KC Confidential

Wright Thompson

The beat goes on…

A curious attempt by the Kansas City Star to try and raise $200,000 by beseeching readers to contribute moneys so they can afford to pay their writers, is up and running.

In one week’s time, the Star has taken in more than 17 grand in online, “tax free” donations, funneled through a tiny Michigan nonprofit.

The question being, how can a small nonprofit grant tax free status to donations directed to a for profit biz like the Star?  Continue reading →

Revenge of the Trolls?

One of Kansas City’s last remaining corporate titans is fighting for its life…

The venerable AMC Theatres – founded by local movie visionary Stan Durwood – is going toe-to-toe with Universal Studios, one of Hollywood’s most distinguished moviemakers.

“The movie theater industry can’t afford the fight AMC just picked,” reads one headline. “Movie theaters need film studios more than the studios need theaters,” reads another.

Unfortunately for the local good guys, both headlines are correct.

The sad reality being that not just AMC – but movie theaters in general – could be one of the biggest permanent victims of the coronavirus pandemic.

The closing of theaters has forced moviemakers to hold back blockbusters like the new James Bond, Fast and Furious and Mulan.

So Universal decided to release its Trolls World Tour as a $19.99 rental, which thus far has grossed nearly $100 million and become the biggest digital movie release ever.

Much to AMC and exhibiters like Regal and Cinemark’s chagrin.

“Trolls was anticipated to be one of the big spring movies,” says KC Confidential movie man Jack Poessiger. “So I think it would have done about the same money at the box office had all the theaters not been closed. But it performed well on pay-per-view – better than might have been expected – and normally movies don’t release their pay-per-view numbers. In fact, this is the first time I’ve ever seen it.”

AMC wasn’t about to take it sitting down – especially after the head of Universal said,”As soon as theaters reopen, we expect to release movies on both formats.”

In other words, at the exact same time – or as they say in the movie biz – “day and date.” Continue reading →

Tax dodge, anyone?

Seems like anything goes at the Kansas City Star these days. And as the saying goes, a drowning man will clutch at a straw. Or as the Cambridge Dictionary defines it, ‘someone who is in a very difficult situation will take any available opportunity to improve it.”

As evidenced by an unsettling news story in Sunday’s Star that ran under the headline, “Subscribe or donate: Help KC Star keep covering coronavirus.”

A deeper dive reveals that unlike most news stories addressing business issues involving the newspaper, this one ran sans a reporter’s byline. Instead the byline reads, “BY THE KANSAS CITY STAR.”

Trust me, very unusual.

In a nutshell, the story beseeches locals to subscribe to the newspaper or “even better, you can suggest friends and neighbors do the same.”

And while that sounds pretty lame, in the words of Bachman Turner Overdrive, you ain’t seen nothing yet!

Check it:

“If you’d like to help and you’re a subscriber, you can now make a tax deductible donation to preserve local journalism,” it continues. “We have partnered with the nonprofit Local Media Foundation, which is accepting contributions on our behalf.”

Hold it right there…

What’s a tiny, fishy-sounding non profit in Lake City, Michigan doing laundering money for a for profit biz like the Star?

Good question, says a Kansas City attorney who was dumbfounded by the concept.

“You’re not buying a subscription to the Star, you’re donating to the Local Media Foundation which is a non profit, which takes your donation and siphons it off to the Kansas City Star – which is a for profit company – and you get a tax deduction for it,” the attorney says. “What kind of bullshit is that?

“I mean, how can you use a non profit to give money to a company that is for profit and you get a tax deduction?” Continue reading →

twin daughters Savannah and Liza at age 22

The $64 billion question…

“Do you have the Virus?,” asks longtime reader Roger Shelton. “You had a few good articles, but then you just stopped.”

Answer: True, but no.

That said, laying low and catching up on personal stuff has been refreshing, as the world flirts with the end of days.

For example, in January I started working at Honda in Lawrence, after four-plus years at BMW VW Topeka. However, having moved back to KC, the daily drive became ridiculously long and tedious.

Anyway, through the end of March, I had my best month with Honda, even as society ground to a near halt.

Since then, I’ve taken some time off to “self quarantine,” and rather than just fumble around like most media wringing their hands and dramatizing things (rather than providing much in the way of perspective), bagging on Trump, focusing on nursing homes deaths and racial statistics.

Face it, with few exceptions, media coverage of the coronavirus has been lame. Continue reading →

The $64 million question:

Is Universal Studios decision to make first-run movies available on pay-per-view the beginning of the end for mainstream movieplexes like of KC’s AMC Theaters?

“I agree, it could be a game changer of the way they release movies,” says KCC movie maven Jack Poessiger. “And since Universal did it, they’ve all jumped on board except Disney.

“The only thing is, some of the big boys have said that the big pictures – the Mulans – the big productions made for the big screen – they would still keep separate. Whereas the little films, they would offer day-and-date, because those smaller movies already have a hard time making it on the big screen.

“But some factions in the industry think that moving movies to streaming or pay-per-view without a theatrical window diminishes the value of the film to the general public.”

Right now, the new movies that have been moved to the small screen  from shuttered theaters have been out for at least a week.

Raising the question of whether movie makers will now push unreleased movies into the future, like the new James Bond – or release them to Amazon and pay channels?

“That depends on what kind of movies you’re talking about – the Bonds or the Marvels,” Poessiger says.

Even if studios hold back the big fish and send the movie minnows to streaming, there’ll be the issue of how to keep a dozen or more movie auditoriums filled with new product. Continue reading →

Paul Fredrocks:
Honk if you still think he’s alive!

You got it, you give it up, you still got it…

To the realms of heaven, hell and purgatory, add Facebook.

Because anymore, the fine line between life and death keeps getting finer, as larger than life local personalities such as former KY102 jock Paul Fredrocks and local comedy king Craig Glazer soldier on – well past their expiration dates – on social media.

Sans some sort of change-of-address system or imaginary expiration date, Facebook continues to feature their – and other dead folks – pages, complete with all of the photos, friends, comments etc, that existed prior to their departing this world.

As in, dying.

For some – ostensibly “friends” -it may be comforting to visit their Facebook pages to reconnect or relive the magic.

It’s certainly a heckuva lot easier than trekking out to some cemetery.

Lately however both Fredrocks and Glazer have celebrated social media birthdays.

Leading to a bizarre spate of congratulatory messages by people clued out to the fact that both have long since taken dirt naps.

“Hope you had a happy day,” wrote a dude named Jim Flink on Fredrocks Facebook page.

“Happy birthday celebrate,” added former KCC columnist Mark Valentine, who garnished his comment a smiley face emoji.

Channel 9 weather wonk Bryan Busby breathed a bit of grim reality into the festivities by adding, “Happy Birthday in heaven, Paul.”

And just a couple days ago, deceased KCC scribe Craig Glazer rose from Facebook’s dead – much to the surprise of some – who weighed in with a host of attaboys and good tidings.

No wonder… Continue reading →

It’s kinda like it was with newspapers…

It was the beginning of the end for the Kansas City Star, Newsweek, Automobile Magazine, the Village Voice and, yes, The Pitch.

When Al Gore‘s big, bad Internet roared to life in the late 1990s, the handwriting was on the wall for most print publications. Not that everybody in the game was aware of it. Hence the Star’s sinking hundreds of millions of bucks into its fancy-schmancy new press pavilion in downtown KC.

Don’t ask me how they made the determination, but somehow or another, the newspaper’s best and brightest concluded that they would be able to harness the power of the web and keep choking out newsprint…which was the cash cow of all cash cows.

Within a handful of years their devastating miscalculation was well on its way to becoming a reality. And somewhere in the neighborhood of 2,000 laid off or otherwise departed staffers later, here we are.

Now let’s apply similar thinking to the latest endangered species, movieplexes.

For years I’ve been pointing out to legendary local movie critic Jack Poessiger how Netflix, Amazon Prime and YouTube have been taking a similar toll on theaters.

Thanks to inflation, box office grosses have risen, but you’d be hard put not to notice how few truly exceptional movies outside of the superhero genre, James Bond and the like are truly must see when they first come out.

Not only because in 90 or so days, people will be able to watch them in the comfort of their homes on giant screens with incredible pictures and sound for a fraction of the cost and hassle of dragging to a multiplex.

Movie industry giants like KC-based AMC Theatres have staved off the inevitable by morphing crowded, uncomfortable theaters into luxurious, state-of-the art movie palaces with a host of gourmet snacks, halfway decent dining choices, cocktails, beer and wine.

Again, for a price.

The even bigger nail in movie theater’s coffins are the amazing array of quality choices available thru Netflix, cable companies and other sources. Continue reading →

Just last week Westport boss hawg Bill Nigro predicted a decent St. Paddy’s day…

Sure, KC’s infamous parade had been canceled, still Nigro thought it was a reasonable to expect a crowd of, say, 25 percent of the usual starting around 5 p.m. as folks got off work.

After all, for something like ever St. Patrick’s Day has been the party district’s most bankable holiday….the cash cow of all cash cows.

Then today happened and the KC put the kibosh on local bars and nightclubs.

As for Nigro’s 25 percent guesstimate…

“There will be no crowd, we’re shiut down,” he says. “Kelly’s isn’t even open, nobody’s open. Westport is shiut down, baby. I didn’t think it was going to be this bad. People have been walking up to the front door of Kelly’s all day and reading the sign that they’re closed.”

The quietest St. Patrick’s in Westport ever?

“Ever,” Nigro says. “And it’s always busy here – every year – it’s the top day of the year for everybody.”

The kicker:

“Yet the casinos are open today,” Nigro grouses. “How fair is that? We were ordered to be closed and they’re open. So Westport gets the shaft on the best business day of the year and the casino gets a pass.”

Indeed, a call to KC’s Isle of Capri reveals the casino is open tonight until midnight. Continue reading →

Act of goodwill or a blatant attempt to capitalize on a national tragedy?

You make the call:

The Kansas City Star has begun opening it’s “online paywall” for stories pertaining to the coronavirus outbreak.

It appeared to start with the cancellation of the Big 12 and NCAA basketball tournaments.

I mean, who doesn’t stand to benefit in these bizarre times by more fully understanding the whys and wherefores of the collapsed of college hoops?

No biggie – it’s understandable even – that the beleaguered local newspaper of record would try and recoup some online subscription monies for its sports department. And, you know, maybe sell a few $30 a year online sports subscriptions.

Certainly it’s a noble gesture giving locals a free peek at coronavirus news they can use.

That said, is it in good taste for the Star to pat itself on the back for taking the high road on the worst threat to this country since the Spanish Flu pandemic off 1918, by using the occasion to hawk online subscriptions? Continue reading →

Let’s be real, it’s hard to imagine things being much worse for local newspapers…

Then again, there’s always the death by a thousand cuts concept…and we’re at least 900 plus cuts into that scenario.

Which brings us to current state of college and pro sports.

Bad as things are and have been, canceling of the Big 12 and NCAA mens basketball tourneys – not to mention the NBA and NHL seasons, Major league Baseball, Major League Soccer and with pretty much all-things-sports – is the equivalent of a giant cup of  print journalism hemlock.

A prominent Lawrence lawyer who subscribes to both the physical Kansas City Star and Lawrence Journal World, made one thing clear to me earlier today.

“Most people I know that still take the Journal World do so its KU sports coverage,” he says. “This is really going to hurt them.”

Ditto for the Star but perhaps less obviously,

Case in point, look how the Star and Journal World handled yesterday’s NCAA news:

The Journal World front page was an exercise in sky-is-falling journalism.

The Star’s was more preoccupied with restaurants, bars and toilet paper.

Which didn’t stop the Star from using the death of the NCAA tourney to hawk its $30 online sports package. Continue reading →