3/5/2012 - Mugs Media Will Survive
It is new era here at Mugs Media.
After 20 years of serving as a contractor for Service Electric Cable Televison providing outstanding news and sports programming, SEC-TV decided to drop Mugs Media as its provider effective March 1.
So what does that mean? Well, here it is in a nutshell. The cable company provided money to Mugs Media to produce Skylands Weekly, the Sports Beat and the Games of the Week on Channel 10.
In addition to that money, the cable company allowed Mugs Media to sell advertising on those programs to offset the costs of producing the numerous hours of outstanding programming Mugs Media provided.
That agreement came to an end the first of the month and Mugs Media suffered a significant blow as now the cable company was not only going to cut off its funding, but Mugs Media would now have to lease air time for any programs we wanted to air.
This all happened in matter of two weeks. A pretty tough pill to swallow.
Jerry Morelli, who has owned and guided Mugs Media since its inception, was forced to make some very tough economic choices, choices that have unfortunately have become to common place during these wretched economic times.
Without the cable company funding, Mugs Media can not produce Skylands Weekly or Games of the Week without losing money. That is the cold hard fact.
It breaks Jerry’s heart to see Skylands Weekly and the Games of the Week off the air. This was not his choosing.
Melissa Estock did a wonderful job of producing and anchoring Skylands Weekly, but without the cable money it is impossible for Mugs Media to produce the program no matter what story is being told elsewhere.
Mugs Media, like Service Electric, is not a charity, but in a sign of good faith Jerry has kept the Sports Beat on the air despite the massive cutback.
Mugs Media is not legally required by the Federal Commutations Commission to provide local programming. This is a very important fact to remember. If you are upset that the Games of the Week and Skylands Weekly are no longer on the air, please contact your cable provider to request local news and games of the week.
Jerry has retooled his business model in a very short amount of time and found a way to keep the Sports Beat on, which shows his dedication to the loyal viewers and advertisers in the Mugs Media area.
The major reason the Sports Beat is still on is due to the generosity of Bill Snouffer and Eric Nielsen of the Nielsen Automotive Group which owns the Franklin Sussex Auto Mall and Franklin Sussex Hyundai.
The two dealerships have become the title sponsors of the show and we are eternally grateful to them for that. So the next time you need to buy a car, remember the two dealerships are a big reason why you were able to see your son or daughter on the Sports Beat.
And all of our sponsors have been tremendous and have stuck by us during this critical time. Now more than ever, Mugs Media is wholly operated through advertising dollars, so PLEASE, patronize our sponsors, the Sports Beat literally depends on it.
Some of the misconceptions out there are that Mugs Media is a non-profit and made too much money so the cable company pulled the plug.
Not true. We are not a non-profit and the cable company did not pull the plug because we made too much money through advertising.
Service Electric, as is its want, opted to spend the money EARNED by Mugs Media, on other projects. That is the company's choice and Mugs Media has to live with that and will move forward and become even stronger for it.
But it speaks volumes, and obviously I’m biased, that Jerry did not pack up his bags and abandon the viewers of Sussex County, leaving Channel 10 essentially dark except for some town meetings and parades.
No, we are going to plow on and provide the viewers of Sussex County the same outstanding local sports coverage around. The Sports Beat will be better than ever and Mugs Media is now going to expand it services to its advertisers and viewers.
For years, parents have asked us for college recruiting tapes. We never could provide those because of limited time and manpower due to the production of the two shows and the Games of the Week.
But we are now focused on serving our viewers and advertisers with different options, such as the college recruiting tapes which have become an essential part of the recruiting process, as well as 30-minute infomercials for local businesses produced by Mugs Media.
The infomercials we have produced have been a tremendous success. The Mohawk House, Around the Lot etc. have been extremely effective in helping those businesses grow.
Yes, we will miss doing the Games of the Week, but if you want a game aired, please call Jerry at 973-729-9234 or email him at jerry@mugsmedia.com and you can discuss a rate in which Mugs Media will produce and edit a game for your school.
It pains me to write that, but it is the tough economic truth. I hate the fact that if parents or schools want to see their local teams on the air they will have to pay for it.
Again, this is not our choosing. If we kept Skylands Weekly and the Games of the Week on the air, and paid for them to air, Mugs Media would be out of business in no time.
And believe me, no one is getting rich here at Mugs Media. We are a small business trying to survive in a time when money is scarce. After the cutback, Mugs Media is comprised of just three full-time employees.
Jerry Morelli loves Sussex County and everything about it. He is not going anywhere, but things will definitely be different here at Mugs Media and what we can afford to produce.
But that doesn’t mean we are not going to try our very best to keep serving the viewers and advertisers in the area. We are not looking for your sympathy, but hoping the viewers and advertisers in the area will join us in making Mugs Media better than ever.
I will leave you with two quotes from Winston Churchill that I feel sum up our situation.
“A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.”
“To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.”
That’s for now, see you on the sidelines.
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