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SF’s Media Gulch is Going Strong by Christian Carlson
Barbary Coast circa 1910. photo: courtesy anonymous
AS YOU WALK DOWN SAN FRANCISCO'S
Broadway, from North Beach towards the Embarcadero, you can almost see the sordid ol' Barbary Coast. Strip clubs pepper the street much as bordellos did over a century and a half ago, when this was the singular destination for sailors and miners to get their fix of femininity in new West, far beyond the civilized East.
Today the strip perfectly separates the bohemian Beats of North Beach and the Financial District and Chinatown, to the South. But as you approach the water, you arrive at what is known as "Media Gulch" and where advertising, branding, production and broadcast traverse another line—that between creative and corporate.
The Media Gulch monicker must have started somewhere in the 1970s, when the first West coast office of the advertising giant Ogilvy & Mather was opened by Hal Riney, who would go on to create Ronald Reagan's iconic “It’s Morning in America” ads and form his own agency, setting the stage for years to come.
Indeed, out of Riney’s Ogilvy & Mather’s office emerged the founders of other great San Francisco agencies. In 1982, three alums formed what became Goodby Berlin & Silverstein, an advertising giant which started on Media Gulch's 66 Broadway building but soon outgrew that and landed on Front Street. If you were alive in the 1990s, you might remember Goodby Silverstein & Partners simple catch phrase: “Got Milk?”
Hal Riney, who kick started advertising in Media Gulch, relaxing at home. photo: H. Riney
As the media landscape changed, traditional outlets and agencies restructured to accommodate with advertising agencies and production companies slimming down and simplifying business structures.
Goodby Silverstein & Partners, perennially one of San Francisco sturdiest, has seen two straight years of lay-offs. Although they hope to see film and digital work increase with liaisons with outside firms, many of those jobs will head to larger production companies in LA and New York.
Amongst the tech changes fallout is that production and post companies that have been unable to maintain revenue streams. With decreased barriers to entry, a laptop is now a fully functioning editing suite.
Many of San Francisco’s bigger production houses are unable to compete with small scale operations and are shuttering their doors. Mid-sized operations too large to match the price points of the shooter/editor, may be too small to handle the large scale productions required of agencies. To survive companies have to diversify their offerings and pull in business from various ventures.
The local broadcast market is also tightening the belt. Earlier this year KRON announced that they would be subleasing space from KGO in the Media Gulch. Once a San Francisco staple, KRON lost it’s NBC affiliation and has struggled to stay afloat.
Although the station says it will retain its autonomy, the move reflects the growing necessity of media collaboration to take on the new landscape. The subleasing may also be a sign that KGO is looking to cut back on some of their operational costs.
And while many of the longstanding businesses in the Gulch are struggling to find ways to justify the rising costs of rent, the make-up of the area still remains media centric. New agencies like Heat and Cutwater continue great Gulch's tradition by spawning creative advertising.
The Barbary Coast today. photo: courtesy anonymous
Staples like Landor and Associates and Ketchum PR still call the Gulch home as well as KPIX, KGO, KCPS and LIVE 105. And production companies like Beyond Pix Studios, a twenty year resident of the Gulch, which has adjusted to the changes by integrating streaming and interactive and by building a stage in the new Bayshore district. They also partnered with Lee Miller Video.
As the idea of media is being redefined, so are the businesses which are replacing the spaces left by those who couldn’t survive. Tagged, a social media platform, which allows its users to interact through social games, has diversified into online gifts and other revenue rivers. It recently took over the old NBC building on Battery Street in 2011.
Like the rest of the city, tech employees are finding San Francisco more appealing than the South Bay for its eats, action and culture. This ends up raising rent prices and forcing smaller business to make a decision to relocate or shut down.
The media businesses that will thrive in the Gulch will be those who can adapt and capitalize on an evolving tech market. And for those that don’t, well, there’s always a new media company looking to move in that can.
Certainly the general North Beach area, which started as a red-light district in the 1850s and became the home to the Beats a century later, will continue to shine on in some fantastic form.?
Christian Carlson is a writer and film producer, and can be reached .