Category Archives: Adweek

The Not-So-Funny State of TV Comedy

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While I’ve written dozens of stories for Adweek’s site since last fall, I hadn’t yet written anything for the actual magazine — until today. I made my Adweek print debut in the best and biggest possible way: with a pair of cover stories tied to Thursday’s Two and a Half Men series finale.

Jon Cryer Adweek cover

In addition to my Jon Cryer Q&A, I also spoke with a dozen network presidents, comedy showrunners and sitcom stars for this deep dive into the not-so-funny state of broadcast comedy as two more long-running sitcoms prepare to say farewell. As I wrote,

With CBS’ How I Met Your Mother closing shop last year, Two and a Half Men wrapping this week, and Parks and Recreation—NBC’s top-rated sitcom in adults 18-49, airing its series finale on Feb. 24—broadcast comedy is in a state of transition. While formidable comedy blocks remain on Sunday night on Fox (The Simpsons, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Family Guy), Thursday on CBS (Big Bang, Mom, Men) and Wednesday on ABC (The Middle, The Goldbergs, Modern Family, Black-ish), sitcom ratings are down across the board, and this season is littered with failures: ABC’s Manhattan Love Story and Selfie, NBC’s A to Z and Bad Judge, Fox’s Mulaney, and CBS’ The McCarthys and The Millers (the latter last year’s top-rated sitcom in 18-49 but canceled this season after just four episodes).

The news seems grim, but no one is ready to pull the plug on network comedies:

Despite all the struggles, in conversations with network executives, showrunners, stars and media buyers, a surprising consensus emerges: There is still plenty of fight left in the sitcom. Comedy might not be the dominant broadcast force it was a decade ago, but it is still an essential part of the TV landscape and everyone remains optimistic that the next hit could happen as early as, well, this week.

This was such a fascinating and fun story to report and piece together, thanks to invaluable insights from network presidents like CBS’s Nina Tassler and Fox’s Dana Walden, comedy executive producers like Mike Schur (Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Parks and Recreation), Mindy Kaling (The Mindy Project), Stephen Falk (You’re the Worst), Robert Garlock (Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt) and Chris Miller (The Last Man on Earth) and sitcom stars like Cryer, Kaling and Billy Gardell (Mike & Molly).

Almost all of them arrived at the same conclusion: it’s only a matter of when, not if, the next hit sitcom is created.

Hollywood remains solidly confident that TV’s next great comedy is just around the corner. “Television’s a very cyclical business,” points out Walden, noting that when she started at 20th Century Fox Television in 1992, the powers that be had decided dramas were done. Then, the studio developed The X-Files for Fox and Steven Bochco created NYPD Blue for ABC, and they were suddenly hot again. “You can’t ever rule out a genre of storytelling,” says Walden. “There’s going to be another breakthrough comedy, and then we’re going to say, ‘Oh, comedy is back!'”

In addition to following the link and reading the whole story, make sure you pick up this week’s issue!

The Not-So-Funny State of TV Comedy

Jon Cryer on ‘Two and a Half Men’s’ ‘Absolutely Crazy’ Series Finale

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jon cryer adweek

While I’ve written dozens of stories for Adweek’s site since last fall, I hadn’t yet written anything for the actual magazine — until today. I made my Adweek print debut in the best and biggest possible way: with a pair of cover stories tied to Thursday’s Two and a Half Men series finale.

Jon Cryer Adweek cover

In the first story, I spoke with Jon Cryer about the show’s shrouded-in-secrecy, “absolutely crazy” final episode, and the big question everyone is asking: will Charlie Sheen be a part of it? Here’s what he told me:

I can honestly say I don’t know because there were chunks of the finale that I was never allowed to read. Nobody got any piece of the script that they didn’t 100 percent need, so I have not read the final tag of the show. They didn’t even tell me they were shooting it! They shot it on another stage. I’ve said in the past, the amount of bridge-repairing necessary to make that happen, I thought was incredibly daunting and unlikely, but stranger things have happened in show business.

Cryer also talks about weather the Charlie Sheen tsumani, how Ashton Kutcher stepped in and revitalized the show, what’s next for him and how playing Pretty in Pink’s Duckie helped prep him for life after Two and a Half Men.

In addition to following the link and reading the whole story, make sure you pick up this week’s issue!

Jon Cryer on Two and a Half Men’s ‘Absolutely Crazy’ Series Finale

How Fox’s Marketing Fanned the Flames of ‘Empire,’ One of the Biggest New Shows in Years

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Nothing erases the memory of a horrific fall season like a huge midseason hit. And that’s exactly what Fox has on its hands with Empire, which is the number one new show this season in adults 18-49 and has grown its audience three weeks in a row, instead of slowly losing viewers as most new series do.

While the show has connected powerfully with African-American viewers, its success is in large part due to Fox’s elaborate, months-long marketing campaign. Those behind it, including Fox COO Joe Earley and Fox Television Group co-CEO Dana Walden, walked me through the marketing strategy for this Adweek deep dive. As I wrote, Walden quickly identified the show as her top priority for midseason :

As incoming co-CEOs of Fox Television Group, Dana Walden and Gary Newman, tried to piece the network back together late last summer, they decided that Empire would be the focus of its midseason efforts, just as they had centered on Gotham in the fall. “When they started, Dana and Gary immediately made it the No. 1 priority for midseason,” Earley said. “They authorized augmenting the marketing campaign because, honestly, it was under-budgeted. They said, ‘It’s too important; we have to do it right.’ That allowed the really creative marketing team to do execution they couldn’t have otherwise.”

Read on for much more information about the promotional key art, tie-ins, VOD push, social media strategy and how ad buys jumped with each ratings increase — and how Empire’s early renewal for Season 2 has set in motion even grander plans.

This was my first marketing campaign deep dive for Adweek, and it was a treat getting to focus on this side of the industry.

How Fox’s Marketing Fanned the Flames of Empire, One of the Biggest New Shows in Years

Larry Wilmore on How He Landed ‘The Nightly Report’ and What He Learned From Jon Stewart

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While at winter press tour, I sat down with Larry Wilmore to talk about his succeeding Stephen Colbert as Comedy Central’s new 11:30 p.m. late-night host for this Adweek profile. His new show, The Nightly Report with Larry Wilmore, kicked off this week. But as Wilmore told me, the show was originally supposed to be called The Minority Report with Larry Wilmore before Fox began developing a series based on the 2002 Tom Cruise film:

We made the call on the field, so to speak, before it really got too late. Part of our constructing the show was understanding how the audience sees content these days. They see it through social platforms—Twitter, Facebook—so your show has to live in those environments. And it was becoming very difficult to operate in those environments and having to use The Minority Report with Larry Wilmore as a complete tag all the time. We were being confined legally by doing that in all forms of everything, and it was becoming a nightmare. And I thought, “Guys, I don’t want it to be March and we have to change our name, after we’ve already been on.” I said, “Let’s just do it now, before it really came to a head.” It was in late October or early November, so there was still enough time. But the show didn’t change, only the name did.

Wilmore also talked about stepping down as Black-ish showrunner to take the Comedy Central job, how TV has changed since he launched The PJs and The Bernie Mac Show and how John Oliver’s recent late-night success has emboldened him.

Larry Wilmore on How He Landed The Nightly Report and What He Learned From Jon Stewart

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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NBCU TCA

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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nbc super bowl ratings

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