SNL Finds Success, Again

Saturday Night Live has gotten rave reviews this political season doing what they have always done, with varying degrees of success, since the mid 1970's. Let's be honest, some seasons have been nothing short of painful. Thus far, this season has been a home run. The writing, the topicality, the guests, and the performances have been excellent. The Palin factor. And the buzz on the show? Off the map. Not to mention the huge live TV audiences and the even larger on-line audiences.

What the show tries to do every week closely resembles what entertainment based radio shows try to do every day--also with varying degrees of success. So much of a shows success starts with the prep and the writing. Typically, winging it is not the best path.

Last night on Charlie Rose (on PBS) SNL's Lorne Michaels, Seth Meyers, Darrell Hammond, Fred Armisen and writer James Downey appeared to talk about the process, the prep, the performance, and, yes, this season's success. Pull the curtain back and get a peek into their process.

2 Things...

First...I want to share with you an interview I watched last night on Charlie Rose. It's with Peter Chernin, COO of News Corp. He is a very bright person and has some very engaging and interesting things to say. He talks about the value of content and how important it is to have the creative people in important positions within a company. He goes on to say if the creative is right the money portion of the business will ultimately be good. He talks about the most expensive studio green-lighted movie of all time--Titanic and how it cost double by the time they were done. He talks about the TV shows the Simpsons and 24. He talks about technology platforms and distribution channels including My Space and hulu.com. Let me boil it down to this: beware of the accountants and content content content. Highly recommended.

Now, #2: In past posts in which I was recommending a piece of video I would have gone to Red Lasso and edited a clip of what I thought was the most important part of the piece. Then I would have simply linked to the entire piece for those who were interested and wanted more. As of a couple of weeks ago Red Lasso ceased their video clipping service for the blogs and the web. Oddly enough it was News Corp that was one of the companies behind the C&D. The disagreement comes down to who's going to control content--the originators or an aggregator like Red Lasso. This is a tricky situation. According to Red Lasso they are trying to come to some agreement with the providers so they can resume their service. Time will tell.

New Media...from a TV Exec's Perspecitve

Jeff Zucker of NBC Universal went on Charlie Rose earlier this week and discussed everything from digital platform profitability to fixing NBC Primetime to Conan taking over from Leno and lots more. Of course, TV is dealing with many of the same challenges as we are in the radio business; so it is interesting to watch and listen to his answers on how he is dealing with then.

Let me boil it down to 3 key words that I think best describe his central themes: time, talent, and change.

It's a long interview, but if you are a media junkie like me it was time well spent.