Posted on 12/17/2007 12:12:13 PM PST by abb
The slow but steady erosion in the power of primetime television is about to change the fundamental structure and financial clout of broadcast TV's perennial cash cow, warn advertisers, which pump more than $9 billion a year into the three-hour nightly window. With its waning audience, lack of a breakout hit in two seasons and with the writers' strike about to render the TV landscape barren of any new scripted shows, media planners and ad buyers are predicting:
* The decades-long three-hour primetime window could shrink by one-third to just two hours a night.
* The growth of less-expensive reality shows over the past several years will continue to accelerate.
*The standard TV season, from September to May, as well as the upfront ad-selling season will disappear.
"The network model is starting to break," said Gary Carr, the director of national broadcast with TargetCast, a firm that buys and places ads for clients.
"What's going to happen is lower quality programming, lower ratings and more competition," said Barry Lowenthal, president of Media Kitchen the media planning arm of ad agency Kirshenbaum Bond & Partners.
The comments come days after ratings-challenged NBC was forced to do the unthinkable - give cash back to advertisers because it couldn't deliver the ratings points it promised during the "upfront" sales season in May.
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(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
ping
“The American press is all about lies! All they tell is lies, lies and more lies!” —Baghdad Bob
What’s funny is, he’s right....
Back in the day I think there was a short writer’s strike everytime the need came for a ‘Small Wonder’ script.
When the cable was out for a while we actually watched the primary networks.
It is not possible to have lower quality programming.
Only a drooling imbecile could stand an hour of it.
The best entertainment was Mooing at the Soaps and swearing at the "News".
The only things that I’ve watched recently were reruns of “Firefly” and “Batman: the Animated Series” that I hadn’t seen the first time around, and “Tin Man” on Sci-fi, which I actually enjoyed. It could’ve been a little better, but it could’ve been much, much worse. It wasn’t a typical re-imaging or updating at all. The funny thing is that the “Tin Man” wasn’t really the main character at all, and it wasn’t about him (although he did have a substantial part of the story line).
The fact that those shows can be seen as "the good old days" really tells the tale. I can't watch anything on network TV with my kids nowadays.
These also don't require writers, actors or directors, in the usual sense, and therefore are exempt from the usual contract negotiations.
Oh yay, more "Dateline" and "20/20"
Almost all of my TV viewing involves the Discovery Channel, the History Channel, the Science Channel and similar cable stations.
I almost never watch the 3 networks. Their natioal news is slanted leftward, and most of their shows (sitcoms, “reality shows”) are aimed at people with room temperature IQs.
I'm optimistic about it. The key point is that there will be fewer eyeballs watching, even if the crap is lower quality. And I'd rather these couch potatoes watch more "Fear Factor" than be subject to high-budget "West Wing"-esque propaganda.
ROTLMAO!
When I was in college I was introduced to "Small Wonder" via reruns on a local station.
I think my initiation was something like this: "Hey, dude, we got some beers and we're going to watch the worst show ever put on television!"
He wasn't wrong.
I remember thinking that you could see Tiffany Brissette dying a little inside as she delivered her ridiculous lines in her robot voice.
Yet she seemed to retain much more of her human dignity in comparison to her other co-stars.
Have no idea what they have on their evening shows. Sitcomm’s make me want to puke they are really, really low IQ. trash..
The word cheap comes to mind. That’s all they producing now is cheap programing “Reality shows”.
Many of those cable originals are very good. Some stretch a bit in their language and nudity, but some are excellent without that.
I am surprised the regular networks haven’t tried to pick them up and extend their seasons, as they tend to be 5 to 12 week series.
Psyc, The Closer, Burn Notice are just some cable originals that are interesting and not really family unfriendly.
Funny how it never occured to the SW ‘creative’ team that the primary market for a child-like robot would be pedophiles.
Dancing with the Stars and American Idol ... only two prime time shows I watch. :)
I highly doubt it will be as drastic as this writer thinks. Besides, the networks will just air their shows on cable and those of us who enjoy primetime viewing will have to pay up to access the programs.
ABC NBC & SEEBS would see rating increases if they ran 24/7/365 re-runs of the Three Stooges. The stooges still watching them are turning off or dying out. /sarcasm
Thanks for all of your pings.
Same here, plus NFL football. I've about given up on History Channel - I liked it when they used to focus on history. Since they just cycle shows with Discovery Channel less than half the programming is history. Heck, they much air the show "Modern Marvels" about 20 times a day. I used to like it but now it's all that's ever on. Also, there has been very little new programming as of late. When they do have a history show on it's one you first saw five years ago and 100 times since.
Nine times out of ten I just decide to pick up a good book. (or fire up a quick game of Unreal Tournament)
I agree, I think The Closer is one of the best written shows on TV.
OMG! You remember that show, too??? I thought I was the only one. I remember telling my friends back in the day what a gawd-awful show that was.
Many of the protagonists of network TV in the 70s and 80s were people whose lives you could envy: Sonny Crockett of "Miami Vice" was a college football star and decorated war hero who opened up a can of whupass on the bad guys, dated beautiful women and drove around in a totally sweet car. Clive Huxtable was a successful doctor living in a cool neighborhood surrounded by a loving family with a gorgeous wife.
Fast forward to 2007 when the stars of "CSI" are a reclusive entomologist with a congenital hearing defect and a crippled emotional life, teamed up with a former stripper and single mother whose estranged father was murdered by rivals.
Or "Grey's Anatomy" with a protagonist who is always depressed, drinks too much, hated her dead mother, is hated by her father and who is incapable of normal emotional connections with men.
I mean, I would almost rather be dead than live the empty lives these characters lead - and their lives are written this way intentionally.
What? An adult man building a mechanical 10 year old girl, training her to servilely obey his every whim, fraudulently adopting her to prevent outsiders from questioning her status, and keeping her locked in a box at night?
Isn't that every normal person's idea of rational behavior?
Nipples on the network - coming soon!
Liberals feed on misery like vampires. Keep people depressed and they will hate their country and their men enough to vote Democrat.
Bring back Kojack!
Didn't Waylon Flowers and Madam have a sh-tcom at one time?
BTW: I may be the only one on this site who can tie himself back to Kevin Bacon.
That is one of the few shows I watch.
My wife and I are big fans of BN and Psych in particular.
They certainly have the creepiest story of how they first met of any Hollywood couple out there.
The networks will eventually be a combination of YouTube and MySpace.
That's already happened to a large degree. Most local affiliates will most of their day with syndicated programming. Nearly all are on the air 24 hours a day, with the network providing a smaller and smaller slice of the programming pie. Morning and evening news, the 8-11 prime time block, and sporting events -- that's all most stations get from the network. Maybe one or two daytime soaps, but there are fewer of those than there used to be.
I don't remember the last time I saw a theatrical movie aired on a big-three network. They used to be a mainstay. For that matter, made for TV movies and miniseries have largely shifted to the cable nets. With video rentals and sales, downloads and on-demand cable, who wants to sit through commercials?
Network evening news broadcasts will go dark after the '08 elections and their news divisions will be disbanded.
Not a chance it will happen that fast. The Big Three evening newscasts combined still draw about ten times the audience of the cable news networks.
But the more important fact to remember is that the news divisions don't just work to produce that one half-hour a day. The morning shows make real money, and they have enough local affiliates to offer local weather and traffic, stuff folks want to know when they're getting ready for work and which cable can't deliver. News magazine shows are cheap enough to produce that they can be profitable even if they're not huge ratings winners.
What you probably will see in short order is a continuation of the trend of the last 20 years -- fewer bureaus, fewer correspondents in the field, more reliance on agencies and affiliates. More talking heads and celebrity fluff, because those are a lot less expensive than putting a lot of crews on a lot of planes.
It's pretty much the same phenomenon that has happened to newspapers. Few newspapers have correspondents or even stringers spread out across the country -- they use the AP for out-of-town newsgathering. Or big companies like Gannett, McClatchy, the NYT and the Trib share stories between their papers. When your local paper puts together its national and international sections, they do far more aggregating than reporting.
We love Psych and House. Lately, we’ve been watching Psych reruns via the USA website. We also watch House via FOX.com because we often are out of the house when the show airs.
I was in "The Slugger's Wife" with Rebecca DeMornay [*]. DeMornay was in "Risky Business" with Tom Cruise. Cruise was in "A Few Good Men" with Kevin Bacon. I have a Bacon number of three.
[*] Extra in scenes shot at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium.
Not to be too terribly argumentative here, but if what you say happens, will they still be "news" divisions? Or will they then be just another "entertainment" division?
My point is that if you take ALL the programming produced by the news divsions - evening, morning, primetime - and forced them to carry the overhead of all the reporters, producers, staff and so forth, it would be a net loser. I'm suggesting the entertainment totes the freight and "news" as networks have produced for decades doesn't make money.
I was in an episode of "Sex in the City" with Sara Jessica Parker, who was in Footloose with Kevin Bacon. :-)
FYI: I am working the cafe in the background as she and her boyfriend (played by Baryshinikov) are chatting in front of the tables. Got paid twice: once as an extra and again for merely showing up for my regular job at the time!
You mean their "dem shill (KISS DEM BUTT) divisions will be disbanded. Oh the horror....
I was in “Two Weeks’ Notice” with Sandra Bullock [*]. Bullock was in “Loverboy” with Kevin Bacon. I have a Bacon number of two.
[*] Extra in scenes shot at Shea Stadium.
That's a valid question. It's also one you could ask now, and you could ask it of news organizations in any medium. And it's not just a question of chasing cheezy sensational stories in search of ratings or skimping on serious news to save money, though those certainly are important factors.
Even a high-minded and serious journalist has to think about ratings sometimes. If you're doing the best reporting around from Iraq or Darfur, you can't blow off stories like Anna Nicole Smith. Because if you don't cover Anna Nicole, your audience will turn to someone who does, and no one will see your reports on Iraq and Darfur. But most of what you report is tabloid crap, it's hard to take the war reporting seriously. It's a tough balance.
My point is that if you take ALL the programming produced by the news divsions - evening, morning, primetime - and forced them to carry the overhead of all the reporters, producers, staff and so forth, it would be a net loser. I'm suggesting the entertainment totes the freight and "news" as networks have produced for decades doesn't make money.
Network news has always been a loss-leader. CNN was the first broadcaster to consistently turn a profit on TV news. The networks broadcast news because it's good for their brand identity, and it helps attract affiliates. There has always been enough profit from the entertainment programming to cover the losses, but that is changing.
That's my point. And I think it will happen quickly. Brand identity be damned, the stockholders want ROI (return on investment). The suits aren't going to risk their jobs to save the newsies. The newsies can caterwaul all they want - if the numbers aren't there to float the payroll, they're history.
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