VJ Stations Here to Stay
It’s over! We win! …..and photo by PF Bentley When I started the whole VJ thing some 18 years ago, most people thought I was out of my mind. Technology has caught up with the concept. And now, so...
Read moreNothing Succeeds Like Failure
God’s number one programmer…. One of the reasons television has been so terrible until now is that no one could fail. Failure was too expensive. So we lived in fear. If you are writer, you fail all the time....
Read moreRTNDA Opening Session
Jeff Jarvis (thumb in foreground) takes the job…. Just finished the opening session at RTNDA here in Vegas. I gotta say this for RTNDA – they are grappling with digital, online and VJ issues up front. The entire opening...
Read moreCan VJs Deliver Quality?
Why can’t CBS Evening News look like this? There has been an enormous amount of discussion about whether VJs can deliver a ‘quality product’. As ‘google’ has become a verb, ‘Youtube’ has become an adjective meaning shaky, blue and...
Read moreThe 85 Year Old VJs
John Erickson…. Ted Turner of the retirement set. About three years ago, I gave a speech at the Cable Conference in Chicago. A few days later, I got a call from someone who had seen me speak. He said...
Read moreVJ Academy Oversubscribed in 1 Day!
…sign me up!…. In 1937, Saudi Arabia was among the pooerst countries in the world. Think Somalia, but with nothing. Then, in 1937, an oil wildcatter named Frank Holmes, working for Standard Oil, without much evidence for anything, dropped...
Read moreHow To Make A Living With A Video Camera – Pt1
…”we’re waiting for the cameras before we can evac you…” In 1994, my now ex-wife (who shall mercifully remain nameless) and I wandered into the waiting room of the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (HUP) with a small,...
Read moreThe Power of an Image
Do you ‘feel’ the power…… In the world of painting we have Picasso, Rembrandt or Jackson Pollack. In music we have Beethoven, Mozart or Bono. In literature, Shakespeare, Dickens or Melville. But in TV, whom do we have? Katie...
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