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Warner Bros TV’s Bruce Rosenblum Boasts

By DOMINIC PATTEN | Wednesday May 23, 2012 @ 5:46pm PDTTags: Bruce Rosenblum, Time Warner, Upfront Presentations, Warner Bros. TV

Time Warner doesn’t detail its Warner Bros Television financials — never has, probably never will. So it’s always interesting when any exec there gives some facts and figures while boasting. With a series of slides illustrating his 30-minute speech, Warner Bros TV chief Bruce Rosenblum today told Barclay’s Global Technology, Media and Communication Conference in NYC that the TV group is responsible for over half of the overall operating income at Warner Bros. One slide noted that television, including Turner and HBO, brought in $4.4 billion of Time Warner’s 2011 adjusted operating income of $5.9 billion. Rosenblum also noted that “from a profitability standpoint the most lucrative part of our business is success with broadcast network series.” Rosenblum added, “For the past season that just ended, we covered 73% of our production costs from the license fees paid to us by the domestic networks. Our international revenue was another 50% of the total production cost.” He noted that this came before any “lucrative syndication, home entertainment or SVOD revenues on successful series”.

Rosenblum said about the recent upfronts, “Our television group is once again the leading supplier to the broadcast networks. We sold at least one new show to each of the 5 broadcast networks, we have at 2 shows on each network, and we are the only studio that can say either of those things.” WBTV has 9 new series ordered for the upcoming broadcast year including J.J. Abrams’ Revolution on NBC, the comedy Partners on CBS, and the Kevin Bacon vehicle The Following on Fox. In addition, WBTVG has 16 series returning like Two and a Half Men, Two Broke Girls, The Big Bang Theory and The Mentalist.

Rosenblum claims, “There has never been a better time to be in the high quality scripted TV series production business” and “More people are spending more time watching television content than ever before.” He joked, “We want to be everyone’s second favorite supplier,” referring to the networks’ preference to buy from their in-house production companies. He also claimed that right now international buyers are in WB’s Burbank offices watching new series to purchase for their regions.

Finally, about WBTV’s expanding digital markets, Rosenblum said Internet and mobile viewing is “evolutionary for our business not revolutionary.”

Related: Bruce Rosenblum Taps Top TV Executives For Television Academy’s Exec Committee

 

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Upfronts: It’s All About Ads & The Economy

By DAVID LIEBERMAN, Executive Editor | Monday May 16, 2011 @ 8:58am PDTTags: Advertising Upfront Market, Broadcast Upfront Market, Network TV Advertising, TV Advertising, TV Upfront Market, Upfront Presentations

Just about everyone says that the 2011 upfront ad sales season that kicks off this week will be a record-setter. Barclays Capital analyst Anthony DiClemente expects advertisers to commit about $9.2 billion for prime time spots at ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC … Read More »

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OWN Renews 4 Series, Orders 6 New Shows At Upfront

By NELLIE ANDREEVA | Thursday April 14, 2011 @ 7:37am PDTTags: Cable TV, Oprah Winfrey, OWN, OWN Programming, TV, Upfront, Upfront Presentations
Nellie Andreeva

In its first upfront presentation since its Jan. 1 launch, OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network announced the pickup of six new unscripted series and the renewal of four existing shows. The announcement didn’t include the most anticipated new OWN series, an Oprah Winfrey show, which will launch in September, after the end of her syndicated talk show. The network is yet to share details about it, though it is expected to be a talk show. OWN has been slow out of the gate, barely outperforming the channel it replaced, Discovery Health. One of the most heavily promoted first new series, Your OWN Show, flopped, and Oprah Presents Master Class has underperformed. But the network found early success with Our America With Lisa Ling, the first OWN series to get renewed, and Season 25: Oprah Behind the Scenes. The Judds also had a promising premiere on Sunday. Joining Our America on the list of renewed OWN series are Ask Oprah’s All Stars (picked up for six more episodes), Enough Already! With Peter Walsh (six episodes), In the Bedroom with Dr. Laura Berman (six episodes) and Oprah Presents Master Class (eight episodes). The six new series include Confronting…, I Owe You My Life, Louie Spence Dance Project, My Mom And Me, Sweetie Pies and Unfaithful: Stories Of Betrayal. Here are description of the newly picked-up shows: Read More »

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