Category Archives: Stories

NBC Chairman Robert Greenblatt on Super Bowl Promo Plans, His Risky ‘Blacklist’ Move and ‘SNL 40’

When you’re the first place network in the 18-49 demographic, there’s nowhere to go but down. But NBC Entertainment chairman Robert Greenblatt likes the view from on high, and doesn’t plan on relinquishing the top spot anytime soon. And thanks to the huge events lined up February, he likely won’t have to. First up: Super Bowl XLIX, this Sunday.

Then, two weeks later NBC will air SNL 40, a three-hour live special celebrating Saturday Night Live’s 40th anniversary. Plus he’s making a huge gamble by moving The Blacklist, NBC’s top-rated scripted series, from Monday nights after The Voice to Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET, where it will square off against Scandal beginning next week.

Before diving into NBC’s biggest month of the year, Greenblatt spoke with TV & Not TV about the network’s plans for February — and next season.

You’ve got the Super Bowl on Sunday. How will you be promoting your shows to an audience of 100 million-plus?

It’s one of the great things that we have every three years, and we couldn’t be happier to have it this year as we go into this midseason with all these new shows. To have that huge audience see these promos is a great thing. We try to promote everything that we can, and hopefully there’s retention. There’s a lot of stuff going on that day for people, but I know the commercials actually are embraced by the audience, so hopefully we’ll also get some of that love. We also are making new, fresh Super Bowl commercials for many of our shows. There’s a special Blacklist commercial, there’s a special Voice commercial and I hope they’ll be noticed just like the great Budweiser and Pepsi commercials that are in there.

Super Bowl XLIX coordinating producer Fred Gaudelli told me it will be a “huge disappointment” if the Super Bowl doesn’t end up as the most-watched telecast in history. Do you agree?

Everyone’s fixated on record-breaking and numbers and stuff. Even if we don’t break the record — like we didn’t with Peter Pan and we didn’t with the Golden Globes this year — to aggregate 100-plus million people for an event like that for all those hours, is going to be phenomenal. Whether it’s 100,000 viewers more than last year, or 2 million less!

You made a good case for why you’re moving The Blacklist to Thursdays opposite Scandal, and why you need to be patient to build the night back up. That said, if the show is soft on Thursdays and Mondays are hurting without it, how tough will it be to stuck to your plan?

We’ll have to play it by ear. If it doesn’t work, and I don’t know exactly what that means yet, but if it’s a disaster, we won’t just live with it. We’ll change things around. I expect it’s not going to be everything we hope it’s going to be right off the bat, but I also think you have to plant the seed and over time, grow it and water it and nurture it, and hopefully rebuild it. But if it’s a big miss, then we’ll try to correct it, sooner than later.

All your focus right now is on the Super Bowl, but just two weeks later, you’re doing SNL 40 on Feb. 15. Very little has been revealed so far. How are things going, and will it be similar to the big 25th anniversary special in 1999?

Lorne [Michaels] is still putting it together. It’s going to be a big, three-hour, live event, in Studio 8H, with a lot of people who’ve been on the show or been involved with the show over the decades. Some very exciting live things are going to happen. It’s not going to be a preponderance of clips; there’s going to be a lot of stuff happening in the studio. To try to celebrate 40 years in three hours is not going to be easy, but it’s going to be a big event and we’re going to make a big noise.

It’s going to be featured in the Super Bowl. We have several big priorities happening before Feb. 15: the Blacklist episode after the Super Bowl, the Thursday move, the launch of The Slap [Feb. 12] and Allegiance [Feb. 5]… So there’s a lot to do, but SNL 40 is going to be a big agenda for us. I think it’s going to do well.

The Voice returns on Feb. 23. As you look ahead, do you still envision sticking with two cycles each year?

Look, there’s been some erosion there, as we knew there would be, as we play it again and again. But I’m really proud of the quality of the show, and I think the last cycle we just had was as good as any cycle we’ve had in the last seven cycles. As long as the creative stays really strong and we keep monitoring the erosion, we’ll keep doing it.

That said, it’s not inconceivable that we could decide to cut it back to one a season. But it still does better than almost anything else we have, even at the level that it’s at now. So selfishly, it’s hard to say, oh, for half a season, we’re going to give up that rating. We just have to keep watching it. I don’t know if the ratings are going to go up if we do it one season a year. We’ll see. I think the next cycle will tell us a lot, and then we’ll make a decision for next season.

Earlier this month you said that your next December live musical will either be The Music Man or The Wiz. Given how essential you said Carrie Underwood was to boosting The Sound of Music Live!’s audience in 2013 compared with Peter Pan Live! in December, will the decision come down to casting? Or will you pick the show first, then cast it?

I think it could be either. For something like The Music Man, we really need a central star to play the role of Harold Hill. But for The Wiz, I don’t think it’s as necessary to have one featured star, because there are six iconic characters that we know and love. So I actually think in case of The Wiz, we could build an ensemble of really interesting actors that maybe aren’t superstars.

Where’s Olivia? Scott Foley Teases Tonight’s ‘Scandal’ Return

Leave a reply

Scandal is known for its labyrinthine twists and turns, and its fall finale ended with a doozy: Jake Ballard (Scott Foley) discovered that Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington) had seemingly been kidnapped. Two agonizing months later, the show finally returns to TV tonight, with Olivia still MIA. Foley, who yesterday talked about being dropped from the show four years ago, opened up to TV & Not TV about Scandal’s return and the search for Olivia:

Does Jake feel responsible for Olivia’s disappearance?

I think he does. I think given his position in life, his job, his employment and the nature of who he is, I think he’s very protective of Olivia, and for that to have happened, basically under his watch, is pretty troublesome for him.

What would he go through to find her?

I think he would go through everything to find her! I can’t tell you exactly what he’s going to go through to find her!

What can we expect in tonight’s episode?

The first two back are going to jump in right where we left off, so you’re going to see what happened to Olivia, where she went, who took her, how we get her back. You’re going to see Jake working with the Gladiators to get her back, you’re going to see Fitz dealing with his Vice President, Andrew, and all the crap they’ve been dealing with. You’re going to see the return of Mellie. She’s no longer “Smelly Mellie” or “Fucked Up Mellie,” she’s Mellie and pulling strings in the White House. You’re going to see David Rosen dealing with his new job as United States Attorney General, you’re going to see Abby straddling the line between the White House and OPA [Olivia Pope & Associates] and succeeding in both. You’re going to see Cyrus helping the President out.

Why should Olivia end up with Jake over Fitz?

Why shouldn’t Olivia end up with Jake? I believe that Jake is the better choice. He’s available, he’s not married, he’s willing to give up everything. And he believes in them. However, there’s something to be said for maybe fate, maybe true love, maybe meant to be. I think Fitz and Olivia have something that is unquantifiable and no matter how far away they get from each other, they’re always going to be dealing with that.

Scott Foley: ABC Dropped Me From ‘Scandal’ — Four Years Ago

9 Replies

Scott Foley will never forget the day that Shonda Rhimes broke the news to him that he no longer would be on Scandal.

Relax: Foley’s Jake Ballard isn’t going anywhere when the ABC drama returns Thursday night after a two-month hiatus. Instead, the actor was recalling the moment four years ago when ABC decided he was the wrong actor to play “gladiator” Stephen Finch (portrayed by Henry Ian Cusick in the first season), even though Rhimes had already promised him the part.

“I had read the Scandal pilot script very early on in the process and really wanted to be a part of it,” says Foley. “I went through the process and ABC didn’t think I was the right choice for it. It was probably one of the hardest phone calls that Shonda’s had to make, to me at least. Saying, ‘Hey, I know I said you had this role…but you don’t have this role any more!’”

Of course, Rhimes and Foley had the last laugh, as the actor ended up on Scandal anyway, in a much juicer, higher-profile role, while Cusick quietly disappeared from the series after Season 1. “Thank God I didn’t get it!” Foley says now. “Shonda, true to her word, got me on the show and found a great role and has really turned this character, with the ‘meet cute’ that Olivia and Jake had in a coffee shop, into a really important, viable part of the story. …Everything always works out!”

ABC’s scandalous Scandal behavior wasn’t the only juicy revelation that Foley shared with TV & Not TV as he prepared for the show’s midseason return on Jan. 29:

His wife hates Scandal spoilers. Lots of people press Foley for Scandal intel, but not his wife, Marika. “This is the first job I’ve ever had where I can’t run lines with her. I can’t tell her anything. She won’t let me! And it’s hard, because I have a lot of lines,” says Foley. “Shonda does a great job, unlike other shows, of giving you things to say and really strong, tough dialogue, and I have, for 12 years now, the night before, always been able to run my lines with my wife. I can’t do that on this. She doesn’t want to know anything. She gets mad when I say, ‘Babe, just this once!’ She won’t do it.”

He’s addicted to HGTV — and Downton Abbey. The passion that Scandal fans have for his show is rivaled only by Foley’s devotion to all things HGTV. “I’m a big HGTV watcher,” he says. “I have my cable box turned to HGTV so when my cable turns on, it’s on HGTV. Property Brothers, Fixer Upper, Income Property, House Hunters, Love It or List It…I’m pretty handy!”

The actor is also savoring the chance to catch up on the new season of Downton Abbey with his wife, Marika. “Downton Abbey’s back, and I’m very excited,” he says. “Given our schedule, we’ll usually sit down and watch two or three episodes at a time. We’ll probably watch it all in a week and a half. We like to hold out, though, because once it’s gone, you’ve got to wait another year. It’s like Orange is the New Black!”

Raising three kids is overwhelming. As the father of a two-month-old newborn, son Konrad, Foley realizes he may be in over his head now that he has three kids, all under 5. “I only have three, but I recently read that someone with four kids said, ‘Imagine drowning, and then someone throwing you a baby,’” he says. “And I thought, that’s right! I kind of feel like I’m drowning right now!”

He doesn’t miss filming love scenes with a pregnant Kerry Washington. Shooting Scandal last season proved to be a challenge for the cast and crew, who had to disguise the fact that star Kerry Washington was pregnant in real life — but not on the show. “It was so strange,” says Foley. “They did such a good job last year of not really having to deal with it. Look, it was obviously a presence in every scene we did, but the only times I really thought about it was the love scenes we would have, which made it a little awkward.”

But not any more: “Having her back in full force this year, and having her around and able, it’s a blessing for the show,” says Foley.

Check back Thursday, when Foley teases Scandal’s big return, and Jake’s frantic search for the now-missing Olivia Pope.

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

Leave a reply

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

Leave a reply

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

Leave a reply

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

Leave a reply

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

Leave a reply

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

Leave a reply

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

Leave a reply

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