Richard Warner Online

Tiger Woods’ traffic mishap may have caused $3,200 in damage to public property (not counting his SUV), but by refusing to talk with the Highway Patrol or issue more than a vague statement, he caused far more damage to his stature as a respected public figure. Say what you will about personal privacy, Tiger is one of the world’s most valuable brands, and with that benefit comes public scrutiny.

So he has come clean now (assuming there aren’t more suppressed secrets waiting to be sprung). He has admitted his indiscretions and, like David Letterman, is asking the public to leave him alone for awhile as he tends to his family.

The purpose of this post is to point out something he’s doing right. Visit Tiger’s Web site, which leads with “Tiger Comments on Personal Events,” and you’ll read his entire statement. But to his credit, he took the advice of his staff and allowed visitors to post comments. There are the predictable “we love you no matter what because you’re a celebrity” postings, but there are also plenty of people who are extremely disappointed in the man and say it. Many warn about being too quick to judge someone else, but just as many express dismay that Tiger as a role model is flawed.

As someone who has been in the interactive space since there was such a thing, I can tell you that this situation will dissipate faster and the damage will be minimized because Tiger allowed people to sound off publicly on his Web site. It’s bitter medicine at a time when he and his family are suffering under scrutiny.

As one of the millions of iPhone owners who is enduring AT&T’s awful cellular network, I begin looking at different ways smartphones are going to grow in influence. Roy Furchgott, the New York Times’ Gadgetwise blogger, has some interesting speculation. He believes smartphones will become very important in health care…but his big concern is over privacy.

Have a listen to What’s Up Interactive’s first “Technology on Target” podcast, featuring Roy, one of the industry’s true thought leaders.

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Interesting post in Mediapost online today: that a new chapter will soon begin at local TV stations around the country. A perfect storm of recession and increased competition have cut local TV station revenues as much as 25% in less than a year. 

Prime time network shows like ER and CSI used to represent exclusive beachfront property for local stations. But now you can watch those shows anytime with limited interruption on hulu.com, through iTunes for a couple of bucks or on the networks’ own Web sites.

Stations are beginning to fire their own ammunition. A battle is emerging in Boston, where NBC affiliate refuses to carry Jay Leno’s upcoming weeknight 10pm show, because they predict it will fail, and instead run a lucrative new local 10pm newscast. 

All this will lead to uncharted territory:

- Eventually, many of the best network shows will migrate to cable networks and away from affiliates

- Local stations will band together to create prime time shows that they own and control

- Stations with strong news departments will expand the time set aside for newscasts and may even program local news around the clock on their digital channels

- Stations without strong news ratings will fold their news presence and run entertainment shows

Change is inevitable, and it’s not realistic to pine for the old days as it applies to anything in our lives.

But in the case of local television, I believe deregulation has been counterproductive. Communities suffer when radio and TV stations are allowed to do whatever they want and use the marketplace’s economic response as their sole guide. 

Yes there are many outlets to receive entertainment on radio and TV…more than ever before. Because of scarcity of the airwaves, the FCC should enforce guidelines on community involvement that once existed, and made stations much more involved in the community and responsive to their viewers’ welfare.

Interesting meeting this morning with a client: points out rule #1 of developing an online marketing strategy.

The one common thread that all interactive marketing projects contain should be a focus on the end user.

• - Have you studied what’s important to them?
• - Are you designing the site so you are attracting users who are searching on your key attributes?
• - Are you following all strategy conversations with the end user in mind?

There is a direct correlation between that…and the success of your site.

So, General Motors’ accounting firm has issued a “letter of going concern,” basically covering their backside in the event GM files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Such a move, which is needed, would allow a judge to toss out expensive agreements with workers and dealers, force a change in management and generally be the only way for GM to survive.

A “letter of going concern” is not new to me. In 2000, we sold our interactive company to a public firm. Over the next 18 months, the internet bubble burst and the value of the stock went from $28.00 to less than a dollar. On the morning our accounting firm came out with a letter of going concern, the stock hit .07. Bankruptcy followed quickly.

That was the day I learned that CNBC was the only live stock ticker, and that you could only refresh it 75 times in one day.

America lost an original over the weekend with the passing of Paul Harvey.

Whether you agree with his conservative politics or not, he was a master at the art of communication. Five words won’t work if you can convey the thought in four. Paul Harvey’s style was about clarity, storytelling and the art of the pause-for-effect.

It was fascinating to talk with him in person. In the mid 1980s, he paid a visit to WGST Newsradio to speak to a local group and deliver his 8:30am and 12:30pm broadcasts. He arrived before dawn and had use of the news director’s office to prepare his shows. As I recall, he wore a smock and had his own formula for gathering wire copy and newspaper clippings…arranging them in columns that related to each section of the broadcast.

Prior to going on the air, he warmed up with a comical series of vocal exercises. Imagine how “teedle-tee-teedle-tee-tee…woof one two three…” and so forth sounded in that rich voice. He sat while he read the newscast that emanated from our cluttered studio (which he called “handsome” on the air), in a voice so strong he almost didn’t need a mic.

Because of the way our engineer had to feed it to New York, Harvey’s voice boomed at full volume through speakers in the studio next door and down the hallways. But that didn’t impact his concentration.

After the 8:30am broadcast, he agreed to carve out 10 minutes for me to interview him for the show I did on WGST’s radio network. He answered in staccato phrases just as he talked on the air. “Where did you get started in broadcasting?” “Richard, I was a young man of 13 years when I first stepped into the offices of KVOO in Tulsa, Oklahoma…”) Wish I still had the tape: it disappeared shortly afterward.

From 1951 to 2009, Paul Harvey gave us a lesson in how to communicate. So straightforward…and yet so difficult.

We’re working on a documentary about the beginnings of television in Georgia, and what a ride those pioneers had launching TV stations. They made up the rules as they went, since so much was local and live (and that goes way beyond local newscasts, encompassing daily kids shows and cooking programs). 

Each city had at least one anchorman who served as a front man for not only the TV station, but because most cities had only one or two stations, for the community as well. Dick McMichael in Columbus, Ray Moore in Atlanta and Doug Weathers in Savannah, to name a few here in Georgia. 

(WTOC TV Savannah’s Doug Weathers with Richard Warner)

We’ll be in the editing phase of the documentary in coming weeks and aim to have the program finished by late spring. It’s quite an honor to be involved with this project, meeting and working with people who many of us grew up watching.