Frankie Stone

  • NATPE 2010: The Real-Life ‘Hangover’

    Memories of the good old days, when NATPE wasn’t about the hype or the deal, but the community

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  • Why Was NBC’s Damage Control So Weak?

    It’s PR 101 to shape both the messaging and the tactics — including proactive ground-laying

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  • The Delicate Art of Wooing the HFPA

    I’d booked at the Westside’s most exclusive hotel of the moment … only to have members bitch about their preference for the Beverly Hilton and Century Plaza

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  • Why the ‘Real People’ Don’t Understand Us

    One reason audiences are deserting TV and movies is that they just don’t know where anything is anymore.

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  • The N.Y. Times and HBO Get a Bit Too Cozy

    With a documentary in the works, the paper’s website has run 17 articles about HBO since mid-May.

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  • Hollywood Sinking Its Teeth Into LinkedIn

    When someone’s profile starts adding little blurbs of independent praise, it means that person’s job hunting.

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  • How Not to Be a VH1 Spin Doctor

    Just when you think certain people and companies are completely out of touch with reality, they do something that elevates cluelessness to a higher plane. As the Jasmine Fiore tragedy unrolled, the crisis management strategies of VH1 and production companies 51 Minds and parent Endemol were simple: Don’t have it rub off on us. VH1 and…

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  • New Rules on Salvaging Your PR Image

    Note to Michael Vick: Your PR image rehab campaign bites. As someone who’s genetically incapable of understanding football, the fact that I know so much about Vick says a lot about the reach of his despicable celebrity. Vick’s the newest poster child for that infamous club of talent who really, truly, badly screw up and want…

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  • CNN: It’s So Easy Being the Best Ever

    I’m No. 1. According to the ratings, I beat CNN, MSNBC and Fox News in primetime. CBS, Lifetime and ESPN Deportes too. My box office sales topped "Harry Potter." “Flackback” is TheWrap’s most popular blog. And even better, my TVQ score shows I’m personally more beloved across America than Tom Hanks, Sully and those Evian…

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  • Jackson and the Hollywood Bottom-Feeders

    I had a brush with Michael Jackson once, post-Bubbles but pre-pedophilia charges. At least I think so. Jackson had a project in development with my studio, and there was a PR road bump that had to be resolved. I wound up on speakerphone with Bob Jones, his lifelong publicist, and I’d swear that the person…

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  • Pull the Plug on Jon & Kate

    An open letter to David Zaslav, President and CEO, Discovery Communications: Dear Mr. Zaslav: Time’s up. We’ve all had our laughs by now. Made the snarky comments and stupid puns. Now it’s time for you to act like a grown-up, in the absence of other grown-ups. Cancel that show. The announcement about the Gosselins’ decision…

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  • Letterman vs. Palin? The Winner Is … Willow

    If I were casting a soap opera full of conflict, corporate politics, raging ego, blatant personal agendas and a fresh-faced innocent, I’d look no further than David Letterman, Sarah Palin, John Ziegler and Willow Palin. Or do I mean Bristol? But what should’ve been a minor-league, easily extinguished PR problem has escalated into a pretty…

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  • Three Men With Three Very Different Weeks

    This week, we’re mourning one person who bucked the PR handbook, curious about another who might’ve put a crack in his carefully-shaped image and scratching our heads over a third who may or may not have committed suicide. Not necessarily who you think. As an entertainment writer for a daily paper in the 1980s, I…

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  • Now That Jay Leno’s Headed to Primetime, Some Advice For NBC

    And so it’s ended. Last Friday, Jay Leno made his last joke, welcomed his successor and signed off from latenight television. And so it begins. Come September, Leno hosts the first broadcast network primetime show in recent memory to air every weeknight at 10 — “stripped” scheduling in TV-speak. NBC’s hinted about what the show…

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  • Miss California Story Has More Twists Than a Soap Opera

    I’m baffled by all the surprise over Donald Trump’s announcement that Silicon Barbie — I mean Carrie Prejean — will keep her Miss California USA crown. Trump is all about the publicity. And this was a flat-out move to score some for an anachronism. His decision gave the wheezy Miss USA pageant a perky set…

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