Cablevision and ABC 7’s parent company, Disney have been duking it out over contract pricing.  It’s been a total mud slinging fest on both sides.  Cablevision currently pays 200 Million annually for ABC’s programming and, according to Cablevision, Disney is asking for an additional 40 Million on top of that per year.  Cablevision’s argument is that is a hefty increase when ABC is offering no new programming or functionality, and that the price is too high not to have to increase rates for Cablevision’s subscribers.  They also go on to say that ABC is trying to cover lost ad revenue due to a bad economy.  Disney, on the other hand, says Cablevision “pockets” fees from customers and that Cablevision is more concerned with profits than their customers.

In all honesty, the whole thing oozes with corporate greed on both sides but I have to say that Cablevision’s point rings truer with me.  ABC Disney is able to broadcast for free, and you can view ABC live without a cable provider with a digital antennae.  So, ad revenue is down because companies aren’t spending as much.  Unemployment is at an all-time high since the Depression, meaning consumers have less extra to spend.  In this model, ABC would demand 40 million more per year to that lost revenue, which was lost largely because of a terrible economic downturn and rather than suck it up like the rest of us, ABC Disney would have the consumer pay.

To Disney’s argument that Cablevision is pocketing customer’s fees, I have two points:

• Coporate structures are designed to make a profit, and Disney isn’t fooling anyone that they aren’t doing the same thing.  Disney is a powerhouse in the entertainment industry, owning ABC, ESPN, Pixar, Marvel, Theme Parks, etc…  They are rolling in profits.
• Since creating its Optimum Triple Play 7 years ago, Cablevision hasn’t raised fees on it’s digital phone service or internet.  Their claim is that it doesn’t cost them anything programmatically and they value their customers.  True or not, they’re saying the right things to me.

The waging war came to an ugly head yesterday when ABC Disney made good on its promise to pull ABC off the air at midnight 3/7/10 if the conflict was not resolved.  When I woke up yesterday morning, we had a looping message from Cablevision where ABC 7 would normally be.  Fo 3 million customers in the New York City area that meant no Red Carpet, no Oscars.  In efforts to console customers, Cablevision made an offer to subscribers - go to the On Demand store and order any movie on 3/7/10 only for free.

Sure enough come Oscar time (8pm EST) ABC 7 was still off the air and the drama lingered.  However, service was restored at 8:55pm EST, just in time for the first award to be handed out.  Just like a knight in shining armor, ABC Disney came to the rescue of 3 million subscribers that were being deprived of the glitz and glamor of the Acamemy Awards.  Yeah, not how I see it…  ABC Disney used Cablevision customers as pawns in a game of chess against Cablevision in order to meet a ranson demand.  They even urged customers to switch providers just to stick it to Cablevision.  I for one don’t appreciate being toyed with in such a way, and in an act of defiance didn’t turn the TV on at all last night.  I know I’m only one viewer and can’t change ratings, but I did what little I could to voice my displeasure in an outrageous battle.

Question now is, how far can I really take my protest when Disney is everywhere?

A few months back we were all surprised by the news that Disney had swooped in and bought Marvel Comics in one of those deals in which phrases like “corporate synergy” and “leveraging assets” get thrown around a whole lot.  Supposedly the idea would be that Disney would benefit from exploiting, I mean leveraging, the Marvel properties through their innumerable media channels, and Marvel would benefit by becoming another cog in a mulitnational media conglomerate.  At worst, we could hope that Marvel would get the Pixar treatment and would be left mostly along to do what they do best (which right now is to make comics and some pretty decent movies).

Upon further review, it really wasn’t that surprising at all, considering that Marvel’s chief rival, DC Comics, has been operating under a similar arrangement, being part of the Time Warner empire for some 40+ years.  What is a bit surprising, though, is that DC themselves have decided to follow Marvel’s blueprint, at least pre-Disney, for best utilizing their own creative resources in order to produce both comics and movies that are of top quality and are somewhat synchronized with each other.  The details were announced last week and you can read more about it in this New York Times article.  The short of it is that they’re handing the creative keys over to Dan DiDio, Jim Lee and Geoff Johns in promoting all of them to executive-level positions, in a move that similar to Marvel Comics setup with Dan Buckley (Publisher) and Joe Quesada (Editor-In-Chief) that seems to work pretty well.

The thing is, this makes a great deal of sense, to let the people who know the most about the characters and the comics themselves, and what they mean to the world at large, run the show.  But see, that isn’t how most corporations work, the creative folks are often viewed suspiciously, and the assumptions is that they don’t know the first thing about business (although it is true that a fair amount of them don’t).

The other thing it seems that DC has learned from Marvel is that they themselves own a huge library of properties, many of which could be made into lucrative movies (the holy grail in the comic book world).  Not every character is a Batman or a Superman or a Spiderman, but as the Iron Man movie recently taught everyone, it’s possible to start up a successful franchise with a (slightly) lesser-known character, at least to non-comic book readers.  And so it seems that DC is hoping to emulate Iron Man’s success with the Green Lantern.

Personally, I’m a much bigger Marvel fan (even after spending 5 years working there) than a DC fan, but I think, in the end, only good things can happen if both companies emulate the success of the other (and hopefully avoid their mistakes as well).

With Halloween this week, I can’t help but think about how funny it is to see my sons fall in my geeky ways, and how awesome it is that being a geek is COOL.  My older son is almost 10 and he’s dressing up as Billy Joe, the lead singer from Green Day.  The baby didn’t have a choice, so we decided to go with an Ewok costume from Star Wars (starting him early).  Growing up, it was so uncool to be a geek, and I was just about as geeky as they get - I was a member of every music program the school had, except for orchestra (regular band, jazz band, marching band, chorus, show chorus, chamber choir.  I was in Drama, I got good grades, I hung with the smart kids who didn’t get into trouble.  I was a geek and I wasn’t cool.  Honestly though, I didn’t care because I was happy doing the things I loved.  Hopefully my kids can both do what they love, while being cool.

From the time my older son was 2 he was bopping along to the tunes of Modest Mouse and Radiohead.  A few years later he discovered Ray Charles.  Listening to a 5 year old pour his heart out singing, “Oh woman, oh woman don’t treat me so mean…” is unforgettably funny.  Then came his obsession with “Lord of the Rings”.  He thought he was Frodo and that I was Gandalf, and went around with his fake British accent recreating scenes from “The Fellowship of the Ring”  Nowadays he’s competely hooked on Metallica, Green Day and Weezer.

I can partly thank the makers of Rock Band and Guitar Hero for expanding his musical pallet, but a large part of his taste in music, movies, sports and style comes from the fact that he’s just a cool kid that wants to do cool things with his parents.  It doens’t hurt that he’s been exposed to a multitude of geekiness from birth on.  We’re lucky, because he still likes us.  We include him in many decisions we make for the business and family, and some of the Geek Bouteek T-Shirts have been inspired by him.  Parents, Teachers and students constantly ask us about Geek Bouteek because of all the free publicity he gives us at school.  In fact, tomorrow at the Halloween parade, I need to bring an order for one of the parents doing some early Christmas shopping…

Our 1 year old has no chance - between his big brother and his parents he has no choice but to be a geek.  Every night we put him to sleep to the musical talents of Rockabye Baby.  They’re a company that takes popular rock bands’ music and turns them into soothing lullabys.  Everything from Metallica to Pink Floyd and right now we’re in a Radiohead phase.  It’s brilliant stuff.  I thoroughly look forward to the baby’s renditions of Karma Police and Creep.

So, Happy Halloween Rogue Nation readers.  Here’s to a day of fun, safe and (of course) geeky festivties!

I know, I know, the movie came out over a year and a half ago, so why on earth am I’m writing anything about it (unless, of course, it’s to start another rumor about whether Brandon Routh will/will not continue on as the Man of Steel). Well, the short answer is, it’s my blog and that’s what I feel like doing. Sorry.

So back in 2005 I was out at the San Diego ComicCon and sat in on a panel in which Bryan Singer premiered footage from the new Superman movie that he was filming. Now, I’m not at all a Superman fan, the character just doesn’t do it for me. But when I got a glimpse of the movie that Singer was putting together, maybe it was the buzz from getting to see something before anyone else, but I couldn’t wait for the movie to come out. Unfortunately, there was an entire year until it actually did come out, and by then my buzz had worn off and I just wasn’t that excited to see it, especially when the reaction from all of my geek friends ranged from anger to apathy.

And now that I’ve seen the movie I can totally understand their reaction (I’m also happy I didn’t spend the $30 it would have cost to take the family to see it). But that being said, I think I actually enjoyed the movie. Brandon Routh is an excellent Superman, he totally nails the part, but I couldn’t really buy Kate Bosworth as Lois Lane. The whole story revolving around Kevin Spacey’s Lex Luthor was often amusing, although not intentionally so, as his plans for creating a new continent from crystals he stole from the Fortress of Solitude were absolutely absurd.

(Possible spoilers ahead for the two people who haven’t seen this movie yet).

Now there are a whole lot of things in the movie that really push how far you’ll suspend your disbelief, but it’s a comic book movie and that’s what it’s supposed to do. Unfortunately it’s not really an action movie in that Superman doesn’t really do much more than fly around and either catch people who are falling or prevent things from falling on people. And then he throws Kevin Spacey’s newly built continent into space. Seriously. Oh, and apparently he’s the father of Lois Lane’s kid, which sets up a wonderful plotline for the next movie where Superman gets to tear Lois’ family apart.

Now, that might sound overly negative, but I actually liked the movie. Not enough to watch it again, mind you, but enough to actually watch the whole thing the first time.

Which is saying something for a movie based on a DC franchise.