14 At last summer’s TV Critics Press Tour, the biannual event that brings together celebrities, journalists, producers and executives for a two-week plethora of press conferences, cocktail parties and special events, U.S. TV networks’ top programming executives discussed the ever-evolving face of television at the Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, Calif. “We’ve been saying for years the business is evolving, and we are embracing those changes in so many new and very positive ways,” said chairman of CBS Entertainment Nina Tassler. “And our dialogue is changing too. We now have VOD, L3 (live plus three extra days), C3 (commercial viewership measurement of one live day plus three extra days), L7, AVOD, SVOD. It’s a lot of letters. But it all adds up to big numbers in terms of total viewers and revenue. As a viewer and as a programmer, I really love this era of television. We’re a part of the business where creative deal-making and new technologies are supporting more original programming and more platforms on which to watch them. The winners here are content creators, viewers and the company bottomline,” she said. “More quality shows are being produced. There is more choice for the audience. New services, such as Netflix and Amazon, have expanded our syndication market with their high demand for programming. There are many examples that illustrate how all parts of this new ecosystem are working together to support hit shows. These platforms aren’t replacing each other. They’re complementing one another and enhancing the value of the content as it moves from window to window.” Tassler continued: “We also look at our primetime schedule on a year-round basis. The term ‘midseason’ has been retired, and we programthroughout the summer. Event series like Under the DomeandExtant are both supported by licensing deals with Amazon and international revenue that makes these shows profitable from the first episode. Dome was the number one show last summer, a big hit internationally, and the number one show on Amazon, too. The premiere of Extant was the most-watched show on television and it opened to record streaming levels for Amazon in the U.K. It’s a model that’s a great business for CBS and delivers more original programming for the audience.” She added: “Or how about The Good Wife and Blue Bloods, two top-quality, very popular shows? You won’t find them at the top of any 1849 charts, but they generate terrific total viewer numbers on CBS, and both have scored very lucrative syndication deals. This all adds up to a very robust TV world where the audience has abundant choices from a variety of voices. There are many different ways for the viewer to engage and for us to get paid. It’s an exciting time in our business — year-round programming, new business models, with the network front and center, providing content creators an even bigger stage on which to tell their stories.” FOX’s big news was the creation of the Fox Television Group, with Dana Walden and Gary Newman. “This is a new structure for us,” said Peter Rice, chairman and CEO, Fox Networks Group. “It’s been over a decade since we were structured in this way, and it’s very exciting to align our studio and our network. We’ve been the odd man out in terms of how the other networks were aligned, and as competition for talent becomes more and more intense, having a big, powerful studio and a network aligned with each other is going to be a really good thing for our business.” Rice feels that Newman and Walden have an “amazing” track record. “Fifteen years of creating hits on multiple networks, including FOX, and that’s why this is the right thing for us to do, to align our companies. But it’s important to us that we operate them separately and that we’re open for business throughout the town. We obviously buy from all of the other studios, and we sell to all of the other networks, and that’s important for us to continue doing,” Rice said. “We are ultimately in the talent business, and having a network, which has to react to the things that other studios are bringing in, put us at a disadvantage. So we are excited to be more directly engaged with the network, with the studio, with the talent community,” he added. His predecessor, Kevin Reilly, had said that pilot season was dead (VideoAge mentioned this presentation in our March/April 2014 Issue). “Kevin had a big cemetery stone with the pilot season. That was a little misinterpreted. A lot of people felt that Kevin was saying he wouldn’t make pilots anymore, and that wasn’t his intention,” Rice said. “We talked about it a lot before he made the statement, and I agreed with him completely. Trying to have a singular development process, which is very rigid, isn’t good for the creative product. You hear 500 pitches in June, July, August; they’re written in September, October and November; we read them in December; we order up 20 pilots in January; and everyone in town makes them in the same four-to-six-week period in February and March. So trying to be more flexible so that creative people can be as ambitious as they need to be cannot exist within a rigid system. Newman and Walden and I have talked about that, and we’re going to be very flexible. We will make pilots. Sometimes we’ll go straight to series. We will make pilots in February. But sometimes we’ll make them in September. We’re looking for the best projects. We’re looking to encourage the most creative people to come to FOX, and we have to be open to making television year-round.” Diversity was a frequent topic of discussion at the press tour. British-born ABC Entertainment president Paul Lee discussed his network’s efforts and criticized the prevalence of series with all-white casts. “America doesn’t look like that anymore,” he said. “When I came here, I wanted to find shows that reflected America. That’s our job.” Shows with all-white casts “feel dated,” added Lee, who noted that there were many factors that contributed to ABC’s more diverse primetime lineup. “You need storytellers and you need executives…who truly reflect America as it is and we have a very diverse group of people,” Lee said. “When they come in with real specificity…when they bring you authentic, relatable stories, you By Susan Hornik U.S. TV Nets’ Top Brass Discuss How Changes Affect Production, Volume October 2014 TCA Review Nina Tassler, chairman of CBS Entertainment Paul Lee, president of ABC Entertainment (Continued on Page 30)
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