Heard from David Pogue recently?

Actually he’s still doing some TV work, I read his tweets, but if you’re under the age of 45, you’ve probably never heard of him. But he and Walt Mossberg were the kings of tech reporting…

Until Pogue left “The New York Times” for Yahoo Finance, for freedom and money.

Just like Nate Silver. You know, the numbers guru who called the election right for the “Times” and then decamped to follow his passion of not only politics, but sports, over at his own site FiveThirtyEight. They’ve got a staff of reporters over there, but I don’t trust a single one, they’ve got no CV. The last time anybody talked about Silver was when he got the 2016 election wrong and said he didn’t. Now nobody trusts pollsters.

So Kara Swisher made her bones over at “The Wall Street Journal.” She teamed with Mossberg to break stories and become the authoritative source on mainstream tech news. Pogue was the more entertaining writer, but he left for greener pastures and then…

So did the “Wall Street Journal” tech crew, not only Mossberg and Swisher, but Peter Kafka and more. They called their new site “Recode,” but as time passed it turned out all the good will remained with the “Journal,” whose conferences did better than Recode’s. And then Recode ended up as part of Vox and like that old Dave Edmunds song, Swisher crawled from the wreckage into a brand new car, in this case “The New York Times.”

She was the tech ace. Which is better than most of their new opinion writers. Headscratchers. Don’t promote people from within, find those from without, experts in the field. I don’t care what Farhad Manjoo has to say about anything other than tech, and I don’t care much about that either.

So then time goes by and Swisher’s purview is expanded. She appears in the paper more and gets her own podcast, “Sway.”

The number one difficulty of anybody in media today is reach, it’s the number one problem of anybody trying to spread the word. Increasing your audience? Nearly impossible. Train wrecks gain momentary attention, but people have even moved on from Uvalde, never mind Buffalo and Roe v. Wade. There’s so much in the channel, people are looking for fewer options, they want to be fed less information from trusted sources. And they want to live their lives outside the information sphere too.

So, you take yourself out of the game at your peril.

So, Swisher’s decamping back to Vox, where she has a podcast cohosted by Scott Galloway. The NYU Business Professor has made a fortune in tech investments, maybe now that she’s 60 Swisher wants some of that same money too. Look at Phil Mickelson and Dustin Johnson, they’re all about the Benjamins. Their images? Certainly Phil’s is irretrievably trashed. You don’t want to overlook human rights, then again Biden is interfacing with the Saudis. And if you’ve got no idea what I’m talking about, that’s just the point. The new Saudi tour is the talk of golf. I’m not sure most Americans even know who Khashoggi was, but those dealing with Saudi Arabia certainly do. You see it’s that hard to reach people, especially if they don’t care.

The “New York Times” is the king of subscriptions, far eclipsing the WSJ and WaPo. The “Times” has over 10 million subscribers, and the number, unlike Netflix’s, is growing prodigiously. Sure, some are for games and other verticals, but the cross-promotion opportunities? HUGE!

The “Times” was promoting “Sway” everywhere, trying to build a podcast portfolio beyond “The Daily.” And Swisher hit her stride on “Sway,” making it less about her and more about the guests.

But now that’s history.

Most people have no idea what Vox is. They don’t have it bookmarked.

And today being great is only part of the puzzle. Sure, word might spread, but very slowly… And Swisher is already 60, how much time does she want to invest in building?

And she’s got a conference with Galloway, but she had the imprimatur of the “Times,” with that gone, do we have another Recode situation on our hands? Fading conference numbers, to the point the whole enterprise goes down the drain?

Ma nishtanah halailah hazeh?

That’s right, why should this night be different from any other night?

There are ever fewer tech titans, the FAANG companies. Yes, you can try and push that rock up the hill, but good luck, if you achieve anything the big companies will compete with you, doggedly, they’ll do their best to undercut you and steal your audience or just buy you. But the irony is that the “Times” already “bought” Swisher.

The devil is in the details. Maybe the “Times” deal was too constricting. Maybe Swisher has personal issues. Who knows. But on the surface, this appears to be a dumb deed. Akin to Ben Smith ankling the Gray Lady for his new news enterprise…SEMAFOR? That’s what it will be like, waving flags, trying to get people’s attention.

Let me see, Al Jazeera couldn’t make it in the U.S.

But that’s TV.

Heard of Grid? Most people haven’t, it’s a recent news startup.

BuzzFeed News, where Smith made his bones? The stock and whatever gravitas BuzzFeed might have had has been fading into irrelevance, just like the HuffPo. Stunting only takes you so far, you can’t read BuzzFeed for all the detritus. Smith finally gains traction, has his head above water, but he enters a sphere everybody else is in, never mind Axios and Politico, and expects to win? Hell, Ezra Klein STARTED Vox and decamped for the “Times” after realizing he wasn’t reaching as many people as he had at the WaPo previously. He woke up and smelled the coffee. Maybe because he worked at the “Post” first, and saw how much he lost. Whereas those who haven’t lost don’t see how far they can fall. Then again, Swisher did see what happened with Recode.

Sasha Frere-Jones left “The New Yorker” for Genius.com, and then got there and realized there was no there there, that all the promises were going to go unfulfilled, turns out Genius is just a lyrics site, no more.

Swisher shouldn’t have given up her power base, she should have stayed at the “Times.”

Why are journalists so dumb when it comes to their own business?

In song titles and lyrics.

Tune in today, June 7th, to Volume 106, 7 PM East, 4 PM West.

Phone #: 844-6-VOLUME, 844-686-5863

Twitter: @lefsetz or @siriusxmvolume/#lefsetzlive

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It’s very well-established. You take your time to record an album and you keep it alive on terrestrial radio. In the best of circumstances you dribble out track after track, keeping the album alive for years.

But that was then and this is now.

The “Billboard” chart has become irrelevant. It’s completely manipulated. Want to go number one? Sell vinyl. The real action is in streaming, but the chart includes sales, which are de minimis, to the point where the chart is completely untrustworthy.

So who is the chart for?

The industry itself.

Yet it is publicized in media every week!

But this is the media consumed by oldsters, not youngsters, the active music streaming/buying audience.

And insiders know the chart is a joke, you can brag to your client you made them number one, but everybody on the business side is snickering.

But that’s the least of the industry’s problems.

Today you can make an album and it can be gone in a week. I don’t care how much publicity you’ve garnered, makes no difference. The active fan base buys it, and then what? Crickets. Maybe you can go on the road and sell some to concertgoers, but at this point tickets are so expensive that no act dares go on the road and not play their hits. The idea of playing most of the new album is kaput.

So it’s like the album never came out. You can see it in Discogs, but the fact of its existence is greater than the music itself.

Meanwhile, major labels keep pursuing terrestrial radio, which means less than ever before, which the younger generation does not listen to. The old paradigm is you go where the most people are, but if that mass is declining, what does that mean? I’ll tell you what it means, you’re missing most of the audience.

So if you have Spotify Top 50 music, it’s easier. It can be seen and heard there, as part of a playlist if nothing else. But if you don’t make it to the list, or if you don’t qualify for the list, not making hip-hop or pop, then what?

Oh, that’s right, you want to get on a playlist. Sure, some passive listener might hear your song and save it, but the business is based on active listeners, ever heard of the 90/10 rule?

And then the whole paradigm is disrupted by TikTok. Disruption always happens, especially when you’re asleep at the wheel. Turns out watching the hoi polloi is more interesting than watching dressed-up, media-trained bozos on YouTube. (As for the YouTube music subscription numbers, don’t believe them, an incredible percentage are just paying to get rid of the interminable video ads.)

So the major labels try and control TikTok. But this is playing from the rear as opposed to the front. And the truth is most acts make music that isn’t TikTok friendly. If it’s long and slow, forget about it.

What about that music?

The majors don’t sign it.

So, the majors are losing control of new music production. The story isn’t how TikTok stars can go forward without a label, but how the major labels don’t want to sign most music, and acts making these tunes are forced to go it alone.

As for the big TikTok acts going independent… Almost none of them can resist the huge check, the better deals the majors will proffer just to keep product in their system, and influencer culture is ridden with overnight successes who turn into nothings almost as fast. Make it in music as a social media star? Sure, there are examples, but there are exceptions to every rule.

And the music business continues to detach itself from the public.

I was watching this Netflix comedy special last night, Jeff Ross and Dave Attell looked like they’d just stumbled out for a pack of cigarettes. Bill Burr was wearing his Nikes. This is why you used to want to be a rock star, to break cultural norms, to do it your own way. Now all the stars and wannabe stars have stylists, want to break into the world of fashion, do you think this resonates with the average person on the street? No, for them it’s about the music first and foremost. You shouldn’t need clothing or production to sell it.

And I think it was Jeff Ross who said he lost his sense of taste during Covid. Yes, he bought tickets to a Dave Matthews show! I’m laughing just writing this. Irreverence, it used to be a hallmark of rock music. But the dimwits coddled by the industry can’t even make a joke, never mind take one.

Is the above depressing?

Of course!

But when things are in the doldrums, that’s when disruption occurs. People who think outside the box triumph.

Want to think outside the box?

Fire your lead singer who has got a mediocre voice, I don’t care that he wrote the lyrics, find someone who can sing, who the audience wants to hear.

Write one song so good that it goes viral. That should be your goal, to write individual great songs, forget the album, unless you’re one of those Patreonites bragging that you’re making money selling to an ever-dwindling number of hard core fans. Patreon is not the game, it’s a paper route.

Yes, it’s a hits business. It’s always been a hits business.

Or forget the recordings all together. Make it about the live show. But then it’s got to be different every time you come through, if not every night, and it’s got to be spectacular.

No one wants to hear the above, because that would mean they have to change their thinking. Not do it the typical way. Raise money, book a studio, record an album, pay people to promote it…straight to the dumper.

And it would mean you’d have to reach higher, stop letting others tell you how great you are and measure yourself against…

The Beatles.

That’s right, you’re competing against them every day, they’re right there next to you online, and Paul McCartney is even on the road, hoovering up dollars, that could have gone to you.

In addition to that great voice, maybe you want songs with changes, bridges… Worked for Paul!

Not that that’s the only way to break in. But if you don’t do it the traditional way, you’ve got to be even better than the rest, to bring people to you.

I’d say it can’t go on this way, but it has for over a decade, getting worse and worse.

And what has changed?

ALMOST NOTHING!

They don’t make television like this in the United States.

And they certainly don’t make movies. Hollywood is patting itself on the back over the success of “Top Gun: Maverick.” I haven’t seen it, but I did see the original, because back then movies still mattered, the stars weren’t on TV, they were shooting for something more. I hear it’s a special effects movie that’s a tribute to the military. More serious reviewers have panned it, even in the L.A. “Times,” but the public loves it. On RottenTomatoes it’s got a score of 97/99, the first being the critics  and the second being the public, not that there’s a cadre of trusted critics anymore, both Siskel and Ebert are dead. Movie criticism barely means anything more than music criticism, and since there’s no longer the advantage of free records, and anybody can express their opinion online, music criticism means nothing these days. It, like movie criticism, especially on front line, highly touted product, is essentially cheerleading. The critics don’t want to lose their access. And money trumps art. Our national standards have dropped. Say something sucks and the blowback on social media is that you suck. To a great degree people don’t even know what great is anymore, they don’t have contact with it.

Great doesn’t play to the audience. When all the hit records are done by the same producers and songwriters, with the acts essentially buying insurance, why should the audience care? It truly is product, with no lasting effect. A great record, a transcendent record, exists in its own atmosphere, you find a slit in the globe, step in and are amazed. You can’t wait to tell people about the experience, one you’ve never had before. But that’s not what drives the business today.

You know why TikTok is so powerful? Because it’s new and different, it’s tapping the talent of the hoi polloi, with essentially no restrictions. The gatekeepers have rules, the gatekeepers say no, whereas the creators of the app say yes, they’re delivering tools for you to create. It’s the humanity that is attractive in TikTok, something that’s certainly been squeezed out of mainstream music, and a whole hell of a lot of television too. As for movies with that element, the studios don’t even release stuff like that anymore, the risk is big and the payback odds are extremely low.

But the numbers were never this big in foreign countries. Actors were part of the fabric of society, not held high above the regular citizens.

Now before watching the first episode of “Borgen,” we finished off this season of “Hacks,” which ends leaving you believing the series is over, done with, but doing research online one finds out that’s far from the case. They get the Hollywood pitch meetings right, Jean Smart is better than the rest of the cast put together, she’s a marvel, and ultra-believable in the role, but everybody else is essentially a cartoon. The production values are great, but so much of the rest is predictable, two-dimensional cardboard.

But not “Borgen.”

I’m waiting for the innovation on the other streaming services. Disney giving us another “Star Wars”? What next, more “Hello Kitty”? This is evidence of brain dead profiteering. Sequelitis. Without the original “Top Gun” the new one would have done a lot less at the box office. But in a world where so much is unsatisfying, where it’s hard to build from scratch, the purveyors keep going back to the well, again and again and again. And believe me, it’s about innovation, especially in tech, where there is no catalog, which is keeping the major labels alive.

You must read this article from Bloomberg:

“Mark Zuckerberg Is Blowing Up Instagram to Try and Catch TikTok – The CEO of Meta Platforms needs Reels—his short-form video feature—to fund his metaverse, and you can smell his desperation from Beijing.”: https://bloom.bg/3aDxBhj

And you should take the time to click through, even if you don’t use social media. Because this is about more than advertising to young people. Turns out Zuckerberg was a one trick pony. Facebook, which even he didn’t come up with. He bought WhatsApp and Instagram, brilliant moves, but this can’t happen again, just like content creators are wary of making deals with Apple, they don’t want to give up control of the game. All Zuckerberg seems able to do is copy, in most cases poorly. Which means his metaverse play…will probably fail. Because if someone talks about something ad infinitum, it seems to never happen in tech. It’s always some left field nobody who twists the concept and delivers what people want. Yes, there will be a metaverse. But will it be about owning land and buying clothes and tchotchkes? Probably not.

So let’s see, supposedly declining to death Netflix has the latest “Stranger Things,” TV sequelitis, that I gave up on with season two. And it’s got “Squid Game”… The other outlets have nothing similar. And we keep hearing it’s about their catalog. When in truth, catalog is important, but it’s front line, new product that creates all the buzz and the sales, that drives your business.

And now Netflix has the new season of “Borgen.”

Maybe you never watched the original. Your loss. The Israelis and the Danes make the best television, and “Borgen” is Danish. And in truth, I spent two years watching the cream of the crop on TV and now am mostly subjected to B level material. Like the people listening to the umpteenth track by the Weeknd produced by Max Martin, or one of the albums Jack Antonoff is involved in, their sights are lowered, they don’t expect revolutionary, but you know it when you hear or see it.

Like “The Bureau.” The French “CIA” show. It’s got more tension than the movies in the theatre, and with your giant OLED TV the image is just as good. You’re involved, you’re invested.

But you won’t get hooked right away.

There’s all this crap about people’s short attention spans. But we know that everybody’s got time for great, that’s what bingeing is all about, which is why HBO and Apple are so stupid releasing their product week by week. It’s the experience, the immersion that turns us on, that gets us to testify. Watching one of these series dripped out week by week is like taking a break after foreplay, and then after you go to the bathroom, there is penetration. And just when you’re getting into it, there’s a break for dinner… Would you ever get off under these circumstances? Of course not. As for you offended by sex analogies, the whole world runs on sex. As does TV. You can be puritanical, like a politician standing up for morality and then stepping out on his wife, or you can stop pooh-poohing sex, after all it’s human nature.

So Netflix has dropped all eight episodes of season 4 of “Borgen” right away, today. And if people didn’t know I was a fan of the show and tell me, I might not have known it came back. Because it’s impossible to reach people. And hype is so twentieth century. No, today the product stands on its own, and the goal is to make something so good that it sells itself.

Like “Borgen.”

So I’m not going to tell you the new season of “Borgen” is immediately riveting. You’re playing mental games trying to remember where the last season left off, after all it was years ago. But Sidse Babett Knudsen is so serious, so involved, not wanting us to look at her, but doing her job, that we’re drawn right in.

Everybody’s just doing their job on “Borgen.” It’s not movie stars saying LOOK AT ME! And the amazing thing is they make being in government, and media, look exciting, like legal TV shows. But the law moves slowly and media moves fast and the government is somewhere in between.

It’s a career. Forget the stunting, the election of the unseasoned, inexperienced, most people in government are lifers, especially the non-elected. And you’ve got to choose your path wisely. Say no to one gig and yes to another. Playing the game is half of the job.

So, do you yell or treat everybody nicely.

This is one of the reasons American business is messed up. Executives are so busy being nice to their workers that they lose focus on the ultimate goal. I’m not talking about sexism, I’m not talking about abuse, what I’m really talking about is competence. An executive wants to believe everybody can do their job, is dedicated to their job, knows what they’re doing, and if they criticize someone for being substandard it’s not the ultimate faux pas. When you’re responsible, you care. And when an underling screws up, I’m not talking a mistake, everybody makes those, but is unprepared or does a lousy job or…it makes you go nuts. Which is why founders are replaced by managers with MBAs that know how to run the company, but just can’t innovate. A founder is riding on the edge, he or she wants their team to ride on the edge with them.

Oh, you think I’m touching the third rail here.

But let me put it this way. Some people take their jobs very seriously, it’s life and death, and for all the b.s. that we should take time off, disconnect, it’s oftentimes this game, this work, that gives meaning in life. Try not working, it’s depressing. And a lot of people want to make a difference with their job, like Sidse/Birgitte Norberg.

As I referenced with Ari Emanuel, all these big shots have PR teams, they see the press as a tool. And that is evidenced in “Borgen.” A truth not in American TV.

And the issues are real and up to date. Climate change. Putin invading Ukraine. These are the issues of our day, not the Mandalorian.

So I’m watching and I’m involved. The rest of the world falls away. You have to pay attention or you miss it. And I don’t want to miss anything. That’s how you get ahead in life, not missing anything. As for those smoking dope, which is for some ridiculous reason seen as cool, try remembering what happened while you were stoned. Hell, half of the game is just observing, you’ve got to know the landscape, where the bodies are buried, people’s weakness, to even play the game.

It’s not a great continuum from the everyday to the elite. There’s a huge gap between the two. Which is why regular folk revere and criticize, gossip about the elite. They have no access. But at the top of every company/organization, there’s a game. And the people playing it are smart. And it’s hard to stay in. And if you’re asleep, you lose. You’ve got to not only play, but think ahead.

This is all in “Borgen.”

It was palpable, the experience of watching “Borgen” as opposed to the rest of the dreck I’ve been consuming recently. I could feel it immediately. Not only was it a good ride, there were lessons to be learned.

Americans are fed bread and circuses. So they’re not even aware of situations, never mind the truth. But “Borgen” does a better job of delineating the issues behind climate change than the media in America. It’s simplified, but not simple. This is the power of the visual image. To send a message. The images bring you in, you get hooked on the story, and while you’re on the ride you’re picking up all kinds of information.

That is not in a Marvel movie, irrelevant of its grosses.

It’s not on the gossip sites.

This is real life.

And in “Borgen” everybody is not beautiful, as everybody in government is not not only in Denmark, but the USA.

“Borgen” is what it’s all about. When they started teaching film in universities they were thinking about stuff like “Borgen,” not the crap in theatres today. This is serious business. Which causes you to take it seriously.

This is what I live for.