Category Archives: News/Analysis

Not Even TV Shows Set in Hollywood Can Afford to Film There Anymore

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not even tv shows set in hollywood

USA’s Graceland is set in L.A., but the series is actually filmed all the way on the other side of the county, in Fort Lauderdale. As I wrote at Quartz,

While Hollywood and the rest of Los Angeles has been the center of the TV and film industry for decades, that’s all changed in recent years as other states and provinces have lured productions away with budget-saving tax incentives. Hollywood used to stand in for any location around the world; now even shows that are actually set in and around LA can no longer afford to shoot there.

Graceland creator Jeff Eastin talked with me about California’s meager $100 million film and TV tax credit program, in which credits are distributed via lottery system. He explained the benefits of shooting in Florida versus California:

“The number I hear thrown about is a 30% savings,” says Eastin. “If you’re talking literally $300,000 on every $1 million, that’s pretty substantial when our budgets are $2-$3 million [per episode]. The cost savings are really substantial when ultimately you’re trying to put as many dollars as you can on the screen. Especially for a cable show, where the budgets aren’t what big networks shows are, we’re counting every dollar.”

No wonder that out of the 28 new drama series picked up for next season, 20 of them will be filmed outside of California.

Not even TV shows set in Hollywood can afford to film there anymore

‘White Collar’ Boss Talks Show’s Final Season — and Matt Bomer’s Role in the Finale

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White-Collar

While speaking with Jeff Eastin for an upcoming story about his show Graceland, I also slipped in a few questions about the upcoming final season of his other show, White Collar, which I was able to turn into this item for EW.com (my first time writing for a Time Inc. publication other than People):

“The really nice thing about six episodes is that it almost feels like a limited series,” says Eastin, whose other USA drama, Graceland, returns for its second season on June 11. “We’ve got just enough room for one really beautiful plot: What is the last adventure these guys go on?”

While Eastin has no hesitation about calling this last season of White Collar, USA hasn’t made an official announcement yet, nor has the network announced when the show’s sixth season will air.

‘White Collar’ Boss Talks Show’s Final Season — and Matt Bomer’s Role in the Finale

Finally, Instead of Re-Runs Over the Summer, New TV Shows Will Premiere All Year

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finally instead of reruns

As upfronts wrap today, I wrote this Quartz piece about one big change to this year’s proceedings: the networks are finally serious about programming year-round, and they’re actually putting their money where their mouths are.

But as broadcast ratings continue to erode, those networks can no longer assume that their viewers will stay loyal and return in the fall. So when CBS took a chance on adapting Stephen King’s Under the Dome as a “limited series” last summer, and it became the highest-rated scripted summer series in 21 years, the network kept it in the same spot this year (it returns June 30). With the addition of Extant and other summer shows, CBS will have 90 hours of original programming this summer.

It’s a big change from the broadcasters’ traditional hands-off approach to summer, allowing the cable networks (and more recently, Netflix) to swoop in and take all the audiences for themselves.

Finally, instead of re-runs over the summer, new TV shows will premiere all year

Television is Taking a Cue From Summer Movie Blockbusters

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television summer movie blockbusters

It’s upfronts time once again: the annual week in which broadcast execs unveil their new TV lineups to advertisers. And as I wrote at Quartz, as networks grapple with season-to-season ratings decline, they are trying a new tactic: approaching their lineups as if they are summer movie schedules.

The networks are coming to the same conclusion as the movie studios: the best way to potentially attract huge audiences, both domestically and internationally, is by relying on “safe” projects featuring well-established, beloved brands. That’s a big reason why Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. was one of the few new series to get a renewal this year.

And if a network picks up my NCIS: Avengers idea, I’d better get a cut of the profits!

Television is taking a cue from summer movie blockbusters

Not Even Those Who Run Netflix Shows Know How Popular They Really Are

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not even those who run Netflix

This is crazy to me. We’ve all known for years that Netflix has stubbornly refused to release any ratings information on its shows. Now, I wrote at Quartz, it turns out that not even the people who make Netflix’s most popular (we think) shows have any idea how many viewers actually watch their programming.

“It’s like, ‘I’m a hit —I think,’” Orange is the New Black creator Jenji Kohan told The Hollywood Reporter. The lack of viewership metrics from Netflix “makes it hard to negotiate later,” she says, referring to the standing industry practice in which the stars and producers of hits shows leverage ratings success for significant raises in a show’s third or fourth season.

I also wrote about Netflix’s excuses for withholding that data — and why they don’t hold water.

Not even those who run Netflix shows know how popular they really are 

NBC Wants You to Make Its Next Hit Sitcom

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NBC wants you to make

At long last, NBC is admitting the truth: it doesn’t know how to make funny sitcoms anymore. So it’s launching NBC Comedy Playground, and inviting comedy writers to pitch their series projects and bypass the usual drawn-out pilot season process. As I wrote at Quartz,

NBC Entertainment President Jennifer Salke called the move a direct result of “what’s happening on the Internet and what’s happening at the network.”

Or more accurately, what’s not happening at the network, which hasn’t had a hit sitcom since The Office, which debuted in 2005. That show averaged 9 million viewers in its heyday; now most NBC sitcoms, like Parks & Recreation and Community, are lucky if they pull in half that audience.

At least NBC is admitting that its current development system is broken. And if that prevents another monkey sitcom from making it to air, then we’ll all be winners.

NBC wants you to make its next hit sitcom

Stephen Colbert and the Viral Video-Fueled Generation Hijack Late Night

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late night hijack

David Letterman officially has a successor. Stephen Colbert will be the next Late Show host, CBS announced yesterday. I reflected on the news, and what this means for late night, at The Daily Beast, where I wrote,

With yesterday’s news that Stephen Colbert will take over the Late Show next year, the long-held notion of what it means to be a late-night host, and what it means to be a late-night audience, has been forever eradicated.

In 1992, your late-night options were Letterman and Leno, period. As of next year, the lineup will consist of Colbert, Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel on the broadcast networks, along with cable hosts like Conan O’Brien (remember him?), Jon Stewart and whomever replaces The Colbert Report. Late night is no longer all-or-nothing; it’s an all-you-can eat buffet. Thanks to the Internet, you can sample as many late-night clips from as many late-night shows as you’d like.

In the piece, I trace late-night’s evolution and transformation over the past two decades, and how Letterman has changed from scrappy innovator to odd man out. As Kimmel, Fallon and Colbert have proven time and again, “Late-night” is now late-night in name only.

Stephen Colbert and the Viral Video-Fueled Generation Hijack Late Night

U.S. Morning Talk Shows Have a New Strategy: If You Can’t Beat Them, Steal Them

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us morning talk shows

As Josh Elliott leaves Good Morning America for NBC Sports, I wrote at Quartz about NBC’s new approach to morning show success: if you can’t beat them, steal them.

Of course, poaching is nothing new in the morning show wars (CBS hired away Today’s Bryant Gumbel in 1997; he began hosting The Early Show in 1999), but this is a new evolution as media conglomerates have continued to expand. NBC Universal can in essence kill two birds with one stone: fill a vital need in one area of its company (NBC Sports was searching for a viable heir apparent to Bob Costas, the Weather Channel was looking to keep viewers tuned in more than 15 minutes each morning) while simultaneously boosting another property—Today—by damaging a competitor, and the tight-knit five-person anchor team that propelled GMA to first place. Suddenly, two of those five anchors have been snapped up by NBC Universal.

Watch your back, GMA!

US morning talk shows have a new strategy: If you can’t beat them, steal them

How Apple Can Make Its Streaming Service Better Than Netflix

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apple streaming service

Last night, the Wall Street Journal reported that Apple is in talks with Comcast to team up for a new streaming-television service that would use an Apple set-top box. At Quartz, I suggested four ways that Apple could make a splash and make its new service instantly better than Netflix. For starters, Use the Force:

In 2010, Apple finally landed exclusive digital rights to the Beatles catalog. Now, it should aggressively pursue the holy grail of exclusive movie digital rights: the Star Wars films, which still have yet to be released via any digital platform. (Remember, Lucasfilm is now owned by Disney, whose chairman and CEO, Bob Iger, sits on Apple’s Board of Directors.) Using the films to launch Apple’s streaming service, especially as anticipation builds toward the next Star Wars film, due out in December 2015, would be reason enough for many viewers to immediately get on board.

Assuming Apple goes ahead with the service, it needs to once again embrace its traditional role of innovator, not follower.

How Apple can make its streaming service better than Netflix

Just One Month In, Jimmy Fallon is Already King of Late Night—and YouTube

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one-month-jimmy-fallon

Thanks to Mitra Kalita for this suggestion. One month into Jimmy Fallon’s tenure as new Tonight Show host, I wrote this Quartz piece on how he’s doing better than NBC could have ever dreamed: keeping the show number one in late-night while also dominating his competitors online:

Yet while Fallon has successfully maintained Tonight’s ratings dominance while drawing a significantly younger audience, his biggest achievement during his first month is online, where for the first time, people are viewing and sharing Tonight Show clips in massive numbers. His 10 most-watched Tonight clips on YouTube over the past month (from Feb. 17, the day of his first Tonight Show, to Mar. 15) have all garnered more than 2 million views. In contrast, only five of Leno’s Tonight Show clips have ever been watched more than 1 million times on YouTube.

While Quartz is famous for its innovative approach to charts and graphs, very few of my stories lend themselves to including them. But for this one, I was able to contribute some of my very own, as I painstakingly charted the number of times Fallon’s, Jimmy Kimmel’s and David Letterman’s most popular clips had been viewed on YouTube.

The numbers make one thing clear: almost immediately, Fallon has made the Tonight Show relevant online in a way it had never been before with Leno at the helm. And in the process, he has validated NBC’s controversial decision to give him The Tonight Show despite Leno’s continued reign atop the ratings. Fallon’s commanding numbers—both on TV and online—have ended (at least for now) any second-guessing that Leno was ushered off too early.

Meanwhile, Fallon and Kimmel’s YouTube success illustrates a key way the late-night landscape has evolved since the early days of Leno vs. Letterman: it’s no longer enough of a coup to simply land a big star; you also have to do something unexpected with them. The majority of both Fallon and Kimmel’s most popular YouTube clips feature big stars doing unexpected things, as opposed to the standard talk show anecdotes that Letterman (and Leno) stick to.

Until I did this story, I was shocked at Letterman’s meager online presence versus his time slot competitors. And congrats to Fallon on a first month to be proud of.

Just one month in, Jimmy Fallon is already king of late night—and YouTube