The missing links
Here's my free advice to CBS upon their hiring of Katie Couric as the anchor of the Evening News. If you're serious about making major changes to the traditional format, the first one should be eliminating the commercials. All of the executive hand-wringing seems to be over how to do anything different than what all the networks are doing now-- that is, cramming as much news into 20 minutes as possible. The audience, and by extension, the ad rates, are dwindling anyway. Why not load a full 30 minutes of news and features into each half-hour, and let America know you're the first network finally willing to commit to a news division devoted to public service on the publicly-owned airwaves and away from the profit-driven mindset that has robbed every news organization of much of its credibility and audience? The entire CBS network and news division would benefit from the public relations move, and they could make up the revenue from the boosted status of their prime-time news specials and magazine programs.---
Creationists, start your spinning...
---
Here is an article for all of you people who mooch off my HBO, and those of you waiting for that DVD release of the second season of Carnivale that may never come. I dedicate the link to all of you Home Box Office subscribers who keep your lips zipped about plot points so graciously and thanklessly so that others might eventually catch up.
---
The average ticket price for a Cardinals game this year is third in the league behind only the Red Sox and the Cubs. The average price of $29.78 is a dollar more than even a Yankees game. Major League Baseball needs to share evenly the local television money each of its teams receives, and the Cardinals need to stop taking their fans to the cleaners. Consider what the Cardinals have added financially over the last few years (courtesy of hardballtimes.com): another record-breaking season in ticket sales last year (3,500,000+,) an expectation of the same amount of customers this year at higher prices and with more luxury suites, a seat license program that netted $40 million this winter, a 20-year stadium-naming agreement on the new stadium with Anheuser-Busch (undisclosed terms, but estimated at about $40 million,) $42 million in tax breaks from the state of Missouri, an auction of old Busch Stadium memorabilia last fall that netted more than $6.5 million, a controlling interest in a new radio network (including full ownership of the flagship station,) money earned from appearing the playoffs five of the last six seasons, $23 million from MLB for their websites, the XM satellite radio deal, a new contract with ESPN, and the sale of the Washington Nationals, and a decreased revenue-sharing burden from an MLB deal with the Yankees that allows teams to deduct stadium building expenses from the common pool.
All of that, and still the Cardinals start 2006 with a $2 million reduction in player salaries. Last year's annual Forbes Magazine investigation into how much MLB teams are really worth (not what the teams' claim in their books) had the Cardinals franchise tag at $220 million more than what the club owners paid for it ten years ago, and that doesn't factor in a finished ballpark. Needless to say, I expect General Manager Walt Jocketty to be very busy at the trade deadline this summer. He's been the team's true MVP for a decade.
posted by CM @ 12:28 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home