Word: disneying
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...exceptional broadcast programs. Last week, it was disclosed that ABC is attempting to replace “Nightline,” its highly celebrated in-depth news program hosted by Ted Koppel, with David Letterman’s “The Late Show.” The Walt Disney Company, which owns ABC, has tried to justify this move by saying that Letterman would lure a younger audience to the 11:35 p.m. timeslot, increasing advertising revenue for a slumping network...
...like a lot of modern musical theater, like Les Misérables and Sweeney Todd,” he says. “It’s about finding what’s essentially you. It’s dorky. There’s almost something Disney about...
...parent company Disney are being accused of selling out journalism itself - all for negotiating with the late-night talk-show host to jump from CBS and replace Ted Koppel. (Letterman draws younger viewers and so more advertiser's dollars, whereas news programs are traditionally a magnet for Metamucil ads.) The news sent New York's chattering class into a frenzy; as of this writing, this national crisis has prompted three front-page New York Times articles, and counting...
...when Disney signals that "Nightline" is a goner, it commits the faux pas of reminding all journalists of our own job insecurity. We take that personally. We're indignant to learn that anyone might run Disney like what it is: a company in business to make money. (Dedicated to the bottom line! Have they no shame?!) By the weekend, one commentator after another insinuated that Disney was doing something insidious by going after Letterman for "ratings" or "advertising dollars," as if there was something inherently immoral in TV - unlike any other business - about succeeding on that business' own terms...
...Because the "Nightline" controversy is less about that one show than about journalists' eternal belief that the golden age of their profession is always twenty years before whatever the present time happens to be. Critics of Disney contend, with some justification, that this controversy shows the dangers of media consolidation: that giant corporations like Disney will gladly axe a top news show to make money. But in the golden age that these critics appearently long for, before cable, TV news was the monopoly of three outlets, ABC, CBS and NBC, run by paternalistic white men. If that wasn't media...