BAFTA Awards: What ‘Artist’, Dujardin, Streep … 
64th BAFTA Awards Winners: ‘The Artist’, Meryl … 
BAFTA 2012 Preview: Very British Affair Takes On … 
RECORD-BREAKING WEEKEND! 4 Films Open $20+M: ‘The … 
Remembered: Jennifer Hudson To Perform Whitney Houston … 
Live From NY, It’s Jean Dujardin On 
R.I.P. Whitney Houston 
TOLDJA! Indomina-BET Buy Sundance ‘LUV’ 
Midnight Madness For ‘Breaking Dawn’ DVD 
Saoirse Ronan Bigger Teen Action Queen 
WME Signs Writer-Director Jon Kasdan 
‘Glee’s Jane Lynch Joins Indie Film Comedy 
Universal Revives ‘Dracula Year Zero’ With … 
Jodie Foster Sending Mel Gibson Film ‘The … 
‘Roseanne’ Reunion: John Goodman To Co-Star In … 
UPDATE: Closing Arguments Conclude In Golden Globes Trial; … 
Series Adaptation Of ‘Legion’ With … 
Lionsgate Calms Investors With Talk About Charlie Sheen, … 
Ridley Scott Commits To Next Direct McCarthy’s … 
Marvel Studio’s Tim Connors Defects To Legendary As … 
UPDATE: Warner Bros Lawyers Dig In Garbage Over ‘The … 
I’m told NBC Universal spent a whopping $10 million on Sunday’s two-hour opener for Kings and another $4 million per episode. That’s a staggering amount of money to lavish on any drama series, especially one that’s a bomb. By now you’ve seen the ratings reports about Kings pulling in horrible numbers — a 1.6 rating/4 share in 18-49 demgraphics, and 6 million viewers overall. (ABC’s heavy hitter Desperate Housewives was No. 1 from 9PM to 10PM.) Nor does Jeff Zucker have anyone to blame but himself for this disaster. Because I hear that Ben Silverman was hands-on. Remember, please, that Ben’s predecessor at NBC Entertainment, Kevin Reilly, passed on it. But Ben picked up the script and ran with it. Some thought it should have been a mini-series, but Ben said no. Others thought the modernized Bible retelling should have had more backstory, and at one point Silverman ordered the writers to make it “more real world”. So he told them to work up a cockamamie scenario whereby the Allies never won World War II, and America went bankrupt afterwards, which meant no oil out of the Middle East, so Mexico got rich, and then… Ugh, does anybody give a shit? It was scrapped anyway.
Kings was supposed to move into the Thursday 10 PM ER slot (once coveted when the network was still Must-See TV) but has now been banished to Sunday at 8 PM where it can’t do any harm since no one is watching NBC that night anyway. This latest failure follows NBC’s derivative restaurant reality series The Chopping Block also receiving a pathetic 4 share in 18-to-49 demos for its debut Wednesday. No wonder Ben has less and less to do with programming — which was why he was hired in the first place — and more and more to do with liaising with advertisers. (Even though that job is well below his pay grade.) I have a thought: to improve his performance, NBC Universal should rebrand Silverman as Ben SYlverman. That’s more likely than Zucker ever admitting he made a mistake hiring him in the first place.
ZUCKERED: SciFi Channel And Website To Waste Money Being Rebranded As “Syfy”
Loading ...
You know, as much I normally enjoy your ruthless laceration of the powerful, I think it’s unwarranted here. Kings, flawed as it was, was also daring and imaginative and very different for network television– alternate history! the Biblical Book of Kings reimagined as a modern nighttime soap opera!– and Silverman and Zucker deserve praise for taking a chance on it. It’s really disappointing that American viewers were unwilling to even give the show a chance and instead seem happy with endless iterations of the “quirky (but not TOO quirky) crime solver” genre.
I do credit Silverman for going with a concept that’s a little different than another Law & Order or CSI knockoff, and that’s also not a remake of a past hit. Not everything can work and good for him for trying.
But why spend that kinda money? Geez. I guess if your spending millions making Sci-Fi into syfy (short for syphilis of course) what’s a couple other few millions wasted.
This is one of the most original TV shows to come about in a long time
it did not bomb because it sucks
it bombed because TV networks are dead
everyone is on the net now
everyone steals, does illegal downloading
in the next 5 years, studios, tv and film will all be on the web, they will have no choice, btw I had to site through 24 commercials but this show was worth it
BRILLIANT BRILLIANT BRILLIANT
if it was made a few years ago it would have been a smash
but look at the numbers
most popular band on the planet, U2 500k copies, some singles, some the full album, some in stores, most on itunes, and yet they were #1 in billboard, a few years ago they would have been in the millions
in contrast to that sceanario no wonder this show bombed
even american idol is bombing
it is very hard right now to get 10MM or more folks to sit down and watch a tv show
just like it is near impossible to sell 10k full albums in a week
I have to agree with Harry. This show is REALLY amazing and deserves to be watched. There was something new about it…different. Which is why I was surprised it was on NBC.
can’t say much for the casting……….and the pithy dialogue. I watched, probably not again.
I’m far from an NBC apologist, I write The Disney Blog after all, but I think ‘KINGS’ is getting some undeserved bad word of mouth. Sure the second hour was 3-times as good as the first hour and the lack of backstory did make it difficult to just jump in. But I think if you watch KINGS you’ll find it is one of the better shows out there this season.
Credit? This should be the nail in the coffin. If you’re going to try something different, try something good. This show is as baaaaad as a case of the syfy.
I think you might be oversimplifying in order to attack some of your favorite exec targets, Nikki.
I saw this first episode at last year’s Comic-Con and it was great and played well to a packed audience.
And while I haven’t had the pleasure, I know someone who has read several of the scripts and said they were amazing.
But I can get behind the thinking that maybe it should have been a mini-series — easier to maintain the quality and to hype it as an event. Carnivale felt the same way — a cool idea that felt like it was treading water to pad the episode count. Or maybe Kings should have gone to cable instead, where smarter and more challenging material has a better chance to get some traction (Carnivale notwithstanding).
It’s looking more and more like network TV is doomed to be a wasteland of brainless sitcoms and insipid reality fare, interspersed with innumerable spin-offs of CSI and Law and Order.
I have to admit that the second half totally sucked me in. and I was prepared to hate it. just saying Harry has a point. nobody watches TV anymore…not planned anyway. but I thought it was worth watching. so much that I even took notice of the next air date and time.. although I can’t remember what is was now, but I did at the time want to know..anywho, Ben Silverman is still a douche bag but this show isn’t horrible
Thought the show was of a quality and had an originality you’d only expect on HBO. Maybe the show would have done better there, but you can’t say they are trying to really do something different with this show. Also, when they started making the show, it was a different time in the world. This show is in the worlds of war, politics and power struggles – none of those are necessarily topics people want to dive into today. But, I say again that this show is HBO quality and unlike anything else you’ll find on TV. I’d like to see where it goes and watch it unfold.
- All I am saying is give Kings a chance
It’s one of the best drama pilots I’ve seen (and was a great script) and yes it may fail, but that would be a shame. Throw Ben under the bus for other things, but not on this one.
With all due respect everyone, the story is about King Saul and King David. You know Reverend “Samuel” a tank named “Goliath”, fighting with “Gath”. It’s a modern day telling of a classic bible story. I thought it was absolutely excellent and I hope to see more of it. I think this is just one of those shows where you either get it or you don’t. The really cool thing about it is the story can go on forever if it follows the lineage of the kings.
Surprised the show cost more than a buck fifty. I like Ian McShane so I tuned in for five minutes but changed channels because the show looks so damned cheap. And the actors (other than McShane) were atrocious. The main guy looked like he got pulled out of a porno flick which probably explains how he got cast.
Figured out how to blame Ben Silverman for the Punic Wars? God, you show me one exec who hasn’t commissioned a stinker and I’ll politely suggest you look a little harder.
King on Thursday night would of been much better. Not Ben’s fault ER decided to drag the series out.
The show goes completley against Americana thinking. Prolly too high concept for the midwest hicks.
With the right buzz the show can catch on.
King is a hella lot better then Ben’s reliving his childhood with Knight Rider & Bionic Woman remakes.
I might be a bit biased because i’ve done a couple of episodes of Kings as an assistant director, but rarely do i get a chance to do something i believe in (Sopranos was the last). Kings is a very well written show and deserves a chance and a better time slot.
My, my, my, the GE/NBCU flacks are out in force.
American Idol “bombing”? Then Kings is cratering…to the center of the earth.
Ian McShane is the ONLY reason for the discriminating viewer. The flyby states “won’t” get it…They get it all right, hucksters or city slickers shilling crap.
You take a chance not just on a good concept. It starts with good writing, THEN directing and cast, crew, etc…. Sounds like common sense, which is absolutey lack in the industry.
Could be worse, the film industry is STILL mining what they can from the old TV shows.
Blaming the medium, “Broadcast TV is a wasteland!” Then sir/madam please explain the following:
Lost
Desperate Housewives (Kicking Kings Ass)
24
CSI (and its derivatives)
House
Heroes (I’ll give NBC this but they are killing their baby)
Supernatural (Only worthy CW show)
Grey’s Anatomy/Private Practice
Fringe
Dollhouse (Waiting for Fox to kill this)
And those are just the dramas, not the half-hours.
Several pieces of advice to the GE/NBCU and Kings crew:
Make sense of what you are writing, the combat scenes were atrocious and if you knew the cast sucked push plot lines and bypass characterization.
Many pretty boys and girls on the show…Too bad they can’t act worth a damn, please refer to “climactic” battle confrontation scene by David Shepherd, ugh!
Get actors who can act worth a damn and writers who know what the hell they are talking about.
Otherwise I propse a new show, Abdication.
Harry –
I disagree with your post. Put something good on the air and people will tune in.
Watch the bass ackwards approach of tv network execs and you’ll find an approach that’s broken, the product of group think. For one, isn’t it peculiar that there aren’t any shows on today that are REALLY funny? Three generations of comedy writers waiting in the wings right now – and NO ONE can do funny?! Come on…
I don’t watch tv anymore – not because of the internet. As Americans have forever, I’d love nothing more than to sit down in front of the tv after a long day of work and watch something with my family. There isn’t anything.
Sorry, Nikki, you got this one bass ackwards. Kings is the best new show NBC has developed in years. It’s original, imaginative, smart and EPIC. There are a couple hack TV critics who had an axe to grind but every non-industry person I talked to about it in the last couple days liked it if they didn’t outright love it.
What killed it in the ratings was the move to Sunday night at 8 and the half-hearted promotion (it didn’t get anything outside LA as far as I know). NBC lost faith in this months ago and it shows. And too bad for them. It is (was?) the only scripted drama on their slate with the potential to redeem their credibility this year.
Put NBC on the endangered species list but don’t blame Kings.
No Silverman fan, but I did like the show. Too bad, since clearly at that cost it won’t be around for long with those type of numbers.
Agreed with the other folks here…honestly, the show is great. I haven’t talked to one person who didn’t enjoy it after watching the 2 hour pilot. It’s something new, relevant, well-acted. Hell, it’s a primetime drama that isn’t about cops/doctors/lawyers! That alone should make everyone excited.
It’s poor ratings are the fault of two things: poor marketing and horrible programming. Get this show better marketing and a proper timeslot that’ll let it compete and it’ll pick up.
As someone else mentioned, there are plenty of reasons for one to throw Ben under the bus, but Kings is definitely not one of them.
This show is a goner, but everything on NBC sucks. I think their “award winning” Thursday night line up sucks too. Frankly, SNL has sucked for the past three years.
The Leno show at 11/10 PM will have a short lived run. Jay should have moved over to ABC at 11:35 PM. He would bury Conan and old man Letterman, but he didn’t. What a mistake!
CNBC and MSNBC are a disaster.
The whole NBC networks and organization needs to be flushed.
If ‘Kings’ is on the air because of Silverman – then Ben did one good thing during his time at NBC. Amazing show crushed by horrible marketing.
If they believed in the show, why did they premiere it against DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES, which is ramping up one of their mystery arcs? The show’s not what it once was, but it is still a viewing habit for many, including myself, and it’s serialized, so you’re not likely to invest in something else in the time slot for a short term.
It could have been an interesting summer series if premiered after everyone went to repeats.
And with all due respect to Jen, he runs the network, so he has complete control over how long and when ER runs it’s finale.
Didn’t KINGS win the 8 p.m. hour? It got killed in the second hour up against the Housewives (who were so desperate they pulled out the lesbian kiss trump card). But they didn’t lose too much audience share. Its just that more people had something else to watch.
This is the only exception to my unending joy in reading posts about Silverman’s NBC. It’s unfair to even classify it as NBC, considering how he’s made it some sort of cheap, ill-executed joyless shell of what was once the best network on TV, the HBO of network television. Now it’s a reality show away from being like the early FOX network.