F%$#! I F%$#ing Agree With Tom F%$#ing Delay!

The longtime holder of the most unpleasant man in Congress title, at least until Ted Cruz was elected to the Senate, has mad a publicly stated that the FCC has no authority to roll back the regulations limiting local TV station ownership.

Well, I guess that it's a stopped clock thing.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Tom DeLay, the Texas Republican who was House majority leader from 2003 to 2005, said the Federal Communications Commission has no legal authority to repeal the National Television Ownership Rule. Despite DeLay’s warning, the Trump FCC appears ready to eliminate the rule at its meeting this week.

DeLay wrote an op-ed describing how he helped write the law that prohibited any single broadcast station owner from reaching more than 39 percent of all TV households in the US. DeLay said that only Congress, not the Trump FCC, can change the cap because the 39 percent limit is specified in US law and wasn’t chosen by the commission.

DeLay gave his view in an op-ed for The Daily Wire yesterday, less than three weeks after FCC Chairman Brendan Carr announced a plan to eliminate the cap. The FCC is scheduled to vote on Carr’s proposal on Thursday.

 

 

Dead Man Walking

While I enjoyed the original film with Donald Sutherland and Kristy Swanson, I have never seen a full episode of the TV spinoff of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

It never appealed to me.

That being said, I understand and appreciate the sincere intensity of the fans of the series.

That being said, when I heard the news that a Buffy reboot with (most) of the original cast was canceled, I could imagine heads exploding through the "Sklayerverse."  (Is that what it is called, I honestly do not know)

In a recent interview, Sarah Michelle Gellar, who played the eponymous said that there was one executive at Hulu who hated the show who killed the new series.

If this report is accurate,  the executive mentioned below is in for a world of (hopefully just social) hurt.

This past weekend’s shock news about the death of Buffy: New Sunnydale felt like it came out of nowhere for fans hopeful for a return of the Slayer. That shock similarly applies to returning star Sarah Michelle Gellar and director Chloé Zhao, who have spent the past days since reflecting on the show’s sudden staking. But while Zhao has erred on the side of mystery about what went on with the show, Gellar herself has been much more open—putting the show’s axing in the hands of a single man.

In a new interview with People, Gellar reflected on the way the news rolled out—suddenly over a weekend, with the actress herself breaking the news to the public on Instagram this past Saturday. She especially questioned the timing of that news, with Gellar claiming that the call to confirm the series wouldn’t be moving forward at Hulu came as she was attending the SXSW premiere of her return to horror cinema in Ready or Not 2: Here I Come for Searchlight, one of the studios involved in making New Sunnydale for Hulu, and while Zhao was preparing to attend events tied to Sunday’s Academy Awards, where she was nominated for Best Director for Hamnet.

………

But while Zhao took to the Oscars red carpet and described the cancellation as unsurprising, saying that she would “welcome the mystery” of whatever came next, Gellar wasn’t willing to be so vague.

“We had an executive on our show who was not only not a fan of the original, but was proud to constantly remind us that he had never seen the entirety of the series and how it wasn’t for him,” Gellar told People. “That’s very hard when you’re taking a property that is as beloved as Buffy, not just to the world, but to me and Chloé. So that tells you the uphill battle that we had been fighting since day one, when your executive is literally proud to tell you that he didn’t watch it.”

While Gellar did not go as far as to name the executive she believes is responsible for delivering the killing blow to New Sunnydale, a new report from Deadline alleges that Gellar was talking about Disney Television Group President Craig Erwich. According to the trade, New Sunnydale‘s pilot, written by Nora and Lilla Zuckerman, had already undergone a significant round of changes after an initial version was described as playing to too young an audience and aiming its scope too small, putting more focus on the new Slayer, played by Star Wars: Skeleton Crew‘s Ryan Kiera Armstrong. A rework of the pilot’s script to make the tone more adult, and to incorporate more of Gellar as Buffy Summers, was much more strongly received, sparking talks that a pickup for new Sunnydale would be imminent.

This is like f%$#ing with Corvidae (Ravens, Crows, etc.). 

Gee, Fascism Much?

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr is threatening to revoke broadcaster licenses because they are insufficiently pro-Iran war.

Rather unsurprisingly, Donald Trump gives his wholehearted approval to this.

Brendan Carr, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, threatened on Saturday to revoke broadcasters’ licenses over their coverage of the war with Iran, his latest move in a campaign to stomp out what he sees as liberal bias in broadcasts.

As the war entered its third week, Mr. Carr accused broadcasters of “running hoaxes and news distortions” in a social media post and warned them to “correct course before their license renewals come up.”

“Broadcasters must operate in the public interest, and they will lose their licenses if they do not,” he said.

Mr. Carr shared a Truth Social post by President Trump that criticized the news media for its coverage of the war with Iran. Mr. Trump referred to a story published by The Wall Street Journal that reported five American refueling planes had been struck in Saudi Arabia, claiming its headline was “intentionally misleading.” He accused the news media of wanting the United States to lose the war.

When the worm turns, Carr needs to be prosecuted to the fullest extant of the law.

Hell, they all do. 

If there are Presidential elections in 2028, I will not support anyone in the primaries who does not promise to prosecute Trump and his minions to the fullest extant of the law.

Invite Ted Cruz on Your Show, Stephen

Streisand Effect Applies 

So, the FCC Chairman sent a threat to CBS regarding Stephen Colbert's interview with US Senate candidate James Talarico, saying that he might change the rules to  on interview shows to require equal time.

Stephen Colbert should call the bluff, and announce an invitation for the Republican candidate, Ted Cruz, to appear on his show. 

It's a win-win for the late night host: Ted Cruz refuses, and Colbert gets to taunt him until May, or Ted Cruz accepts, and then Stephen Colbert gets to fillet him like an overfed catfish.

I would pay good money to see Colbert taking down Cruz. 

Birnam Wood Comes to Dunsinane

I did not watch the Superb Owl this year.

I've never watched the half time show, except to see the ads.

That being said, the right wing melt down over Bad Bunny's half time show.

Specifically about how this show, particularly the walking bushes, parallel a quote from Shakespeare's Scottish Play. (We don't say the name of the play in our family, too many superstitious theater people.)

You know the quote, "……… shall never vanquish’d be, until Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill shall come against him."

I'm wondering if there is a modern analogue to the downfall of what is arguably theater's greatest villain.

Maybe Great Birnam wood is coming for Donald Trump. 

There is No Perfect Juxtaposition of 2000s Music and 1960s Televis………

I want to note that Diana Rigg gave me stirrings at about age 7.

A Great Holiday Gift Choice

Penguin Random House released an Avatar: The Last Airbender picture book, My Cabbages!

It's intended to be for children aged 4 to 8 years old, but if you know an Avatar fan, they would appreciate it as well.

I am stoked about this.

Please, if there is, "My Cabbages guy," slash fic out there, do not not tell me.

I do not want to know. 

Yes, Just Add Cable Companies, That's the Ticket

There is a reason that cable providers are the most widely loathed businesses in the United States.

It's also the reason why so many people are cutting the cord. (not me ……… yet) 

It appears that the Comcast, a company so sh%$ty that it had to rename itself Xfinity, has a plan, they are going to insert themselves between streaming services and users and charge a toll.

I'm not sure how exactly they think that they are going to convince either the streaming providers or their customers to agree to this, but my guess is that it involves lots of money lobbying Congress for legislation requiring that they be gate-keepers:

In an ironic twist, cable TV and Internet provider Comcast has announced that it, too, will sell a bundle of video-streaming services for a discounted price. The announcement comes as Comcast has been rapidly losing cable TV subscribers to streaming services and seeks to bring the same type of bundling that originally drew people away from cable to streaming.

Starting on an unspecified date this month, the bundle, called Streamsaver, will offer Peacock, which Comcast owns, Apple TV+, and Netflix to people who subscribe to Comcast's cable TV and/or broadband. Comcast already offers Netflix or Apple TV+ as add-ons to its cable TV, but Streamsaver expands Comcast's streaming-related bundling efforts.

Comcast didn't say how much the streaming bundle would cost, but CEO Brian Roberts said that it will “come at a vastly reduced price to anything in the market today" when announcing the bundle on Tuesday at MoffettNathanson’s 2024 Media, Internet and Communications Conference in New York, per Variety. If we factor in Peacock's upcoming price hike, subscribing to Apple TV+, Netflix, and Peacock separately would cost $39.47 per month without ads, or $24.97/month with ads.

According to Roberts, Comcast is hoping that the upcoming package will help Comcast "add value to consumers" and "take some of the dollars out of” other streaming businesses.

 So, why would Comcast do this?  Because its abused customers are leaving in droves:

………

Last month, Comcast said it lost 487,000 cable TV subscribers in Q1 2024. It ended the quarter with 13,600,000 subscribers, compared to 14,106,000 at the end of 2023 and 16,142,000 at the end of 2022.

Comcast's broadband subscriber base also decreased from 32,253,000 at the end of 2023 to 32,188,000.

Peacock, Comcast's flagship streaming service, hasn't made any money since launching in 2020 and lost $2.7 billion in 2023. However, in April, Comcast said that Peacock's Q1 losses lessened from $704 million in Q1 2023 to $639 million in Q1 2024.

It's worth noting that in January, Comcast raised prices for its cable and Internet services by 3 percent, blaming the price hikes on broadband investments and an increase in programming costs.

So, will it work?  Probably not.

………

One of the common reasons people abandoned cable TV were bundled packages that forced people to pay for services, like phone or Internet, or channels that they didn't want. Now, Comcast is looking to save its shrinking subscriber base by bundling its cable TV or Internet service with some of its biggest competitors. Like streaming services, Comcast is hoping that bundling its products will deter people from canceling their subscriptions since they're tied to each other.

………

But Comcast's announcement hints at déjà vu as Comcast blatantly seeks to re-create the cable bundle or triple-play package using the very streaming services that are eating away at Comcast's cable business. Ironically, Comcast is seeking to bandage a declining business by feeding some of the biggest contributors to that decline, using the same tactics that drove many customers away in the first place.

………

But for people who left cable to avoid overloaded bundled packages and to get away from companies like Comcast, which group cable TV or Internet with streaming services that often raise prices, limit show and movie availability and features, and increasingly focus on ads, it just isn't worth the monthly savings.

Companies like Comcast spent decades abusing their customers, because they had effective monopolies where they operated.

Former customers will not forget this.

As a Doctor Who Fan, I am not Flattered

A cow-orker of mine finds that my "Mad SolidWorks Skilz" impressive enough that he has nicknamed me, "Master," and he occasionally calls me, "The Master."

As a Doctor Who fan, I find it a bit disconcerting.

There is only one, "The Master," and that is the late actor Roger Caesar Marius Bernard de Delgado Torres Castillo Roberto.

OK, I'll also grant that John Simms and  especially Michelle Gomez have done very well, but there is just no filling the shoes left by Roger Delgado.

In any case, if any of you out there are wondering, I am not a time traveling evil genius bent on taking over the earth.

I tend to think of myself as the sidekick, but not of The Master.

Rather I think of myself as being the sidekick of an evil genius whose proclivities are a bit less lethal to his assistants.

I wonder what sort of dental plan comes with being the minion of an evil genius.

Narf!

Stoked About This

Best timed shot in TV historyThere will be a reboot of James Burke's Connections science documentary television series.

I loved it when I watched it in the 1970s:

Some 15 years ago, a friend recommended I check out a vintage BBC science documentary series called Connections: "I just think it will resonate with how your mind works." He was right. I was immediately hooked and devoured every available episode, following host James Burke down countless fascinating historical rabbit holes before arriving at an unexpected final destination—although in retrospect, the haphazard journey somehow made perfect sense. Connections was the science documentary series for compulsively curious people who weren't necessarily drawn to more traditional science and nature documentaries. And now Burke is back and better than ever with six new episodes of a rebooted Connections, thanks to the folks at Curiosity Stream.

The series had been around for decades before I made my belated discovery. The BBC first aired Connections to the UK back in 1978, expanding to the US the following year. Produced and directed by Mick Jackson, each episode would start with some past innovation or event—the invention of the cannon and subsequent changes to castle fortifications to eliminate blind spots, for example. Then Burke would spend the remainder of the episode tracking a path through a series of seemingly unrelated events—maps, limelight, incandescent bulbs, substituting guncotton for ivory in billiard balls, the zoopraxiscope, the telegraph—to demonstrate how they all connected to produce a modern-day breakthrough: the movie projector.

………

It's a conceptual framework that has remained relevant over the ensuing decades. The Learning Channel (TLC) revived Connections for two subsequent seasons in 1994 and 1995. And now Curiosity Stream has taken up the mantle, keeping everything we loved about the original series—including its legendary host. This time around, Burke explores such links as the death of Rene Descartes in 1649 and virtual reality, for instance, or Napoleon's toothpick and Nielsen TV ratings. And he's still an active participant, jumping into a sensory tank with dolphins for an episode connecting outbreaks of syphilis in the French aristocracy to nano fabrication and its implications for the value of things.

"Increasingly today, change happens too fast for most of us to handle," Burke said. "Connections shows how this happens: because when things come together in new ways, 1+1= 3. The connective approach offers a way to second-guess that process—and predict the future." Ars spoke with Burke to learn more.

I so want to see this, and I hope that he does not put Descartes before the horse.

Watching Farscape

The Airbnb that we are at has access to a number of streaming service.

One of the streams is 24/7 Farscape, in order, including the Peacekeeper Wars finale.

While the finale was a bit of a letdown, it was the canceled final season packed into a 3-hour miniseries, it was a damn good show. 

(Update)

Here is the link.  It has ads, but it's free.

Damn!

Here Speech in Parliment following Thatcher's death.
The most honest eulogy ever

Glenda Jackson, Oscar winning actress, former member of the UK Parliment, and all around badass, has died at 87.

The multi-award living actress (2 Oscars, 1 Tony, 3 Emmys), took a 23 year pause in her acting to represent the constituencies of Hampstead and Highgate and later Hampstead and Kilburn.

When she retired from politics, and returned to acting her first forays back into acting was to play was to play Lear at the Old Vic, for which she was nominated for Best Actress at the Olivier Awards, and she later reprised the role on Broadway.

I saw her in the Elizabeth R. television series, and in a number of movies, but I never had the good fortune to see her on stage.

If there was a bigger badass in the history of theater, I've their name escapes me.

We will not see her like again.

I am Completely Stoked About This

They are rebooting the "Max Headroom" series with Matt Frewer! If they bring back Amanda Pays too, I will be in ecstasy.

A 1980s pop culture mainstay is plotting a comeback. AMC Networks is developing a Max Headroom drama series reboot, with Matt Frewer set to reprise his role as the world’s first artificial intelligence TV personality. Halt and Catch Fire co-creator Christopher Cantwell is writing the adaptation and is attached as showrunner for the project, which is produced by Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah’s SpectreVision and All3Media.

Sweet!!

Not a Surprise

It turns out that cable news has a greater contribution to political polarization in America than does social media.

This isn't to say that social media does not make the world a far worse place, but that it is not to blame for this explicit ill:

The past two election cycles have seen an explosion of attention given to “echo chambers,” or communities where a narrow set of views makes people less likely to challenge their own opinions. Much of this concern has focused on the rise of social media, which has radically transformed the information ecosystem.

However, when scientists investigated social media echo chambers, they found surprisingly little evidence of them on a large scale – or at least none on a scale large enough to warrant the growing concerns. And yet, selective exposure to news does increase polarization. This suggested that these studies missed part of the picture of Americans’ news consumption patterns. Crucially, they did not factor in a major component of the average American’s experience of news: television.

………

We first measured just how politically siloed American news consumers really are across TV and the web. Averaging over the four years of our observations, we found that roughly 17% of Americans are politically polarized – 8.7% to the left and 8.4% to the right – based on their TV news consumption. That’s three to four times higher than the average percentage of Americans polarized by online news.

………

Besides being more politically siloed on average, our research found that TV news consumers are much more likely than web consumers to maintain the same partisan news diets over time: after six months, left-leaning TV audiences are 10 times more likely to remain segregated than left-leaning online audiences, and right-leaning audiences are 4.5 times more likely than their online counterparts.

While these figures may seem intimidating, it is important to keep in mind that even among TV viewers, about 70% of right-leaning viewers and about 80% of left-leaning viewers do switch their news diets within six months. To the extent that long-lasting echo chambers do exist, then, they include only about 4% of the population.

So, it's all Fox News' fault?  

I dunno.  Given that our polity rewards political extremism, particularly on the right, I would argue that the political media industrial complex is more generally at fault.

They fancy themselves gatekeepers, but refuse to call out falsehoods and extremism for what they are.

Haberdashery Advice for Would Be Journalists

You wear this hat:


You can get it here (Etsy) for $130, or you can get it at Baron Hats for $560, but the cheaper one is actually closer to the authentic original. 

I know what some of you are thinking, what original, and why should any journalist wear this?

That's because you either never saw, or forgot, the 1970s TV series Kolchak, The Night Stalker, starring Darren McGavin.

In it, the intrepid reporter Carl Kolchak, played by McGavin, pursued all sorts of paranormal phenomenon and creatures, only to be frequently stymied by the powers that be, who did not want this information to get out.

If this sounds a bit like The X-Files, this is because Chris Carter, the creator of that series was inspired by The Night Stalker when he developed his series.

It's more than just an inspiration though.  While the plots are sometimes a bit simplistic and formulaic, the dialogue and characters are exquisitely done, and given that their special effects budget could not have been much more that the cost of a Starbucks Venti, their special effects were remarkably well done.

McGavin's performance to this day seems to be to be the very epitome of what a journalist should be, not Robert Redford hanging out in a parking garage waiting for Mark Felt.

The show is coming on in about 15 minutes on MeTV.

Also, his camera was a Rollei 16s, not a Kodak sub-miniature.

F%$#

Both ground breaking actress Nichelle Nicols and great Boston Celtics center Bill Russell have died.

As Lt. Nyota Uhura on Star Trek, she changed the representation of Black women on TV, showing a hyper professional communications officer on the Enterprise, and was in ½ of the first interracial kiss, along with William Shatner, on a us major network TV program.

Later, she helped recruit minority and women to technical fields, particularly for NASA.

Bill Russell had a good case to be the greatest basketball player of all time, and an even better case as to being the most dominating basketball player of all time, and, in addition to being a lifelong civil rights activist, he was the first Black coach in the NBA in his final two seasons as a player, and first Black coach in the NBA to win an NBA title, and the only player coach to win an NBA title.

Damn, damn, damn.

Damn

Bernard Cribbins has died. he was 93. If the name does not ring a bell, perhaps these pictures will.

He did a lot, but on this side of the pond, he is best remembered as the only actor who played multiple companions for the Doctor in Doctor Who, first as Tom Campbell in the theatrical release Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. in 1966, and later Wilfred Mott with both David Tennant's and Matt Smith's Doctor.

He had a storied career in the UK over 75 years.

I'm sad, and I have the urge to go and blow up a Dalek in his honour.

Happy Star Trek Day

55 years ago today, the first episode of Star Trek showed on NBC.

I feel old.  I was 4 then.

Tweet of the Day

In 1954, a TV station aired a film distributed by the USN titled "This Is Your Navy". Unfortunately, the film had been mislabeled and was actually the extremely graphic hygiene film "USS VD: Ship of Shame". One shocked viewer said she would never watch TV again. #FunFactFriday pic.twitter.com/94QYk7qHpk

— U.S. Naval Institute (@NavalInstitute) April 16, 2021

Film librarians are very imprtant.

Sharon* is Watching the Hallmark Channel

I find the various movies on the channel to be sappy and formulaic, but it turns my wife into a steaming cauldron of passion, and I get mugged by her.

Let me make it clear: I am not complaining, just making an observation.

^*Love of my life, light of the cosmos, she who must be obeyed, my wife.