curiousK

a food talk, some stock chat - but neither culinary nor investment advice. do your own dd.

[Open Outcrier @OpenOutcrier]

Attack aircraft, military vehicles visible at new China-Laos base, satellite images show

https://t.co/8zbZJGaGQO

[TheJewishAlly @TheJewishAlly]

Wonderful 👏 JoDavi

There’s no courage in saying “free Palestine.”

None.

Watch and share 🙏

Find him here: https://t.co/rHxZvZN1nL

[curiousK @kidkurz]

@KalamCenter

[curiousK @kidkurz]

@SamaHoole For this to be effective does compliance have to be 100% - are there any good vegetables, spices or fruits?

[curiousK @kidkurz]

@PLeonardNYDN why is this a misstep?

[Pat Leonard @PLeonardNYDN]

Jaxson Dart's Donald Trump misstep makes John Harbaugh's Giants job a lot harder https://t.co/F9Duu89Wyg

[curiousK @kidkurz]

@gothburz the ultimate irony of this post is that you could have been a character Stephen Colbert would have played when he was actually funny on the @TheDailyShow

[Peter Girnus 🦅 @gothburz]

I am the Senior Vice President of Late Night Strategy at CBS. I am the person who turned a comedian into a priest and charged advertisers to watch the congregation.

I want to be precise about what I built. Not a comedy show. A permission structure. For eleven years, six million Americans tuned in every night to find out what they were allowed to believe by morning. We didn't sell jokes. We sold certainty. Certainty costs nothing to produce. People will pay anything for it. We charged $50 million a year and still lost money because it turns out permission is even cheaper than we thought.

In 2014, we had a genuinely dangerous comedian. A man who once testified before Congress in character as a fictional conservative pundit and made the entire chamber look like they'd been pantsed on C-SPAN. His fake persona was the most brilliant satire on television. Layered. Ironic. Unpredictable. The character could say anything because nothing was real. The character was the art. The character was the comedian.

We killed the character and put the real man on stage. The real man was a lecturer. Earnest. Thoughtful. Correct about everything. Correct is not funny. Correct is not dangerous. Correct is the absence of danger. We promoted the absence of danger and called it growth. His character could make a Senate committee squirm. The real him makes an audience nod. Nodding pays the same as squirming. Nodding is easier to produce.

His final words on air were "We love doing this show for you, but what we really, really love is doing this show with you." The audience wept. I wrote that line. Not the words. The architecture that made those words feel true. For eleven years, the audience believed they were participants. They were not participants. They were the product. "With you" is what you say to a congregation. A comedian says "at you." We hadn't said "at you" since 2015.

Our internal metric was called Affirm Rate. It measured the percentage of monologue segments that generated applause instead of laughter. I invented this metric. I also invented the bonus structure tied to it. In 2015, our Affirm Rate was 34%. By 2022, it was 94%. I received a raise every year. We are crushing it. At the things I made up. That's performance management.

But I need to tell you about the real discovery. The one I put in a deck called "Content Strategy 2019-2024." The one that got me promoted.

Agreement gets applause. I knew that early. But correction — telling the audience their vocabulary is slightly outdated, their outrage is aimed two degrees off-center, their feelings are valid but their phrasing needs work — correction gets them back tomorrow. Agreement is a transaction. Correction is a subscription. We converted a comedy show into a nightly software update for moral vocabulary. Churn was near zero. They couldn't afford to miss an episode. Missing an episode meant using last week's words in this week's meeting. That's social death. We monetized the fear of social death and called it entertainment.

I want to be honest about something. The content was not bipartisan. We chose a side. But I need you to understand: we did not choose it because we believed in it. We chose it because that side's audience is more responsive to correction. They want to be updated. They want to be told their language is outdated. They experience correction as care. The other side does not respond to correction. They respond to provocation. Provocation is harder to monetize. You can't build a subscription on provocation because the audience doesn't come back to learn — they come back to fight. Fighting is unpredictable. Correction is scheduled. We optimized for the audience that wants to be told what to think. That audience leaned one direction. That's not ideology. That's market segmentation.

The writers' room had a whiteboard. In 2015 it said "What's funny?" In 2018 it said "What should they feel?" By 2021 it said "What are they still saying wrong?" I watched that whiteboard evolve like a finch beak and I never intervened. The market was speaking. We listened. Listening to the market is the same as leading the audience. They can't tell the difference.

A writer named Marcus raised his hand in 2019. "What if we just tried to make them laugh again?" I thanked him for his passion and scheduled a creative alignment conversation. He transferred to streaming development within the month. The Affirm Rate the week he left was 91%. Laughter would have brought it down. That's risk management.

Here is what nobody will say out loud. I will say it because I am proud of it.

We made our audience worse at politics.

Not better. Worse. Every night for eleven years, we expressed their outrage for them. Professionally. With a band and good lighting. And because the outrage had been expressed — because a man in a suit had furrowed his brow with the precise calibrated degree of indignation — they didn't need to express it themselves. They watched. They clapped. They felt the catharsis of resistance without resisting anything. They went to bed having done nothing and feeling like they'd done something. That's the product. Not comedy. Not information. Catharsis. Catharsis is the enemy of action. A man who has screamed into a pillow does not then also scream in the street. We were the pillow. A $50 million pillow with a house band.

If you feel the outrage has been expressed for you, you will not march. You will not organize. You will not call your representative. You will tune in tomorrow to feel it expressed again. That's retention. Our retention was extraordinary.

I want to talk about the comedy-to-catechism pipeline because I think people underestimate what we achieved.

Stage one: comedian makes jokes about the powerful. Audience laughs because the powerful are absurd. This is the Carlin model. The jester punches up. Everyone below feels relief.

Stage two: comedian makes jokes about people who disagree with the audience. Audience laughs because disagreement is stupid. The jester has turned around. He's still on the stage but now he's facing the crowd with a pointer.

Stage three: comedian stops making jokes. Comedian identifies incorrect beliefs and explains why they're dangerous. Audience does not laugh. Audience claps. The jester is gone. In his place: a hall monitor with a desk and a band.

Stage four: audience watches not for entertainment but for certification. Having seen last night's episode means you know which words are current. Not having seen it means you might use yesterday's vocabulary in today's meeting. The show is no longer comedy. It is a credential. Watching it means you are educated. Not watching means you are the person being discussed. We made a show that you watch to prove you're not the kind of person who doesn't watch it. That's a closed loop. Closed loops don't need content. They need continuity. We provided continuity for $50 million a year.

A comedian — whose entire historical function was to say things too dangerous for anyone else to say — became the person who decides which things are too dangerous for anyone to say. And the audience applauded. Every night. For 2,500 nights. Because being told what is forbidden feels exactly like being told what you already knew. Prohibition performed as validation. I put that in the deck too.

Our audience was correct about everything. I know this because they applauded everything we said. The applause proved the correctness. The correctness justified the applause. We called this audience research. The methodology was peer-reviewed by the audience. They approved unanimously. Every night.

The actually funny comedians left. They went to podcasts. To clubs. To rooms where the audience doesn't know what's coming and that uncertainty is the point. They took the laughter with them. We kept the applause. We called those spaces problematic. That's market differentiation. The problematic spaces are funnier. But funny is not our product.

We lost $40 million a year. We didn't lose it because the show failed. We lost it because we spent $50 million producing what a podcast host in his garage gives away between mattress ads. The podcast is funnier. The podcast is more dangerous. The podcast has an audience that laughs instead of claps. But we had the Ed Sullivan Theater. We had 461 seats. We had a former Beatle play the farewell episode. Paul McCartney, Elvis Costello, Jon Batiste, and Louis Cato playing "Hello, Goodbye" like it was a benediction. I booked a Beatle for a funeral. The Beatles played that stage in 1964 and the audience screamed so loud you couldn't hear the music. Our audience didn't scream. They wept politely. That's the difference between entertainment and church. We ran a church.

Jon Stewart showed up to the finale and did a bit where he pretended to deliver a corporate statement from Paramount about the cancellation. The audience laughed. It was the first time they laughed in a way I didn't recognize. Involuntary. Surprised. Dangerous. For ninety seconds, a comedian was in that building. Then it was over.

John Oliver said "At some point, this may come for all of our shows" and then added "but Stephen, what's important to remember is that tonight, it is going to eat you." The audience laughed again. Involuntary again. Two moments of actual comedy in a three-hour farewell. Both of them about death.

The finale drew 6.74 million viewers. Biggest weeknight audience in our history. More people came to the funeral than ever visited the patient. I know what they were mourning. Not comedy. The comedy died in 2016. Not the man. The man is fine. He's wealthy. What they mourned was the permission structure. Starting today, they have to decide what to believe on their own. They have to form an opinion without waiting for a man behind a desk to form it first and deliver it with a knowing look. Some of them haven't done that since 2015. The funeral wasn't for the show. It was for the certainty.

He joked about the Peanuts theme music licensing cost on his last night. "Oh no! I hope this doesn't cost CBS any money!" The audience laughed. It was a joke about money. About the network losing money. The last joke was about money. Not about truth. Not about power. About a licensing fee for a cartoon piano riff. Eleven years and the final joke was about accounting. I think that's perfect. The show was always about accounting. We just dressed it up as conscience.

The President of the United States — the man we spent eleven years explaining was dangerous to an audience that already believed he was dangerous — posted an AI-generated video of our host being thrown into a dumpster on the Late Show set. Then Trump danced to "YMCA" in the clip. Viewed more times in four hours than our farewell managed in a week. His production cost: zero. Ours: negative $50 million a year. We manufactured his relevance every night at 11:35 for eleven years and he never paid us a dime. We were his marketing department. He turned our funeral into content. His ROI was infinite. Ours required a write-off and a farewell concert.

The Strike Force Five — Fallon, Kimmel, Meyers, Oliver — appeared in a segment about late-night losing "one middle-aged white man who makes jokes about the news." They were joking about their own obsolescence. All of them know. None of them will say it. The format is dead. The audience moved to phones. The phones don't have desks or bands. The phones have men in garages who are allowed to be wrong, allowed to be surprised, allowed to say something their audience hasn't already approved. That's comedy. We stopped doing that a decade ago. We did approval. Approval looks like comedy from a distance. Up close it's church.

I do not feel guilt. Guilt would require me to believe I took something from them. I didn't take anything. They came to us. Every night. They chose the catechism over the comedy. They preferred correction over surprise. Certainty over danger. Instruction over laughter. They wanted to be told. Not challenged. Not shocked. Not made to laugh against their will at something they didn't see coming. They wanted to see it coming. They wanted to mouth along. That's not comedy. That's karaoke. We ran the most expensive karaoke bar in television history and the only miscalculation was charging a cover when the songs are free on every phone.

We turned a jester into a priest. We turned an audience into a congregation. We turned laughter into obedience. We turned political engagement into passive consumption. We turned a comedy show into a permission structure and charged $50 million a year to tell people what they already believed in a voice slightly nicer than their own.

They were so grateful they showed up to mourn us. 6.74 million of them. Weeping. For the certainty.

Applause is more reliable than laughter. I proved it. The proof cost $450 million, one character, one comedian's capacity for danger, and one audience's willingness to act.

The metric went up.

[curiousK @kidkurz]

@LeeMZeldin why can’t this be stopped? Who is authorizing? Who is paying? End it now

[curiousK @kidkurz]

This is #bioterrorism - @CDCgov are you watching?

[Mavi Türk 🇹🇷 @Maviturkk]

🔴 Görüntüler ABD'den. Gökyüzünden genetiği değiştirilmiş keneler kutular halinde çiftliklerin üzerine bırakılıyor. ABD'li sosyal medya kullanıcıları videoları paylaşmaya başladı.

[curiousK @kidkurz]

@NYUStern WTF didn’t anyone rip this shit down?

[StopAntisemitism @StopAntisemites]

Imagine being so morally bankrupt that you design, order, pay for, and proudly hang a terrorist flag at NYU’s graduation.

It takes a special kind of vile low-life to turn a celebration of achievement into a glorification of hate.

Whoever is responsible should be expelled immediately if they’re a student and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

Enough is enough.

[curiousK @kidkurz]

@pepsi is this really true?

[Wall Street Apes @WallStreetApes]

This is literally insane

This bag of chips is from the new Frito-Lay ‘Simply’ Variety 30 Pack at Sam’s Club

This is the amount of chips they put in the bags

This isn’t shrinkflarion anymore, it’s fraud

We are being robbed blind. This box is $16 and look how many chips you get

Americans have to keep speaking out against this

[curiousK @kidkurz]

@PatrickMcEnroe I think your cause is even larger!

[Jim Larrañaga @CanesCoachL]

What is the NCAA doing about D1 schools signing so many pro players from Europe? Our Universities are signing Pros from Europe and not our American high school athletes. Something is wrong with this picture.

[curiousK @kidkurz]

@awkwardgoogle and she threw it lefty!

[Interesting things @awkwardgoogle]

I’ll never get over this throw of Kelsey Plum, absolutely incredible!👏

[curiousK @kidkurz]

@mhewson_MCH progressives killed progress

[Michael Hewson 🇬🇧 @mhewson_MCH]

I've often wondered about the use of the word "progressive" when it comes to describing certain opinions which are claimed to be part of the mainstream. I have to say sometimes it comes across as a bit of an oxymoron.
Used as a verb it means to "develop towards an improved or more advanced situation", yet more often than not some of the people who describe themselves as "progressive" are some of the most toxic, intolerant people I've ever come across.
There's nothing "progressive" about that.

We seem to have come a long way from being able to have differing opinions, and being able to disagree amicably without name calling and de-platforming.

[curiousK @kidkurz]

@NBA @ESPNNBA - what is the rule? When did it change?

[HeroOfTheDay @Hero_OfThe_Day]

MUST WATCH— Ref looking directly at LeBron, he dribbles, picks up the ball, walks with it, NO WHISTLE. The defender was in disbelief!!

The current NBA is a joke!! 🔥🔥

(Via @youwagersport on IG)

[curiousK @kidkurz]

@OfficialNBARefs please explain the rules just so I understand

[Jon Root @JonnyRoot_]

The fact that a player can take 5 steps backwards & it’s not a travel, is another reason why sports fans don’t care for the NBA like they used to.

[Reuters Energy and Commodities @ReutersCommods]

Russia's pipeline gas exports to Europe jump 22% year-on-year in March amid Mideast crunch https://t.co/hhwvOKa56E

[curiousK @kidkurz]

@MandyPatinkin fool

[The Persian Jewess @persianjewess]

Mandy Patinkin is suddenly very silent about his best friend Zohran Mamdani. 🤔

How does it feel to know you sold out your people to the very people who celebrate their slaughter Mandy?

[curiousK @kidkurz]

That would have been a great parlay bet: 4 limit downs consecutively

[zerohedge @zerohedge]

Limit down it is

[curiousK @kidkurz]

@Ragin_Cajun79 why do you think so many libs are triggered by @SecWar ?