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re: "After Scott Rudin expose there are mostly crickets"
Posted by: sirpupnyc 11:23 am EDT 04/11/21
In reply to: "After Scott Rudin expose there are mostly crickets" - Billhaven 10:29 am EDT 04/11/21

Variety and The Atlantic noted the story, and Playbill finally turned up (surprisingly).

For there to be any effect, people/companies who are hooked on his money are going to have to give it up.
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re: "After Scott Rudin expose there are mostly crickets"
Posted by: Billhaven 11:31 am EDT 04/11/21
In reply to: re: "After Scott Rudin expose there are mostly crickets" - sirpupnyc 11:23 am EDT 04/11/21

It will be interesting to see how the NY Times handles it. They receive millions of dollars through the 2,3,4 full page ads for Rudin shows.
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re: "After Scott Rudin expose there are mostly crickets"
Posted by: ryhog 11:43 am EDT 04/11/21
In reply to: re: "After Scott Rudin expose there are mostly crickets" - Billhaven 11:31 am EDT 04/11/21

I will leave for someone else to speak to the editorial vs business issue and to say where their breaking point is, but a couple of thoughts on the ad revenue. First, they've gotten used to not having it for over a year, and as they transition away from the print edition, their will be less and less splashing. Rudin's silly ads are a part of his nostalgia for an industry that has changed dramatically. And ironically (or not so ironic) his conduct we are talking about now is also a throwback to the bygone era in which he came up the hard way.
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"Silly" ads?
Posted by: portenopete 11:49 am EDT 04/11/21
In reply to: re: "After Scott Rudin expose there are mostly crickets" - ryhog 11:43 am EDT 04/11/21

What are Scott Rudin's "silly ads"? Please elaborate lest I begin speculating.
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re: "Silly" ads?
Posted by: ryhog 12:07 pm EDT 04/11/21
In reply to: "Silly" ads? - portenopete 11:49 am EDT 04/11/21

The full page/multipage ads in the Times. They are grotesquely ineffective cost wise and are, as I mentioned, a part of his nostalgia for bygone days.
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re: "Silly" ads?
Posted by: portenopete 12:21 pm EDT 04/11/21
In reply to: re: "Silly" ads? - ryhog 12:07 pm EDT 04/11/21

Who cares if he has nostalgia for an older theatre culture? So do a lot of people- the majority, I'd think- who buy tickets to his productions. He's selling nostalgia as part of his brand. As far as I can tell his productions have done as well as any in the last decade in terms of bums in seats and excitement generated. I don't give a crap what his profit margins are and whether he'd make more doing viral alerts on Twitter than a two-page spread in The Times.

There's a hell of a lot of theatre today that I could easily dismiss as "silly" and I think that by not giving it the benefit of my doubt, it's ultimately me who is the poorer for it.

I don't know what age you are but I am making an assumption that you're young and I wonder whether you equate any person or play over 40 with "embarrassing" and "out-of-date"?
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re: "Silly" ads?
Posted by: ryhog 01:25 pm EDT 04/11/21
In reply to: re: "Silly" ads? - portenopete 12:21 pm EDT 04/11/21

Ads are business expenses, not ways of satiating nostalgic urges. So I call spending millions without any conceivable return (and that is easily documented) silly. I understand that you may like seeing them but it's not about you.

Regarding age, first you guessed wrong. I am painfully close to Rudin in age, but your reverse ageism shtick falls flat regardless. There are producers (painfully) older than Rudin who would tell you he's nuts to spend the money on big splashy ads. Of course, he also screws ad agencies by not paying for those ads, but that's another matter.
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I will try harder not to make this about me, ryhog.
Posted by: portenopete 04:20 pm EDT 04/11/21
In reply to: re: "Silly" ads? - ryhog 01:25 pm EDT 04/11/21

Thanks for clarifying your age. Hope you're okay with it: you used "painfully" twice!

You wrote: "Ads are business expenses, not ways of satiating nostalgic urges."

Really? I thought Mad Men made a pretty good case for the depth and variety of advertising (mostly for ill, I admit). Nostalgia is one of the most powerful forces at work on people or how else would we have been saddled with 45?

All I can say is seeing those two-page spreads in the NYT gives me great pleasure and joy and I am glad he's happy to waste his money on them. He is obviously trying to conjure a vanishing world of theatre and I appreciate that impulse. If you, in all your superannuated wisdom, think it's bullshit, then so be it.

Now nonpayment of the ad agencies I won't try and defend. That's just rude.
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re: I will try harder not to make this about me, ryhog.
Posted by: ryhog 05:26 pm EDT 04/11/21
In reply to: I will try harder not to make this about me, ryhog. - portenopete 04:20 pm EDT 04/11/21

I think we generally understand what the other is saying, whether we agree or not. A few quick responses.

"painful" was a joke except it is no joke for the few minutes it takes me to get out of bed and into a hot shower.

re nostalgia, yes it can and famously has worked but in advertising the proof is in the bottom line and those ads are a net loss. I am referring btw to Rudin's nostalgia for the way things were (something that extends to how he envisions his "toxic" impresario self) when big ad splashes were de rigueur, not to the look/feel of the artwork. Oh and re "waste his money," never fear, it ain't his. lol

I have nothing against your enjoyment of the ads. As I tried to convey, I was commenting exclusively on the bang for the buck, which is a joke.
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re: I will try harder not to make this about me, ryhog.
Posted by: larry13 04:26 pm EDT 04/11/21
In reply to: I will try harder not to make this about me, ryhog. - portenopete 04:20 pm EDT 04/11/21

Is 'rude" really the best you can come up with for people who don't pay their bills?
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