28 only get credit for the first three days if there is the identical ad load in the VoD window.” He continued: “My frustration with the system is that we have been bound by certain practices that were born in a different era, that we are, at FOX, going to begin pushing back on. An arbitrary 35-week season, September to May. Okay, that’s been a nice convenient measurement. We’ve been bound by sweeps and certain rhythms in the year. But the last time I checked, the calendar was 52 weeks long. That’s how people watch television. They just want a good show on the air at some time. We are no longer going to be able to be in an environment wherewe heavy-up on repeats certain times of the year. The audience is less and less embracing of repeats in our network window.” Reilly wants to move repeats onto other platforms where “it is a much better consumer experience” and “where we can monetize it better. So we’re going to have less repeats and less fallow times of the year. We’ve been in these same pilot cycles where we do everything at once — including fall launches. We’ll still be in the fall launch game, but it’s crazy that we launch 80-something shows at once at that time of year.” Reilly’s plan is to really begin breaking out of the mold. “We’re going to be in more of a 12-month rollout, where there’s something premiering throughout the year. And there are no times of the year that are lesser than other times of the year. I’d really like to ban the word ‘midseason’ because midseason is another arbitrary notion,” he said. FromNBC, Robert Greenblatt, chairman of NBC Entertainment, said 2013 was their most competitive year in the last nine years. “It’s the first time since 2004 that NBC is running this close to first place and second place. We’re within a 10th of a rating point of number two and within 0.4 of number one. And that includes no help this season from the Super Bowl or the Olympics. As everybody knows, we dominated the fourth quarter, which was a great story. Of course it was probably not the greatest thing to happen to us because you know you can’t sustain that forever, and the first quarter declined the way we expected it would. Happy to say we bounced back in the spring. And at this point in the summer, we’re leading all the broadcast networks, if you exclude ABC’s NBA Finals boost. “Season to date, we’re the only broadcast network that’s flat from the previous season. I know one could say, how good is it to celebrate being flat? But at this point in our business, flat is the new up,” he said. Greenblatt believes the networks need to be in the event business. “I think you’re going to hear that from every broadcast network. We look at events in many different ways. Obviously there’s a lot of live events, and live is really important these days when you’re trying to fight the DVR and build the biggest audienceyoucanforthepremiere of a show. We have a whole bunch of live events from the great sporting events, football, the Olympics, but alsoThe Voice and America’s Got Talent. We’re doing a big live quiz show in September for two weeks called Million Second Quiz. We’re doing a big holiday family event, a live broadcast of The Sound of Music, the musical, in early December. We haveSaturday Night Live. We have the daily late-night shows, which are not technically live, even though Jimmy Kimmel makes you kind of think he’s live, but those shows are obviously taped the same day, so they feel immediate and they feel of the moment. The Golden Globes specials are important to us. The Thanksgiving Day Paradealways does really well. The Fourth of July does well. We’re looking for more and more of those kind of events. We have a slew of specials coming this year, several of which we will announce over the next fewweeks, again to that point of just having more and more events,” he said. But Greenblatt added that the scripted side of television is also a focus. “Trying to come up with series events is difficult, but we’re trying, and I think, to some degree, we’re succeeding. A show like Revolution was a big event conceptually, and it did really well for us. It’s harder in comedy,” he said. Greenblatt believesseriesliketheupcoming Michael J. Fox Show, Blacklist, Believe, Crisis and Dracula will be event series. Dracula, specifically, he said is “a big period show with a star and a sort of reconceptualization of a story that everybody knows.” The network also plans to focus on the miniseries and the limited series arenas. October 2013 New Television Season (Continued from Page 26)
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