Modified On March 2, 2006
“Original content is the salt and pepper on the meal,” he said. “It is certainly not the engine driving this.”
This horribly mangled metaphor, in a fascinating NYT article (“Yahoo Says It Is Backing Away From TV-Style Web Shows”), is hocked up by Lloyd Braun, former ABC-TV suit who is now head of Yahoo’s Media Group. We’re betting that there was a tiny trickle of sweat just arriving at the top of the crack of Lloyd Braun’s ass as this escaped from his lips.
Yahoo, sitting atop an eye-popping pile of cash, hired a TV guy (Braun from ABC) and a movie guy (Terry Semel from Warners) to make Yahoo into the next Big Media Thing. When hired five years ago, Semel said, “I will always have a lot to learn about the internet. But I’m surrounded by what I consider to be some of the world-class experts.” He proceeded to hire experts… on television. Slick!
One of those experts was Llloyd Braun, he of the salty, peppery, engine.
But things are not going well in Yahoo-land. It’s been five years– an eternity in cyberspace– and the suits can’t decide if Yahoo wants to emulate television or movies or… what, exactly?
Braun, no doubt fighting for his job, incongruously and clumsily reminds all of his most recent triumphs:
He acknowledged that coming off developing ABC programs like Lost and Desperate Housewives, he had overly grand expectations for what he should do at Yahoo.
He then goes on to indulge in some spectacular Suitspeak, admitting his woeful failure to comprehend the newness of The New Media and simultaneously speculating out loud about how he might save his executive skin:
“I realized I have to check my ego at the door for a moment, and forget whatever expectations people had about me because of my former life, and really take a hard look at who should this business be built for the long term-— a business that is not dependent on a series of expensive one-off’s to survive,” he said.
Is it just us, or does this sound like something one says after one has been fired?
The occasion for all this hand-wringing is a Startling Announcement by Yahoo that they wanted a do-over on their previous Startling Announcement. That is: We aren’t going to produce a boatload of television-like shows for Yahoo.
When we heard the original announcement, we were delighted! They were, in effect, going to become another TV network– more opportunities for comedians, said we. None of that is happening now. It turns out that they must now devise new and ingenious ways for The New Media to fail.
They seem to be pleading: Why can’t everyone just leave the TV and Movie guys alone while they screw up the New Media (just like they did TV and Movies)?!? Give a suit a break!
From the sidelines comes this quote:
Jordan Rohan, an analyst with RBC Capital Markets, said Yahoo’s shift in strategy was sound. “Embracing things like blogs and sharing of content between individuals” is at least as important as “coming up with the next mega-online event,” he said. “The Internet is such a niche content environment that the broadcast model does not really work.”
Note to Yahoo: Hire Jordan Rohan! He seems to have good grip on which part of the engine the salt and pepper should be sprinkled!