John McDermott

Author: John McDermott @mcdradio

  • The night the news networks couldn’t be bothered

    The night the news networks couldn’t be bothered

    With my professor hat on I have become even more attuned to how the media (of which I am part) reacts to things.

    Last night at 8:13pm I texted a friend (also in the media) to tip him about the Sydney story which I had seen on twitter. I followed the story on twitter for a while, then found that CBS News online had a stream of Sky News which was streaming a local Aussie station.

    Meanwhile I channel surfed.  Nothing.

    CNN got a little interested for a while…then at 9pm they chose to air a show about dinosaurs.  MSNBC had on something about Pot Barons and Fox stayed in commercial long enough that I no longer cared what they might or might not have aired (it’s possible they did all-star coverage for 12 straight hours once that break ended, I don’t know).

    My friend tipped me off that Reddit of all things had a cool page up through which I could track the story.  It had 20,000+ viewers (is that what we call them) last night and still 10,000 plus this morning.

    Breaking news has a habit of breaking when it’s not convenient.  It doesn’t like to happen between 9 and 5.  It waits until the boss is unreachable, the main anchor is 2.5 hours away in the Hamptons, or 3 in the morning.

    So on a Sunday night, the news channels aired shows about dinosaurs and pot.

    The reason this bothers me is because when I was brought up in the industry I was taught about dependability and reliability.  If you call yourself a news station I kind of expect there to be news on when there is news.  On this Sunday night, nobody could be bothered.  Dinosaurs.  The news channel version of John’s Law of Cable Networks (every channel eventually realizes they should not bother and just show X-Files reruns.)

    This morning this is BIG BREAKING NEWS STORY.

    Why?

    Because we’re all at work now and have to fill the airwaves all day.  There isn’t a dinosaur show scheduled.  We have morning shows and midday shows and talking head shows and by-golly we’re gonna fill that air-time.  Now it’s a BIG STORY with a big BREAKING NEWS logo.

    It was last night at 9pm too guys.

    …

    Update 10:41am Looks like the story is resolving.  Just wanted to point out that this post was from 7:26 this morning.

  • Comedian of the Year Hannibal Buress and the rest of my Top Comedy Albums of 2014

    Comedian of the Year Hannibal Buress and the rest of my Top Comedy Albums of 2014

    This post was inspired by my daughter. We were talking in the car and I started doing a rap about how you make lists to get your magazine/newspaper/radio show/unemployed dad noticed – and then I decided I would make a “Top Comedy Albums of 2014” type list.

    If you are stumbling across this list, I was VP Comedy & Entertainment for SiriusXM for 10 years before they eliminated that position earlier this year, so I have an affinity for this stuff, and it has been nice to see some people that have been on my radar crack through and have tremendous success.

    So I started the list, and rather than make a Top 10 or whatever round number I just stopped when I stopped.  I’ve attached a spotify playlist for you to listen, and I started at #1 because why not lead with the best.

    hannibal buress

     

    1.  Hannibal Buress – Live From Chicago

    Let’s not get distracted by the Bill Cosby thing which I will address in a second.  This guy is hilarious.  From the first time I saw him in a small club in Chicago I could tell he was it.  Absolutely hilarious, and another in a long list of folks I wanted to hire if only we had had a little budget for development.

    As for the Cosby thing.  Hannibal has addressed it in that it’s not like he went out of his way to destroy Cosby.  Some folks with smartphones filmed the bit and it went viral.  Hannibal is so so so much more than the Cosby Guy so hopefully it doesn’t distract from his talent.

     

     

     

    weird al

    2.  Weird Al – Mandatory Fun

    I played the bejesus out of this this summer.  Never mind the jokes, just as music it’s a great album.  I chose the Lorde parody for this playlist because the second verse is so so so warped and I didn’t see it coming.  It demonstrates the difference between what the local morning DJ does and why Al is Hall of Fame.

    Those were my Top 2 for sure, and in that order.

     

     

     

    This next group are a bunch of folks that are really funny, been around a few years and deserve to be more famous.

    hari kondabolu

    Hari Kondabolu – Waiting for 2042

    myq kaplan

    Myq Kaplan – Small, Dork and Handsome

    tommy johnagin

    Tommy Johnagin – Stand Up Comedy 3

    dan st. germain

     

    Dan St Germain – Bad At The Good Times

    And one more fellow who is definitely known and seems to show up in every sci-fi TV show I watch…but there is no denying he is hilarious.

    patton oswalt

    Patton Oswalt – Tragedy Plus Comedy Equals Time

     

     

     

     

    My apologies to any friends or non-friend comedians who may have released an album in 2014 that I didn’t include.  I don’t get very good record service here at home.

    Enjoy the playlist, thanks for coming by and please check out my career portfolio including all the comedy stuff I did for the past ten years.

  • Martin Freeman as Bilbo Baggins in the Office UK

    I debated whether I should post this here.  On the one hand this isn’t my Facebook page, on the other hand I worked in Comedy for 10 years and really appreciate how strong this sketch is – plus I plan on posting about comedy this week.  Thus, why not? There really aren’t rules for this blog, so why not?

    I love how perfectly this captures The Office UK, and wonder how much of it was lost on an American SNL audience that’s probably way more familiar with the characters and pacing of NBC’s version The Office (:an American Workplace).

    It’s even worth the :30 pre-roll, not that I watched the pre-roll at all. I just found something else to do on the internet for 30 seconds.

  • Static and the 7:15am newspaper delivery

    Static and the 7:15am newspaper delivery

    Two quickies this morning.

    I was driving back from getting coffee, and pretty annoyed with my P2 and P3 station (as a WCBS-AM P1 I got what I needed but then didn’t need traffic a second time so went surfing) so I started really poking around.

    I remembered there is this other station and manually spun my AM radio knob to check them out.  The point of the story isn’t to throw these people under a bus or suggest they suck – they are good people – the point is to illustrate what they are up against.

    So here I am, exactly the demo they would kill to have (in terms of age, affiliation and geography), and I actually remember to tune them in….and….

    BZZZZZZZZZ Static.

    It was 7:08 in the morning,   I haven’t looked but I bet FCC Sunrise is 7:15 if not even 7:30.

    When I had a radio station out on Long Island we had the same problem.  The signal was OK to pretty good when the sun was up, but during “nighttime” (including 7am and 5pm in the winter) it wasn’t.

    So I feel for those folks.

    When I got home the newspaper deliveryman was dropping off the paper across the street.  Newspapers are already hobbled by being what I will sarcastically call ‘two day old tweets printed on parchment.”  Nobody loved newspapers more than I did, but once I got my iPad it just made zero sense to me to get the print edition when I could read current news on my device.  Then you add that the parchment was delivered at about 7:15.  When I commuted to the city I was out the door at 6:45.  If I came home at 7pm and had the parchment with the 2.5 day old tweets – well, what use is that?  I canceled my subscription a few years ago and never looked back.

    Both are up against the old “signal, signal, signal” problem.  That’s a hard one to beat.

  • Link and comment: Slacker Radio enlists Tyler Oakley, other YouTube stars as station DJs – LA Times

    Congrats to all involved…personally excited for Nerdist.

    Pandora competitor Slacker Radio plans soon to invite any social-media star to be the deejay of his or her own online radio station. On Wednesday, Slacker announced an initial set of stations curated by YouTube personality Tyler Oakley, video production house Rooster Teeth, pop-culture aficionado Comic Book Girl 19 and podcaster Nerdist.

    via Slacker Radio enlists Tyler Oakley, other YouTube stars as station DJs – LA Times.

  • The time we didn’t do Andy Kaufman Town Hall

    I was reminded of this one earlier today.  Warning: this post requires basic knowledge of all things Andy Kaufman.  My wife will not understand why any of this is funny.

    andy kaufman

    SiriusXM does a series called Town Hall.  Basically you lock a celebrity (looking to promote something) in a room with 10-20 fans and let the fans ask the celebrity some questions.

    We were under constant pressure to come up with more Town Halls and more Town Halls and more Town Halls.  And more Town Halls.  One day in the Town Hall brainstorm we came up with an idea for Andy Kaufman Town Hall.

    Now you’re thinking to yourself that Andy is dead. How could he answer questions?   Well…

    We had broadcast The Kaufman Awards on Sirius(-XM) for a couple of years and I had gotten to know the organizers and Andy’s brother Michael a little bit.  I knew Michael would pretty much approve anything and approve a quote “from Andy” for anything.

    What I wanted to do was announce Andy Kaufman Town Hall with some quote “from Andy” saying something like, “I didn’t want to come back from the dead for just anything, but when SiriusXM offered me….”

    I planned to ask the wonderfully talented (and former Kaufman Award winner) Kristin Schall to act as moderator.

    kristin

    What we would have done is gone through all the mechanics of a Town Hall.  Promos, press release, soliciting questions, setting up the studio, going live and….

    Either Andy would show up or Kristin would have to vamp to fill time.  Assuming the latter, Kristin could have answered the questions “as Andy” and I have no doubt she would have crushed that.

    Then it occurred to me that this was the sort of event that Tony Clifton would crash.

    I had gotten to know Bob Zmuda a little bit over the years, and what I loved about Bob is that he would never ever reveal that he is the man behind Tony Clifton (post Andy’s death anyway. They used to split time as Tony back in the day.)  Bob will tell stories about Tony, but always refers to him as Tony like it’s someone else.

    So figure we would be a few questions into the event – Tony Clifton storms in, does his usual disruptive Tony Clifton routine, hopefully hilarity ensues…find a graceful out and done.

    In one of the variant ideas Kristin would have killed time waiting for Andy by reading The Great Gatsby.

    I pitched it a few times but nobody “got it.”  Shame, I think it could have been great and Kaufman-esque.

    …

    When I first met Michael he was a little late for the meeting.  After a while I got all kinds of insane wondering if this itself was a Kaufman-esque joke.  Maybe the Kaufman People were pulling a Kaufman on me.

    Eventually Michael came, was cool as hell, but now that I had the crazies I kept wondering “hey maybe this is Andy.”  It’s 30 years later, I see the same eyes, maybe this is Andy and Andy is messing with me.  I guess we’ll never truly be sure.

     

     

     

  • Link and Comment: Amy Schumer Is Producing a Comedy Central Pilot Starring Rachel Feinstein | Splitsider

    Amy Schumer Is Producing a Comedy Central Pilot Starring Rachel Feinstein | Splitsider.

    I am glad to hear this.  When Sonny Fox retired from hosting the morning show on SiriusXM Raw Dog toward the end of 2012 we auditioned Rachel in morning drive for a few months (great suggestion by Rory Belfi and some other members of my staff.)

    I made the recommendation in January of 2013 to hire her, but the powers that be decided the channel should go show-less and revert back to comedy clips.  (Buy me a beer sometime, the list of those who “got away” is both amazingly awesome and amazingly frustrating.)

    I would have liked to have heard how that morning show would have evolved but I’m glad the folks at Comedy Central are developing this one.  Best of luck Rachel!

  • Link: The best comedy albums and specials of 2014 · Best of · The A.V. Club

    Nice list.  Nice to see Hannibal Buress becoming a known name.

    The best comedy albums and specials of 2014 · Best of · The A.V. Club.

  • Link: An Art Form Rises: Audio Without the Book – NYTimes.com

    Good read here.  Audio has had a few buzzy weeks!

    “You have this massive opportunity when you don’t have to fight for people’s eyes,” said Donald Katz, chief executive of Audible. “It’s time for us to move from sourcing content that can produce fantastic audio, on to imagining what the aesthetic of this new medium should be from the ground up.”

    Some are shunning the term “audiobook” and trying to rebrand their content as “audio entertainment” or “movies for your ears.” “The Starling Project” runs to a little over four hours and has 29 actors performing in 80 speaking parts, with the English actor Alfred Molina in the lead role.

    via An Art Form Rises: Audio Without the Book – NYTimes.com.

  • Link: NPR Reports Pandora Has A ‘Deal’ To Favor Certain Artists | AllAccess.com

    NPR Reports Pandora Has A ‘Deal’ To Favor Certain Artists | AllAccess.com.