TOLDJA! CBS Confirms Ghen Maynard Out

COMMENTS (19)

• Nikki? Have you ever thought about changing the name of you column to: Toldja, Hollywood!

  Just curious.

  Comment by Hmmmmm...? — Sunday August 10, 2008 @ 2:55pm PDT  Reply to this post

• Geez! For such a high profile fella, what was CBS thinking of letting him go with a whimper. Guess CBS thought no one cares and they are right, we don’t!

  Comment by Armand — Sunday August 10, 2008 @ 5:33pm PDT  Reply to this post

• Poor guy got upstaged by the Olympics, John Edwards, Bernie Mac, and Isaac Hayes.

  Now that’s reality!

  Comment by john — Sunday August 10, 2008 @ 6:40pm PDT  Reply to this post

• Now he’s free to produce SO YOU THINK YOU CAN CATCH A BURNING BABY? for any network he can sell it to.

  Comment by reelbusy — Sunday August 10, 2008 @ 6:41pm PDT  Reply to this post

• Ghen’s a good guy. And while I’d rather kill myself than watch most of the shows he’s championed, he’s one of the smarter network execs. I certainly hope he lands on his feet and branches further outside of reality.

  Comment by B. Real — Sunday August 10, 2008 @ 9:04pm PDT  Reply to this post

• Nothing makes my skin crawl quite like capital-A “Actors” bemoaning reality television. It’s a marketplace. May the most entertaining product win. And for sheer entertainment value, I’d put a good episode of “Survivor” or (gasp, Nikki!) “Kid Nation” up against crap sitcoms like “HIMYM” any day.

  Seriously, man, reality television isn’t taking your jobs. The viewers are CHOOSING reality television. And frankly, 10 years ago they were choosing “Dateline.” And ten years before THAT, Cronkite specials. In some form or another, reality TV has been around as long as, well, TV. Deal.

  Having said all that, I find the scripted community’s hand ringing particularly funny given that, to the extent there’s anything at all hastening the speed and spread of reality growth, it’s the runaway cost of scripted production coupled with strikes and de facto strikes. Want to point fingers? Look in a mirror, pal.

  And as for Ghen (as that’s what this thread is SUPPOSED to be about), two words: pompous ass. Reality producers aren’t “afraid of the competition” – they’re overjoyed that CBS and CW may finally but new shows, fresh shows, good shows. Ghen deserves all the credit in the world for launching this latest reality boomlet by championing Survivor.

  But that was a decade ago. Since then, he’s been an overbearing, overeducated, control freak. And the network has suffered for it.

  Good luck, Ghen. Methinks you’ll need it.

  Comment by RealityProducer — Sunday August 10, 2008 @ 9:36pm PDT  Reply to this post

• If I were Les Moonves, I’d steal Mike Darnell from
  Fox TV to replace Ghen as CBS-TV’s Reality Show Guru.

  Comment by Tvwriter — Sunday August 10, 2008 @ 11:12pm PDT  Reply to this post

• darnell ain’t going anywhere for awhile tvwriter.

  Comment by troy — Sunday August 10, 2008 @ 11:52pm PDT  Reply to this post

• Anybody who has worked on reality shows knows that they are scripted, cast, directed, and contrived. Plus they’re a bad business model, like a candy bar instead of a meal. There should be Congressional hearings into them as a fraud akin to the quiz show and payola scandals (which were also entertaining and profitable).

  Comment by Santayana — Monday August 11, 2008 @ 7:00am PDT  Reply to this post

• Reality Producer:

  Your comment screams personal agenda before one even reaches the signature which confirms it.

  Boy, you “reality” folks are a hateful defensive bunch. And, it sounds like this guy Ghen didn’t give baby his bottle, or buy baby’s show.

  Reality shows are crap and most of them offensive.

  HIMYM is a creative show, one of the few beacons on tv, though creativity is not a valued resource in reality-land.

  We never watch reality, not even on the sly as a guilty pleasure. Thus, our tv set is usually off these days.

  Nothing to see there. Move on.

  P.S. Your comparison of these crap-fest reality shows to Walter Cronkite is hilarious.

  P.P.S. It’s hand “wringing”

  Comment by Former TV Fans — Monday August 11, 2008 @ 10:34am PDT  Reply to this post

• “Reality shows are crap and most of them offensive. We never watch reality, not even on the sly as a guilty pleasure. Thus, our tv set is usually off these days.”

  Wow, please tell us what the air is like from your lofty perch looking down on us simpletons who watch reality tv. Yes, I like Dancing with the Stars. But I also like Mad Men. And HIMYM. There’s no reason to hate an entire genre of television based on a few bad examples.

  Comment by A TV Fan — Monday August 11, 2008 @ 11:26am PDT  Reply to this post

• Anyone who claims to miss the Good Old Days of Scripted TV can feel free to tell me what was so great about Gilligan’s Island, Love Boat and and zillions of other crap that was just as dumb as anything on TV now – reality or scripted.

  As for Santayana saying Reality is “a bad business model” – do you really think these giant corporations would all be following a bad business model? Duh! Reality is the best business model. Reality shows cost a fraction of the price to produce but still deliver the same ratings. What could be a better business model than American Idol or Dancing With The Stars? Season after season they’re at the top of the ratings – the networks charge a fortune to advertisers while paying a fraction of the price per episode than stinkers like Carpoolers or Cavemen.

  Comment by ohplease — Monday August 11, 2008 @ 6:42pm PDT  Reply to this post

• In reality, Reality TV is a bad business model due to one word, reruns. When CBS tried to rerun the first season of Survivor, it was anything but ratings gold. In fact it was a disaster because everyone knew from the getgo that the gay guy won. The first time around, everyone was watching and waiting for the following lines that never came,

  Jeff: Final vote; Richard.

  Susan: Bye Bye, Snake.

  Jeff: Rich, you need to bring me your torch, The Tribe has spoken, you must leave the Island immediately.

  Of course, Susan would have won, but that isn’t my point.

  My point is that Survivor and all reality shows are just filler because the networks are so low on ideas. That is the same reason why we seen the Dateline explosion on NBC and others.

  Comment by Jessy S. — Monday August 11, 2008 @ 9:45pm PDT  Reply to this post

• (I can feel this thread being hijacked by a debate about whether reality TV is a bad business model. Nikki, HELP!).

  The pressure on CEOs to deliver greater returns every quarter rather than build equity in their companies reflects the American business myopia that disgraced itself in the merger-mania of the 1980s, yet continues. Jessy S gets it, ohplease does not. It’s not about short-term profits, it’s about long-term investment that makes the company’s stock even more valuable. In fact, scripted shows like “Gilligan’s Island,” “Love Boat,” etc., no matter how puerile, are a great business model because they keep throwing off revenues decades after they were made, as opposed to the zilch after-market for most reality shows today. The TV industry used to provide livable incomes for everyone from network exec to craft services. Now the only people who make a livable wage are the show owners (until they get forced off their own properties by the AMPTP types who demand to own everything). No one expects a sausage factory to make pate, but what corporate assets do reality shows produce? What re-run license fees? What ancillary sales? What brand extensions? American TV is living for the moment. And we’re not even talking about the morality or aesthetic of the sausages.

  Comment by Santayana — Tuesday August 12, 2008 @ 10:18am PDT  Reply to this post

• Reruns? There’s no such thing as reruns anymore or haven’t you noticed? If you’re talking about syndication, only a fraction of dramas & sitcoms make it to syndication anymore. Most scripted programs die in their first season anyway. So that’s two strikes against the scripted-is-a-better-business-model theory. And strike three is merchandising. Did you know that for all the tens of millions of dollars Fremantle makes from the worldwide TV rights of American Idol (Pop Idol, etc) they actually make *more* money from American Idol merchandising? No, you didn’t know that. There is no better business model than low-cost / high-return. You just don’t know the full extent of the return part of the equation so you assume that reality is one shot and out.

  Comment by ohplease — Tuesday August 12, 2008 @ 5:22pm PDT  Reply to this post

• One more thing: “Survivor is filler”? Jessy, come on – it’s in its 16th season. What’s been on the air longer than that? The Simpsons maybe. Do you think that’s filler too> The first 10 seasons it was on the air, Survivor was a Top 10 show. How can you call a show that American loves so much “filler”? Guys, reality is not a fad. You sound like my grandparents when they were walking around saying “rock and roll is a fad” or “hip hop is a fad.” You may not like Reality, and that’s OK. But a show that was America’s favorite for 10 seasons running is not “filler.” It’s what launched Ghen Maynard from a peon to a VP at CBS almost overnight.

  Comment by ohplease — Tuesday August 12, 2008 @ 5:29pm PDT  Reply to this post

• Dear ohplease: everything you say is true, and all of it supports my point that reality TV does nothing for the thousands of people who watch or work in it, only for the handful who control it and eat its fruits. It is a non-sustainable, non-renewable system of production that sees only today’s profits and does nothing to assure even its own future.

  Even when only three networks ran the shows, they sustained those who worked in them, who advertised on them, and who watched them.

  Take a few steps back and you’ll see that our communications conglomerates — TV, movies, music, books, magazines, etc. — all now seem to be scrambling to sate an existing hunger rather than educate their consumer base for the future. They’re reactive rather than active.

  We’re in an age where, ironically, say, the lumber industry re-seeds the land it clear-cuts, fisheries restock their hatcheries, and even Major League Baseball throws support to farm teams. So why does the communications industry devour its young? The key to long-lived success rests in a business model that renews and replenishes itself and its market — not that bleeds those upon whom it depends.

  Comment by Santayana — Tuesday August 12, 2008 @ 8:03pm PDT  Reply to this post

• Santayana: I’m not understanding your point. I make a decent living as a producer in reality tv. You make it sound like nobody in reality is making any money outside of the creator or EP of a show and you couldn’t be more wrong.

  Do you really think everyone at every level in scripted television is sharing in the profits? That only applies to a lucky few at the top like everywhere else. How does a crew profit from a sitcom that only lasts for one season beyond the work they did for that one season?

  Reality tv is a sustainable business or it wouldn’t still be on the air.

  Comment by Confused — Wednesday August 13, 2008 @ 10:49am PDT  Reply to this post

• Yeah – I don’t get what Santayana is talking about either. If Reality TV wasn’t “sustainable” then how come it’s survived for over a decade? Hell, “Cops” is a reality show that’s been on the air for 20+ years – longer than any scripted show on TV. As mentioned earlier, Survivor is on Season 16 – how is that not sustainable? I work in Reality TV (not as an EP) and I’m making a killing. Most people I know make good money in Reality – otherwise they’d find jobs doing something else. Conversely, a writers assistant in Scripted TV makes much less than most of the people I work with in Reality. So I’m also totally perplexed by what you mean when you say Reality isn’t “sustainable.”

  Comment by ohplease — Wednesday August 13, 2008 @ 5:33pm PDT  Reply to this post