Tag: television

Happy Birthday for two TV revolutions

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

March 19 marks two big media birthdays.  Though both are cable television networks, they are significant for different reasons.

The elder is C-SPAN, which was created on this date in the great year of 1979.  C-SPAN made news this week by making its entire video archive available online, which is a natural extension of the network’s mission: to shine sunlight on the workings of the American government.

The younger is eight years old today: the YES Network, or Yankees Entertainment and Sports (which has an excellent website in addition to an excellent television network).  YES was born because the New York Yankees were unsatisfied with annual $70 million payments for their television rights from Madison Square Garden Network, another New York City-based regional sports network (or RSN).  The Yankees figured they could do better, and built their own television network to play their games and satisfy the content needs of rabid Yankee fans, who would actually watch the Yankeeography of Danny Tartabull.

When you’re the most famous sports franchise in the world, building your own media empire is much easier than if you’re a grassroots activist organization.  But the principal is the same whether you’re launching a YouTube channel or a cable channel: the Yankees knew their audience was out there, and they found their own path to that audience.

The Futurama of Television

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

Fox is going back to the Futurama, ordering 26 new episodes of the quirky cartoon – which drew a niche audience for its first run, but seemed far to narrow in its appeal to stick on a network schedule. If that sounds familiar, it’s because this is the second time Fox has done this – the first time being for Family Guy.

Though it’s a hit now, seven years ago Family Guy was in and out of the Fox schedule, bounced around to different nights, and eventually drummed off the air.  But Family Guy found a new audience on cable, online (as college students and others with high speed connections downloaded episodes) and eventually on DVD.

Futurama followed the same path. After being bounced from Fox’s Sunday night animation block, it found a home on the Cartoon Network, grew into a hit, and was eventually brought back to network TV.

Does this mean TV networks need to change their models of success?  Obviously, both Family Guy and Futurama have a devoted audience, but took some time to find them.  And when they did, those audiences weren’t watching network TV during prime time – they were watching cable between 11:00 p.m. and 1:00 a.m.

Network TV is learning a lesson that marketers have – or should have – learned for decades: know where your audience is, and go there.

Lenovation

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

Tonight, Jay Leno says good-bye to the Tonight Show.  It will be the end of an era, but not for the same reason his predecessor’s final show was.  Johnny Carson’s final bow in 1992 meant that a popular, recognizable personality was leaving the public eye; despite being consistently top-rated Leno was never so loved.  He may, however, revolutionize prime time the way Carson revolutionized late night.

When it premiers this fall, Leno’s 10:00 p.m., five-nights-a-week talk show will be markedly different from its competition.  And that may be a good thing.  NBC Universal head honcho Jeff Zucker said recently that television networks like NBC are buoyed by their cable properties – and that the demand for cheap programming and instant hits means that shows that take time to find an audience, like Seinfeld, wouldn’t make it today.

Networks must, as Zucker said, change the way they do business for many reasons.  Original dramas on cable have become more successful over the past ten years (look at The Shield, The Sopranos, Monk, and Sex and the City) and have the advantage of a revenue stream beyond advertising.  Since you pay for cable already, FX doesn’t mind if you TiVo an episode of Sons of Anarchy and fast forward through the commercials.  But your clicker is killing NBC, which relies almost solely on advertising to generate revenue, when you skip through the proud sponsors of The Office.  Shows aired either live or on tape delay – sports, news, and, of course, talk shows – offer the best advertising opportunities.

Enter Leno in prime time, and NBC has a better venue for advertising.  And, since it airs five nights a week, viewers don’t really have to choose between Leno and NCIS – they can watch NCIS one night of the week, CSI another, and Leno when there isn’t an alternative.  As he was on the Tonight Show, Leno will be television’s fallback position.

The stakes at 10:00 are a lot lower for Leno than they were when he stepped behind Johnny’s desk.  He’s a known commodity, he doesn’t have a very high bar to exceed, and he has no direct competition.  But if it works, it could mean a big win for NBC – and, like his predecessor, Leno may inspire copycats.