(1) The Hardline has been brilliant the last few days. Mike says it truly: There is nothing more to say about this game, time to play. Yet Mike, Corby, and Danny manage to be extremely entertaining for the entire show. The passion and anguish of the fan. The crosstalk with Diamond Talk has been great.
This is Mike Rhyner at his absolute best. When he's interested and engaged, there is simply no more listenable broadcaster in the metro. This puts Corby in his natural position, with Danny lubricating the whole thing.
We've heard that the CTO and Mike have a mutual loathing society going. The past couple of weeks is good evidence of why they will come to terms. The Ticket needs Mike Rhyner, and Mike Rhyner needs The Ticket. I don't care what either side says.
(2) Did Bob Sturm really hijack Diamond Talk the other night, or were the accounts on the other shows exaggerated? Witnesses? I like Bob and in the past I've been inclined to dismiss charges that he's the Sports Bully, but that would qualify. Unless, of course, it were 30 minutes of unrelieved brilliance, which is entirely possible. But 30 minutes of droning qualifiers and subordinate clauses would be a bit much.
(3) Been disappointed with the quality of the Ticket tweets tonight (Game 6). Too many nothingburger interjections with no content or cleverness. A few gems, mostly retweets.
(4) If The Ticket had not sent any shows to St. Louis for either segment of the Series there, would we have noted a significant difference? I did not hear any of the Joe Buck encounters -- maybe that added some local color. The Ticket didn't bother to send The Hardline the second time around. I guess the station gets some PR benefit about saying that they sent some showgrams and the other stations didn't. Hey, I don't mind them going, it certainly doesn't make their broadcasts any worse (technical issues aside). But since Our Heroes aren't really news guys -- with the exception of Gordon, who gets some local sound from time to time -- no one is really covering the sports scene. Their presence in St. Louis (or Detroit, or Florida) hasn't much for me one way or t'other. Not unlike the playoffs and Series last year.
Showing posts with label Twitter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Twitter. Show all posts
Friday, October 28, 2011
Sunday, October 23, 2011
OPEN THREAD: Who OverTweets?
Twitter has its merits. My problem is time. I don't have enough of it for reasons not interesting to The Nation. Not only do I not know how to use all of the mechanics, I don't get to just flat-out read all the Tweets regularly enough to learn the individual languages of some of the major Twits. I'm not much of a Twit -- I alert new articles here, and once in a awhile I'll throw up a non-promotional Tweet. But if I think of something interesting, I like to save it for y'all on MTC.
I follow all of the Ticket guys whose addresses I've been able to get. I have a few more I need to add. I follow some other local sportsy/newsy guys.
Our title today announces my inquiry. When I ask you to tell me who overTweets, I have a couple of qualifications in mind:
(1) If there's a guy who absolutely hijacks your page with endless Tweeting, but whose Tweets are of high quality, funny, interesting -- perhaps he is not an overTweeter, but just a guy with a lot of good stuff on his mind. He gives you quality along with quantity. Work t'other way around -- maybe a guy only slings a half[-dozen Tweets a day, but even with their brevity they waste your time.
(2) We should probably not count big-game Tweeting, where followers actually "tune in" to hear their favorite guy comment on the game as it goes along.
Maybe we should put it in the negative -- who would you like to see Tweet less?
Your nominees need not be limited to Ticket personnel.
And follow Your Plainsman on Twitter: @Plainsman1310.
I follow all of the Ticket guys whose addresses I've been able to get. I have a few more I need to add. I follow some other local sportsy/newsy guys.
Our title today announces my inquiry. When I ask you to tell me who overTweets, I have a couple of qualifications in mind:
(1) If there's a guy who absolutely hijacks your page with endless Tweeting, but whose Tweets are of high quality, funny, interesting -- perhaps he is not an overTweeter, but just a guy with a lot of good stuff on his mind. He gives you quality along with quantity. Work t'other way around -- maybe a guy only slings a half[-dozen Tweets a day, but even with their brevity they waste your time.
(2) We should probably not count big-game Tweeting, where followers actually "tune in" to hear their favorite guy comment on the game as it goes along.
Maybe we should put it in the negative -- who would you like to see Tweet less?
Your nominees need not be limited to Ticket personnel.
And follow Your Plainsman on Twitter: @Plainsman1310.
Sunday, October 2, 2011
A Followup Note to "Weekends are Tough for The Hammer"
I agree with the sense of all commenters that this is not going to end well for Greg Williams. (See previous article and comments.) Whether he's still under the influence or not, and we hope not, he seems unable to compartmentalize his professional life and keep it between himself and his employers.
I don't know much about broadcasting, but I know quite a lot about the way large companies, and especially public companies, are put together. Bacsik was out almost instantly at The Ticket because of ONE WORD in his Tweet. The Ticket could live with a Latino boycott, but Cumulus could not take the PR hit.
If He Who Can Only Rarely Be Named can't keep from mortifying his bosses, he's going to go. Put Greggo and Richie out of your minds for a few minutes, and think about the guys they answer to, and the guys those guys answer to. Their weekend is worse than Richie's and Greggo's.
"We don't shy away from Twitter controversy," says Richie Whitt. I didn't hear that statement, but I accept Confessors' reports as accurate. Think about what that means: This isn't "controversy" in the sense of "I have a hot sports opinion about whether Dez Bryant is a goldbrick." It's "controversy" in the sense of "unauthorized disclosure of confidential company information." Richie saying that they don't shy away from Twitter controversy is equivalent to saying: "We embrace self-destructive public airing of internal discord."
Greggo has forced guys like Richie (for whom I continue to have some sympathy) to triage the damage he's done, and Richie's chosen to deal with it by embracing it. (Query whether ignoring it might be a better strategy.) But it can't work. Greg's behavior reflects on the judgment of Fan and CBS managers and executives -- not just among listeners, but in the industry. They look like fools if they let it continue. They cannot tolerate this kind of loose-lippedness much longer.
And it's not like Williams has proven himself a ratings star. The only downside to his release would be that some Fan guys would have to admit that their faith in Greggo's "this time I'll be good" story was misplaced, not to mention a lot of publicity dollars down the drain. Hey, it looked like a good move at the time, didn't it? We can all say aww, we knew Greggo was going to do the Greggo again eventually, but to put two well-known media figures against The Hardline -- one of them a former Hard Guy -- was a smart move at the time. They were in the ratings tank then, and still are -- the hurt from admitting that it didn't work would go away fast. But professional damage up the chain of command if there's a truly catastrophic meltdown, where all the warning signs were there, will linger with some suits who do not want failures, much less notorious public flameouts, on their resumes.
[Offbeat: Here's a scenario to consider -- unlikely but anyone in business has seen more exotic theories conjured up by employment lawyers: Hammer takes the position that this kind of public confession is therapy for his various addictions -- the "reconciliation" scenario that Anonymous posited. He gets fired for them (presumably for insubordination) and then he claims that he was dealing with a disability known to his employer before he was hired (1) that did not affect his on-air performance, and (2) that were not "accommodated" by his employer. That's a suin'.]
There's nothing wrong with reaching out to old friends and colleagues. It's the public digital trail that's the problem while you've got current colleagues -- colleagues who have gone out on a limb for you -- who deserve your full concentration and loyalty.
I don't want Greggo to fail. I don't even want him off the air. I'm just saying that he's bumping up against some institutional dynamics that are going to make it very difficult for him to hang around much longer if he keeps doing what he's doing.
As Bob Newhart said on that old Saturday Night Live skit: "Stop it."
I don't know much about broadcasting, but I know quite a lot about the way large companies, and especially public companies, are put together. Bacsik was out almost instantly at The Ticket because of ONE WORD in his Tweet. The Ticket could live with a Latino boycott, but Cumulus could not take the PR hit.
If He Who Can Only Rarely Be Named can't keep from mortifying his bosses, he's going to go. Put Greggo and Richie out of your minds for a few minutes, and think about the guys they answer to, and the guys those guys answer to. Their weekend is worse than Richie's and Greggo's.
"We don't shy away from Twitter controversy," says Richie Whitt. I didn't hear that statement, but I accept Confessors' reports as accurate. Think about what that means: This isn't "controversy" in the sense of "I have a hot sports opinion about whether Dez Bryant is a goldbrick." It's "controversy" in the sense of "unauthorized disclosure of confidential company information." Richie saying that they don't shy away from Twitter controversy is equivalent to saying: "We embrace self-destructive public airing of internal discord."
Greggo has forced guys like Richie (for whom I continue to have some sympathy) to triage the damage he's done, and Richie's chosen to deal with it by embracing it. (Query whether ignoring it might be a better strategy.) But it can't work. Greg's behavior reflects on the judgment of Fan and CBS managers and executives -- not just among listeners, but in the industry. They look like fools if they let it continue. They cannot tolerate this kind of loose-lippedness much longer.
And it's not like Williams has proven himself a ratings star. The only downside to his release would be that some Fan guys would have to admit that their faith in Greggo's "this time I'll be good" story was misplaced, not to mention a lot of publicity dollars down the drain. Hey, it looked like a good move at the time, didn't it? We can all say aww, we knew Greggo was going to do the Greggo again eventually, but to put two well-known media figures against The Hardline -- one of them a former Hard Guy -- was a smart move at the time. They were in the ratings tank then, and still are -- the hurt from admitting that it didn't work would go away fast. But professional damage up the chain of command if there's a truly catastrophic meltdown, where all the warning signs were there, will linger with some suits who do not want failures, much less notorious public flameouts, on their resumes.
[Offbeat: Here's a scenario to consider -- unlikely but anyone in business has seen more exotic theories conjured up by employment lawyers: Hammer takes the position that this kind of public confession is therapy for his various addictions -- the "reconciliation" scenario that Anonymous posited. He gets fired for them (presumably for insubordination) and then he claims that he was dealing with a disability known to his employer before he was hired (1) that did not affect his on-air performance, and (2) that were not "accommodated" by his employer. That's a suin'.]
There's nothing wrong with reaching out to old friends and colleagues. It's the public digital trail that's the problem while you've got current colleagues -- colleagues who have gone out on a limb for you -- who deserve your full concentration and loyalty.
I don't want Greggo to fail. I don't even want him off the air. I'm just saying that he's bumping up against some institutional dynamics that are going to make it very difficult for him to hang around much longer if he keeps doing what he's doing.
As Bob Newhart said on that old Saturday Night Live skit: "Stop it."
* * *
Follow Your Plainsman on Twitter: @Plainsman 1310
Sunday, September 18, 2011
MAYBE NOT BREAKING NEWS: A Greggo Firing, But Probably Not THE Greggo Firing
An anonymous commenter to the prior article reports that Greg Williams just tweeted:
"TCUWhiteTrash GREGGO
I have so much 49'er information I want to share on our pre and post games shows on THE FAN...but.I was fired...and the other hosts agreed"
He questions whether this means Williams was just fired from Cowboy commentary, or his main weekday gig. I've done a very quick and superficial Google search and I find no recent items re The Fan terminating Greggo's services generally.
However, this site did report on a Cowboys pre-game last year in early November where Greggo was there one minute, and not there the next. You can read that report here: AND AGAIN -- WHERE'S GREGGO? As to whether he returned to Fan Sunday Cowboy programming in subsequent games, I don't know.
So I'm guessing that the Tweet means -- to the extent Greg's Tweets may be said to have useful, much less credible, substantive content -- that he was disinvited from the Cowboys pre- and post-game on The Fan, and not that he was fired from his daily host duties. I would think he would have Tweeted more colorfully and fully had that taken place, and the Twittersphere would have exploded.
If any of our incredibly wired Confessors can fill us in on the inside baseball at The Fan regarding Greggo's Sunday duties, the Nation would be grateful to hear from you.
=============
Haven't caught the entire Ticket pre-game, but Rich, Mark F, and Junior sound great. Bob Sturm is a splendid sports brain and broadcaster, but for a succinct, well-reasoned, elegantly-expressed sports analysis it's hard to beat Craig Miller.
"TCUWhiteTrash GREGGO
I have so much 49'er information I want to share on our pre and post games shows on THE FAN...but.I was fired...and the other hosts agreed"
He questions whether this means Williams was just fired from Cowboy commentary, or his main weekday gig. I've done a very quick and superficial Google search and I find no recent items re The Fan terminating Greggo's services generally.
However, this site did report on a Cowboys pre-game last year in early November where Greggo was there one minute, and not there the next. You can read that report here: AND AGAIN -- WHERE'S GREGGO? As to whether he returned to Fan Sunday Cowboy programming in subsequent games, I don't know.
So I'm guessing that the Tweet means -- to the extent Greg's Tweets may be said to have useful, much less credible, substantive content -- that he was disinvited from the Cowboys pre- and post-game on The Fan, and not that he was fired from his daily host duties. I would think he would have Tweeted more colorfully and fully had that taken place, and the Twittersphere would have exploded.
If any of our incredibly wired Confessors can fill us in on the inside baseball at The Fan regarding Greggo's Sunday duties, the Nation would be grateful to hear from you.
=============
Haven't caught the entire Ticket pre-game, but Rich, Mark F, and Junior sound great. Bob Sturm is a splendid sports brain and broadcaster, but for a succinct, well-reasoned, elegantly-expressed sports analysis it's hard to beat Craig Miller.
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
I Got a Coupla Problems . . . and A Major MTC Announcement
I feel terrible.
I try to post 2-3 times a week. The Nation may have noticed that I'm not keeping up.
I have two related problems. The first is that my actual job job, as opposed to the job of promoting Responsible Ticket Journalism, has been very demanding the past three months. I believe I've had one day off the last 75 days or so. This means I don't get to listen to The Little One as much as I had been, or as much as I would like to.
The second one is that I don't have time to write much -- spare time is spent taking care of the sod house, visiting Mrs. Plainsman's family, eating. And when I do, I go to my list of topics -- and, truth to tell, they're starting to look a little stale. Not all of them, and I'll try to start cranking stuff out here again shortly, but you'll be able to tell -- I'll be doing some scraping, and I'll probably apologize when I do.
But I got to thinking --
This thing will be 2 on June 30. Over 300 articles. Basically from listening to two shows and some of the weekend stuff, hardly any BaD or Norm. I'm grateful that traffic continues to grow, but I'm thinking you know, this site could use a good kick in the shorts. I mean, how many articles on The Ticket's lousy signal can you tolerate? How many ways are there to say that I wish The Hardline weren't so vulgar? So I'm thinking I gotta keep the Faithful Confessor stimulated, entertained, informed.
How can I improve my exposure to what the Nation is hearing and thinking?
Well . . . one thing I gotta do, I gotta go where The Nation is going.
So, with extreme humility (for the very best of reasons, as you will see) it is my honor to invite you to:
This is actually a little embarrassing, because while I get the basic idea of Twitter, I know none of the lingo, I know none of the # or acronyms or yfrogs. And I don't understand half of what appear to be the very hippest of the tweets. I'm trying to get up to speed and hope soon to be able to participate in the Tworld without soiling myself. I'll probably do more receiving than tweeting, but if I get a follower or two I'll try to repay your patronage with the occasional piquant observation.
Maybe I'll even be allowed to join The 2300!! (I told you I'm embarrassed.)
And, as honored as I am invite you to follow me on Twitter (jeez, that sounds so nakedly self-promotional), I am even more honored to report that my first follower -- he must have found me because the first thing I did was to follow as many Ticket guys as I could find -- is none other than @tweetgrubes himself, That Nice Young Michael Gruber.
Now I'll have even less time to write.
I try to post 2-3 times a week. The Nation may have noticed that I'm not keeping up.
I have two related problems. The first is that my actual job job, as opposed to the job of promoting Responsible Ticket Journalism, has been very demanding the past three months. I believe I've had one day off the last 75 days or so. This means I don't get to listen to The Little One as much as I had been, or as much as I would like to.
The second one is that I don't have time to write much -- spare time is spent taking care of the sod house, visiting Mrs. Plainsman's family, eating. And when I do, I go to my list of topics -- and, truth to tell, they're starting to look a little stale. Not all of them, and I'll try to start cranking stuff out here again shortly, but you'll be able to tell -- I'll be doing some scraping, and I'll probably apologize when I do.
But I got to thinking --
This thing will be 2 on June 30. Over 300 articles. Basically from listening to two shows and some of the weekend stuff, hardly any BaD or Norm. I'm grateful that traffic continues to grow, but I'm thinking you know, this site could use a good kick in the shorts. I mean, how many articles on The Ticket's lousy signal can you tolerate? How many ways are there to say that I wish The Hardline weren't so vulgar? So I'm thinking I gotta keep the Faithful Confessor stimulated, entertained, informed.
How can I improve my exposure to what the Nation is hearing and thinking?
Well . . . one thing I gotta do, I gotta go where The Nation is going.
So, with extreme humility (for the very best of reasons, as you will see) it is my honor to invite you to:
Follow me on Twitter: @Plainsman1310
 |
| All cleaned up for my Twitter debut |
Maybe I'll even be allowed to join The 2300!! (I told you I'm embarrassed.)
And, as honored as I am invite you to follow me on Twitter (jeez, that sounds so nakedly self-promotional), I am even more honored to report that my first follower -- he must have found me because the first thing I did was to follow as many Ticket guys as I could find -- is none other than @tweetgrubes himself, That Nice Young Michael Gruber.
Now I'll have even less time to write.
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