NBC Takes Flak From TV Showrunners

COMMENTS (32)

• I’m sorry but from my perspective as someone who has sold shows and written on hit shows, it IS easy to be a tv executive. All you need to do is answer phones for 3 years, listen in on your boss’s conversations, get promoted and then repeat key phrases that you’ve heard your boss say to people. These phrases are usually not helpful and are said only to make said executive feel better for saying them because he/she justified his/her job. Overnoting a writer = 20 million viewers.

  Also helpful is if you work for someone you’re too scared to ask him what he’s thinking on a particular project i.e. Steve McPherson. Because working from a place of fear is a sure fire way to make a hit TV show.

  A monkey could be a TV executive.

  Comment by successful writer — Wednesday December 10, 2008 @ 10:43am PST  Reply to this post

• “I didn’t realize it was easy to be a television executive. Or to hire good execs. Or to find and develop hit material.”

  nobody said it was easy, THAT IS WHY THEY ARE PAID SO MUCH.

  if they dont want to work HARD, DONT ACCEPT THE CHECKS.

  Comment by n69n — Wednesday December 10, 2008 @ 11:56am PST  Reply to this post

• Mondays are all wrong! Ben shouldn’t visit his pot dealer, but his coke dealer!

  The interstitial segments feature Ben’s special guest of the week where he blows lines while holed up in an NYC hotel room w/ several celebs and fellow tv execs…

  Comment by Anonymous — Wednesday December 10, 2008 @ 12:46pm PST  Reply to this post

• Next move by NBC: Lobby Nielsen to be considered a cable network! They’d finish, like, in second place practically every night by those standards. Oy! Fire ‘em all

  Comment by Matty D. — Wednesday December 10, 2008 @ 1:04pm PST  Reply to this post

• To those who like to trash POS Big Silly Sitcoms on CBS or Leslie Moonves himself here is a bit of news from the AP:

  “NEW YORK – Broadcast TV’s fall season is going so poorly that four out of five returning programs have a smaller audience than they had in 2007.
  A top TV researcher says it’s shaping up as a historically bad season for ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox. Only eight of the 66 returning shows have gained viewers,

  five of them on CBS.

  Five shows have no change. “Heroes,” “Private Practice” and “Prison Break” are among the big losers.

  SOURCE: http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9504QC80&show_article=1

  At least the Eye is putting people to work, not giving work to dummies or talking heads. The SAG contract notwithstanding.

  GE/NBC is such a joke I can’t wait to see the Nielsen carnage once everything is in play. If I was an NBC affiliate station GM I would be screaming to get days, not hours, back and try to salvage ad dollars.

  (Hyper-)Local content rules!

  No wonder those who knew jettisoned themselves to the cable nets…Safe for now until Zucker screws that up, too.

  Comment by P. Lee — Wednesday December 10, 2008 @ 3:32pm PST  Reply to this post

• One has to wonder… if a large portion of well-known SAG actors also has issue with Leno taking over the 10 O’Clock hour and doing away with so many job opportunities in Hollywood, why not just form a pseudo picket line and refuse to be booked as guests? If Leno cannot book and bring in the viewers, maybe other networks won’t follow this insane trajectory we’ve all been thrust on.

  Comment by Anonymous Agent — Wednesday December 10, 2008 @ 3:37pm PST  Reply to this post

• Hey “Dennis Wilson” –

  “Prediction: Many NBC affiliates will run Seinfeld reruns or lucrative local programming at 10 p.m. instead and hold Jay until 11:35 p.m. anyway, and follow it with Conan, et al., same as before.

  Some will go even further, expanding their local newscast to an hour, dropping it into the 10 p.m. timeslot and starting Jay at 11 p.m., putting him against Letterman once again but this time with a half-hour head start.”

  that’s a pretty dang sharp chunk of programming right there…

  Comment by popGeezer — Thursday December 11, 2008 @ 2:26pm PST  Reply to this post