I couldn't find a link to the story, but KFOG reported this morning that BGP/Clear Channel has sold naming rights to the Warfield to SF weekly; in return the Warfield will advertise its shows in the Weekly ONLY. The Guardian is pissed.
What a bad, bad business decision on the part of the Warfield management. People don't want to choose between papers just to get show information. If anything this'll only damage awareness of, and thus attendance at, Warfield shows.
The SFBG should respond by ceasing to review shows at the venue. If artists express unwillingness to be booked there on grounds of insufficient media coverage, that agreement will be rethought. At least that's my hunch.
I think that's jounalistically unethical, but far from unusual. If the BG refuses to review important shows, it just becomes less important.
I think "unethical" is a bit much -- it's not a news blackout, it's just entertainment, and a publication always has editorial leeway insofar as which concerts to cover. The Voice, f'rex, often ignores big-name shows in favor of personal favorites or shows that give the author a chance to riff on a separate/related topic. If something big happens at the Warf (such as a Dead Kennedys reunion), the SFBG ignores it at its own peril -- but within its own right. But it is an interesting thing to consider.
Let me fill you in on why this point of view is familiar to me. In my past life as an instrument maker, I would always come up against the 'play for pay' magazines who would write up lesser manufacturers because they were advertisers. I'm not naïve enough (although I've demonstrated my gullibility here many times) to think this doesn't go on, or isn't the way much of 'how things get done,' but the leading magazines at the time, Guitar Player and Bass Player, would cover me whether or not I was advertising, and they never ran these fawning reviews the other rags did.
So, you can see why I feel this is unethical. I hate calling it SBC park, and we never liked 3Com, but that's the way things work these days. I don't think much will come of it. The BG and SFW are minor players.
