Today, the Peacock Network has not only dropped “Prime Suspect” (I’m taking that as a personal jab), it’s reinventing its inglorious past. Now, if that meant they had revived “Will & Grace” or “Family Ties,” I might be on board. Instead, NBC has breathed new life into “Fear Factor.” “Fear Factor!” Mind you, I have nothing against Joe Rogan. Aside from some possible plastic surgery, he’s kind of held up pretty well. And his UFC announcer gig lends him some odd testosterone cred. Despite that, there is ZERO reason to bring back this show.

I watched the premier episode Monday night, and you can’t imagine what a treat it was. First off, all the contestants were former couples. Classy. Their first “stunt” involved driving a car into a body of water, sinking with it, grabbing a flag from a lockbox and swimming back to shore. This was all fine until the third couple came up for air and it became apparent the woman couldn’t swim. Seriously. She sank, had to be rescued and was  disqualified. And did the ex-boyfriend try to save her? I think you know the answer to that question.

I’m going to jump ahead to stunt #3. This one involved being lifted off a moving bus by a helicopter, jumping onto and off a speedboat and climbing a cargo net carried by another chopper. Suffice it to say one couple needed post-stunt medical attention. Please. It’s an interesting stunt, I guess, but I fail to see how it puts the “fear” into “Fear Factor.”

Now let’s go back to the second stunt. I don’t really know how to convey the grotesqueness that was broadcast over the network’s airwaves, but I’ll give it a try. Three couples were forced to jump in a vat of – I SWEAR – cow blood. They had to submerge one at a time – IN COW BLOOD, WITH NO PROTECTION ASIDE FROM SWIMMER’S GOGGLES – and find beef hearts at the bottom of the tank. One contestant would find a heart, put it in their partner’s MOUTH, and that person had to SPIT the heart (which is as big as a human head) into a bin down below. Nevermind they can’t SEE the bin because they have BLOOD in their EYES. Add to that several inappropriate references to spitting (wink wink)…I can go no farther. One contestant nearly vomited. I identified with him most of all.
If all this isn’t the first sign of the apocalypse, I don’t know what is. At a bare minimum, it’s the manifestation of America’s crumbling taste, if not its morals.

Don’t get me wrong – I can be a glutton for bad reality TV. But come on, NBC, recycle something that’s actually worth the trouble.

One of those manufacturers, Procter & Gamble, was one of the first companies to get into the act. But P&G didn’t just advertise – it owned at least 20 soap operas, beginning with radio shows in the 1930s. Two of the biggest – or at least longest lasting – bastions of daytime TV were P&G-owned: Guiding Light (GL) and As The World Turns (ATWT). Their time slots provided the perfect battleground for P&G and its competitors to market their detergents, tampons, toothpastes and toilet paper to the millions of women who couldn’t wait to see if Lily and Holden would stay together or if Reva would get married one more time.

Don’t know what I’m talking about? Well, you’re not alone.

My mom was an ATWT addict when I was a kid, and like most women in their 30s and 40s, she became part of a very splintered demographic that disappeared from the soap-watching scene. The end result? Last year, CBS swung the axe and canceled GL and ATWT after 72 and 54 years, respectively. They were the last soaps owned by an advertiser, leaving only six more daytime dramas in their wake. And what’s replacing them? Among other things, a remake of “Let’s Make A Deal” starring Wayne Brady – really? Really.

Apparently it costs $50 million per year to produce a soap opera, and with audiences quickly aging, working or simply doing something else, the networks are increasingly getting rid of them. P&G spends more than $7 billion in advertising each year…making the cost of their little soaps the equivalent of a drop of Cascade in a fully-loaded dishwasher.

So just like every other marketer that used to enjoy a concentrated cluster of ripe-for-the-picking consumers huddled around their TVs, the “soap” companies are quickly losing what was once a gold mine: TV shows made on the cheap with the perfect – and highly engaged – audience. The housewife hanging on every word of her favorite character barely exists any more.

The sad state of the soap opera is testament to that irreparable audience splintering that leaves us all trying to find the most efficient and effective way to reach audiences that no longer collectively enjoy a common soapy bond. And that’s fine – just as long as they keep their hands off Days of our Lives (I’m a closet fan since 1984).

• The most recent Super Bowl was the most-watched telecast ever
• The Golden Globes saw a 14 percent increase from last year
• The Grammys saw an amazing 35 percent increase in viewership this year
• The Olympics were the second largest US Olympic audience ever, surpassed only by the Kerrigan/Harding miniseries of 1994

Coincidence? It’s easy to point out that the Super Bowl had the league MVP, two teams that were 13-0 at one point in the season and the Hurricane Katrina sub-plot. It wouldn’t be unreasonable to argue that the Golden Globes, too, benefited from the same things the Oscars did. But the Grammys? Did 35 percent more people really tune in to see Lady Gaga and Elton John perform together? And The Olympics? I think the strongest case can be made for them that something is to thank other than unusually great stories. Is that thing social media?

Local WCCO producer Gregg Litman recently wrote about social media being a big reason for the ratings surge and I agree. These huge cultural events used to make for good banter around the watercooler the next day, but now viewers gather around it during the show and it’s much more a communal experience. So is that the reason? Could it not be because more people are staying home more with tight budgets, watching the tube because it’s cheaper than going out to dinner and a movie? My colleague John Reinan points out that with the continuing fragmentation of media, people may now crave these big, communal events more than ever.   

The BNET Media story that I linked to in the first paragraph also points out that broadcasters of big events are likely to factor in “the social media effect” from now on and be likely to ask for major ad rate increases. When considering that, it’s amazing to think about how recently stories like “Super Bowl ads decreasing for the first time ever” and the whole “DVR, TIVO, On-Demand, etc. will be the demise of TV” were written. It’s been one heck of a three-month stretch or so for TV and I’m curious to know what you think - what’s the reason for it and can this continue?

My life feels like this sometimes

I take it at least a few of you have seen “Hoarders,” the hit A&E reality show that looks inside the lives of people “whose inability to part with their belongings is so out of control that they are on the verge of a personal crisis.” I had not seen an episode until reading this Rob Walker NY Times Magazine column — pointing out that the show’s season premiere back in November drew 400,000 more viewers than the premiere of “Mad Men.” This I had to see. How can people be so smitten with a show about people who are overly smitten with their possessions?

I struggled to get through one episode and found it very unsettling. In one scene, there was a woman who was brought to tears over letting a filthy teddy bear go. As much as I wanted to yell “It’s disgusting, just throw it away for god’s sake,” there was no denying it struck a chord with me. I went and looked in my closet and saw a pair of Nikes that I hadn’t worn in five years but wouldn’t even consider throwing out. Hell, they’re the original Air Force II’s – collector’s items! But how different is that excuse than the woman’s with the stuffed animal? That’s when I started to examine another heap of clutter that I have been accumulating for some time – my list of things to read, listen to or view online. And then it hit me - I’m a web hoarder, and I don’t think I’m the only one.

If ”Hoarders,” as Walker says, ”in a sense, can be read as a metaphor for an entire culture that has lost perspective on the relative importance of things and desperately needs help,” then web hoarding is part of that — and part a result of our information-crazed society. Walker writes that “while most hoarders have trouble controlling the urge to acquire, the more severe problems involve an irrational reluctance to let go.” Consider that while I list a few things that caught my eye the last couple days.

• Lil’ Wayne’s jail sentence got postponed because of a dentist appointment? This I have to read.
• John Mayer said something crazy to Playboy? Bookmark it.
• A podcast about how to best use Google Buzz? I’ll surely find time to listen to that later.
• A discussion thread about how Toyota’s PR team can save the day? Got to chime in tonight.
• A blog post about the new Twitter lists? Add it to the Google Reader.
• Rollerblading babies? I’ll watch it eventually.
• Movie marketing blogger who wrote about “The Dark Knight?” Subscribe to this dude’s blog.
• A vlog about how Obama won the election due to being social media savvy? Yup.

You may have noticed that the last few bullets were rather outdated. Yet, somewhere on my laptop, probably thousands of similar links are saved from weeks, months, maybe even years ago. Do I ever actually follow through and click on these? Rarely. Will I delete them? Never. Why? Because I’m convinced there will be a time in the future when the link’s topic will come up and it makes me queasy thinking that I might not know about it. Compared to my list of links, the lady’s house with the gross teddy bear looks kind of tidy.

Yes, it’s just my computer. There isn’t trash up to my waist when I walk through my living room. I probably don’t need psychiatric help. But in 10 years? Who knows. Twitter is atwitter all the time. Info is flying at us on our smart phones and mobile devices. Media outlets are trying desperately to give us news quicker than their competitors and everyone is a media outlet all of a sudden. There’s already an Internet Addiction Rehab Center in Washington. I can say with all honesty that I have neglected more important things in life from time to time to click on some analysis of a relatively meaningless pop culture happening. Will we see “Web Hoarders” on A&E in the 2010′s? If so, I hope I’m not the first subject.

Photo via connect.in.com

By the third or fourth episode, I was sure this was a one-season-and-done type of a show, and that the cast would soon go back to living with their parents and working part-time jobs in retail. But to my dismay and delight, “The Jersey Shore” will be back for a second season, on their terms. The eight, proud-to-be-stereotypical Guidos held out for more money after MTV offered to air “The Jersey Shore” for another season. Why wouldn’t they, though? They are the stars of MTV’s most popular show to-date. Why not get the money you deserve for being the stars of an entire network?

What else are they doing to cash in on their stardom? Let’s take a look at a few cast members.

The Situation

“Everybody loves me: babies, dogs, hot girls, cougars. I just have unbelievable mass appeal.” – The Situation

The Situation is currently trying to trademark his nickname, releasing a signature cologne, appearing on TV shows like “Mike and Mike in the Morning” and “The Today Show,” and is reportedly getting paid $7,500 – $10,000 to appear at night clubs across the country.

Snooki

“I can’t walk out of the house without bronzer … even if I go to the store I need makeup … I’m 4’9, maybe with the poof 4’11.” -Snooki

Snooki is showing up everywhere. From doing the weather on local TV shows, to “Inside Edition” and the “Today Show,” Snooks’s face is on TV screens everywhere, daily. Snickers is also earning $7,500 – $10,000 for night club appearances.

Pauly D

“We’re beatin’-up-the-beat, that’s what we say when we’re doing our fist pump.  First, we start off by banging the ground, we’re banging it as the beat builds ’cause that beat’s hittin’ us so we’re fightin’ back, it’s like we beat up that beat.” – Pauly D

Pauly D, a.k.a DJ Pauly D, is also showing up on TV shows, getting paid to appear in clubs and is earning extra money to guest DJ at night clubs. He’s also coining a new hair style, just as Jennifer Aniston did during her days on “Friends.” He orders hair gel by the case and does his hair twice a day. Oh, he’s also publicly offering to pose for Playgirl.

“The Jersey Shore” cast proves you don’t have to be smart or talented to become rich and famous. Well, famous. You just have to find what you’re good at and if it is very niche, and you market yourself in the right way, you can make money at it. Of course, starring in an MTV reality show exposing the idiosyncrasies of Italian Americans, or self-proclaimed Guidos, doesn’t hurt.

I’ve spent a lot of time in the last year or two trying to figure out new media. But lately, I’ve been devoting more thought to the old media.

Why? The same reason people gawk at a bad accident. The old media have been T-boned by the Internet, and they’re lying twisted and smoking on the shoulder of the information superhighway.

For nearly 100 years, they’ve been at the core of communication in this country: newspapers, magazines, radio and TV.  They told us what was happening in our communities, they delivered our commercial messages, they entertained and informed us.

But the old media went over the cliff a few years ago. Now they’re like Wile E. Coyote, frantically running in place just before the bottom drops out from under them.

The list of cutbacks, buyouts and layoffs in the traditional media just since this summer would take up more space than I have in this post. Gannett and McClatchy, two of the nation’s top three newspaper publishers, each cut 10 percent of their workforce earlier this year– then came back a few months later with a second 10 percent cut. Both companies have lost more than 90 percent of their peak stock-market value. Weekly newspapers are beginning to fold, and at some point, we’ll see daily papers begin to go under.

Time, Conde Nast, Hearst and other magazine publishers have closed titles and cut jobs by the hundreds. Advertising pages are down sharply. TV stations nationwide are cutting production staff– and even, in some cases, high-profile on-air personalities.

Yet despite all their problems, the traditional media remain a critically important piece of both public and commercial dialogue. They still provide the basic reporting that the blogosphere feeds off, and they have a mass that outweighs all but the biggest national blogs and Web sites (some of which are starting to develop their own reporting resources, but that’s another story).

For marketers like me, these turbulent times pose a challenge. How does one set priorities between new and old media? Is it better to focus resources on the traditional media, hoping they’ll find your story or product interesting enough to cover? Or would it be better to create a Web site or an e-marketing campaign, and try to draw people to your message that way?

My view is that the traditional media are still important, and it would be unwise for marketers to ignore them in an overall marketing plan, both for advertising and public relations. But the relationships will be different than they were even a few years ago. Here are some changes I think we’ll be seeing.

Aggregation is more important than ever. Getting your story out through news services and Web aggregators is the best way to get it in front of the most people. That’s always been true, but as individual media outlets cut back their own staffs, they’ll rely even more on newswire and aggregation sources. And in the Internet era, a story that goes out through an aggregator can have long, long legs.

The reporters and editors who remain are harried and worried. They’ve seen colleagues leave or get the ax, and they wonder if they’re next. They’re working harder than ever, yet they feel as if nobody on the business side has figured out how to turn the ship around. Unless they’re within a few years of retirement, they’re probably working on a Plan B for their career.

I’m not yet sure how this translates into practice. In recent years, it’s been common for critics to make dismissive comments accusing the news media of merely regurgitating press releases. Having spent 20 years in the business, I can tell you emphatically that those charges are false– at least, for the quality news outlets I worked at.

But as the traditional media continue to slash their own newsgathering capacity, it’s possible that regurgitating press releases will start to look like a viable option to them.

News nuggets get more attention than in-depth information. With few exceptions, the traditional media– newspapers, TV and magazines– believe that the news consumer is pressed for time and unwilling to digest lengthy items. They’re looking for summaries, lists, nuggets, news of the weird– anything they can slot into a formatted news report. As they rely on fewer people to produce their products, this kind of fill-in-the-blank formatting will be a bigger piece of their overall output.

Local is king. A few major media outlets in the New York-D.C. axis will continue to be important in leading the national dialogue. But in regional markets– even top 20 markets like Houston, Minneapolis and Denver– producers and editors are adopting a relentlessly local focus.

If you’re trying to get their attention for a product or service that isn’t produced in their area, you’ve got to clear a much higher hurdle these days.

Marketers and the news media have always had a symbiotic relationship. But that relationship, which has run in the same comfortable channels for the last half-century, is changing in ways that we haven’t even realized yet.

I think it’s clear that the marketers are going to be less at the mercy of the media. In the old days, there were few options for going around the media gatekeepers. Not so any more.

I don’t see any signs that the traditional media are giving up. Although battered, they’re still fighting.

But Wile E. Coyote never gave up, either– and that didn’t stop him from getting conked regularly by the latest Acme anvil. I’m afraid there are a few more anvils ahead for the traditional media.