Tag: ratings

Big Trouble in Little Hollywood

Over the past year, the gap between Hollywood and its customers has widened to a degree that should send shivers down the spines of every entertainment exec.

The industry has routinely used a fairly reliable gauge to measure the size of this gap. It’s called profit.

Sadly, 2022 was a disaster for the once-golden city. Media companies saw the loss of half a trillion dollars in equity.

A town that for a century had been recognized as the entertainment capital of the world has seemingly been reduced to a shadow of its former self.

How could this have happened?

In my opinion, somewhere along the road a decision was made to have entertainment take a bow so that a one-sided agenda could take center stage.

“Especially this past year, ideology has become more important than art,” Quentin Tarantino recently told the host of HBO’s “Reel Time with Bill Maher.” “It’s like ideology trumps art. Ideology trumps individual effort. Ideology trumps good.”

From the youngest of age, our primal need makes itself known with the simplest of words: Tell me a story.

It’s universal. Human beings crave stories, ones with characters, plots, and themes that reflect life’s truths. This is how Hollywood initially came to be. And how it grew to be an industry like no other, all entwined within our minds, hearts and imaginations.

We were happy when Hollywood profited. It meant more entertainment fare would be forthcoming, maybe even greater than that already experienced.

It’s hard to believe the once-great ocean of entertainment that existed steadily devolved into a digital stream of woke stories.

Evidently, the public doesn’t have the appetite for what the industry has been serving up of late. There are definite consequences when audiences’ wishes are ignored.

Movie theater attendees are now a fraction of what they used to be. Despite the solid successes of Tom Cruise’s “Top Gun: Maverick” and James Cameron’s “Avatar: The Way of Water,” the 2022 multiplexes saw their audiences essentially cut in half, when compared to four years ago.

Of course, movie theater companies experienced record losses in their share prices. AMC’s value dropped almost 80 percent, and Cineworld, owner of Regal, headed for bankruptcy court.

Likely hampered by projects that were saturated with woke ideology, Disney experienced its worst yearly stock-drop since 1974. Disney is the largest, most influential and sole media company that is listed in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, and it saw its shares drop a whopping 44 percent? Unbelievable.

The board of directors suddenly terminated CEO Bob Chapek and brought back former CEO Bob Iger, ostensibly to rescue the Mouse House.

Warner Bros., Discovery and Lionsgate also saw their stock prices take a plunge of over 60 percent.

With regard to television, traditional broadcast and cable TV (aka linear television) saw a significant ratings dip. Similar to what happened earlier to the music business, Hollywood executives discovered that streaming media does not yet provide sufficient revenue to offset the losses incurred in linear television and theatrical film releases.

However, a bright spot appeared on an otherwise dismal media landscape. “Yellowstone,” which is a modern perspective on the classic Western, garnered a huge audience hungry for retro-drama. Consequently, the series is continuing to enjoy stellar ratings.

Another media company that actually saw its investment value rise is the sports entertainment powerhouse WWE, which ended 2022 with a gain of 38 percent. It could be that this increase has to do with the moral sensibilities of a huge segment of viewers that find the clear distinctions between heroes and villains quite appealing.

The studios spent money galore on streaming content in 2022, and the cash layout just never panned out. Executive chairman James Dolan of AMC Networks explained Hollywood’s quandary in a memo that he recently wrote.

“It was our belief that cord-cutting losses would be offset by gains in streaming. This has not been the case. We are primarily a content company and the mechanisms for the monetization of content are in disarray,” he stated.

The AMC executive pointed out a reality that most of Hollywood is facing in 2023 and warned of “a large-scale layoff as well as cuts to every operating area.”

Netflix was first out of the gate to layoff employees, following a substantial loss of subscribers. Other major entertainment companies have also announced or have already started their layoffs, hiring freezes, and/or cost-cutting measures, including Disney, Warner Brothers, Paramount and CBS.

Warner chief David Zaslav actually stunned the entertainment world last summer, when he decided to shelve and write off the costs of “Batgirl,” a funded and completed film that was in post-production and had been approved by previous leadership at the company.

At an investor conference in November of 2022, he noted that in the past few months, things had gotten “a lot worse.”

The road that Hollywood will take going forward is yet to be mapped.

With a hope and a prayer, it will be one where entertainment takes center stage once again.

How Jimmy Kimmel Became a Democrat Hack

A lot of folks have been wondering what’s up with Jimmy Kimmel. The late-night comic has become more and more vicious in his politics and extreme in his one-sided humor.

As a result, the ratings for his TV show have really taken a hit.

Here’s a theory about how Jimmy’s comedy got wrecked and how his once-popular program fell into a rating’s ditch.

James Christian Kimmel was raised a Catholic. In his youth, he was fervent enough in his faith to step forward and serve at Mass as an altar boy.

Now, both in his politics and joke delivery, he appears to back every left-wing narrative that the dominant media and reigning powers-that-be are pitching, including a load of Dem-devised policies antithetical to his own faith heritage.

As host and executive producer of “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” he has consistently been serving as sort of a polar opposite altar boy for the Democratic Party.

He recently admitted that using so much of his show to aim insults at former President Donald Trump had resulted in his audience being cut in half over the last several years.

He also revealed that ABC is less than pleased with the loss in ratings.

In an interview with the Naked Lunch podcast, he spoke about the shrinking number of viewers, telling hosts Phil Rosenthal and David Wild, “I [Kimmel] have lost half of my fan[base], maybe more than that.”

“Ten years ago, among Republicans, I was the most popular talk show host, at least according to the research that they did,” he said.

He also shared that the network had discussed the idea of easing up on the constant barrage of Trump barbs. But according to Jimmy, he responded to the ABC heads by offering to leave the show rather than moderate his attacks.

“If you want somebody else to host the show, that’s fine, that’s okay with me. I’m just not going to do it like that,” he apparently said. He also claimed that the network reluctantly conceded.

The truth is he has been a Republican basher for as long as he has been a late-night host. Most recently, he was featured in a nasty partisan campaign ad, where he attacked the Republican who is running for the U.S. Senate in the state of Nevada, Adam Laxalt.

A glance at Jimmy’s past provides insight into the possible rationale for his unwavering allegiance to radical left-wing political and cultural ideology.

Prior to becoming the woke host of “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” he was the unwoke co-host of Comedy Central’s “The Man Show.”

When “The Man Show” first debuted in 1999, he accurately referred to the program as “a joyous celebration of chauvinism.”

The show began with a MeToo-violating theme song that included accompanying footage of a male using a leaf blower to remove a woman’s dress.

The program also had a regular segment in which The Man on the Street, namely Jimmy, recruited female volunteers to participate in a supposed game called “Guess What’s in My Pants.”

“I’ve stuffed something in my pants,” Kimmel said, explaining that “you’re allowed to feel around on the outside…You’ll have 10 seconds to then guess what is in my pants.”

Other skits on the show degraded women through use of vulgar props, partial nudity, and highly suggestive language.

In a sketch that degraded African-American individuals, prior to taking to the stage Jimmy applied a dark shade of makeup to his face for a supposed comedy effect.

By committing the above cultural violations over the years, he has broken a whole host of woke rulebook provisions, many of which were memorialized on video.

Maybe he has been trying to do penance as it relates to his newfound woke religion. Or maybe his kowtowing to the left has been the means in which he has avoided the cancellation of his prized television show and reputation.

In any event, although things seemed to have worked for him up until now, the past has a funny way of catching up with a person.

Or in Jimmy’s case, maybe a not-so-funny way.

Culture Is Politics and Vice Versa

rs-143230-rectangle

Andrew Breitbart once famously said, “Politics is downstream from culture.”

What Andrew was conveying is the idea that changes manifested in the culture will likely produce parallel changes in politics.

I myself contend that the country has changed so dramatically, the culture is now inseparable from politics and politics is inseparable from the culture. In other words, culture is politics and politics is culture.

There is no place in which the culture has been kept sequestered from the political, and likewise there is no place in which the political has been kept at arm’s length from the culture. In a very real sense it has taken on an eerily seamless quality.

An additional aspect that has affected the political-cultural relationship is the social media. In its advent, social media literally took the nation by storm. People, though, were too busy living through an immersion experience for the records to fully realize the unprecedented phenomenon it truly was.

Then there is the whole notion of search engines. These are the vehicles that enable us to gain access to the storehouses of information contained on the internet.

We all know that the use of digital devices has exploded. To millions of people, it feels as though these mini-computers are extensions of our bodies. If denied them for any length of time, the psyche may operate as though a piece is somehow missing and experience digital deprivation anxiety in the process.

And so it is that we find ourselves racing headlong into a confluence of digital forces. How were we to know that the power to control digital life itself would ultimately be concentrated in the hands of a few select individuals who run the Big Tech companies?

This year COVID lockdowns and woke content altered the way in which Americans consumed their digital amusement. Some eye-opening ratings help to tell the tale.

Recently, The New York Times took a hiatus from attacking the president long enough to notice that a watershed moment was taking place in the viewing habits of a central medium of our age—television.

While under COVID house arrest, the prime-time viewing audience preferred to watch one network over all of the others. The network of choice was none other than the oft-maligned Fox News.

This constituted a major shift of the culture, so much so that even the Times felt compelled to report it.

It is not surprising that Fox News would be on top when compared to other cable news outlets such as CNN and MSNBC. Fox has dominated this space for 18 years running.

But for Fox News to become the preferred prime-time destination over the increasingly woke broadcast and cable entertainment offerings? This was unexpected and turned out to be downright scary for the left.

“In June and July, Fox News was the highest-rated television channel in the prime-time hours of 8 to 11 p.m. Not just on cable. Not just among news networks. All of television. The average live Fox News viewership in those hours outstripped cable rivals like CNN, MSNBC and ESPN, as well as the broadcast networks ABC, CBS and NBC, according to Nielsen,” the Times reported.

“That three-hour slot is a narrow but significant slice of TV real estate, and it is exceedingly rare for a basic-cable channel to outrank the Big Three broadcasters, which are available in more households and offer a wider variety of programming,” the Times added.

“Even the return of live sports did little to stop the momentum: The Fox News programs hosted by Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity drew more live viewers than competing baseball and basketball games, including a Yankees-Nationals matchup on Opening Day,” the Times said.

Fox News is a place where folks can uniquely experience a pushback against virtually all of the other media outlets. They also get treated to a healthy dose of American exceptionalism.

In the past, the formation of American culture, even when dominated by the left, was still occurring in a free market environment. This is what we know as the American model, the one that allows more innovation and creativity than any other governmental approach ever has.

But now we see signs that our nation is moving towards a new model, one that embraces authoritarianism and seeks to implement a political agenda.

It is an emerging totalitarian model in which elected leaders impose selective lockdowns and arbitrary mandates using public health as a pretext. A model in which the same elected leaders allow, facilitate, and even cheer on criminal, insurrectionist, and terrorist acts. A model that encourages the erasure of national history, heritage, and identity in order to fit a far-left narrative.

Most tragically, it is an emerging totalitarian model that looks more like the Chinese communist system of governance than anything previously associated with the United States of America.

‘Unplanned’ Is a Must-See for a Nation in Denial

unplannedmovie

Hollywood loves to rally around a cause, but only as long as the cause is solidly in line with its accepted left-wing ideology. One cause that definitely isn’t, is the advocating of the right of an unborn baby to live.

“Unplanned,” a daring new movie that pays no attention to Hollywood’s roster of no-go subjects, has been fighting a constant uphill battle as it forges its way toward release day. Along the treacherous road it has had to traverse, it has been blocked from using certain music in its soundtrack, banned by a Christian radio network, and unfairly rated by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA).

The movie boldly tells the true story of Abby Johnson, one of the youngest individuals in the country to ever have served as a Planned Parenthood clinic director.

After working at an abortion clinic for eight years and winning an “Employee of the Year” award, Abby had the enormously disturbing yet incredibly enlightening experience of having to assist with an ultrasound-guided abortion. What she witnessed was absolutely horrendous: a tiny baby inside the womb, who was in the struggle of his or her life, having to suffer through the gruesomeness of dismemberment.

Following the experience, Abby summoned up the courage necessary to leave her financially lucrative position and extensive employment stint. She walked away from the nation’s largest abortion provider and set out to launch a ministry that would help other former Planned Parenthood employees to transition out of abortion related work.

The writing and directing team of Chuck Konzelman and Cary Solomon, who also wrote the screenplay for the film “God’s Not Dead,” understood the challenge that the latest movie project faced.

The hostility issue was driven home through the difficulties experienced in a previous pro-life film, “Roe v. Wade,” including an incident in which a significant part of the cast and crew abruptly left the project after learning of the script’s content.

While the casting of “Unplanned” was taking place, potential cast members were alerted by the directors that involvement with the film might mean that future work in the entertainment industry may be in jeopardy as a result of the movie’s content.

The film was shot in secret in Stillwater, Oklahoma. While on the set, the cast and crew used the code name “Redeemed” in order to keep the project under wraps and hold close to the vest the fact that they were making a film with the same title as Johnson’s memoir.

All of those working on the project were instructed not to reveal the movie’s content to the press or in any other manner disclose it on the Internet or on social media.

As the producers sought licensing rights for songs that they felt might assist the mood of certain scenes in the movie, they received the cold shoulder from the music industry. The required licensing was denied for a number of tunes, including Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Want to Have Fun,” Oingo Boingo’s “Dead Man’s Party,” One Direction’s “Story of My Life,” The Fray’s “How to Save a Life,” and Trevor Rabin’s “The Guardian Suite.”

Additionally, the movie received some unexpected flack from a giant of the Christian world. K-Love is a Christian music radio network, which broadcasts on hundreds of stations in at least 47 states with markets that include New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. K-Love is also the sixth most online streamed station in the world. Essentially, the Christian music giant banned from its airwaves any promotion for “Unplanned.”

Abby was not at all happy with the network, expressing her displeasure in the following tweet: “Ever heard of the Christian radio station K-LOVE? Of course you have. They are huge, in just about every market. And, they are funded by their listeners. Well, here’s some news for you. K-LOVE has decided that they will not run any promos for my movie, Unplanned. So, a Christian radio network won’t advertise for a prolife movie. They have stated that they don’t want to promote anything ‘political.’”

In a wholly unfair and blatantly biased move, the MPAA informed the filmmakers that the organization planned to give the movie the “R” rating rather than a “PG-13” one, unless the visual depictions of abortion were edited out of the film.

It surely is not lost by anyone who pays attention to the movie ratings system that a “PG-13” rating, as opposed to “R” rating, is routinely handed out to films that include in their content profanity, gratuitous violence, and/or sexually explicit material.

Abby wrote an open letter to parents across America to make sure that they understood “Unplanned” is free from profanity or sexual content. In the letter, she describes a scene, which depicts what she saw on the ultrasound screen – images that transformed her life and redirected her path.

“You will see what I saw: a baby on an ultrasound screen in black and white 2D. You will see the abortion instrument, which looks like a big straw in real life and like a dark line on the ultrasound, introduced onto the screen. You will see the baby struggle against it. You will see the baby first slowly, then quickly disappear into the instrument as it does what it is designed to do,” Abby wrote.

A second scene that Abby cited as a reason for the “R” rating is one that she indicated was a re-creation of her experience with the abortion pill.

“I won’t lie to you; that scene shows some blood. In real life I hemorrhaged so badly I thought I was going to die. The movie captures that without being gratuitous or gory,” Abby wrote.

The MPAA has denied that it assigned the rating due to political bias. However, the group’s decision has resulted in a scenario in which a teenage girl can obtain an actual abortion without her parent’s permission, but the same teenage girl is not allowed admission into a theater, minus the supervision of an adult, to view a film that includes a scene that merely depicts the real life procedure.

The March 29 premiere of “Unplanned” is right around the corner.

In honor of all the babies who have had to endure the procedure that Abby witnessed and worse, let’s all go see “Unplanned,” and perhaps we can escort some teens and other youth who are secondary victims in this whole abortion tragedy.

Oscars Ratings Woes Continue

91st Annual Academy Awards, Show, Los Angeles, USA - 24 Feb 2019

This year’s Oscars should have been a win for Hollywood, but trouble still follows Hollywood’s once prestigious annual event.

According to preliminary figures, ratings for the 91st Academy Awards were up slightly. Unfortunately, it is not enough to assuage anxiety over the awards show’s downward trend.

The second host-less Academy Awards ended up having the second-smallest audience in Oscar history. Audience size for this year was 28 million, according to the calculations of The Hollywood Reporter. This figure is up about 6 percent over the disastrous Kimmel-hosted show’s preliminary ratings of the previous year. Viewer-ship size was based on a 20.1 rating/33 share in metered-market households.

In 2018 box-office revenues seemed to have ticked up, and a lot of folks who were watching this year’s show had actually seen three of the Best Picture nominees: “Black Panther,” “Bohemian Rhapsody,” and “A Star is Born.” “Panther” took in a haul of more than $700 million in domestic gross, and “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “A Star is Born” each earned over $200 million. The success of the cinematic trio should have been enough to garner a larger audience than had been seen in the past few years.

It has been downright gloomy for those following the trend in ratings for the Academy Awards show. The overall concern over whether the Oscars were losing their allure was palpable. Last year’s show, which was hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, fell double digits from the previous year, sinking to the lowest ratings level for the show ever.

Although the ratings of all awards shows have been on the decline, Disney-owned ABC had to have been alarmed when it learned that viewer-ship for the 2018 Oscar show had dropped 25 percent in the key 18 to 49 demographic.

This year the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences tried a number of different things to give the sagging ratings a jumpstart. It released a series of proposals, all of which received significant backlash with the end result being the same – a cave by the Academy at the first sign of pushback.

In late 2018, the Academy came up with an idea for a new category that would grant awards to “popular” films. The thinking was to try and include nominees and winners that movie fans simply adored, thereby creating more buzz and bringing in more viewers. The blowback by film artists of all types was fierce, and the Academy relented.

The Academy tried picking a popular host that might prove to be a ratings magnet. It reached out to the highest paid actor currently in the industry, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. However, The Rock’s shooting schedule got in the way so the pick was a no-go.

Oscar leadership then turned to another popular Hollywood figure, Kevin Hart. The attempt to secure the mega-successful comedic actor turned into a PR debacle for the Academy. Hart had a decade-old tweet history that came back to haunt him. Once again the leadership couldn’t handle the flack that it received. CEO Dawn Hudson reportedly telephoned Hart to ask him to apologize for his past Twitter posts. This infuriated Hart, and he ended up withdrawing from the hosting gig, leading to the decision to broadcast a host-less telecast for the first time since 1989.

Then there was the time issue. For years, ABC-Disney had been pleading with the Academy to shorten the length of the Oscar telecast. The Academy leadership came up with an arrangement to abbreviate the normally long-winded telecast by awarding four of the ceremony’s prizes during the commercial breaks and then craftily editing the award winners into a later show slot.

Although the Academy believed that consensus for the plan could be developed by showing representatives from various branches a video demonstration of the newly conceived format, a high profile rebellion caused the Academy to reverse itself. Major creative players in movies, which included Spike Lee, Martin Scorsese, and Quentin Tarantino, signed an open letter condemning the idea. A few short days later the Academy melted.

Producers of this year’s show were able to cut 35 minutes from the overall length, when compared to the previous year. This was done by eliminating montages and mid-telecast comedy. However, the telecast still ended up being about 3 hours and 20 minutes long.

A December 2018 Morning Consult/The Hollywood Reporter survey found that ABC and the Academy were correct in their attempt to shorten the Oscar telecast. Forty-eight percent of adults said the Oscars telecast was too long.

A close second in annoyance terms to the overly long airtime of the Oscar show is the political content that is being pushed by Hollywood celebrities. The poll indicates that 39 percent of adults are less likely to watch awards shows when celebrities express their political views, and the number rises to 59 percent when viewers self-identify as Republicans.

Reportedly, in addition to the perpetually failing effort to shorten the duration of acceptance speeches at the Oscars, the Academy and producers of the telecast were apparently working hard behind the scenes to convince presenters and recipients of the awards to leave their politics at home.

Well, it didn’t work. Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, and Maya Rudolph, the first group of presenters at the awards show, joked about the proposed “popular” film category, and apparently Rudolph could not restrain herself from tossing a political barb into her intro punch line.

“We are not your hosts,” Fey was quick to explain. Rudolph interrupted saying, “So just a quick update in case you’re confused. There is no host tonight, there will be no popular movie category and Mexico is not paying for the wall.”

Other presenters were quick to follow suit. While introducing the Best Foreign Language Film winner, actor Javier Bardem, who delivered his remarks in Spanish, took a veiled swipe at President Trump’s border security measures.

ABC translated Bardem’s speech in the following way: “There are no borders or walls that can restrain ingenuity or talent. In any region of any continent, there are always great stories that move us. And tonight, we celebrate the excellence and importance of the cultures and languages of different countries.”

Following Bardem’s comments, comedian Keegan Michael Key placed an open umbrella on the ground, imitating the president’s actions in 2018 prior to boarding Air Force One.

During his acceptance speech for Best Adapted Screenplay, director Spike Lee jumped into campaign mode in making a pitch for the 2020 presidential election, saying, “Let’s make the right choice, let’s be on the right side of history.”

“The 2020 election is right around the corner,” Lee said.

Tim Allen: Liberals Have a ‘Very Small Window of Sense of Humor’

tim-allen-networth

In a recent interview with IndieWire, film and television star Tim Allen reacted to the astounding success of his current TV sitcom “Last Man Standing.”

During the interview, the actor provided some insight into his approach to comedy writing and delivery, particularly his use of humor directed at left-of-center ideology.

“I think it’s funny to make fun of people that are full of themselves. Liberals have a very small window of sense of humor about themselves, so I love poking at it,” Allen said.

Allen brought up a current practice in which many liberals routinely engage; that is, the avoidance of rational debate via the mallet of identity politics.

“[R]ight now liberals, particularly progressives, hide behind large concepts,” Allen noted. “If you don’t agree with them, if you don’t agree with that position, then you hate women, and you hate gay people, and you hate pro-choice people…”

Revealing a bit about the motivation behind his style of humor, Allen said, “I like p***ing people off,” adding that “…there’s nothing, especially in this area, that p***es people off more than a very funny conservative.”

“A smart, funny conservative that takes shots and is certainly self-effacing. The left-wing point of view is so pervasive that they don’t even realize it’s a point of view,” Allen said.

Allen’s show is in its seventh season, having enjoyed six successful seasons, until ABC inexplicably canceled it and Fox brought it back. The Fox network picked up “Last Man Standing” and has been running away with it in the ratings. The actor has rightly questioned whether ABC chose to get rid of the successful sitcom because of Allen’s personal political positions, an explanation that is certainly within the realm of possibility.

“When we knew Tim was up for doing it, we jumped at the chance,” Fox Entertainment President Michael Thorn said. “He’s obviously a huge TV star, and we felt the show could resonate for our audience.”

Helping with the decision was the huge ratings success of the reboot “Roseanne.” It was certainly not lost on the Fox executives that both shows were family-oriented comedies, with lead characters that possess conservative political views.

Ironically, “Roseanne” was also canceled by ABC. And ABC Entertainment President Channing Dungey, who terminated sitcom star Roseanne Barr, is now on her way out amid ABC corporate parent Disney’s pending acquisition of 21st Century Fox and the planned reorganization of Disney television.

Adding to ABC’s headaches is the fact that the replacement series for “Roseanne,” “The Conners,” is tanking in the ratings. The network has committed to only one additional episode, sparking rumors that the show may be canceled. Additionally, it has been reported that two of the shows stars, John Goodman and Laurie Metcalf, have been asked to take a pay cut.

Meanwhile with “Last Man Standing” Fox is basking in the sunlight of sitcom success. The show’s Sept. 28 debut was Fox’s most-watched Friday telecast in 18 years, with a whopping 2.7 rating among adults 18-49 and 12.4 million multi-platform viewers. Fox has been at the top in the difficult Friday night lineup for six weeks, its longest streak in more than seven years.

“I certainly bumped into a number of people who had never seen the show when it was on ABC, that had found it in syndication. So I was hoping it would get maybe a little bit of boost. I did not expect that number,” Allen said.

Reportedly, Fox plans to place “WWE Smackdown” on Fridays next year, so “Last Man Standing” will likely move to a mid-week spot next season. Until then you can still catch it on Fridays at 8 p.m. on Fox.

In an age of cord cutting and streaming entertainment, Allen still sees advantages in traditional broadcasting. The actor loves the ability of traditional broadcast television to be capable of incorporating current events and issues into the programming. He refers to this attribute as “fresh television.”

“I think eventually, you come back to broadcast television,” Allen said. “This isn’t streaming. Streaming to me is processed food. You don’t know when that was made, you don’t know, there’s no expiration date on it. This stuff was made recently. You get ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, and to all of us on broadcast, we’re doing this right now. This is fresh television.”

The Business Toll of Taking a Knee

20140808_190852

A once great institution is literally in the process of destroying itself.

For the longest time the National Football League was the top drawing sport on television. Now it looks as though it is willingly abdicating its ratings throne.

In the season just prior to the current one, 34 of the top 40 televised sports games were NFL football match-ups. Come the fall of 2017, however, the NFL’s popularity took a severe hit and so, too, did the league’s bottom line.

Regarding the current season, TV ratings have declined almost 20 percent, while the television networks have reportedly lost as much as 500 million in advertising dollars.

When compared with the previous year’s numbers, ratings for Week 11 dropped 6.3 percent. And the traditional prime time Thanksgiving NFL game ratings were 10 percent lower than last year.

Millions of football fans have opted to change the channel on the TV set, cancel season tickets, and/or protest in countless other ways over the disrespect of the national anthem that has been shown by many.

The ratings downturn has been accompanied by surprisingly small stadium crowds across the country. In cities populated by die-hard sports fans, the highly unusual sight of empty seats has become commonplace.

In the sports crazed town of Chicago, a recent Bears home game played to a Soldier Field stadium in which over 16 percent of the seats were unoccupied, which meant that more than 10,000 tickets went unused.

The league’s all-important brand, which has been decades in the making, appears to have been severely marred in mere months. The NFL in large part has Colin Kaepernick to thank. The unemployed quarterback kicked off a wave of national anthem protests by football players across the league.

Last season, rather than standing during a performance of the national anthem, Kaepernick knelt down; this was in violation of the written policy of the NFL.

At a time when his career was on the wane and his playing days were coming to an end, Kaepernick managed to make himself more conspicuous than other professional football players by ignoring league policy and, more importantly, insulting the NFL’s primary consumers.

According to the league’s game operations manual, “The national anthem must be played before every NFL game, and all players must be on the sideline for the national anthem. During the national anthem, players on the field and bench area should stand at attention, face the flag, hold helmets in their left hand, and refrain from talking.”

Despite the fact that the manual’s language could not be any clearer, Kaepernick’s act of disrespect to the league and to the country was not only condoned by the media elites, among others, but it was praised.

In one of the most absurd accolades to come along in the history of publishing, as part of its “Men of the Year” edition, with the subtitle “The New American Heroes,” GQ Magazine honored the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback with its “Citizen of the Year” title.

It seems as though young athletes are the ones who have really been led astray by the heaping of praise upon the undignified behavior.

–Four high school football players in Michigan were preparing to take a knee but were benched before they could carry out their plans.

–Two Texas high school players were thrown off their team after protesting during the anthem.

–Child football players in Illinois, on a team made up of boys who were 8-years-old and younger, were joined by their coach in kneeling during the anthem.

–After football players at a New Jersey high school knelt during the anthem, two referees walked from the game in disgust. The referees were subsequently suspended for the remainder of the season while the players escaped reprimand or punishment.

Protests by professional football players have continued to harm the NFL’s bruised image. During Week 12 of the most recent season, which was played over this past weekend, Kansas City Chiefs cornerback Marcus Peters failed to come out of the locker room; Philadelphia Eagles safeties Malcolm Jenkins and Rodney McLeod raised their fists, as did Los Angeles Chargers left tackle Russell Okung; and Miami Dolphins wide receiver Kenny Stills, safety Michael Thomas, tight end Julius Thomas as well as New York Giants defensive end Olivier Vernon all knelt down while the anthem played.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has come under fire for allowing the protests to grow and continue. This is the same Goodell who is reportedly demanding a $50 million salary and private jet service for life as part of his new contract. He is currently paid $30 million a year.

Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, who used to be an ardent supporter of Goodell, is now leading an insurgency against the commissioner and has declared that he will sue the NFL if Goodell’s contract extension is finalized without the approval of all team owners.

Former University of Georgia, USFL, and NFL running back Herschel Walker has placed the blame for the NFL protests squarely on Goodell.

“I absolutely think the protests are so upsetting, and I blame the commissioner,” Walker told the New York Post. “I know people are going to be angry when I say it, but he should have stopped the protests at the very beginning.”