If I was the King of All Media but not Howard Stern

If I could decree a few things across the spectrum of media and have it stick, here's how I would change things:

• If you are a director, you are forbidden from telling your entire narrative in the trailer for your film. Let there be some mystery for the moviegoer when they come to the theatre. An example shall be made of Robert Zemeckis to prove I am serious about this.


• If you are a studio, you must make your film available to critics before unleashing it upon the public. No exceptions.


• You will have to justify your sequels artistically to the general public before you will be allowed to make them. And as the great commenter Diesel pointed out, remakes will definitely have to pass this same sort of test.


• If you run a network and you start making a show that is designed for a short run (13 episodes or less), you will be obligated to finish showing it, even if that means putting it on in a bad time slot. You made the commitment, so you must see it through. If you create a show that is meant to be a full series and it has a continuing serialized format and you want to pull it before the conclusion, you will be obligated to provide the fans with the closure they need. ABC and Fox will be heavily hit by the tribunals for these charges.


• Television shows in production earn clip show and syndication credits for every hour they are shown, and the producers can only make a clip show when they have enough credits, and the stations that buy series for syndication can only show a series a certain number of times a day in a market, because you know what? Everybody doesn't Love Raymond 32 times a day.


• If you are a video game maker, the practice of making certain bonus features available ONLY if you own another earlier or concurrent game will be abolished. If there are other methods of obtaining this material in-game, then having this kind of setup is fine. Expansions and highly-interconnected products(SOCOM on PS2 and PSP for instance) are exempt from this rule. EA will be the game maker who faces the show trial on this.


• If you run a 24-hour news network and you are covering an major event and you aren't getting anything new to report, you will be required to cover other news while you wait for new details. You can use a breaking news crawl to keep people tuning in informed about the story, but until you have something new to add, you just can't dwell on it. Since all stations would be equal under this rule, the requisite loss of ratings that you all fear would likely not occur.


• The Big Radio conglomerates will be forced to allow their disk jockeys to have more choice over what they play and be more accommodating to local artists in their individual markets. They will also not be able to blackmail artists into playing their crappy concerts with the threat that if they don't perform for them, their records will be buried. Clear Channel, you know this is aimed at you.

Of course, these are just a few of the things I would do if I was the absolute monarch of the combined media, and as my loyal readers, I am keen to hear how you would use that same power. If you give me a good suggestion, I will add it to the list with a link to your blog.

Tags: abc, fox, clear channel, radio, robert zemeckis, socom, psp, ps2, electronic arts, howard stern, everybody loves raymond, syndication, clip show, critics, daybreak, serialized drama, expansion, pc gaming