media

My PBS station has no clue

I watch a lot of PBS. We have two channels here in Miami and I watch them both, but one, I watch more than the other.

I mentioned to a cousin one time that I watch a lot of PBS and she asked, “You like to watch nature shows?”

No. I like to watch all the British tv – Britcoms, dramas, things like that. And I watch a lot of cooking shows. I can barely boil water, but I find them relaxing. When I ran into Lidia Bastianich at Whole Foods in NYC not long ago, I was excited.

I didn’t approach her, but we did rub elbows – literally – it was very crowded in the store that day.

Anyway, I’m writing about PBS’s lack of marketing knowledge, or at least one of my PBS station’s lack of being able to hold donations.

Two times they had money or access to donations from me and they blew it and didn’t make an effort to keep the donations going.

This bothers me no end because they take all their programs off the air for weeks on end and have these nonsense telethons, asking for money to support their stations. They literally antagonize their viewers by taking their favorites shows off and then asking us to donate to keep the shows on. A form of extortion.

Anyway, I was donating $25.00 a month to one of the local PBS stations but all at once, they took my two favorite shows off the air. Not just my favorite shows on PBS, but of all of tv – Doc Martin and Escape to the Chateau. I could watch those reruns of both shows forever.

It bothered me so much that I emailed the station and told them I no longer wished to donate due to the fact that they removed my shows.

I expected them to call me and try to keep me donating and I would then make a deal to split the cost and use half the money for a streaming service or something and let them keep the rest. But you know what they did? They emailed me back and said, “Done, starting next month you will no longer be charged.”

They didn’t even try to keep what they had – the first rule of business – keeping your current customers! And they didn’t call to see if it was really me wanting to cancel my affiliation with them.

And some months before, I was donating one of my cars. But they never came to pick up the car – a Mercedes! I waited a couple of weeks, but they never showed up.

I finally called them and told them they had to come by the end of the week and get the car because I was leaving town for a few weeks . They said they could not come and get it, so they lost the car. They didn’t even try to talk me into not canceling the donation.

So twice, they had donations that they are on tv begging for non-stop and when they had these donations in hand, the cavalierly just gave them up.

I don’t ever like to use this word, but they were STUPID. Totally Stupid.

That’s how you don’t run an organization that relies on charity to stay in business.

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Merry Christmas!

As usual, here is my favorite all time Publix commercial. I post it every year at this time.

This commercial ran for a few years from 1987 to 1996 and every time it came on, I would stop what I was doing and watch. It’s part of my Christmas memories of my youth and it’s just one of those things – a song, just like a smell, that brings you back to another time.

The music in Last Train Home is from Still Life Talking an album by Pat Metheny Group, released in 1987.

To this day, when Pat Metheny is performing, he’ll refer to the song as, “The Publix song.”

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Skip intro

I was watching something on Netflix and when “Skip Intro” came on, I thought of this.

I don’t watch many streaming services, but luckily I got this idea from one, you know, when you skip the intro to the tv show and get right into it.

I pay for many streaming services, I just don’t watch them. I need to do that thing where you delete them and just pay for them when you want to see something.

There are things I want to see, but I find myself watching tv the old fashioned way – on cable. Yes, I guess cable tv is the old fashioned way.

I remember many years ago, maybe in the 1970s, when I had seen something on tv; I don’t remember what the show was, but at the end I said to my mother, I wish I could just snap my fingers and be in California so I could see the show again when it came on in their time zone.

I didn’t think of taping it with a VCR because there were no VCRs yet. Hard to imagine a time when you had to see the show when it was on and possibly see a summer re-run, or you missed it for good, or wait until years later when they were all on streaming services.

Today, I still watch tv when the shows are on, you know, Thursdays at 9 on CBS on Tuesday at 8 on Bravo or whatever. I do DVR things and watch that, but I don’t really dabble in streaming services. I just overpay for them every month, along with the cable service, which I have to cancel soon.

I know I can do it online at their websites, but I want to speak to a person because I may be able to get a good deal to stay.

I just have to make the call, which I am dreading. You know, you try to make a fast phone call and it ends up being a frustrating hour or so.

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The sky is blue; the tree is green

Looks like everyone is moving to Bluesky – it’s a better version of X/Twitter.

I already had an account, I don’t know when I opened it, but sometime when it was new awhile ago, I think I got an invite and I opened the account then. It sat dormant but now I am interacting and have three accounts.

Here are the three accounts:

Tomversation, where I post mostly my blog and cartoons:
https://bsky.app/profile/Tomversation.bsky.social

Tom Falco, where I post personal things and interact with others:
https://bsky.app/profile/TomFalco.bsky.social

10 With Tom , where I post things related to my 10 With Tom blog:
https://bsky.app/profile/10WithTom.bsky.social

It all feels so new, like when Twitter was new so many years ago. I’ll go onto people’s profiles to see what they are all about and they have maybe two or three posts. That’s it! So new and fresh.

I am still on X/Twitter, but I’m trying to build up my Bluesky readership, so if you are there, let’s follow each other! And the same names/handles are on Threads, if you are so inclined.

On another note, I put up the Christmas tree yesterday. I know, I know, too early.

I’m going out of town until December, so I wanted to get it up so I don’t have to deal with it when I return home. I only lit it to take this picture, I’m not lighting it until mid-December. That’s when I’ll bring it alive.

I’ll be in NY for Thanksgiving – leaving early, coming home late, you know, stretching it out.

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I got this custom printed pen at TheDiscountPrinter.com

My first paying subscriber

I got my first paying subscriber on my Tomversation Substack account and I’m all excited. It’s $5.00 per month. The sad part is that it’s me. I signed up for my own subscription.

I was setting up the payment system and wanted to try it out to be sure it was working right. I don’t plan on charging for any of the stories until I build up a large subscriber base. I’m Substacking along.

Someone had asked me how I made money on my local news publication when I was editor and publisher. It would have been great to have Substack back then, I had thousands of subscribers, but there was no cost for reading. I made money through ads. The first year or so I didn’t take any ads, but people kept asking, so I eventually started running ads and I made quite a good living at it.

I turned down big developers though, even though there was a lot of money in their ads, but I couldn’t be a sellout. I wrote against over-development and greed all the time, there was no way I could make money off of the developments.

I did take ads from smaller building projects if they were in the same footprint as the buildings they were replacing. One time a very large condo building placed ads, we had discussed it for months, and I don’t know what I thought it was, but when the ad came in, it was for this humongous project, right at the entrance of Key Biscayne, it is still under development now and everyone who sees it can’t get over the size.

They were prepared to pay me a lot for a pretty large ad which would have run monthly. It would have been running over three years by this time. There’s a lot of money in development. That’s the problem.

I dream of moving up to the Hudson Valley one day, where nothing is really over-developed and those small little towns along the river look the same as they have for years. I’ll be up there in about a month doing the usual pumpkin and apple picking. So I’ll check out one of the small towns again to see if I feel a connection and feel at home there.

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Emails will go out through Substack

Adding insult to injury

For 15 years, I edited and published the local news in the village where I live. It was hard work, but I enjoyed it. I was the only source of news and information around here. People depended on it and read it daily. But after many years, I gave it up. I had to, I just burned out.

To this day, almost daily, people ask me when I’m coming back. It is sorely missed. It really was the voice of the village and everything that was happening was published. My stories were republished in the Miami Herald and the Huffington Post. I was interviewed by others about local issues.

I won awards over the years and I was given a great honor at the end of my run – the City of Miami made February 14 “Tom Falco Day.” All this is not to blow my own horn, it’s just to set up the next part of the story.

Well, a new publication started up a few years ago, I helped them start it by giving advice and explaining the ins and outs of publishing the news. I was all for it, as we needed a local news source. The publication has changed hands and I noticed they have a section called “Village People.” It’s where they talk about locals and what they are up to, etc. At the end of the article, they ask for submissions and provide an email address.

Well, since I started my new 10 With Tom blog (an extension of this blog) at Substack, I thought it would be a good opportunity to pick up some of my old subscribers. Also, people keep asking me what I am up to, so I figured it would be an interesting read.

I sent in a press release, not long, but informative and guess what? I was turned down. By someone I know! A guy who I know well is the new co-editor of the publication. And to add insult to injury, he asked if I would like to write for them – after turning my press release down! The irony of it all.

I told him, “I am writing for you. I just sent you a story. Publish it.”

He refused. He said it’s not what they are looking for. He said this, “We do not print submitted articles. The [last Village People profile] article is different from what you’ve proposed in that we (the editors) came up with the idea and we assigned (and paid) a writer to do it. We are always looking for talented writers to add to our stable but only for producing assigned content.” And in another email, he asked if I would be interested in writing for them.

Crickets.

Assigned content? Talk about a total idiot without a clue. If he was a news person, an editor, he would grasp at all news/articles that came in. That’s how news organizations work. They accept news tips, press releases and stories – newspapers, magazines, tv stations, especially online publications – that’s how it is done.

He might not publish them as-is, but he would get a story out of it some way. He would re-write it, he would call the person and do a fresh story, he would make something out of it. He would realize that unsolicited news coming into the office is where most news comes from. You take the news that is given to you and make it something. One one hand this moron is asking me to write for them, and on the other he says they don’t print submitted articles that I have written for them.

We live in a small village. Everything is a story. Joe Schmo painted a new portrait, that’s a story. Wilma opened a new bagel store, that’s a story. Ed bought a vintage house – that’s a story.

I published everything – I wanted everyone to be heard in the village. I published articles on subjects this guy was interested in. He would contact me and discuss issues and ask me to cover the event or the subject. And I did. Now I asked him and was told, “no.”

The one thing I would not post was lost animal notices. That would have turned into a 24/7 non-stop thing if I did that. One guy on the Village Council called me a prick once because I would not post his girlfriend’s lost cat. Ironically, I personally had to hand this guy an award a week later for winning “best car” in a classic car contest. Yes, I also covered the contest and his winning the award as news, pictures and all.

Small town life.

Do you prefer printed or digital books?

If you slide back and forth on today’s cartoon, you can see the difference in the two.

Originally, I had the one guy reading a book, which I liked lot, but I thought that maybe I should make it an ipad, which seems more in touch with today. I have to admit, I read books on my kindle, actually on my iphone.

I have a kindle and a tablet, but I prefer to use my phone. It’s more convenient. The fonts adjust to the size of the phone, so they aren’t tiny, and it’s easy to read.

I’ve tried getting into audiobooks, but I don’t like the voices or the speed of the voices as they read the content. As for printed or digital books, I prefer printed if it is a graphic novel or a book on comics or comic strips.

My cousin loves books, she almost opened an independent bookstore. There is one in Madison Connecticut where we always plan on visiting, but we never seem to make it there. On Sunday, I saw a story on CBS Sunday Morning, about a small town in upstate New York, where they have many independent bookstores. I sent my cousin the story and she was already planning out visit.

We were once in Barnes and Noble and as she was perusing the books, I was taking a few pictures of books. She asked me why I was taking pictures. I told her it was so I could remember them so I could order them on Amazon later. She was not amused.

One time she handed me a book, it was Roz Chast’s book, “Going into Town.” She asked me if I ever heard of Roz. Of course I had. I told her I went to see the Roz Chast exhibit in The Museum of the City of New York recently. I had never been to that museum before and I located it to see Roz’s exhibit. I’ve been back to the museum many times after that. I love that area of the city and the museum.

I have many books I’ve “borrowed” from my cousin and her husband over the years. I don’t think I ever returned any of them. I guess I should.

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Techie overcharges

Yesterday I spent hours on the phone with American Express, Door Dash, Venmo and GoDaddy.com. All issues which I guess were modern and technology related.

I paid an electrician last week through Venmo, his choice, and he still had not received the money. I called American Express since they were the ones I used to back up the payment, and they said it was approved and went through. As I was on the AmEx website I saw a $9.99 charge for Door Dash, which I had not used for months.

AmEx told me to contact both Venmo and Door Dash. I did.

Venmo, which is almost impossible to navigate, said the reason the payment was held up was because the electrician did not verify his phone number. I contacted him and to make a long story short, he was incapable of doing this one simple task, so I sent him a check.

Door Dash was charging me $9.99 a month for some sort of service I never signed up for. They easily refunded my AmEx card for the four months that they charged me for and I canceled my Door Dash account, for screwing me over, when I know I never signed up for whatever service it was.

As for GoDaddy, they added some sort of thing to my email accounts called the Quarantine List, which seems to quarantine everything and I have to go in and one by one approve or block emails. It was even blocking my own emails which I sent to myself. I send out my cartoons via one email address for example and it sends me a copy to the same email address. So it was blocking itself!

And I was being charged for this Quarantine service, like the Door Dash service, which I never signed up for. It looks like this is the new thing, sign people up for things they don’t know they are paying for and hope they don’t catch it.

Anyway, I think I solved all the problems. I was able to undo the money I sent through Venmo and I got a full refund from Door Dash. I didn’t hear back from GoDaddy yet, but I did manage to turn off the Quarantine thing.

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Media softball in the park

Cartoonist Jason Chatfield mentioned that there’s a summer softball league in NYC where The New Yorker magazine crew plays various other media outlets in Central Park. They play Rolling Stone magazine and the Financial Times, NY Review of Books, Slate, and NY Public Radio to name a few throughout the summer.

Cartoonist Roz Chast designed The New Yorker “uniform,” it’s a two sided t-shirt. I would love one of those but they are all sold out.

***The New Yorker “unform” designed by Roz Chast.***

I’m in NY for part of the summer, so I’d like to stop by to watch a game or two. I’d love to meet some of cartoonists and magazine people involved.

Along with The New Yorker league, there is another league called The New York Media Softball League (NYMSL) which consists of other NY-based media organizations. There are teams from Forbes, BuzzFeed, the Wall Street Journals, Axios, the Associated Press, etc. This is the 17th season for that league.

I remember some years back I watched a few games with different soap opera actors playing each other in Central Park. Different shows played each other.

The NYMSL plays at various parks including Central Park, East River Park, McCarren Park in Brooklyn, Riverside Park and a few others.

The schedule for this summer’s NYMSL games is here and Jason has The New Yorker games listed here.

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