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That's the word from NYC. What a nightmare for Les and Jeff and Bob and Peter. And what a difference a year makes when the scatter market was sizzling for 2007's fourth quarter and deals were being inked with double-digit percent increases. Now I hear it's frozen with fear, even for cable. Obviously, one huge problem is the dying auto industry, which usually drives the scatter market (where advertisers purchase commercial time when desired from available unsold network inventory at rates differing from those negotiated during the upfront season).
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This is happening to a group of assholes that deserve it!
All the nets have been adding more & more ads every year.
The programs that MRC is running on The CW on Sunday nites are about 37 minutes long. That 23 minutes of ads are a new record for prime time & maybe even for daytime!
The viewers are totally fed up with TV in general, but the insane scheduling tricks the nets have played in the last ten years have turned off enormous numbers.
There’s the idiotic practice of running shows a couple of minutes over so people can’t see the beginning of a show on another net.
But one of the biggest reasons cable has done so well is that everything is repeated, not just once, but many times.
But the Big 4 nets won’t do that claiming their affiliates won’t go for it.
What bullshit!
If a particular show gets great buzz, don’t you want people to see it if they’ve heard about it?
I can’t watch all that stuff online & in particular I can’t watch any CW shows online, it just won’t work on my computer or on those of several people I know! We have no idea why & one of our group is an expert programmer!
Then there’s the problem that every net uses a different viewer online to watch.
How many different programs do I have to load up & clog up my computer with, just to watch a goddamn TV show?
You’re losing viewers every day & you stick to the same broken business model of 50 years ago?
Are you people fucking insane?
Obviously, the correct answer is YES!
Does SAG know about this? There is no better time to wring out of management a fair and equitable contract. BTW, if GM and Chrysler do merge, who gets the ad biz and at what rates?
It’s not just the automakers. Consumer spending is WAY down and likely to crash even further. I’ve seen rumors of much lower spending for Google, which has taken advantage of advertisers going cheaper, as well as AM radio.
A recession is going to radically reshape the TV market and the type of shows broadcast, if it lasts for some time and coincides with reduced consumer spending.
You’ll get more 1930’s type of advertisers, household goods, brands etc. not luxury or niche goods. So goodbye stuff like Gossip Girl, and hello more broadly appealing shows that get all four “quadrants.”
CBS, Fox and NBC seem more set to survive that, mixing male-female audiences. ABC? Questionable. Given it’s heavy female emphasis.
Whiskey:
Really interesting perspective. You seem like someone that could answer this question: Don’t you think that the Internet will reflect the early days of TV what with blocks of three-minute, eleven-minute (tops) programming brought to us by general package-goods companies (like P & G, Target, etc.) that offer original content in live action fiction, mini-documentaries, animation and more?
Very, very curious…
I guess they figure bankruptcy would be a good position of strength to negotiate with SAG. These idiots can’t make movies without us and they think they got us where they want us. FInding the next DeNiro is challenging. A new studio head is not that tricky. All you have to do to find a new Les Moonves is scan the tanning beds, daytime soaps, and fraternity houses. They are dime a dozen , but they have us just where they ant us. Go for the throat SAG. Strike now and you’ll have a deal within hours.
Ghost of Bill Paley –
Yes I do think the Internet will echo the early TV (and Radio) Packaged Brand entertainment. Stuff akin to the Little Orphan Annie serials, etc.
Of course, that stuff has to be made cheap, so there’s likely pressure to move that stuff to say, Australia, Canada, or New Zealand where labor costs are cheaper, given the ubiquity of internet links.
But I think for a forward looking broadcaster, TV could be the winner over movies and the big winner in entertainment since people in hard times crave 1-3 hour distractions and want both broad or non-segmented entertainment and of course, cheap/free entertainment.
The Internet’s big promise was interactivity, particularly in targeting small, micro-niches of consumers, instead of people sponsors don’t care about, which to me seems to be part of good times, not “survive the nuclear winter” of an extended recession. Movies of course have horrific cost structures, bloating their budgets beyond profitability and making tickets just too expensive as movies become a young/male sector, not broadly appealing.
I certainly do think the Grant Tinker strategy of pursuing smaller, but more upscale sets of viewers is dead for Network TV. Though on a small-cheap version we may see it on the Internet. Actress Felicia Day has done some interesting work with her internet series “the Guild” about a bunch of World of Warcraft type gamers, for not much money. It’s really amazing what ingenuity and passion can do to minimize not having much of a budget.
I could even see perhaps CW migrating to a “web only” strategy aimed at young women, with very cheap productions, if the net really tanks in this brutal ad environment.