V I D E O • A G E Se p t e m b e r/ Oc t o b e r 2 0 0 9 8 Prime Cuts At U.K TV Nets For 2009, the U.K.’s RTL-owned terrestrial TV Channel Five cut its programming budget by 25 percent (from 220 million to 140 million pounds), marking the biggest percentage reduction of any major U.K. broadcaster in the face of declining advertising revenues. Similarly, Channel Four is expected to make cuts of up to 75 million pounds from its own £600 million (U.S.$991.7 million) program budget. Following the collapse of merger talks between channels four and Five, the latter’s chief executive, Dawn Airey, hinted at a possible collaboration between Five and BBC’s commercial arm, BBC Worldwide. This comes on the heels of similar talks between Worldwide and Channel 4. “We will not let Channel 4 have a free run withWorldwide on a joint venture,” Airey said. It seems Channel Five is very keen on launching its own standalone pre-school digital channel, but does not want to pay for any more spectrum. Thus the new service will presumably air during the day on either the Fiver or Five USA digital channel slot, along the same lines as the BBC children’s channels CBeebies and CBBC, which share spectrum with BBC3 and BBC4. “I had a meeting about it this week,” Airey said, “The economics of it are quite compelling…. I suspect we will make a decision by the end of the year.” New TV Bosses In Hollywood There’s a new buzzword circulating throughout the TV business: the showrunner. As the word implies, the title applies to the executive running the show, but who is that exactly? Historically, it was always the executive producer calling the shots on a TV show’s production, but in recent years, that title has been applied to a wider range of roles, from those responsible for arranging financing to an honorific without actual management duties. The term “showrunner” has therefore been coined to identify the producer who actually holds ultimate management and creative authority. Notable U.S. showrunners include J.J. Abrams, Judd Apatow, and Tina Fey. While in the U.S., showrunners are usually the creative force behind a program and tend to come from a writing background, in Canada, where the TV industry has traditionally been line-producer driven, it has become increasingly difficult to determine who has claim to the showrunner title. Many Canadian writers refuse to acknowledge non-writing showrunners, while producers are reluctant to give production credit to writers. It’s a confusing debate, and as a result, the Writers Guild of Canada created the Showrunner Award in 2007 in an attempt to call attention to the role of writing in creative production. It should be noted that despite all confusion, “showrunners” are still credited as “executive producers” on most films and TV shows. Sky Italia’s Official Statement VideoAge asked Kathryn Fink, Sky Italia’s programming director, to comment on the TivúSat situation and the following three issues reported in the Pier Silvio Berlusconi front cover story: 1) How Nagravision encoding is going to affect RAI and Mediaset’s free channels on Sky. 2) What Sky will be doing to compensate for this Nagravision encoding. 3) What Sky’s plans are for growth in Italy. Sky Italia responded with the following note, sent from its Milan-based Corporate Communications office: “Official statements issued by both operators confirm that Nagravision scrambling methods will be used to encrypt programs broadcast by free-to-air channels for which neither RAI nor Mediaset own international rights. So, for anyone receiving these channels with a Sky decoder at the moment, the impact on viewing will affect only a part of programs offered by respective general networks. The success of Sky and the extensive growth of its subscriber base – which is currently 4.8 million – have always been rooted in the quality of content and the option to enjoy state-of-the-art technology, as well as the ongoing enhancement of its TV schedules with new shows and new theme channels. For the future, Sky intends to pursue this same route, to increase its subscriber base, aiming mainly at high definition for 30 HD channels by the end of 2010.” (Continued from Page 6)
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTI4OTA5