a starter for the Lakers until Anthony Bynum had that hip thing. But after meeting Khloe Kardashian he popped the question quickly. Was it love? Could be. He did however pop that same question to Taraji P. Hensen less than a year before following a short relationship. http://www.brandfreak.com/2010/03/lamar-odom-keeping-up-with-the-bryants-thanks-to-famous-wife.html I personally think that Lamar understands the endorsement money that comes with "fame by association". I don't knock folks for doing what they do. I'm simply stating that it's a harsh world out there for the new athlete and people do what they've gotta do.

Music Marketing Today

The music business today is a very competitive arena. Musicians starting out generally have to put in a lot of work just to get noticed. The days of getting discovered by an A&R while playing at your local pub are almost ancient history. Today's artist has to self promote using a plethora of mediums and gain a following on their own in most cases just to be looked at by a record company. (Deadmau5 (in the pic) had a 1 year world tour before signing with a major label) With all of the money lost by the recording business from the digital revolution they have no money to waste on taking big risks on artists. You have to prove yourself marketable first. Many artist have smartened up and realized that if they're going to do all of the due diligence to get signed they might as well sign themselves and not give up 85% of their profits. Many artists today start their own labels and/or do limited partnerships with larger labels. http://www.musicbizacademy.com/articles/cs_survival.htm Doing this allows an artist to keep more of their money and royalties while also having the backing power of a larger label to get them into better venues. Once recognized many artists are also becoming multi talented entrepreneurs starting clubs, restaurants, clothing companies, etc.

YouTube has also been monumental in getting new artists noticed. MTV, BET, and VH1 have found that reality television is a better profit engine and have almost dumped music videos all together. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/showtracker/2010/02/mtv-drops-music-television-from-its-logo.html YouTube fills this void at the present day. All of these differences in the music industry have companies scrambling to make changes that will keep their profits up. I personally like the way things are going today because it puts more money in the pockets of the talent and also makes it easier for the average person to get their music exposed. I believe that music is wonderful and that everyone should have an opportunity to share their art to the world.

Bill and Nancy

I spent some time watching a bit of news and stumbled upon a fantastic anchor by the name of Nancy Grace. I found myself immediately entertained by her keen ability to ask mind numbingly pointless questions to her guests. http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/crime/2010/03/19/ng.aruba.possible.skeleton.cnn This talent is surpassed only by her bossy southern mother speaking style and her show's true lack of organization. Her story topics tend to revolve around family tragedys and scandals. I feel that her show's audience is comprised of the same type of person that might reach for the National Enquirer at the local grocery store. She seems to report the news with more of a (this is my opinion) type of way although I wouldn't call it an opinion show. Another anchor I watched was Bill O'reilly. He is pretty conservative and admits just that. His show concentrates on political matters and he often has a variety of political guests as well as other guests who work for Fox. No issue on the show is presented in a balanced way and everything has a spin leaving me to question the whole "no spin zone" thing. Again, the show is rather entertaining to watch but you don't really ever get the whole story. He is known to yell a lot, cut of guests in mid sentence, and generally controls all conversations on the show. He doesn't really seem to side with any particular presidential candidates and is very good at making sure that in any situation he'll be able to talk about what was wrong with something. That's just good journalism appearantly. All in all I think that both of these anchors could take some cues from one Anderson Cooper if they plan on "reporting" news and if entertainment is the idea than let's leave it to Stewart and Cobert. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wgkha9o6_Y

The Reality Of It All

Have you ever really taken a look at reality television and wondered how much of it is actually reality? First we must define "reality". Reality, according to Merriam-Webster (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/reality) is the quality or state of being real. I suppose that you could say that this applies to everything then. In my opinion reality television is a partial reality. In most cases real people (as opposed to fake people) are dropped into an environment that has been pre-structured to encompass particular situations that will evoke almost predetermined responses from the participants. By being able to pre-qualify candidates for these shows and extensively interview and run psycho-analysis testing on them, they can already have determined a series of outcomes to different situations, thus making these shows almost as well planned and organized as your average sitcom with one distinct difference...CASH MONEY! (http://www.businessinsider.com/jersey-shore-stars-want-a-raise-mtv-should-give-it-to-them-2010-1) Jersey Shore stars are still finalizing negotiations to earn them upward of $10,000 per episode This is a punch in the face when you consider the advertising money brought into MTV by the show. Real TV stars would never accept this. Remember a little show called Seinfeld? Peep out the link to learn what a good salary in television looks like.(http://www.hollywood.com/news/EXTRA_Greedy_Friends_or_Justified_Friends/312238) Reality television has simply found a way to keep the masses busy watching a different type of nonsense while "The Man" (always wanted to say that) amasses great wealth all while influencing our decisions with product placement. I wish I'd have thought of it. As much as we all try to pretend that we are individuals that make decisions based on our own needs, many of us fail to realize that most of those decisions are skewed toward what others want us to need. All of these shows influence us making us do and act in certain ways. Media can be a very powerful thing, especially if people believe that the reality that they see on TV is real. At the end of the day though, it's a crazy and confusing world out there and at least there is a balance to all the chaos.

I gotta read the paper?

As a teenager and young man, I used to read the newspaper quite regularly whether it was to browse the want ads, buy a new car, look at houses or just see what the world was up to. I haven't done this for a very long time and I'm guessing that a lot of others have put up their papers too. With Internet today being by far the best and most up to date medium for information the newspaper is obsolete. I took a look at the Washington Post today to see how it fared when put up against the Internet. I found that although the news information wasn't quite "old", it did lack that "This Just In!" feeling that I get online by refreshing a page. The Post's front page is full of gripping headlines that may convince political aficionados to take a gander, but I am still unswayed to buy this paper dinosaur. My car is in the shop so I thought I'd check out the car ads to look for a deal and to my surprise there was less than half of a page. I can't justify buying it nowadays. In the past few years the price of the Washington Post has more than doubled which in a sense is needed to maintain profits but also has more people asking themselves if they are getting any value for their money. Washingtonpost.com will give you all of the same articles and up to the minute information for free! Why would I shell out 75 cents to a dollar for a paper that just ends up in my recycling bin when I can get the information literally included in my Internet bill? Newspapers need to focus on having an online presence as well as cellular phone applications if they plan on staying in business much longer. The paper will soon be dead unless they can get some bogus legislature passed. http://www.mttlrblog.org/2009/08/19/posners-idea-to-save-the-newspaper-industry-get-rid-of-the-internet/ At the end of the day, progress is about learning to adapt. There's a new generation coming and they don't read newspapers; they do use internet; and if news companies can't realize their profit potentials online they'll be replaced by companies that can.

Magazines at the checkout

As I look around the checkout at my local Safeway I see lots of things trying to lure me in. For me it's the chocolate and the millions of new types of gum that tempt me. Even though I know that the next new minty cooling gum is just peppermint with methyl salicylate or menthol to make my mouth feel cold, I still pick up a package for yet another disappointment. I know that for others temptation falls in the news section or as I call it "tabloid row". All of the headlines stare me in the face shouting unspeakable truths! OH NO! Bradgelina is breaking up and he's talking to Jen! OHHH! Snookie caught a beatdown! What? Tiger partyed in Vegas with strippers and got laid? Really? He is a pro athlete. Here's a pic I found of one of those girls riding him. And finally, The TERRORISTS are trying to destroy America and don't forget about the health care nightmare! I get it. It works, and well. Even though I don't care about any of these things (well...maybe the Tiger thing is worth peaking at) I find myself reaching out to open one up. To no surprise, I find myself slapped in the face with a barrage of articles, ads, pictures, and headlines! What do I learn from all of these things? Nothing important. It all tells me how to dress, who's got more money than whom, who is violating social norms, who got drunk, who did drugs, who to vote for, who cheated, who's in jail, etc. All of this really just adds up to one thing. Consciously or subconsciously all of this is simply telling me what to buy now and what I can expect to be buying later. That's it. All of these things are messages by one company or another setting our trends and telling us how to think so that they can sell us a product whether tangible or intangible. In the end I feel that it is really kind of sad but in this monetary world there seems to be only one way to get your voice heard and it involves money in one form or another. What I find funny about it all is that it is all just hearsay and gossip. Do we really know what is going on with Tiger, or Jay Leno (I'm with Coco), or Brad and Angie? I know I'm not them. None the less it is OK to make claims on magazines to millions and if it makes their life difficult...oh well...they're celebrities right? I have a hard time believing anything I see in news or on magazines these days. With 4 major corporations owning all major media outlets I have to believe that the news especially is skewed in favor of whomever will benefit that news source the most. That however is a much more in depth conversation. Back to the issue at hand. As I look at the pictures in these magazines I see women portrayed as fit little models of perfection and then criticized for it. I also see women that don't fit that perfect mold criticized for being overweight and then praised for it. Well....Which way are they supposed to be (fit in the mold or be independent and just live their lives)? http://www.tonawanda-news.com/opinion/local_story_321095159.html?keyword=topstory Everything in these periodicals seems to be trying to break up our image of ourselves so that we can spend our money building a new self esteem just to have it broken down in next months issue. As far as the actual news magazines go, I'll say this... I've seen our news here and seen the same stories covered in other parts of the world and we don't ever get the whole story. We all know it but I think we need to be reminded of it more often. As I listen to people gossip about what's going on in the country (based on what they read in the paper or saw on TV) I kind of laugh to myself and think, do you really believe that's what really happened? It very well may be but more often than not.... As far as magazines standing out though, I must say that the gossip mags are the most colorful and always have funny grabbing headlines. I only think that in the end we will probably be worse off if the masses rely on all of this entertainment as news and news as knowledge. I guess at least we'll always have music!