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Family Man: Showrunner Series Q&A Steve Levitan
During a coffee break at TCA today, Modern Family co-creator/executive producer Steve Levitan dived straight in about Steve McPherson’s sudden exit from ABC Entertainment. “My genuine reaction was this sucks. I’m sorry to hear it,” Levitan said to reporters, noting that he’s a long-time friend going back to when McPherson was a network exec on his NBC comedy Just Shoot Me. “We took Modern Family to ABC in large part because of Steve and that relationship. And because he promised us that he would launch us and support us, which he did. He’s always been a straight shooter. You knew where you stood with Steve, and I respect that. While I hear wonderful things about [McPherson replacement] Paul Lee, certainly I’m very sorry to see Steve go.”
Levitan shared the casting news that Nathan Lane has been tapped to guest star in the fall. He’ll play Cameron’s and Mitchell’s mentioned-but-never-seen flamboyant friend Pepper. Personally, I’m pretty psyched to see Lane go toe-to-toe with Eric Stonestreet’s Cameron; I always felt Cameron was modeled after Lane’s character in The Birdcage.
Levitan said he doesn’t have any immediate plans to do a show at Fox where he and Modern Family co-creator Christopher Lloyd’s previous series, Back to You, was canceled after one season. But “I’m open to the idea if they create an atmosphere that is conducive to my style of comedy,” he said.
He also wants to take Modern Family episodes off the Internet because he argues it’ll boost TV ratings. And he is in talks for a new overall deal with Modern Family producer 20th Century Fox TV
As for all the talk that Modern Family may win the best series Emmy (Lee anointed the show an Emmy winner this morning), Levitan said, ”It would be an amazing validation and a dream come true.”
TV Editor Nellie Andreeva - tip her here.
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If he thinks taking Modern family off the internet will boost ratings, he is a deluded senile fool.
The internet helped create buzz about the show in the first place to make it a success. Stupid execs. will never learn.
I agree, removing Modern Family from the internet is a stupid move. It’s another media outlet to reach more viewers that don’t have access to Tivo or a DVR player. Plain and simple, he just wants a cut from the pie in his work being shown online. I would too.
Sigh. Hulu has become a sad little place with ratty tumbleweaves rolling by. Yes, I said tumbleweaves. I don’t understand the network fear of the internet. It is like trying to get my mom to not be afraid of my laptop. “I’m gonna break it,” she says. “Dell ships them broken out of the box,” I say. “Ya can’t mess it up any more than it is.”
So Levitan is part of the clueless old Hollywood crowd in thinking no episodes on the Internet will mean bigger tv ratings. You’d hope producers would be smarter than that, but here we are.
Bad idea to take the episodes off the internet. That is how most college age kids got into the show, and it is how they keep up. The show took off because Hulu allowed people to catch up mid way through the series and ultimately build a following. I am surprised that there aren’t more episodes online!
Taking Modern Family off the internet is a pretty terrible idea. I can’t count the amount of times that I’d watch on Wednesday night, then also watch online during a lunch break. The only episode I actually watched a single time was the iPad episode. I’d be really disappointed to see a legal means of watching on my computer taken away.
This is actually a good point. People are still going to watch it online, if they take it off Hulu they’ll just find a way to do it illegally. Levitan does sound like a bit of dinosaur here. It’s the information age. People are going to get their information – you can either have them doing it through your model (Hulu in this example), where you retain control and make some money off it, or they’ll do it through their own model, in which case you have no control and make nothing off it, and expend your resources trying to make them stop. You can’t really restrict data anymore, especially if your whole model is broadcasting it out to the world once a week. You can accept that the game has changed and try to do your best with it, or you can fight it, but either way it’s going to be out there.
If he’s talking about pulling old episodes off the internet to boost ratings, I totally disagree. It’s been proven over and over again that giving some content away for free online leads to increased sales of the current content. Just look at the Monty Python YouTube model.
Having last season of Modern Family online will give all of those who are hearing the buzz but who missed the season the opportunity to fall in love with the show. (My favorite new show on TV!)
If they take “Modern Family” off of Hulu, they are going to lose a huge percentage of their younger audience who, regardless of their love of the show, would never follow it back to traditional cable.
Taking the show off the internet won’t boost ratings. What it will do is drive away loyal fans. I love how these TV executives think that the audience has nothing better to do that sit around and watch TV. Many of us are actually busy and we get caught up with our favorite shows via the internet.
It would be a travesty if Modern Family didn’t win Best Comedy. 30 Rock & The Office have had their day. MF is a breath of fresh air and deserves all the accolades. Watch for copy-cats to start arriving.
I worship at the altar of Levitan & Lloyd. They deserve that Emmy.
When I saw the amount of white males on your writing staff in Written by, I was disgusted. Considering Levitan has been in the business forever, you would think he would have a modern writing staff rather than an archaic one.
“I’m open to the idea if they create an atmosphere that is conductive to my style of comedy.” Oh please…what a pompous ass.
And lose the shades Steve, they’re too small for your huge head.
This is from someone who loves your show almost as much as you love yourself.
Goodness sakes, annoyed. Lose the green sweater. It’s summertime and the living is easy.
Levitan and Lloyd are genuine guys. Levitan isn’t pompous.
Hard working, driven and talented. Gifted writer. Loyal guy. Nice even! Yes, he really is.
Who cares if his eyewear is ill-suited for his head? He’s got more important things to worry about.
Mess with the Levitan and you’ll get the Lloyd.
Now, I’m not the Lloyd, but have been gifted the honor of working with the Lloyds. They gave me the gift of their words and I got to say them out loud in front of a live studio audience.
Don’t be jelly, annoyed. fyi jelly=short for jealous
Back to You sucked, thank god FOX cancelled that garbage.
Taking it off Hulu isn’t going to boost viewership. Different audiences. Or to be more exact, they’ll get a slight gain in TV ratings via adding people from the Internet crowd who just absolutely must watch the show, but that group is fairly small, I would say quite small in the large scheme of things. What they’ll really do is lose the vast majority of the crowd that watches it online – most of those people won’t transfer over.
Yes, yes, bad idea with taking episodes off the internet and all, but can we please talk about the glorious casting of Nathan Lane to play Pepper? I’m waiting for the season opener with bells on!!