Between 4 inches of snow, stormy weather, and setting the clocks back it definitely feels like winter is here. The plow truck is clearing our driveway as I type this.

Moving from Nome, which is in northwest Alaska, to Homer, which is in southcentral, in October means you get a second chance at fall. Usually we leave Nome in some amount of snow and come back to above-freezing temperatures for a few fleeting weeks.

But now there's no avoiding winter unless you live in the southeast part of the state.

The key to wintering in Alaska is avoiding cabin fever. You have to spend a lot of time with friends and family and learn how to get outside in the snow. You've got to sled and ski and snowshoe and, if you're lucky, ride snow machines.

That's why I'm glad we shipped the Arctic Cat Bearcat down from Nome. It'll be our first winter with a snowmachine in Homer to use for fun. It's just about ready to pick-up in Anchorage.

Speaking of stormy weather, Warner Bros. Discovery released their quarterly earnings yesterday and the stock plummeted 19%.

​CNBC said this: "Warner Bros. Discovery’s results reflected dire trends in the legacy media industry. Ad revenue in Warner Bros. Discovery’s TV networks segment fell 12% compared with a year earlier, reflecting a decline in audiences for general entertainment and news programming, as well as soft ad trends in the U.S., the company said."

The company's CFO said, "the state of the overall linear ad market during the second half of this year has been disappointing. And looking ahead, while it is early, the timing of an ad recovery is currently difficult for any of us to predict with any conviction."

My words would be simpler: "tv advertising is worse than expected, and I don't see it getting better in the near future."

Since Bering Sea Gold falls directly into the bucket of Discovery's "legacy media" business, I wonder what the future is for the show. So far they have chosen not to produce last ice season and this last summer. We should know in the next couple months whether they will decide to produce this upcoming ice season.

My guess (and a guess is all that it is) is that they will eventually choose to continue making the show, but press everyone to make it more cheaply than ever. That would be keeping with the the trend for the last decade.

Emily and I talk a lot about looking at this as a scary moment, or as an opportunity.

I personally think the entertainment business is quite cyclical. I'm reading a book about the movie industry in the 1960s - and one of the chief complaints of the time is that movies became formulaic and stale, there were too many remakes, and that Hollywood wouldn't risk trying anything new.

Sound familiar? I'd argue you could say the same thing about the movie business today.

But people eventually saw the opportunity to stand out by making something different than what old Hollywood was offering, and the floodgates opened. For a fleeting moment there was a rare opportunity for outsiders to make a name in a very closed-off business if they were willing to think outside the box.

I don't think history repeats exactly, but it often rhymes. And the most obvious similarity to that time period was laid out yesterday by the CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery, David Zaslav, who said, "This is a generational disruption we’re going through."

I wonder what this disruption means for this brand of "Alaskan entertainment"? Are people going to stop being interested in watching men and women risk their lives in high-dollar commercial fishing or gold mining ventures?

I don't think so, but I can't imagine Deadliest Catch, Gold Rush, or Bering Sea Gold will be the biggest fishing and mining programs 20 years from now. I think the format's going to change, because the distribution model and technology is changing so quickly. And because, well, people get bored and want something new.

Of the three parties it takes to make a program like Bering Sea Gold - the network (distribution), the production company, and the talent - the talent probably has one of the better opportunities to make it out the other side of major change since in the end they actually own the thing worth watching, which is the mining operation.

On the other hand, maybe these shows can last 50 years? If you look up the longest running tv shows ever - they're all soap operas.

What defines a soap opera?

​One source says: "The main characteristics that define soap operas are an emphasis on family life, personal relationships, emotional and moral conflicts. You’ll also find some coverage of topical issues set in familiar domestic interiors with only occasional excursions to new locations, - the storylines always following the day to day activities and personal relations of the main characters in the programme."

I would change that to "familiar domestic exteriors" and probably replace "family" with "work" (which makes the target audience men)\ otherwise that sounds kind of close doesn't it?

Maybe all this change is just a hiccup along the road, and these shows will end up surviving for decades into the internet era. Who knows? I don't have a crystal ball. It just smells like change is coming.

Have a great weekend!

Alex

PS - Restock on Shop.BeringSeaPaydirt.com is coming in time for the holidays! We have more product in the mail to our distribution center as I type this.

In the meantime we only have (9) 2 Gram Eroica Paydirt left for sale until the new stock comes through.

All of our paydirt contains gold recovered from the Bering Sea by our team on the Eroica and the really fine gold has been screened out, so you only get nice chunky 30+ mesh gold flakes!

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​Buy Eroica Paydirt! ​ Get 2 grams of real Bering Sea Gold guaranteed! All of our paydirt gold is screened to 30+ mesh gold flakes, so the gold is nice and chunky. No fines! And all the gold we sell is certified dredged by Emily Riedel and crew on the M/V Eroica! ​ Get hot & fresh gold from the Bering Sea

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That's it for this week's newsletter. Drop me a line at Alex@BeringSeaPaydirt.com if there's anything you think we should cover.

Until next week!