Faulkner

Auger-Aliassime vs Eubanks should be a fun match.

Ramona, Carole, and Dorinda all came in on a mission to stand their ground against Bethenny, but Andy is Ms. Frankel’s lapdog. I don’t particularly love any of those three ladies at the moment, but Bethenny has had this coming for a few years now. EDIT: Bethenny IS right about Dorinda, but it’s hard not to kill the messenger with her.

An interesting column from Andrea Petkovic:

How Aretha came to sing the A Different World theme.

All that chocolate milk money!

Looks like the MTV VMAs scored another all-time low (as expected) with 4.87 million across all the Viacom networks, 2.25 million on MTV itself. 10.3 million watched just four years ago. http://www.showbuzzdaily.com/articles/showbuzzdailys-top-150-monday-cable-originals-network-finals-8-20-2018.html Ratings trends in recent years for the MTV broadcasts only:

Really good article.

Madonna responds to the backlash... A funny review of last night:

I’m aware. I’m just saying that someone of Madonna’s stature and longtime influence in the music industry should have been able to do a nice tribute. Someone like Cher would have been totally random as well, but she would have done an infinitely better job.

On paper, the Madonna tribute could have been nice and unexpected since (for better or worse) she’s a queen of popular music in her own right. But then you’re reminded that Madonna is still Madonna.

Wow.

Because Victor Cruz is retiring...

Yeah, why wait to see the music videos you want on some TV network when you can just cue them up on demand on YouTube? Music videos on TV haven’t made a ton of sense in a long, long time.

They also have the benefit of time (almost six months to get ducks in a row) and a broader target audience than the VMAs, so if they mess it up, that’s on them. Not that they won’t mess it up...

MTV is in crisis, even though it’s had ratings growth recently. They’ve had some success with the revival of Jersey Shore, and they announced a revival of The Hills last night. But it’s 10-15 years since MTV meant anything at all. This year’s ceremony is the earliest they’ve ever done the VMAs, and it’s because nothing else is on right now. It’s just not that relevant in today’s world. I just wonder how the Grammys will handle Aretha.

Yes, that was a mess last night. Typical Madonna self-indulgence. They probably felt pressure to honor her in some way because she was one of the most important icons in popular music, but like most of last night, it wasn’t thought through. Then again, most of the tributes to lost icons in recent years (I’m thinking about Gaga’s frantic, Vegas-style nod to Bowie on the Grammys) have fallen flat. Oddly, the BET Awards have done the best ones, and they are on MTV’s Viacom sister network.

If you expand the below photo, you see Kokkinakis comment with several 😂😂😂😂 emojis.