Category Archives: News/Analysis

FX Wants to be the ‘Best’ Channel on TV, Not the Highest-Rated One

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Lots of crazy things have been said over the years at TCA press tour — like when Kevin Reilly declared the death of pilot season last January — but on my last day at winter tour, FX Networks CEO John Landgraf said something I’d never heard uttered there before: he’d rather be the “best” channel instead of the top-rated one. As I wrote at Adweek,

“Obviously we want as many people as possible to watch our shows, we want them to be as highly rated as possible, but there’s quite a range [of ratings], and we can support that range,” said Landgraf, referring to some of FX’s critically acclaimed, but lower-rated, shows like Louie and The Americans. “We’re not really a channel that’s trying to be the highest-rated channel in television. We’re trying as hard as we possibly can to be the best channel in television, whatever that means. If we weren’t therefore supporting shows that would help us get there, just because [they weren’t among the highest-rated], we’d be idiots.”

While Landgraf is sticking by critically-acclaimed yet low-rated shows like Louie and The Americans, his patience does have its limits, as he explained to me last fall after he canceled The Bridge. He talked about the two-horse race to be the “best” network on TV (look out, HBO!), the glut of programming on television (more than 1,700 original seasons of TV last year!) and the need to break out of a format “dictated by the terms of business.”

FX Wants to be the ‘Best’ Channel on TV, Not the Highest-Rated One

A Humbled Fox Seeks to Change Its Fortunes

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The last time Fox was at the Television Critics Association’s winter press tour, then-chief Kevin Reilly declared that pilot season was dead (which topped my list of the most ridiculous statements network presidents said last year).

A year later, the new regime—Fox Television Group chairmen and CEOs Dana Walden and Gary Newman—offered no bold proclamations about changing the industry. After all, they’re too busy trying to rescue their network from the ratings basement and one of the worst broadcast falls in recent memory. As I wrote at Adweek,

“We are well aware we’re the fourth-place network and our ratings are challenged,” said Newman. “We know it’s going to be an uphill battle to turn this network around, and there’s only one way to do it: put your head down, do the hard work, get in business with the best talent, support their visions, focus on one time period at a time, and slowly but with a little bit of luck, our team will be able to turn this network around.”

The duo also discussed its new direction in unscripted (less Utopias, more MasterChef Juniors) and their plans to resurrect several beloved Fox brands: 24, The X-Files and even Simon Cowell.

A Humbled Fox Seeks to Change Its Fortunes

Resurgent NBC Sets Sights on Two Remaining Weak Spots: Thursdays and Comedies

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NBC has clawed its way back to first place in 18-49, but entertainment chairman Robert Greenblatt knows the network has two big problems to fix if it wants to remain on top: addressing its comedy woes, and restoring luster to Thursday night, the onetime home of Must-See TV. As I wrote at Adweek,

While the refocus on comedy will take months or years to bear fruit, NBC is taking more immediate steps to save Thursdays, which “used to be the big night of television for NBC,” Greenblatt said. “It’s an important night for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is it is a great, desirable night for advertising.”

But the network has languished on the night with low-rated, quickly canceled comedies like The Michael J. Fox Show and this season’s Bad Judge and A to Z. “Putting comedies we love there and having them fail started to feel like the definition of insanity,” said entertainment president Jennifer Salke.

Instead, Greenblatt is making a bold but perilous gamble, moving his biggest scripted series, The Blacklist, to Thursdays at 9 p.m., where it will face-off against Scandal on ABC beginning Feb. 5. “It’s a risky but necessary move for us to make,” said Greeblatt, who pointed to other big Thursday-night shifts that seemed potentially disastrous at the time but paid off, including Fox’s The Simpsons, CBS’ CSI and most recently Grey’s Anatomy, which laid the groundwork for ABC’s TGIT.

Greenblatt also talked about his big development deal with Dolly Parton, getting out of his big development deal with Bill Cosby and which two shows are in contention for NBC’s next live musical broadcast this December.

Resurgent NBC Sets Sights on Two Remaining Weak Spots: Thursdays and Comedies

From USA to Bravo, NBCUniversal’s Cable Channels are in Transition

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NBC is building momentum among broadcast networks, but parent NBCUniversal’s cable networks are in transition, with USA regrouping after giving up on last year’s comedy push and Bravo and E! venturing into scripted series for the first time. All three networks made the case for their respective new directions at winter press tour, as I wrote at Adweek:

“It’s about creating that next generation of hits for us,” USA president Chris McCumber told Adweek. He said the network is shifting away from comedy to focus on its strong drama development slate, including Dig (debuting March 5), Complications (summer), and its cyber-crime drama Mr. Robot, which McCumber is most enthusiastic about.

“We saw the dramas that were coming down the line, and we said, we feel so strongly about them, that we want to make sure we pick our shots,” McCumber said. “You can’t launch everything. And so you need to be able to say, we’re going to prioritize these.”

Read the story for much more on Bravo and E!’s respective forays into scripted territory, with Odd Mom Out and The Royals.

From USA to Bravo, NBCUniversal’s Cable Channels are in Transition

NBC Says It Will be a ‘Huge Disappointment’ if Super Bowl Doesn’t Break Ratings Records

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It’s now become expected that each Super Bowl will break the previous year’s record to become the most-watched event in television history. So whenever a Super Bowl doesn’t do that (as was the case when CBS had the show in 2013) it’s often seen as a letdown. That means the pressure is on NBC as it prepares for this year’s Super Bowl on Feb. 1. As I wrote at Adweek,

“There would be huge disappointment if we weren’t the most watched show in the history of television after Super Bowl Sunday,” Fred Gaudelli, the coordinating producer for Super Bowl XLIX and Sunday Night Football, admitted to Adweek. “I don’t know that I’d say I feel the pressure of it, but that’s definitely my expectation, that after the game, that it will be the most watched show in the history of television. So it would be a huge disappointment if it wasn’t.”

Gaudelli is hoping for an audience of between 115 million and 120 million, so keep that in mind on Feb. 2 when the ratings come out.

Al Michaels, who will be calling his ninth Super Bowl game, talked at winter press tour about how the NFL has overcome the rocky start to its season, and recalled how much the sport has changed since Super Bowl I — which he was at — was played in front of 35,000 empty seats. Back then, “nobody had any idea that this would evolve into what it’s become,” said Michaels. Now, “it’s an undeclared national holiday. What else is somebody going to do on that particular day?”

NBC Says It Will be a ‘Huge Disappointment’ if Super Bowl Doesn’t Break Ratings Records

ABC’s Success With Diversity Comes From Focusing on Creators, Not Just Stars

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For far too long, broadcast networks have programmed shows that don’t accurately reflect the cultural backgrounds of the audiences watching them. ABC has been changing that with a far more diverse slate than its broadcast counterparts. As I wrote at Adweek, the network’s entertainment president Paul Lee talked about the strides ABC has made as he met with reporters at winter press tour.

“I think it’s our job to reflect America,” said ABC entertainment president Paul Lee at the Television Critics Association’s winter press tour this week. “I really believed from the beginning that the demographic changes in America were just as important to our revolution as the technological changes.”

At the same time, Lee noted, “We didn’t pick up these shows because they were diverse, we picked them up because they were great.”

Lee addressed a variety of other topics, including anthology-style series, the death of “least objectionable television,” and why binge-watching isn’t a bad thing. He also said that he has finally gotten the message about launching music competitions after last summer’s Rising Star fared even worse than Duets two years earlier. “I don’t think we’ll try that for a little bit,” he said. “I’m sure we’ll come back to that in the future.”

ABC’s Success With Diversity Comes From Focusing on Creators, Not Just Stars

Amazon Debuts 13 TV Pilots Today—Here are the Four You Should Watch

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It’s been a huge week for Amazon Studios, between Transparent’s Golden Globes wins and the big coup signing Woody Allen to write and direct and new TV series. Now they are hoping to continue that momentum with its fourth round of pilots — 13 in all! — debuting today. At Quartz, I helped narrow the field to the four pilots you should watch, along with the one to avoid at all costs. Among my picks, The Man in the High Castle:

Like Amazon and Netflix’s best offerings, this one seems wholly unique, a show you won’t find anywhere else on television. Based on Philip K. Dick’s 1962 alternate history novel, this compelling drama imagines an alternate history in which the Allied Powers lost World War II. Twenty years later, the world has been divided among Japan and Germany, while a small resistance group continues to keep hope alive. Written by Frank Spotnitz (The X-Files) and executive produced by Ridley Scott, this is packing with stunning imagery, including American flags with a swastika in place of stars, and one scene involving what initially looks like snowflakes that haunted me for days.

While none of these pilots is at the level of Transparent yet (to be fair, few pilots emerge as fully realized as that one was), overall this is a much more ambitious and realized slate than the previous rounds, which should bode well for Amazon going forward.

But make sure to read my story before diving into the latest batch of pilots. After doing so many stories for Quartz, it was great to finally figure out a way to write a TV review for them!

Amazon debuts 13 TV pilots today—here are the four you should watch

With Support From Yahoo, ‘Community’ Now Looks to Go Beyond ‘Six Seasons and a Movie’

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Community has managed to cheat death more times than Jason Voorhees. Last June, the cult sitcom — which had been canceled by NBC in May — pulled off its most improbable comeback yet, finding a new home on Yahoo Screen just hours before the cast’s contracts were set to expire.

Creator Dan Harmon and his reunited (and slightly smaller) cast spoke at winter press tour about the sixth season of the show — which debuts March 17 — and how audiences will watching in. As I wrote at Adweek,

The Yahoo Screen version of Community will be free but ad-supported. “The entire sixth season takes place inside a Honda,” joked Harmon. “Whether or not that means there will be classic commercial pods placed within the playtime, I’m a little out of my jurisdiction saying that, but I do know that I’m writing it as if there will [be ads] because as a writer, three-act stories are what work for me.

Much more remains up in the air, including how long each episodes will be, and whether Harmon will be given any ratings metrics. Also, Harmon said the shows longtime “six seasons a movie” mantra might need a rewrite: “I’m definitely not writing it as if it’s the end. That’s not happening,” he said. You’ll also want to read what Harmon and Gillian Jacobs said might happen the next time Community enters what fans refer to as “the darkest timeline.”

With Support From Yahoo, Community Now Looks to Go Beyond ‘6 Seasons and a Movie’

Cosby Show Retrospective Quietly Pulled From Rebranded TV Guide Network’s Lineup

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It’s not easy breaking exclusive news when you’re alongside 200 TV journalists at press tour, but it can be done. While researching my Adweek story on the launch of Pop, I noticed that a retrospective on The Cosby Show, announced last October as part of Pop’s initial slate, had quietly been dropped from the lineup. Brad Schwartz, Pop’s president of entertainment and media, explained his decision to place the episode on “permanent pause”:

“With everything going on, why do you need to run it?” said Schwartz, whose rebranded channel, Pop, celebrates “enthusiastic fandom,” which is pretty much the opposite of how most audiences now feel about Cosby. “I’m not going to pass judgment or make a decision on who’s right and wrong, but it was a very easy decision for us to say, ‘Let’s not air it.'”

The marks at least the fourth Cosby-related program to be taken off the air in the wake of Bill Cosby’s scandal. I also asked Schwartz, who had previously pulled 7th Heaven off TV Guide Network in response to the Stephen Collins child molestation allegations, if there are any circumstances under which the show will air. You’ll have to read what he told me.

Cosby Show Retrospective Quietly Pulled From Rebranded TV Guide Network’s Lineup

TV Guide Network Relaunches as Pop, With Original Shows and No Annoying Scroll

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While I’ve been busy covering (and writing about) all the panels at winter press tour, I’ve also been conducting several one-on-one interviews with various execs and talent. Many of those  will be banked for the weeks and months ahead, but a few of them are running this week. First out of the gate is this Adweek feature on Pop, the new channel that TV Guide Network (also known as TVGN) is relaunching as beginning tomorrow. Brad Schwartz, Pop’s president of entertainment and media, walked me through the relaunch:

He and his team determined that “a complete revolution of the channel, where you completely alienate the people and start again with something fresh and new, is a very difficult road,” as OWN learned when it struggled after rebranding from Discovery Health. Instead, they opted for “an evolution. Let’s stay in this pop culture lane,” and take advantage of parent company CBS’s vast entertainment resources like Entertainment Tonight and Big Brother.

“Fandom, social media and these digital tools, they’ve created these borderless communities of people with shared passions,” explains Schwartz. “It’s why Comic-Con has never been bigger. It’s why there’s a show called Talking Dead that does nothing but talk about another show. Fandom is this thing that’s dominating culture these days. … I think it’s something that is a very appealing brand sensibility for advertisers.”

There’s a lot on Pop that will appeal to TV lovers, particularly Schitt’s Creek, a new original comedy series starring Eugene Levy and Catherine O’Hara. Schwartz also talked about the name change and where he wants to take Pop going forward.

Farewell, TVGN!

TV Guide Network Relaunches as Pop, With Original Shows and No Annoying Scroll