February 21, 2006

Dorothy Hamill has become Kelly Clarkson

That's how one commentator characterized the decline in Winter Olympics television ratings. They're the worst ever. And NBC's prime time coverage lost to Fox's American Idol big time. More than 10 million households prefered the battle of amateur performers to that of amateur athletes.

NBC's spokesman said that they used to consider the television network coverage as being for the family, cable coverage for the sports fan, and the website for the fanatic.

Obviously, that's all changed. Now the website is mainstream. And web traffic for Olympics coverage has topped 3 million unique visitors a day. In fact, while American Idol beat the Olympics on television, Olympic websites are clobbering the Idol's website by more than 4:1.

The time difference makes it difficult to follow the Olympics in a linear fashion. So we're subjected to the editing of others. And, in today's consumer-centric world, that just doesn't fly. So we turn instead to the seemingly unedited, unscripted, anything-can-happen Americal Idol.

Personally, I think NBC should have turned our lives upside down and provided incredible live coverage, preempting daytime programming and forcing us to watch stuff as it really happens. I think that would make it more of an event than the butchered we're-in-charge,-not-you coverage we're seeing every evening.

If the network won't mix it up, the viewers will. And they have.

Fashionable Tips

I loved reading Liz Claiborne CEO Paul Charron's five tips for reforming the fashion industry in the Wall Street Journal. They repeat themes that we think are so very important: transparency and collaboration.

Tip 1. Increase collaboration between retailers and vendors, making practices like markdowns more transparent.

Tip 2. Demystify fashion to take the risk out of marketing a trendy product by analyzing fashion merchandise with the same rigor as a consumer products company would analyze dish detergent.

Tip 3. Emphasize more interaction between divisions; even designers should understand business goals.

Tip 4. Commit to training and grooming managers, and moving them around so they always have a fresh perspective.

Tip 5. Evaluate your company against world-class businesses outside of the fashion industry.

All good advice, regardless of one's industry.

Be open with information, collaborative with partners, supportive of associates, and objective about your own business.

Let the sun shine in.