Digital Big Media vs Prehistoric Hollywood

COMMENTS (20)

• Great true story from the Fox lot.
  When the iPhone came out and Fox was about to announce a deal with Apple and iTunes for content distribution, Chernin called the IT dept. and asked for an iPhone and some trianing so he could see what the fuss was about.

  Comment by reelbusy — Wednesday May 28, 2008 @ 7:52pm PDT  Reply to this post

• Now I understand why these contract talks take so long. Are they able to read on their own, or do they need an assistant to “help” with that too?

  How someone so high up in the business world could not use a computer boggles my mind. I hope the asteroid hits soon so out of the pond-scum can evolve a new breed of moguls who understand the real business end of things: the technology that their business is based upon.

  How do these people get hired? They should either be asking “paper or plastic” or have had their career beginning and ending in the confines of the mailroom of whatever studio they run.

  Comment by RDW — Wednesday May 28, 2008 @ 8:34pm PDT  Reply to this post

• Wow I find it fascinating that writers and others in the “creative” community who were ragging on the studios for only hiring young writers etc. instead of the older wiser veteran writers some of whom may still use typewriters or god forbid longhand are calling the kettle black. While I have no problem using email or computer perhaps some people prefer to communicate directly at least through the phone rather than relying on text messages and email that could be sent by anyone ie. someones assistant. Were I responsible for a multi-billion dollar enterprise I would like to make sure the person I am communicating with is the actual person involved.

  Comment by Brian — Wednesday May 28, 2008 @ 9:12pm PDT  Reply to this post

• This is just another form of someone wiping the kings ass. It will take ten years to get new Moguls that know what they are talking about. That goes for both sides. Labor is ignorant as well.

  Comment by just a thought — Wednesday May 28, 2008 @ 10:09pm PDT  Reply to this post

• it is true that someone in senior, senior management in a company needs to have the ‘big picture’, no pun intended, and raise themselves about the small details

  nevertheless, these people don’t raise themselves above the small details, and not doing a good portion of your own correspondence is now a time waster and counterproductive

  Comment by i used to work there — Wednesday May 28, 2008 @ 11:47pm PDT  Reply to this post

• finke – you amaze me sometimes. you really think that bigwigs in real estate and wall street know computers? the tops of every biz outside of tech know absolutely nothing about how tech works. the guys at the top are all dinosaurs. and they will hold on and be fine for a long time – they have enough money and time to let their assistants print out the emails. come on… there are lots of things to bitch about, but being a computer dimwit is not one of them… no matter how much you WANT to relish laughing at the big guys…

  Comment by d'oh! — Thursday May 29, 2008 @ 1:18am PDT  Reply to this post

• ” And not just because a lot of stupid stuff gets said at them. (For instance that Hollywood “ex”, Barry Diller, seemed very proud of his Tinseltown putdown today — “Hollywood is a community that’s so inbred, it’s a wonder the children have any teeth”
  I think he is right except the teeth part….
  Hollywood seems to have the same small group of people in everything.
  Try some new actors or bring back some of the older
  actors that are still around.
  Also there is no reason why a head of a company any company doesn’t know the basics of E-mail and how to use a computer. No one expects them to be an expert but if they can’t figure out email than why are they paid millions of dollars to run a studio. I think a lot of them are over-paid. Its fun to learn new things perhaps they should cancel a party or two and take a weekend course on how to use a computer at their local community college. It would do them good to mingle with the local folk not the hollywood yes folk for a weekend.

  Comment by Sally — Thursday May 29, 2008 @ 2:05am PDT  Reply to this post

• Note to Brian and all the other defenders of out of touch leaders like Alan Horn and Ron Meyer. Leaders of non-tech industries actually do understand tech. If they don’t, they perish. Having worked on Wall Street during the advent of networked computing, I can say for a fact that the heads of the investment banks were the earliest adopters of the technologies that we non-hollywood-mogols take for granted.

  “Wise” leaders like Alan Horn have dragged the price of Time Warner’s stock from $95 when he took over as COO in 1999 to $16 today. Leaders who have their emails printed out for them, who are flown around in a private jets, who don’t know how to dial their own telephones, etc. think that people in Peoria want to see Speed Racer. But the truth is that people in Peoria don’t have chauffeurs or personal shoppers, they mow their own lawns, they know how to use email, and they want to be entertained with something original and resonant rather than sequels, remakes, and repurposed television shows. Your $10,000 investment in Time Warner when Alan Horn took over is worth $1,684 this morning. In any other industry that level of incompetence gets you fired rather than promoted.

  Comment by Paul — Thursday May 29, 2008 @ 8:06am PDT  Reply to this post

• I guess we shouldn’t be surprised to hear Hollywood moguls have no concept of computers or the Internet. Look at Jack Valenti fighting VCRs even as home video revenue was DOUBLING a film’s grosses. He didn’t GET IT, and the moguls don’t GET the Internet. They’re still ignoring or fighting the Internet while it has the potential to make them a lot more money if they understood it.

  Comment by Dan Zee — Thursday May 29, 2008 @ 8:32am PDT  Reply to this post

• Yeah seriously Finke, do you think that quantitative trading shops would know how to use computers? Or dinosaurs like Jeff Immelt? If you can’t do multiple chaotic regressions in your head you’re a real dolt!

  There are a few people outside of Hollywood who don’t use computers, but it’s in other industries that still embrace the Mogul model – mainly real estate/development and some old line family firms. Everyone else has been reliant on tech for their personal and firm productivity for so long that it’s second nature. Wal-Mart has been data driven for ages – you know you’re behind the times if a bunch of merchandisers from backwoods Arkansas are more savvy than you! Given the phenomenal “success” of Hollywood, I’m not at all surprised that these knownothings are still running the show.

  Comment by Hey — Thursday May 29, 2008 @ 11:14am PDT  Reply to this post

• I’ve known Alan Horn for longer than almost anybody in the business. Sure, I wish he “did” email, but he don’t need no stinkin’ BlackBerry, laptop, or computer to be one of the best and smartest execs around. He knows plenty about how the digital stuff works. The people he deals with — way above our pay grades — need his brains and gentility, not the tech stuff. How many of us early adopters can boast of even 10% of the success he’s had? What’s better, you were the first on your block with a Mac OR you bought and shepherded every single Harry Potter book/movie through the pipeline. The former was fun back in the 80s, but the latter pays for more than a few BlackBerrys for all the drones at WB from now until the 22nd century. Oh, right, I lost my head: Jeff Robinov is a visionary and will be wildly successful because he knows how to type with his thumbs. Yeah, that’s the ticket; that’s what will improve morale over there.

  Comment by aitchee — Thursday May 29, 2008 @ 1:11pm PDT  Reply to this post

• Yet another funny story about the disconnect between media and technology. Revision 3, the producer of a handful of internet shows, uses peer-to-peer technology to legally distribute content they own the rights to. Over memorial day weekend, they received a denial-of-service attack which brought their site down. After doing some snooping around, they found out the source of the attack – Media Defender. This is a group that many Hollywood studios hire to fight piracy and illegal filesharing via peer-to-peer technologies. Except this time, in their eagerness to take the law into their own hands, they took down a perfectly legal and legitimate site. Brilliant guys.

  http://revision3.com/blog/2008/05/29/inside-the-attack-that-crippled-revision3

  Comment by mike — Thursday May 29, 2008 @ 3:17pm PDT  Reply to this post

• Another wow. Speed Racer is the fault of the mogul and not the film makers. Did he write it? Did he direct it. NO. He paid for it probably based on looking at DVD sales of the cartoon and the pitch by the film makers. I didn’t think hollywooders cared what Peroia thought about anyway otherwise we wouldn’t be subjected to most of the drivel that comes out of their left wing rantings over the last 10 years.

  Do any of you critics know these guys personally. Have you talked to them at all or are you just making personel attacks based on nothing more than your own hate for them. For all you know the one guy who had his emails printed out has eye problems that make it difficult to view them on a computer screen. So what his assistant is paid to print them out so what do you care. Most executives dictate most of their correspondance anyway. As for the plane rides and limos, and assistants it sounds like you are talking about any of the big name stars. Doesn’t Travolta fly his own 707. Others have numerous cars and other fun toys to play with but I don’t hear anybody talking trash about them. I personally do not give a crap wether they can log onto the internet or not. Thats not their job. As for falling stock prices at WB could that be from the failure of two networks the WB and the poor ratings of teh CW. Along with several movie flops and paying huge sums for worthless movies and TV shows that either were cancelled or died a quick death after a couple weeks on the air.

  Comment by Brian — Thursday May 29, 2008 @ 4:00pm PDT  Reply to this post

• (Let me see if Akismet lets me through…)

  Thing is, Nikki, some of them reading that “Paper or plastic?” will be thinking, “What? Credit cards are on paper now?”

  Comment by Mike Cane — Thursday May 29, 2008 @ 6:15pm PDT  Reply to this post

• LOL @ aitchee. Hopefully that was tounge in cheek? This is a man (horn) who drives a hybrid. He’s all about the environment and YET has to have e-mails printed out as is everything else there on paper that will eventually be shredded or tossed. What’s wrong with saving his e-mail or actually having the ability to read them without having assistants serving them on a platter for him? I know all of his junior executives, Robinov included, better have a working blackberry since that the only human contact they will have with employees. At their meetings it looks as if they are playing pong with all the tapping on their blackberry’s, rather than understanding that Speed Racer is a dud.

  Blackberry’s are perfect there. They aren’t human. They don’t think. They can be used as an excuse like they weren’t working right when needed.

  @ Brian. Brian, the reason WB stock fell is because it was overpriced. Second because of AOL as a corporation with their greed, which when everything else was going broadband, they were going dial up. That and other great ideas killed WB. As for do I know them? Yes, I know them personally in a work environment. I’m in their world and I’m up there so to speak. It’s not only WB though. It’s the lack of movie studios being exactly that. The blackberry’s didn;t do that. The lack of vision did. WB has a mantra. If it’s not a remake, sequel or franchise movie, they don’t care. Why do you think Clint Eastwood is not as hot on his long term home as he used to be?

  Comment by WBknower — Thursday May 29, 2008 @ 8:50pm PDT  Reply to this post

• Mike Cane: If you were as old as me, 58, you would know that the original credit cards were made of paper.
  Supposedly, the first Amex paper card is the most valuable one to collectors, easily worth over $1000 each.

  Comment by Unindicted Co-conspirator — Thursday May 29, 2008 @ 9:48pm PDT  Reply to this post

• Brian,

  Speed Racer might not be Alan Horn’s fault but it is his responsibility. He didn’t write or direct it, but he is responsible for it. That is what leadership is all about. My point is that he is out of touch with people in Peoria, and “Peroia”. I don’t know Alan Horn personally, I’ve only met him a few times: both at Castle Rock and at Warner. I am not making personal attacks or “personel” ones. I am simply pointing out his performance as a leader. By the by, Alan Horn doesn’t have eye problems. I’ve never dictated my correspondence or my “correspondance”; I know how to type. As executives, we are responsible for our product. You are right CW does have poor ratings – that too is his responsibility (see above about Leadership). If our product doesn’t cater to our consumer, we need to change it or step down. Brian, do yourself a favor, quit defending Alan Horn’s leadership of Warner. That dog doesn’t hunt.

  Comment by Paul — Friday May 30, 2008 @ 7:54am PDT  Reply to this post

• Warren Buffet doesn’t use a computer or blackberry and he’s done pretty well for himself.

  Comment by speakingfromexperience — Friday May 30, 2008 @ 10:58am PDT  Reply to this post

• Well Paul

  Thanks for correcting my fast typing as I’m sure you never misspell anything as you spend your day emailing and texting the day away. I’m sure you don’t use shorthand terms to quickly give an opinion. I’m glad you feel that Horn is a fool so I suggest you go to the Warner Board of directors and say so to them in person. Maybe you can get the job and we can all get to see what magnificent ideas you have for WB or suggest someone else to take over his job. I don’t care either way as I am not defending his leadership by pointing out the fact that he didn’t write or direct Speed Racer. It could have been a good idea had it been done differently but maybe you can discover if the Washkowski Bros. (probably misspelled) were green lighted because of the Matrix movies or Horn just said wow I loved the cartoon when I was a kid. I just don’t see the value in trash talking these guys who during the WGA strike were portrayed as Machiavellian devils who know that the internet is the future and were plotting to cheat people of their rightful share or now they are portrayed as techno ignorant fools who can’t even send an email. Make up your minds they are either the most clever, sinister, and evil moguls ever or they are incompetent fools.

  Comment by Brian — Friday May 30, 2008 @ 12:02pm PDT  Reply to this post

• @ speakingfromexperience

  Warren Buffet didn’t grow up nor runs one of the largest MULTI-MEDIA corporations in the world. He’s an investor from a child to today. Apples to oranges.

  @ Brian

  Paul, If I read right was not talking about YOUR typing. He was speaking on Alan Horn’s typing. Nor did he say Horn is a fool. At least I didn’t read that but maybe i missed something. As for the Warchowski’s, they have been green-lighted because Robinov used to represent them as an agent and after the Matrix, he and Silver thought that they could make a good movie.

  Just like they thought (Robinov and Horn) that without Russell Crowe (was possibly the lead that the movie people banked on but he balked after reading the script), Kurt Russell could make a crappy original movie without a real star now, become a tentpole in Poseidon. Horn is living off of Semel and Daly’s winners in Potter, Batman and the aforementioned Matrix along with Clint’s quality product, who they treat like crap now, I’d love to see what WB does other than that?

  LOSERS
  The Ant Bully
  Beerfest
  The Fountain
  Unaccompanied Minors
  We Are Marshall
  Poseidon
  Lady In the Water – First M. Night flop
  Lake House
  One Missed Call
  Fool’s Gold
  10,000 B.C. – No comment.
  Fred Clause
  Speed Racer
  Music and Lyrics
  The Astronaut Farmer – To be fair, it was a WIP movie originally
  TMNT
  The Brave One
  The Reaping
  License to Wed
  No Reservations
  The Invasion
  August Rush

  WINNERS
  Happy Feet
  Ocean’s Thirteen
  I Am Legend
  300
  Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix
  The Departed

  Did I miss something iwth the winners? Original, tired franchise, Remake, Original? WOW!! Franchise, Remake of Japanese movie.

  So? Brian, let me know.

  Comment by WBknower — Friday May 30, 2008 @ 11:48pm PDT  Reply to this post