The Gentrification of Media Will Be Live Streamed

Oh, for the simpler days of a daily newspaper, three television channels, a typewriter, and a rotary phone.

Nostalgia? Perhaps, especially if you are a late baby-boomer. Not if you are a Gen-Xer or Millennial or whatever the next generation is labelled.

Being a resident of the nation’s fourth (or fifth, depending on the wind) largest media market, one becomes aware of the outcry of citizens when a previously neglected neighborhood becomes “gentrified.”

We’re now beginning to see it happen to our media?—?and some people are complaining “not in my backyard.”

Look at the upset over ESPN the past few months. First, a person who has become more famous for his voice than his writing, Bill Simmons, is told they won’t renew his contract. Up in arms, the Bill Simmons “brand” takes his talents to HBO. Not before taking a few pot shots at the company where he made his “bones,” ESPN, and then persuading some of his colleagues to jump ship with him.

Later, ESPN doesn’t renew the contract of Keith Olbermann, but the uproar isn’t as big as that for Simmons. Then Colin Cowherd burns his bridges in Bristol and moves to FOX Sports 1?—?which is great for TV but what does it do for the medium where he was best heard, radio?

The true “NIMBY” moment came with the decision by ESPN to discontinue the Grantland.com website. For that is what it truly was?—?a website. A cool website, but a website nonetheless, one that really didn’t seem all that connected to ESPN beyond being a toy for Simmons and his cohorts to play with?—?when someone from the mothership pointed out that the website wasn’t making any money, a certain level of sports fans got upset.

Boycott ESPN! Protest the shameless way Simmons and his colleagues were treated. No matter that everybody along the line got paid, and in some cases very, very well. And that the true core of ESPN’s business model?—?broadcasting the best sports events on platforms for everyone?—?remained untouched. Grantland was better than ESPN?—?according to those who were upset about what was happening in their backyard.

Grantland will be missed, but ESPN will go on, and despite the cord-cutting, will find a way to grow. Yes, 300 behind the scenes personnel were laid off recently?—?but isn’t that what’s happening all across America?
Look at Pennsylvania, and Philadelphia, where over 40 writers and editors at the Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News?—?including Flyers and Phillies beat writers who had gained a respectable online following through the Philly.com website?—?were laid off at the beginning of this month. The sports and entertainment sections were particularly hard hit?—?as well as their most popular providers of content social media and online. Who stayed? Some big names, older names, respected names?—?but it still hit the papers and the community hard. A week later there were layoffs at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. And last month, some of the top sports writers in the country were laid off from the New York Daily News, which had long built a reputation as one of the best sports sections in the country. Nothing like laying off National Baseball Hall of Famer Bill Madden in the middle of the MLB playoffs.

In this writer’s lifetime, we’ve seen the birth and death of The National, Inside Sports, and the Philadelphia Journal, among others. We’ve lived through the decimation of The Sporting News, which was once the weekly newsprint bible of baseball and now “just” a website. We are watching changes at Sports Illustrated, and other sports media, almost on a daily basis. Where was the outcry when all the photographers at Sports Illustrated?—?photographers!?—?were laid off earlier this year?

Some sports journalists are now more brands, or stars?—?last week there was an item about Bill Simmons in the New York Post on Page Six, for pete’s sake. Buzz Bissinger is a brand name?—?he shows up at events and talks about sports as if he’s still a beat writer, but we don’t think he sits in the press box every night. Mike Lupica is a brand name. Still (for now) has a column in the New York Daily News and a chair on ESPN every Sunday morning. But are any of them still journalists? Are they still writers? Or are they just “a brand?” And if we follow them from one media outlet to another?—?are we following them because they give us information no one else can give us, or just because we “like” them?

This is the gentrification of media. We’re starting to see it happen beyond sports, too. Witness the mild stirring of resentment when longtime Twitter users suddenly saw the “star” icon changed to a “heart” icon earlier this month.

Some of us have yet to adopt Periscope or Meerkat, but U2 had a concert on Periscope two weeks ago. Did you watch, or did you hear about it?

Like the Marvel movies? Like the comic book character Daredevil? Then you need to subscribe to Netflix to see the show (it was excellent by the way). Same thing for other shows?—?only available to subscribers to Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime.

Like Star Trek? Enough to pay $6 a month to watch a new show in two years? CBS thinks you will, basing their projections for the growth of CBS All Access on the whims of Trekkers like me. Hope it’s better than Star Trek Into Darknessor the reboot of Hawaii Five-Oh?—?both produced or written by the executive producer of the new Star Trek streaming video show.

And not to leave out sports from this equation, the NFL and Yahoo! experimented with the live-streaming of the Buffalo Bills vs. New York Jets game from London on October 25th. For those of us who are still troglodytes, however, it was still available on the radio.

Radio. Someone still loves you.

The media gentrification will continue, and the audiences for each venue will continue to come?—?just smaller audiences and more venues to check out. It’s a revolution that started?—?believe it or not?—?in September 1979, when a visionary named Bill Rasmussen launched?—?you guessed it?—?ESPN.

Maybe media gentrification isn’t so new after all.