by Michael LelloWeekender Editor
A few weeks ago we reported that Coldplay would be making its NEPA debut at Toyota Pavilion at Montage Mountain, your favorite place to see a national act according to the Weekender Readers’ Choice 2009 balloting (see the rest of the honorees in the insert to this week’s edition). I wrote that the show was a coup for our area and the venue, and I explained that if fans wanted more shows of that caliber to come here, they had better buy tickets.
Well, that was quick!
Last Friday it was announced that the May 29 Coldplay show had been canceled due to a scheduling conflict.
There doesn’t appear to be a conflict for the band on that date, such as another show. As of press time, the band’s publicist didn’t respond to my e-mail requesting details about the conflict. But it is certainly possible something else came up for Coldplay, like a TV appearance or a magazine shoot.
Whatever the reason — scheduling conflict, slow ticket sales maybe? — this is not good news, whether or not you like Coldplay and whether or not you bought a ticket.
Let’s hope it was a scheduling conflict. If a band is a household name and has seven Grammys and has sold 50 million records and still can’t move enough tickets to make a show here a reality, things might be direr than we thought.
Whatever the reason, Coldplay isn’t coming here. And instead of that band kicking off the summer concert season on the mountain, barring the addition of a show before June 10, that honor will now go to … New Kids on the Block.
That’s not a joke. At least not a funny one.
MIXED MESSAGES
WYOU pulled the plug on its news for good last Saturday because “The viewers have spoken, letting us know that WYOU is the station they rely on for entertainment and … the station’s already solid lineup will be bolstered with the addition of entertainment and news magazine programming including ‘Judge Joe Brown,’ ‘Access Hollywood’ and ‘Entertainment Tonight,’” as Mission Broadcasting Chief Operating Officer Dennis Thatcher put it in a statement. Mission Broadcasting owns WYOU in a partnership with Nextar.
The woes of newspapers, magazines, TV stations and radio stations in our area and across the nation have been widely publicized. Music magazine Blender recently announced it would stop publishing. Last month, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and The Rocky Mountain News in Denver printed their final editions. Philadelphia Newspapers Inc., which publishes the Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in February and owes the city $450,000 in taxes.
Here in NEPA, WYOU laid off 14 news staffers, and Times-Shamrock, the parent company of the Weekender’s competitor, offered buyouts and last week laid off 18 employees.
No one is immune to the United States’ economic implosion, especially companies that rely on advertising dollars from other struggling sectors like restaurants and car dealers.
Whether or not it makes good business sense — it probably does, considering WYOU news was third behind WNEP and WBRE in the ratings — it does not help the community when a local station trades its local programming for “Access Hollywood,” “Judge Judy” and “The Insider.”
Local media is an important part of our lives. Web sites, social networking and blogs are fun, but they are not replacements. Much of the information presented there is unattributed, unfiltered, unedited and irresponsible. It’s also often lifted wholesale from newspapers and magazines.
It’s also worth noting that media professionals — even the bad ones — are trained and supervised.
Traditional media outlets can’t just report whatever they want, like some guy writing a blog as a hobby. Accredited media members have the financial backing from their companies — even in our difficult current climate — and access to report more deeply and extensively than even the best loose-cannon amateurs.
Yes, many media companies have been mismanaged for years, and their shortsightedness — especially with regards to the emergence of the Web as a drain on advertising revenue — is coming back to haunt them. Some that have died or will die soon are simply the result of economic Darwinism, which is a nasty but necessary part of capitalism.
Be that as it may: Imagine a week without your favorite radio station, your favorite weather reporter, your favorite sportswriter and your favorite free arts and entertainment weekly — whether or not it is this one.
Let’s all hope it’s a day that never comes. And if it does, how will you find out about it?
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