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mattsammonsez · 4 years

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Free Advice Friday: So About Those Year/Decade In Review Pieces..

As we draw nearer to the end of the month, and thus the end of the year, an annual tradition like no other will soon commence. No not Christmas or Hanukkah, or the celebration of New Year’s Eve in Times Square. No, we are now fully in to the “mailing content in” portion of the year. I’m talking specifically about the “end of the year” review, and this year we get the double whammy of an “end of the decade” review as well.

It’s understandable why you see so many “year in review” pieces this time of year-- the turning of the calendar from 2019 to 2020 presents a nice benchmark of looking back. We have new year’s resolutions as people really do press the reset button on January 1st. And depending on your business’ accounting practices, January 1st marks a new year when a calendar year budget goes into effect. But there’s another simple reason for all of this year and decade-ending content getting cranked out: it’s easy.

The content isn’t only easy to make, it allows content directors time to schedule the content ahead of time, thus giving everyone involved in its creation some valuable holiday time. There’s nothing wrong with that, as even I did the same thing as the Director of Broadcasting & Programming for the Tampa Bay Lightning. With the normal 3-4 day break around Christmas, we would turn our 24/7 streaming radio station Lightning Power Play in to a replay factory as we replayed the Lightning’s wins so far that season in marathon form. It allowed us to put the station on auto-pilot during a stretch where not too many people would listen, and everyone on the air and behind the scenes could take a break before the post-Christmas schedule grind ensued. But when it comes to the year-in-review content piece, there comes a potential trap: the piece is so easy, it becomes trite. That is, it looks like everything else that everyone else is putting out.

You’ve already seen this recently with decade-in-review pieces, especially in sports content, as those pieces hit around Thanksgiving. Again the content makes sense in that directors can tee it up for the holiday week, and as long as there is no breaking news the content creators can head home for a few days. But you have to be careful as (for example) one decade in review for an NHL team looks an awful lot like another review for any of the 30 other NHL teams. With social media, writers and websites and fans share the stories. All of sudden, it seems like everyone is dropping a decade-in-review piece and the general public gets a little overwhelmed. While much of the sports world dove into that feature last week, you can expect the news world will as well right around Christmas. Then the expected year-in-review pieces will come together the week of New Year’s Eve. From a new content perspective, everyone is pretty much off the clock until Monday, January 6th.

So what happens if you’re pressed into duty and you have to do one of these look backs at the year or the past 10 years? Well like a lot of suggestions I have for content, it all boils down to making your piece entertaining and different from the rest. Think of a different angle than the usual “top 10 players from the last 10 years”, or the “top 10 stories from this past year”. What that different angle is really should be determined by your audience. What makes your audience different and special from the others? What speaks to them, and gets their attention above and beyond the annual “here’s a reminder of what happened” piece you often see get mailed in? Here are a couple of examples, one from 25 years ago and one that was recently released:

Who didn’t die this year?: Michael Moore is not everyone’s cup of tea, and I’ve never been 100% in his camp on certain issues he is an activist for. But I will never forget what he did during his year-in-review episode of the short-lived TV Nation television show from the 1994-95 season. A vignette that ran before or after a commercial break highlighted the people who didn’t die in 1994. It was a hilarious photo montage including video hits from Don Ho and Milton Berle (among others) who proudly declared that they did not die the previous year. What made it hilarious was its thumbing of the nose to the usual Hollywood award shows that honor the people that did die the previous year, and somehow those montages always leave someone out. Read between the lines, and some of the people who didn’t die in 1994 maybe should have in Moore’s opinion. Whether you agree with Moore’s politics or stance on social issues, you have to acknowledge this was a fun and funny poke at the usual year-end obituaries. It was a smart piece done for the smart-alec viewers of the program who shared Moore’s sense of humor.

What would you tell yourself on January 1, 2010?: Amongst the flurry of “team of the decade” stories on The Athletic recently, comes this touching collection of stories from Richard Deitsch, who covers sports media for the website. Rather than just tick off the top 10 broadcasting moments from the decade, or the 10-most influential broadcasters of the past 10 years, Deitsch turned the content piece around to the people he covers. He asked broadcasters and journalists; “ What specific career or personal advice would you give your younger self on Jan. 1, 2010 and why?” It’s a simple yet brilliant approach, and the answers from some of the people you watch, listen to, or read in the world of sports are fascinating. The stories not only show the human side and the vulnerabilities and wisdom of some of the personalities we often put on a pedestal in our business, it also allows the common person to think about the question too. Anyone can ask themselves what they would tell themselves on January 1, 2010, if they could go back in time. And I guarantee you the responses from the general public would be equally entertaining and thought-provoking.

So before you go typing away at that standard year-in-review or that special decade-in-review content piece, ask yourself how you make it different and more interesting than all the other deadwood floating in the sea of content. How about the top 10 Buffalo Bills fans breaking tables recap? Or maybe you can pen the review of the past 10 World Series champions and in what order they are the most impressive from 1-10? Or along the line of Deitsch’s piece, maybe it’s more personal like the one person who inspired you the most in 2019, or what you hope to see from humanity at the end of 2029?

Whatever it is, make it entertaining and make it memorable. You only have one chance to recap 2019, and only one chance to recap the 2010′s.

Matt Sammon has been in broadcasting and content creation for 24 years, and was most recently the Director of Broadcasting & Programming for the Tampa Bay Lightning. Learn more about him and what he can do for you at SammonSez.com.

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harryandmeghan0-blog · 5 years

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WWE Raw Will Not Benefit From The Lackluster Return Of Brock Lesnar - Forbes

New Post has been published on https://harryandmeghan.xyz/wwe-raw-will-not-benefit-from-the-lackluster-return-of-brock-lesnar-forbes/

WWE Raw Will Not Benefit From The Lackluster Return Of Brock Lesnar - Forbes

First, it was Triple H, Vince, Stephanie and Shane McMahon. Then, on this week’s episode of WWE Raw, it was Braun Strowman, John Cena, Hulk Hogan and Brock Lesnar.

Credit: WWE.comCredit: WWE.com

When WWE’s TV viewership starts to fall, the first thing Vince does is reach deep down into his bag of tricks and do something “big” in an attempt to end the company’s ratings woes. Indeed, the return of the WWE Chairman himself just a few weeks ago was a huge viewership hit for Raw. But that impressive jump in viewership was sandwiched between the two least viewed episodes of Raw ever, the Dec. 10 episode that averaged just 2.194 million viewers and the Christmas Eve edition that plummeted to a meager 1.775 million viewers.

Vince promised he would “shake things up” in an effort to improve Raw’s struggling product, announcing the upcoming debuts of several NXT stars and the returns of “The Monster Among Men,” “The Champ” and “The Beast.” Short of a jaw-dropping heel turn (like for Cena) or the return of a major star like The Rock, bringing back three of the company’s biggest stars, including two mainstream ones, was a classic WWE move: Thinking that throwing more gasoline on the fire will make it better.

The return of Cena might have been a real game-changer given his history of positively affecting things like TV viewership and live event attendance, but his return could only be a short-lived one as he is expected to begin filming a new movie soon and may be gone shortly after Royal Rumble. That will remain true of Lesnar, who is advertised for the go-home to Royal Rumble edition of Raw in two weeks but isn’t advertised for any appearances beyond that.

In other words, Lesnar’s Raw return is exactly what you likely think it is: A Band-Aid on a gaping wound that really needs stitches.

Look, no one is blaming WWE for trying to make the red brand more entertaining because, well, everyone knows it needs to be. But this idea that Lesnar is some sort of massive draw (which is apparently what WWE officials believe) on par with the likes of Hogan, “Stone Cold” Steve Austin or even Cena is a baseless one not rooted in actual evidence. Let’s take a look at some of Lesnar’s recent big moments/returns and what they did for Raw viewership:

Oct. 24, 2016: Lesnar’s return to Raw averaged 2.81 million viewers, a huge drop after Goldberg’s return the previous week averaged 3.13 million.

Jan. 16, 2017: Raw averaged 3.271 million viewers, up substantially from the previous week’s 2.907 million. However, the Jan. 9 episode went head-to-head with college football’s BCS National Championship game, which averaged more than 26 million viewers.

Dec. 19, 2017: Raw averaged 2.79 million viewers, up slightly from the previous week’s 2.68 million. It’s worth noting that this episode kicked off with the announcement of the first-ever women’s Royal Rumble and that the previous week’s episode was the lowest number Raw drew since June of that year.

March 19, 2018: According to Sportskeeda, “Raw averaged 3.327 million viewers and was down 25,000 from last week’s average of 3.352 million.”

July 30, 2018: Raw averaged 2.90 million viewers after averaging 2.78 million the previous week. This episode also featured the return of Ronda Rousey.

Sept. 17, 2018: After Lesnar made a surprise return the previous night on Raw, the red brand averaged 2.672 million viewers, down from the previous week’s 2.74 million.

For all this chatter that Lesnar is a massive draw who moves the needle, his TV “returns,” which seem to happen every other month or so, are meaning less and less these days when fans know that a Lesnar appearance is typically a one-off thing before he disappears again.

The worst thing WWE possibly could have done at Crown Jewel in November was put the Universal title back on Lesnar, let him go away again and then pretend like it’s a big deal when he shows up because, well, he’s the champion and that’s exactly what he’s supposed to do. But while Lesnar’s sporadic appearances, advertised as returns (even though, how many times can a star “return” in one year?), were hit or miss in terms of what they did for Raw’s viewership (and often had other significant contributing factors when they did increase), what it clear is that the effect he had on the WWE Network subscriber count is negligible at best.

Just take a look at WWE’s Key Performance Indicators. Between Q3 2017 and Q3 2018, a one-year period in which Lesnar held the Universal title for all but one month and had blockbuster matches against Strowman (No Mercy 2017) and Roman Reigns (on several occasions), Raw’s average TV rating dipped by 7%. Likewise, the average WWE Network subscriber count dipped from one quarter to the next for every quarter except Q2 when the count hits record highs purely because of WrestleMania:

Credit: WWE CorporateCredit: WWE Corporate

In an era in which WWE focuses so much on the brand, it’s baffling to see the way that Lesnar is still treated like such a big deal, often at the expense of other stars on the roster, when there is very little indication that he an actually sustainable effect on the two biggest drivers of WWE’s business: TV ratings or the WWE Network. Alas, that hasn’t prevented WWE from bringing him back in hopes that his involvement in Royal Rumble storylines will boost viewership, interest and intrigue, but if he’s gone again shortly thereafter, then what is the point?

Lesnar popping up every now and again isn’t the answer to fixing Raw’s viewership woes for the long-term, especially if he’s going to be involved in poorly booked segments with Strowman that do nothing to make fans excited about a third match between the two behemoths. There are two legitimate solutions here: Taking the title off Lesnar and putting it on someone who shows up every week so that Raw’s top stars have something to fight for, or making Lesnar work a full-time schedule. And everyone knows that last part isn’t happening.

So, while there may have been some initial excitement regarding Lesnar coming back, Raw won’t truly benefit from it as long as he does the same thing he does every time he shows up: Basically nothing.

Blake Oestriecher is an elementary school teacher by day and a sports writer by night. He’s a contributor to��@ForbesSports, where he primarily covers WWE. You can follow him on Twitter @BOestriecher.

Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/blakeoestriecher/2019/01/08/wwe-raw-will-not-benefit-from-the-lackluster-return-of-brock-lesnar/

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