It's not whether the show is 1st or 4th....

On a forum recently a member raised a question related to the suspense of what shows will not be picked up for another season:

So considering the 4 major OTA networks (ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC)... someone has to be in 1st place, and someone has to be in 4th place no matter how good or bad the show!

So I guess I wonder... when a network sees a show #4 in the ratings for a night... what are they hoping for? Would they rather sink the slot by putting Dog-Walkers Idol and put no money into it? Or try to make it better by upgrading the quality of the show?

The issue isn't rankings, it's ratings. The Live+SD (Same Day) Nielsen ratings mean everything because they determine the money flow and it's all about money.

Based on the Nielsens, last Monday at 8 pm there were 47 million Live+ SD viewers watching broadcast TV while last Friday there were only 21 million. On any night, the 10 pm slot delivers half the total of 8 pm viewers.

What is a network to do in...say... a Monday night 8 pm slot? If the top 4 networks were within a couple of million total viewers and 1.0 in the demos, it wouldn't matter who is 1st and who is 4th. But "Dancing with the Stars had 17 million viewers while "Chuck" had 6 million. Let's take a closer look at the Monday facts.

"Terminator: The Sara Conner Chronicles" on Fox could never compete with ABC's "Dancing with the Stars", but "House" is delivering for its advertisers Live+SD viewers in the 18-49 demo (4.3), even though "Dancing" (3.8) has higher total viewers 17 million to 11 million.

The CBS comedy lineup at that time delivers at a relatively low cost a consistent audience, both total (9.3 million) and demo (3.4), while "Chuck" at a relatively high cost can't deliver the audience numbers with its 5.95 million and 2.2. Those "Chuck" numbers are not meaningfully higher to advertisers then The CW's "Gossip Girl" which is a low rent production on a low rent network with a relatively narrow target audience which it delivers to advertisers.

There is a huge industry out there devoted to advertising. Ultimately, they decide where the ad dollars go, not the networks. The advertisers want to feel they are getting some return from their investment. The networks have to deliver to the advertisers an audience based on the Nielsen Live+SD ratings. Subsequent DVR viewings don't count in the ad world.

For me the time slot of the show is irrelevant. I'm a 100% DVR viewer, mostly not same day and many not even in the same season. I'm of zero value to advertisers and therefore zero value to the shows I watch. Of course, my wife and I are not in the demo and aren't a Nielsen household and make no impact anyway.

Some execs at NBC love "Chuck". There are 6 million consistent viewers who love "Chuck". But the broadcast TV advertisers want 10 million viewers before they would pay what it takes to offset the costs of delivering an episode of "Chuck." GE, NBCU's parent company, isn't interested in the personal tastes of the NBC execs or the 6 million viewers. They're interested in net profit.

Then you get to the cost of the shows. Some shows carry star costs, such as "Brothers & Sisters" in which a number of stars probably get well over $100,000 per episode. But shows like "Chuck" or "Terminator: The Sara Conner Chronicles" don't have many highly paid actors, though the top stars are likely to be getting $80,000 and up per episode. Both of those shows have heavy action production costs, special effects, etc. which increase the total cost per episode, costs that don't exist in "Brothers & Sisters" which is pretty much shot like a soap opera. All these shows cost enough that the networks have to place them where they can get top advertising revenue. An episode of your favorite broadcast network show costs $500,000 (cheap game and reality shows) to $3 million (high end scripted drama).

NBCU executives two years ago looked into their crystal ball and said this financial model won't work by 2010 even taking into account DVD sales, on line viewing, syndication, foreign sales, etc. They've shifted the focus to cable channels.

A ceiling appears to have been set on per-episode production costs of $750,000 for the best drama for cable, with a desired average of under $500,000. USA can market 13 episodes of four to six of these in any one year and make money.

In some cases like "Monk" and "Law & Order:Criminal Intent", the show earns money for NBCU on both USA and NBC so the production costs could run a little higher. I believe that the goal at NBC is cutting by half the average cost for an hour of prime time broadcast TV by 2010.

Fox has taken a different "bean counter" mentality - deliver the audience or you're out. Each year they go with a certain number of higher budget scripted shows with the proviso that a show that can't make a target per minute net revenue is a quickly replaced show. In some cases, a big advertiser might make a commitment through product placement and commercials that keeps a show on. But most advertisers will bail on a show with lower ratings and, as a result, Fox focuses on those ratings.

There is an alternative - a premium cable channel offering three hours of scripted series shows a night - which I proposed in a previous blog post. HBO is offering a smattering of shows. And DirecTV appears to be doing the same on its Channel 101. But nothing as ambitious as my proposal has been seen in "the biz" journals.

The New Sprummer Scripted TV Season

It has become apparent that the broadcast networks have designed a two part season that begins in earnest September/October and ends April/May with a mid-year mini-shift that occurs January/February. This is the Fall/Winter Season and appears to be about 9 months long and which I now name Fallter, pun intended.

The cable networks appear to have designed a season that begins April/May and ends September/October with a mid-season mini-shift that occurs somewhere in the middle. This is the Spring/Summer Season and appears to be about 6 months long and is what I now name Sprummer.

Obviously the two seasons overlap as we don't have a 15 month year. And the cable networks tend to show half of the seasons episodes of a show beginning in the Sprummer airing the second half beginning around the first of the calendar year during Fallter, when the broadcast networks are fumbling to get replacements for their faltering shows.

So we have a new Sprummer Season already under way. Based on available information the cable channels, with little help from the broadcast networks, will give us a solid scripted show lineup. While the following list is not complete, and certainly many shows are far from potential Emmy winners, it is pretty impressive given what Summer TV offerings used to be like:

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Day	Series Title	Premier
Network		Status
SUNDAY
AMC	Breaking Bad	Currently Airing
AMC	Mad Men	Not Scheduled
HBO	No.1 Ladies Detective Agency	Currently Airing
HBO	In Treatment	Currently Airing
HBO	True Blood	June 14
Lifetime	Army Wives	June 07
Lifetime	Drop Dead Diva	July 12
NBC	Merlin	June 21
USA	Law & Order: Criminal Intent	Currently Airing
USA	In Plain Sight	Currently Airing
MONDAY
ABC Family	Secret Life American Teenager	June 22
ABC Family	Make It or Break It	June 22
Showtime	Weeds	June 08
Showtime	Nurse Jackie	June 08
TNT	The Closer	June 08
TNT	Raising the Bar	June 08
TUESDAY
ABC Family	10 Things I Hate	July 07
ABC Family	Ruby & the Rockets	July 21
ABC Family	Lincoln Heights	August 04
FX	Rescue Me	Currently Airing
Syfy	Warehouse 13	July 07
TBS	My Boys	Currently Airing
TNT	Saving Grace	June 16
TNT	HawthoRNe	June 16
WEDNESDAY
ABC	The Goode Family	May 27
ABC	Surviving Suburbia (from hiatus)	May 27
ABC	The Unusuals (from hiatus)	May 27
NBC	The Philanthropist	June 24
TNT	Leverage	July 15
TNT	Dark Blue	July 15
THURSDAY
NBC	The Listener	June 04
USA	Burn Notice	June 04
USA	Royal Pains	June 04
FRIDAY
BBCA	Hotel Babylon	Not Scheduled
Fox	Mental	May 22
Syfy	Eureka	July 10
USA	Monk	Not Scheduled
USA	Psych	Not Scheduled
SATURDAY
BBCA	Primeval	May 16
BBCA	Robin Hood	Not Scheduled
BBCA	Torchwood	Not Scheduled

"1948 All Over Again" Revisited

On November 12, 2007, a six part series on the future of scripted TV and the home entertainment industry was posted here which contained the following:

Neither television industry executives, nor the writers, nor any of us viewers know where scripted episodic drama and comedy programming will end up within five years. We need to think in terms of media, source of funding, format or survival.

Since then significant changes in the industry provide some directional arrows pointing to how the future might look. And some of these arrows are clearly pointing to a revolution in home entertainment.

It is clear that this revolution does resemble the period from 1948 to 1958 when television displaced radio and movie theaters as the source of entertainment and news for Americans, and audio recording tape gained a foothold on home reproduction of music sources and serving as a portent of the impact of the DVR.

The difference is that the 50 years that have passed did result in an acceleration in the effects of technology on American life. This requires business to adapt rapidly to changes in how Americans live which occur much more rapidly.

Consider for a moment the iPod. Introduced in October 2001, it and/or the iPhone (and similar devices) are embedded in 21st Century world-wide culture as a means of communications, listening to music, and viewing photos and video, as well as a means of creating photos and video.

Yawn. So what else isn't new?

Somewhere in all this technological change, the owner of one of our most venerable broadcast television networks - NBC - has essentially declared the old model of broadcast television dead. As noted here earlier this month, top management of GE and its subsidiary NBC Universal (NBCU) have embraced the company's niche cable channels.

This fall NBC will reduce the number of week day hours of prime time available for scripted programming from three to two by assigning the 10 p.m. time slot to a Jay Leno televaudeville show, aligning its programming model more with Fox and The CW then ABC and CBS.

And at an April 8 Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications symposium exploring the pioneering work of executive producer and network television executive Fred Silverman, Silverman himself speculated that the networks will eventually give the 8 p.m. slot back to the affiliates to fill with local and syndicated programming tailored to the region they serve or, in he case of he less imaginative, reruns. (He also speculated on the end of network-provided daytime soap operas.)

GE through NBCU has also embraced the web for presenting professional TV productions and movies, most significantly its Hulu.com system developed in partnership with News Corp's Fox. (It is a system, not just a web site, as others can feed its content through their own web sites including most notably Comcast's Fancast site which is part of Comcast Interactive Media.)

According to a recent Business Week article, many expect Disney/ABC to take an equity stake in Hulu. In the meantime, in 2008 CBS Interactive bought the parent company of TV.com announcing in December that the site would add and emphasize an HD video gallery with full episode streams.

Now the media conglomerates are negotiating with the cable and satellite companies to create a model that allows access to on-line conglomerate produced video only if you are a subscriber to a cable/satellite package that contributes to the revenue stream supporting the cost of producing that video.

And the cable companies this year will be introducing "tru2way" enabled set-top boxes allowing subscribers to easily play games, browse the web, and chat, as well as stream on the bandwidth assigned to TV newer shows that aren't even on line.

Meanwhile, San Francisco Chronicle TV columnist Tim Goodman recently advocated "the Netflix solution", meaning that in these hard economic times folks should drop the premium channels at $150± a year each and selectively rent or buy series show box sets. And Goodman even suggests viewers may want to drop cable altogether.

What's a fan of scripted TV to do as these changes begin to snowball? The upcoming Summer Season will be discussed in the next post.

Proposal: A Scripted TV Premium Cable Network

The struggle to sell scripted TV series has become more difficult in the current economy for obvious reasons. And it appears that it is easier to recover the production and delivery cost of an hour of news, sports, and televaudeville (any show other than news and sports that doesn't depend upon professional actors performing scripted scenes for its entertainment content).

From my perspective, this situation is creating an artistic loss. For instance, the allocation by NBC of a Jay Leno televaudeville show in the week day 10 pm slot represents the the loss of financial support for five 26-episode scripted programs per year.

This situation in broadcast TV is only going to get worse, not better. So I would like to offer a solution. We need to create a "scripted TV series" cable premium network. For discussion purposes, I'll call it the "ScriptTV" network.

Over two 26-week seasons per year ScriptTV would during the time period of 5 pm - 2 am Eastern Time run three hours of new one hour or 30-minute scripted episodes of TV shows without advertising. The cycle would look like this:

The economic model for ScriptTV would look something like this:

• The remaining 15 hours per day would be filled with syndicated reruns of older TV series supported by 360 seconds of advertising per hour of show.
• The ScriptTV channel would be priced to subscribers by cable and satellite systems at $12-$15 per month; subscribers also would have access to its web site to stream episodes of shows aired in the past 52 weeks.
• The ScriptTV channel would pay up to 80% of the production costs for each show and receive up to an 80% ownership interest in the show along with the first showing rights worldwide; each show's season would be offered as an exclusive for one year to broadcast and non-premium cable networks to be shown after the season run on ScriptTV; after any network exclusive expires, the show would be offered as a syndicated show and be sold on DVD.

In order to secure subscribers, ScriptTV would adopt the following policies:

• Of its three hours of nightly original scripted programming, ScriptTV would seek to offer on average one hour per night of family-oriented programming and two-hours of "grownup" oriented programming.
• Each show's producers/creators would be contracted to create a 26-week story arc with plans for a full-resolution series end; however, ScriptTV would have the option to pick up an additional full season before the airing of the 20th episode which might require alteration plans for the season's last two or three shows.
• ScriptTV would not cancel any show in mid-season.
• ScriptTV would regularly poll its subscribers regarding its programming.

HBO has 38 million subscribers. This business model would not need more than 2 million subscribers to succeed.

NBC's Degenerative Disease

"Yes, that ad supported NBC channel you watch now may degenerate into only news, sports, and televaudeville." - The Lost Scripts, November 12, 2007

When I wrote the statement above, it was clear to me that Jeff Zucker, President & CEO of NBC Universal, had plans. They were a bit fuzzy at the time, but the hints were there. Much has come into focus since then. But then in March at the Media Summit conference Zucker said: "We are, first and foremost, a cable network company." GE's CEO Jeff Immelt discussed the situation in the GE 2008 Annual Report:

NBC UNIVERSAL earned about $3 billion last year. It’s likely to be down in 2009, as we expect the network environment to be particularly tough. But cable, more than 60% of our earnings, is going to continue to be a source of strength, building on its ratings success in 2008. Our movie business has already invested in new films for next year, which will also support DVD sales. Our strengths are good content, a strong cable focus, and international distribution. Jeff Zucker and his team have done a great job in repositioning NBC Universal to win in the rapidly changing media landscape.

If basically you are a broadcast network viewer, you should be aware that GE's CEO essentially dismissed its broadcast TV subsidiary NBC and embraced cable. NBCU cable channels include, among others, Bravo, Universal HD, Chiller, CNBC, MSNBC, Syfy (formerly SciFi), Telemundo, Sleuth, and USA. NBCU is 25% owner of the A&E television networks which includes, among others, the cable channels A&E, History Channel, and the Biography Channel.

You need to be aware that NBCU owns a strong, competitive general programming cable network - USA. It's had great success with scripted shows. Recent original scripted shows have included: The 4400, Burn Notice, The Dead Zone, In Plain Sight, Monk, Psych, The Starter Wife. Some of these shows, indicated in red, were/are produced wholly or in part by an NBCU subsidiary.

NBCU's apparent business model is "balanced vertical integration" meaning it has some control over it's products from the raw materials to delivery to the customer.¹ (Technically, cable and satellite TV companies "retail" the USA and Syfy channels to the public. But, in fact, those channels directly sell the product to advertisers and to the cable companies. They then fund their own marketing to attract and retain viewers.)

So will the broadcast arm of NBCU - NBC - really become only or mostly news, sports, and televaudeville as I predicted in November 2007?

Consider what NBC is doing. They have dedicated the 10:00 pm slot to a new Jay Leno show. Co-chairman of NBC Entertainment and Universal Media Studios Ben Silverman says it will be far more of a comedy show than The Tonight Show. Mike Pilot, president of ad sales for NBC has indicated that the new show will offer more opportunities for live commercials.

Having abandoned the traditional "upfront" ad sales system, NBC will hold an “in front,” apparently on May 4, when it will simply announce its fall prime time lineup two weeks before the other networks’ upfronts. According to reports, NBC will hold a comedy showcase on May 19, in the middle of upfront week and on the same day of ABC’s upfront presentation. The event will feature Jay Leno with comedy performers from NBC, including Conan O’Brien and Jimmy Fallon. It will be invitation only for advertisers and executives from NBC affiliated stations.

Theoretically, NBC has 14 hours of Sunday through Friday prime time left to fill this fall (17 hours if you count Saturday, but who does?). After it became apparent that under Ben Silverman tenure as head of programming the network's ratings crashed, in January 2009 Zucker brought in Angela Bromstad to be NBC's chief programmer of dramas and comedies. She is the one who moved Kings to Sunday and bought to make room for Southland. According to a Los Angeles Times article about Bromstad returning:

Kings which costs about $3 million an episode to produce, had been championed by Bromstad's predecessors. But Bromstad had doubts that a drama about a modern-day king who struggles with moral dilemmas and family conflicts would work on network television.

...Also on Bromstad's to-do list is the task of regaining the trust of Hollywood agents and producers who have been alienated by NBC's puzzling proclamations, such as when Silverman said he was "managing for margins," not chasing shows that would generate big ratings.

Returning to my 2007 premise, with Leno NBC has reallocated one-third of it's week day prime time (5 hours) to "televaudeville." And when a show like Kings tanks in the ratings, NBC hauls in Dateline, a news show, to fill the void. In fact, Dateline covers 4 hours of prime-time programming this week.

The only thing standing in the way of NBC stations becoming all news, sports, and televaudeville is Angela Bromstad. Bromstad has a tough job. GE's NBCU star net profit producing TV subsidiaries are the cable channels, not NBC. And GE likes net profit.

Which brings me to the remaining consideration, the local broadcast station. NBCU owns 10 local broadcast stations serving 26.6% of the "TV Homes" in the United States. Those stations serve the metropolitan areas of New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Dallas-Ft. Worth, San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose, Washington DC, Miami-Ft. Lauderdale, San Diego, and Hartford-New Haven. The more money these stations make, the more money NBCU makes.

It is likely that four issues will enter into the consideration for future programming decisions. First, how will programming proposals affect NBC's profit. Second, how will programming proposals affect the profit from those 10 broadcast stations. Third, how will programming proposals affect the public reputation of GE. Fourth, and last, how will programming proposals affect the welfare of the broadcast stations owned by others.

For instance, the preferences of viewers in Cedar Rapids and Dubuque, Iowa, representating 0.3% of TV Homes served by Quincy Newspapers-owned KWWL aren't likely to be considered in programming decisions.

And, in fact, the loyalty to the Quincy Newspaper folks will be very limited as even though they own six NBC affiliates in small markets, in those same markets they also own broadcast rights to at least one other network such as Fox and The CW. And in Wisconsin, they own five ABC affiliates.

Not in anyone's wildest dreams would the GE corporate structure cater to the Quincy Newspaper owners opinions instead of the NBC employee managed stations serving the New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Dallas-Ft. Worth, San Francisco Bay Area, Washington, DC, Miami-Ft. Lauderdale, San Diego, and Hartford/New Haven metropolitan areas.

Thus when the owner of the Boston NBC affiliate who owns the The CW affiliate in the same market and broadcast the new "This TV" network on a digital subchannel and who owns the Fox affiliate in Miami tried to rebel against the Leno commitment, NBC had virtually no qualms about threatening to pull its programming.

All future programming decisions are going to be determined mostly by what will earn the NBC owned stations in the large urban areas the most money consistent with what will earn NBC and it's production arms the most profit. Expensive scripted programming run at 10:00 pm returns poor profits for NBC and its owned stations. A Leno televaudeville show will be relatively cheap to produce, attract sufficient national advertising revenue direct to NBC, and attract high priced local advertising to the NBC-owned stations serving 26.6% of the "TV Homes" in the United States.

In raw numbers, the NBC stations will broadcast 4 fewer hours of scripted programming a week which represents a 40%+ drop over a year. In terms of the five principle national networks, it represents a 10%+ drop. Whether Leno will affect the ratings for ABC and CBS programming in those slots remains to be seen.

But if, as I suspect, it does produce greater profits for GE, that ad supported NBC channel you watch now may degenerate into only news, sports, and televaudeville. Those of us who prefer scripted programming will be forced to have more DVR's recording cable channel programming.

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    ¹Consider the USA show In Plain Sight. It's production company is Universal Media Studios. It's season one DVD is from Universal Studios Home Entertainment. Then we come to Hulu.com, NBCU's major web presence shared with News Corp. The new season of In Plain Sight starts next Sunday. If you need to catch up a bit, you can watch the last five episodes of season one at Hulu or the USA web site.
     Vertical integration isn't always the case. USA's popular show Burn Notice is produced by Fox Television Studios, a News Corp. subsidiary. In fact, if you poke around the web a bit you'll discover that some cross-pollination occurs between NBCU and News Corp. For instance, one of the production companies for the Fox Network's hit show House is an NBCU subsidiary. And you can watch the last five episodes on line at Hulu, the News Corp and NBCU owned web site.

NBCU and the new Sifee Channel

For a moment, pretend you're a bit of a science nerd. How would you go about sounding out a word that begins with "sy"? Hmm. Well, "system" or "symbiotic" or "synchronous" comes immediately to mind.

Then let's consider sounding out words that end with "fy". This is actually a bit harder, but if we check a rhyming dictionary "iffy" or "jiffy" or "spiffy" immediately come up.

So how will we pronounce the word "syfy"? That's right, "sif-ee", which is the new name the genius team at the SciFi Channel chose to be the new name of their channel.

SciFi is, of course, shortmouth for science fiction. From Wikipedia:

Science fiction (abbreviated SF or sci-fi with varying punctuation and capitalization) is a broad genre of fiction that often involves speculations based on current or future science or technology.....

Science fiction differs from fantasy in that, within the context of the story, its imaginary elements are largely possible within scientifically established or scientifically postulated laws of nature (though some elements in a story might still be pure imaginative speculation)....

If you're a fan of science fiction and of the SciFi Channel, you know that the programmers and other powers-that-be at that NBCU operation do not limit the programming to science fiction. They include a broad range of fantasy, occult, and related material. They even offer wrestling. Yep, that's right, wrestling.

So perhaps a less genre-restrictive name might be appropriate. But this is what they came up with:

Apparently they want to be known as the Sifee Channel.

NBCU also owns the Chiller Channel which is a a horror-genre cable channel. It also owns Sleuth, the cable channel dedicated to programming in the mystery/crime genre. It also owns USA, the cable channel that is the home to the World Wrestling Federation's flagship cable TV show WWE Raw. But USA is also the home for the popular crime/mystery dramas Monk, Psych, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, In Plain Sight and Burn Notice, as well as two fairly popular science fiction shows The 4400 and The Dead Zone. Which raises the question: "What's NBCU doing with it's cable brands and where does he Sifee Channel fit in?"

Consider the explantions that came with the new Sifee name announcement:

"We love being sci fi, and we're still embracing that," said network president Dave Howe on Friday. "But we're more than just space and aliens and the future -- the three things most people think of when they think of 'sci fi.' "

"We're going to have upwards of 50 Sci Fi Channels in various territories and yet you cannot trademark 'Sci Fi' anywhere in the world," Howe said. "A new logo design would not solve that particular challenge. We needed a brand name that was own-able, portable and extendable."

"The channel has been around for 16 years, and the world has changed in 16 years," Howe said. "Everybody had to watch as a linear channel, you didn't have downloading and you didn't have international channels around the globe."

That all made sense, more or less. But then we got this:

"Our core audience will use it an opportunity to question our motives -- they always do," Howe said. "But what we're embracing is the total sci-fi landscape -- fantasy, paranormal, action-adventure, mystery ... it's imagination-based entertainment."

So the Sifee Channel is going to offer "action-adventure" and "mystery" programming, along with wrestling. Now I'm truly confused.

This is all occurring in the context of the NBC broadcast network being #4 (or even #5) in ratings.

Yet, irony of ironies, market analysts are now giving glowing reviews to G.E. for not selling NBCU. From the NY Times:

Just last year, it seemed a good idea to many on Wall Street that General Electric spin off, or otherwise dispose of, NBC Universal.

Today, if G.E. were not in the media business, it would be in deeper trouble than it already is. Essentially, it would be more dependent on its troublemaking finance unit, GE Capital.

I guess that's true, if viewer opinions and ratings really don't matter or bode ill for NBCU. But I just can't figure out the management strategy for the cable channels, particularly for the Sifee Channel. It looks to me like someone needs to get organized.

Battlestar Galactica- The Best of American TV

Battlestar Galactica is the best completed series ever shown on American TV. And Friday night's 131 minute finale was befitting.

In the simplest sense, I liked the Mash ending and this one because both demonstrated "life went on" which is always a boring thought. The 1950's I actually lived through, in the case of Mash. In the case of Battlestar Galactica, pre-150,000 B.C. now seems almost plausible.

The whole series is an allegorical tale heavily into mythology (and/or religion depending on your point of view) within the framework of a highly technological society.

The "reality" created by the ending was on "our" Earth in the approximate year 150,000 B.C. Given the limits of what we know in genetics, it offered that mankind has a common ancestor who was "half-machine" and "half-evolved human". It offered an evolving concept of hope, that each time "we" do it over again, there's a chance we'll get it right this time. And it reminded us that we are here again because the passion for vengeance is the "evil" that limits possibilities, even for machines we create "in our image" which is what we are doing now, both for domestic chores and for war.

Series creator Ron Moore did use plot devices to wrap things up. Some fams are disappointed that he didn't explain everything. But he promised only that all would be revealed. There is a certain paradoxical situation that so many expected an explanation when the offer was to reveal - revelation is not explanation. In the context of an allegorical tale full of religion, it seems so perfect. We have a tale biblical in scope (old testament), with moral lessons explained in an illusive manner, something akin to parable using metaphors.

And he did it all within the confines of the early 21st Century American TV medium using the combination of two late 20th Century TV constructs - "action adventure" and "soap opera".

Using the TV medium, no team has as been as successful accomplishing this as the Battlestar Galactica team. And no broadcast network would have let them offer such things as humans worshiping "gods" while machines believe in the "one true god" or even the regular use of the invented euphemistic "frak" term. So I have to recognize level of support by NBCU's SciFi Channel.

My greatest fear is that we'll never see this kind of TV again. ABC's Lost might end up joining Battlestar Galactica as quality allegorical TV science fiction if the creators can thread their way through the complexities of theories of time. And I'm recording NBC's Kings because it has this type of potential but it's so limited by the constraints of being on NBC. If NBC pick's it up for a second season, we'll watch it as a season shifted show.

Give Time Warner Cable a Medal

Time Warner Cable's refusal to even consider Viacom's proposed 25%± increase in carriage fees is an action deserving of commendation and a medal. If Viacom wants to demonstrate how much these channels are worth, unpackage them, set a price for each, have TWC add on it’s costs and a modest profit, and agree to an optional carry contract based upon some drop number like less than 10% of cable customers in a service area. Give the same contract to all carriers, cable and satellite. We’ll see if anything but Nick, MTV, and Comedy Central can survive. (And maybe not all of those.)

Most certainly the time has come to let me subscribe to Comedy Central and dump the rest of those. If I really want to watch "Spongebob", I’ll go to the Nick web site where I can also play games. In fact, if I could get Dish Network to dump Viacom right now, I'd watch Comedy Central shows on the web.

Viacom, of course, is one of those greedy media conglomerates that's telling SAG this isn't the time for seeking more money.

The SAG saga: the ending has been written on the wall

The reports of the Monday night SAG discussion indicates the kiss of death for the militant's strike vote proposal. This article from The Hollywood Reporter gives a very good feel for the depth of conflict within SAG. Here's a short bit from the long article:

"The contentious and at times bitter meeting capped a roller-coaster four days for SAG, in which opposition to the guild leadership's call for strike authorization has crystallized."

Perhaps what's most disturbing is that many of the well-known millionaire "actors" leading the opposition have resumés filled with "producer" credits. None of these people are facing their elder years supported by income from being a Walmart greeter.

The question is: How can a new bargaining committee get more than $46 a year for new media "rerun" views as opposed to what they get from network and syndicated reruns and from DVD sales? And if they don't get more, can "day performers" survive?

Right now we see younger familiar faces with no name recognition doing bit parts within the "CSI" and "Law & Order" families of shows. Reruns on the various cable channels give them some income to keep them going.

If in the future, rerun views shift to the internet derived from source sites such the GE and News Corp. owned Hulu, that $46-per-year typical residual won't be much of a long-term income plan even when combined with waiting tables. If nothing else, those rerun residuals created a "ownership society" cushion during the wrenching mid-life career change away from acting.

It's difficult to understand why GE and News Corp. don't understand the risks of reducing the incentive for younger actors. Do they have in mind a return to a "contract-class" of studio-owned actors like in the mid-1930's through the early 1950's? Or do they have no idea what they're doing just like the major financial institutions? GE in particular focuses entirely on next quarter's profit increases and dumps any subsidiary that fails to meet the goals. The problem is the subsidiaries aren't allowed much room to invest profits into planning for the long term.

Now probably isn't the time for an actors strike, because GE and News Corp. would be happy to let them be on strike during the time ad revenue plunges in 2009. Reduced production costs would mean better quarterly net revenues.

Had SAG and WGA coordinated an approach to shutting down production in a single strike beginning on April 1, 2008, they might have achieved their objectives within 60 days. Now the economy is in the tank, a shocked WGA is in a legal wrangle with the conglomerates over the post-2007 new media residuals clause in their contract, and SAG is tied up in a bitter internecine power struggle.

Welcome to WalMart folks.

A Note to Jeff Zucker about the Leno thing

Jeff, I know you’re President and CEO of NBC Universal. So I expect it to be difficult to see the same big picture you see in your head for the NBC broadcast network. While I do understand your efforts to diversify NBCU, I can’t seem to get your view of the prime time TV schedule.

Here’s what I see for the upcoming Winter Season 8-10 pm Monday prime time. Fox with “House” plus “24" and CBS with it’s comedy lineup will own a significant chunk of the audience for scripted programming. ABC will grab off the reality audience chunk with 90 minute “The Bachelor” followed by the popular “Samantha Who”. The younger crowd (along with many of us younger at heart) will be watching either The CW’s “Gossip Girl” and “One Tree Hill” or ABC Family’s “Secret Life of the American Teenager” and “Kyle XY”. And the crime procedural fans will reject that 10 hours of programming to watch TNT’s “The Closer”, slated to return in January in the 9-10 pm slot.

You see, Jeff, to me, it makes no sense that you would allow the new Leno talk variety show to block NBC from putting any scripted shows in from 10-11 pm. After all, compared to the competition outlined above from 8-10 pm, why would you not want to try a scripted show against CBS “CSI: Miami”, ABC “True Beauty” and TNT “Trust Me.” Why would you keep NBC’s scripted shows where they can’t possibly get any ratings - the 8-10 pm slots.

How about Tuesday 8-10 pm, Jeff? Fox, of course, has that little cult show called “American Idol” which will be followed by “Fringe”. CBS has those time slot almost thrown away with sweeps winners “NCIS” and “The Mentalist” And ABC is practically giving up with their new “Homeland Security USA” docucopsoap and that worthless show you cancelled, “Scrubs”. And The CW is always a pushover with such fluff as “90210" and “Privileged” (the latter to be replaced by “Reaper” in March).

I guess it make sense to you that the new Leno talk variety show would block NBC from putting any scripted shows in from 10-11 pm. What? Someone told you that no one would want to try a scripted show against CBS “Without a Trace” and ABC’s struggling/cancelled “Eli Stone”. After all, you would also be facing TNT’s “Leverage” and FX “Nip/Tuck” which apparently might pull in 8 million viewers? Otherwise, why would you schedule Leno there instead of a good scripted show.

The rest of the week 8-10 pm is, of course, similarly structured with your competition scheduling what you must think are their weak shows. Yep, you wouldn’t want to schedule something other than Leno against those Thursday 10 pm heavyweights like “Private Practice” and “Eleventh Hour”, when you can put your scripted shows against “Grey’s Anatomy” and “CSI”. And you can put one of your scripted shows not only against them Thursday, but also against “Burn Notice” which is on some cable network - USA, ever heard of it? NBCU owns it. Why would you have Leno on at 10 pm so you have no choice but to screw two of your properties, NBC and USA.

I know, I know. Advertisers are already cheering you, so you’ll be a hero at GE for a couple of more quarters. The ad buyers think Leno is more DVR proof. They, of course, don’t know that in our home we DVR both Leno and Letterman every night, to be watched the following day skipping all those (and I mean “all” those) commercials and the many segments of show we don’t want to watch. The ad buyers must think we’re not representative of the future of television. Unlike us, they think other people are getting DVR’s just so they can watch Leno’s commercials live and the repeat them a few times. Have you sold the 9 pm Sunday slot to these same morons?

In December 2007 I wrote here: “Yes, that ad supported NBC channel you watch now may degenerate into only news, sports, and televaudeville.” But Jeff, I really didn’t think you would actually try to do that.

Then again, you probably realize it doesn’t matter. You probably know the schedule for January already contains 60 hours a week of scripted programming in prime time without NBC. And half of it is good, without NBC.

I could get along without NBC. But I have a fondness for the network that dates back to the 1950's when my uncle was a producer for NBC programming. And I have a focus on scripted programming. So don’t let the GE corporate view completely destroy NBC as a source of scripted programming.

Is Alan Rosenberg America’s Last Norma Rae?

Hollywood produces drama. But the geographic Hollywood may become the stage for a showdown representing the end to an old dynamic that balanced the interests of workers against the power of huge corporations.

From an historical standpoint, it's going to be a riveting drama. But from the standpoint of a long-time (56 years) American TV viewer who loves scripted TV, it's depressing. It is the logical real world outcome of shifts in organizational theory, the collapse of the international labor movement, and the simultaneous rise of the international corporate economy in the last half of the 20th Century. Within that larger framework, a scenario has evolved with its tensions and real characters.

The protagonist is Screen Actors Guild (SAG) President Alan Rosenberg. He's had years of significant roles in TV and movies. He's been a political militant all his life. During the 'radical' 60s, Rosenberg became a member of the Black Panthers and was an active protestor of the Vietnam War. He's from a show business family and is married to actress Marg Helgenberger.

Rosenberg may be an anachronism within the current American labor climate in that he strongly believes labor should get a larger piece of the pie than it has over the last three decades and it is worth a major sacrifice to get it.

Flashback - Rosenberg describes to the crowd the crux of the drama’s conflict from his perspective: “Fair play doesn't pertain in bargaining. What matters there is leverage. Here (pointing to the crowd) is the leverage. Our leverage is that we're the product. We took a bad deal for cable 25 years ago. We took a horrible deal for VHS 20 years ago. We won't be fooled again.”

While most of SAG’s 120,000 members are probably sympathetic to the idea they've been screwed for 30 years, most also are typical of Americans - up to their ears in debt and not willing to sacrifice their cars and homes for principles. My guess is that Rosenberg and Helgenberger were not one of those couples whose lifestyle is in serious financial jeopardy because of last year’s writers strike. The dramatic dilemma for Rosenberg is that he has no real leverage unless he can get a “strike vote” from 75% of the SAG membership.

Our drama has two principal antagonists. The first is Jeff Zucker. In 2005 Zucker was promoted to Chief Executive Officer of NBC Universal Television Group behind Bob Wright, vice chairman of General Electric and chairman & CEO of NBC Universal. On February 6, 2007, to the position of president & CEO of NBC Universal (NBCU), replacing Wright.

Zucker is the perfect historical antagonist to Rosenberg. He is the son of a cardiologist, was captain of his high school tennis team, a Harvard graduate who majored in history and was President of the Harvard Crimson, who was hired by NBC in 1988 to research material for its coverage of the 1988 Seoul Olympics. From there he became the Executive Producer of the Today Show at age 26 and has continued to rise in the NBCU organization.

In contrast to the relatively small SAG organization, NBCU is a subsidiary of General Electric Company (GE), the world’s third largest multinational conglomerate considered by many to be the most successful conglomerate. Despite the recent economic collapse, on October 10, 2008 Zucker’s boss, GE Chairman and CEO Jeff Immelt, reported that third quarter revenues from continuing operations were $47.2 billion, up 11%. “Our infrastructure and media businesses continued to see signs of strength,” Immelt explained. “NBC Universal grew segment profit 10%, its eighth straight quarter of growth.”

GE’s financial subsidiary, GE Capital, did report problems related to the general economy. But there is no real need for the American taxpayer to worry about this subsidiary of the world’s third largest conglomerate. On November 12, 2008, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation approved GE Capital as an eligible entity under the FDIC's Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program, under which the FDIC guarantees GE Capital's senior unsecured debt.

Yes, Zucker, as the outwardly congenial “company man” fronting for an impersonal international conglomerate, is the perfect antagonist to Rosenberg. Early this year, Zucker addressed the perennial question about whether General Electric was thinking about selling NBC. "As things have improved with NBC Universal and NBC prime time, those questions have subsided. It's all about performance. If we perform, the question goes away. If we don't perform, they should sell us."

But there is a second antagonist. Rupert Murdoch is described as an Australian-American global media mogul. He is the major shareholder, chairman and managing director of News Corporation (News Corp) which owns all the various Fox media brands. Murdoch's father was a powerful Australian newspaper proprietor and his mother the daughter of a wealthy Irish family. After attending Oxford, Murdoch became managing director of News Limited in 1953. From those not very humble beginnings, Murdoch built News Corp, a holding company which is the world's largest media conglomerate. According to the 2008 Forbes 400, Murdoch is the 109th-richest person in the world, with a net worth of $8.3 billion.

If one might doubt that Rosenberg family struggled much financially during the writers strike, one might be tempted to think Murdoch didn’t know the strike was going on. One would be wrong because, unlike Zucker, for Murdoch everything that affects his business empire is very personal. And very much like Rosenberg, Murdoch understands that everything he does is political.

The nature of the battle between the media congloms versus organized labor during the past 18 months is clear. Much like the financial institutions that recently collapsed, the congloms don’t care about the public, the workers, or the shareholders. The attitudes of management reflect an ego oriented self-assured manipulative aggression. And they are good at it as they control significant elements of the flow of information around the world.

The Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers (AMPTP) representing Zucker and Murdoch clearly had a plan to crush the creative guilds built around all the flaws the membership of the guilds themselves created.

Unlike the AMPTP which is made up of the dominating conglomerates plus others, the guilds are made up of squabbling creative egos. The struggles within the WGA and SAG make them look like the Italian Parliament, unable to suppress “healthy” dissent long enough to create a healthy being. To get the two guilds to work in unison against AMPTP would be, at best, a daydream for a serious labor organizer.

So, AMPTP was given many gifts by the workers. To begin with, the labor contracts didn’t all expire at the same time. So the WGA contract expired October 31, 2007. Talks began on July 13, 2007 with AMPTP making the following ultimatum as reported by Variety :

"As for the proposals, the AMPTP beat the guild by several hours in disclosing its official demands. The companies told WGA members they have two choices:

"1. Maintain the status quo via a three-year contract that provides for a study centered on revamping compensation in order to figure out how to pay writers from revenues from the plethora of new-media platforms. Agreeing to the study would keep the current residuals system in place with increases in salary minimums to be negotiated.

"2. If there's no study on revamping compensation, the companies will play hardball and demand a four-year deal that will institute a recoupment-based residuals system -- meaning that writers receive residuals only after companies have made back their basic costs of development, production and marketing."

In other words, the proposal from the congloms was “you agree to give us the content you create over the next three years and we will study how to compensate you for our use of it.” And at no point in time prior to the beginning of the strike November 3, 2007 did the congloms improve that offer.

As I wrote in December, it was obvious that AMPTP was bargaining in bad faith in order to force the WGA to strike which created a de facto lockout of other workers including SAG members.

Among those locked out were directors who, though directors are clearly middle management, belong to a guild of their own - the Directors Guild of America (DGA). The AMPTP intended to use locking out its middle management personnel in the DGA to manipulate the course of events. Naturally, the AMPTP was very successful. By the middle of December, the DGA announced it was going to negotiate with AMPTP on its contract which wasn’t due to expire until June 2008.

And indeed, after “highly productive” informal talks, the DGA and AMPTP met January 12, 2008, and wrapped up a deal six days later. It didn’t take much for middle-management and management to agree on a deal.

This ramped up the pressure on the WGA. And there already was pressure. WGA members were complaining. Craft and Teamsters union members were hostile. The public was hostile. Even within SAG which was facing its own contract expiration in June, actors were divided. So much for a united front from labor. The congloms had won.

Or had they?

Sure, a WGA contract “modeled” on the DGA contract came soon after January. But Alan Rosenberg refused to accept this model, despite it being embraced by SAG’s competitor AFTRA. He just waited right up through, and well beyond, the expiration of the existing contract in June, explaining it was a bad contract for creative workers.

Even after his own membership elected new Board members to get things moving, he held his ground. And the new Board members, not wishing to be seen as totally incompetent, gave him more time by asking for federal mediation.

Just one day before the first mediated meeting between AMPTP and SAG, WGA members finally figured out they were screwed in the new contract. From Variety:

"In a move echoing the bitter disputes surrounding the 100-day WGA strike, the Writers Guild of America West has accused the conglomerates of failing to comply with the guild's 8-month-old contract.

"The move elicited a sharp denial by the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers, which asserted that the WGA has misinterpreted the terms of the deal that ended the strike by wrongly asserting that it covers projects prior to start of the agreement.

"The WGA announced Wednesday that it has filed for arbitration over alleged nonpayment of new-media residuals for programs sold as electronic downloads, also known as electronic sell-through (EST). WGA West board member John Bowman, who headed the guild's negotiating committee, said the contract with the companies on electronic sell-through covers feature films produced after July 1, 1971, and TV programs produced after 1977.

"'The companies have reneged on this agreement and are taking the position that only programs produced after Feb. 13, 2008, are covered by the new provision,' he added. 'This may be their deal with the DGA, but that was never our agreement. Every proposal we made during negotiations made clear our position that library product was covered, and the AMPTP never objected to that position. The guild will not allow this to stand.'

"The AMPTP shot back that the WGA is mistaken about how the new-media residuals apply."

And so the mediated talks between an unbending AMPTP and SAG failed when Rosenberg presented this news of bad faith bargaining by AMPTP. And Rosenberg can now ask SAG members to consider authorizing a strike.

Zucker, Murdoch, and their fellow conglomerate CEO’s are willing to bet Rosenberg can’t persuade 75% of the SAG voting membership to approve a strike. If they are right, they will have effectively broken organized labor in the media industry. If they are wrong, the next question will be: "Will the congloms risk a strike?"

Maybe Rosenberg can pull off a “Norma Rae” win saving what little bit of influence labor has in this country. It will be a true “Hollywood drama” with consequences for the rest of us. Sure, the potential consequences include disrupting our TV. But the consequences potentially include American labor giving up on more than a century of workers seeking a fair and equitable share of the American dream.

I rooted for a fictional "Norma Rae" and now I'm rooting in real life for Alan Rosenberg. And I'll donate to a strike fund for all the affected media workers if it comes to that.

Actors' Strike: Yes or No, How Would You Vote?

One has to give Screen Actors Guild (SAG) President Alan Rosenberg credit for a certain "put one foot in front of the other" tenaciousness. In fact, his march forward in the face of internal partisan challenges within his own union and from the rest of the union movement and tough external opposition is not dissimilar to the Obama campaign. Just keep explaining until your constituency “gets it.”

In a fortuitous confluence of events, Thursday Rosenberg was able to bring to the bargaining table a copy of a Writers Guild of America (WGA) request for arbitration about the very subject Rosenberg has been arguing. The WGA just now discovered they screwed up (again) when eight months ago they signed an agreement with the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers (AMPTP) following the Directors Guild of America settlement. As Rosenberg kept pointing out, the DGA/WGA contract provisions for new media residuals were flawed.

It’s easy to understand what’s happening. If you buy on a DVD a movie released prior to February 13, 2008, the screen writers get paid pursuant to the 2008 contract. If you buy the same movie as a download, the screen writers do not get paid. Apparently, this is the formula that applies to the director (and to the actors under the AFTRA contract), and it’s the formula AMPTP wants SAG to accept.

New media issues are where Rosenberg drew a line in the sand and started his long march towards a strike vote.

It is not complicated at all. If a pre-2008 movie or television show owned by General Electric Corporation (all the NBC Universal related studios) or News Corp (all the Fox related studios) in 2010 is being purchased mostly as an on line download, the corporation gets the money that historically would go to writers, directors, and actors. It’s a big and unjustified win for GE and News Corp.

In one news report we see the following:

“WGA West board member John Bowman, who headed the guild's negotiating committee, said the contract with the companies on electronic sell-through covers feature films produced after July 1, 1971, and TV programs produced after 1977.

"’The companies have reneged on this agreement and are taking the position that only programs produced after Feb. 13, 2008, are covered by the new provision,’ he added. ‘This may be their deal with the DGA, but that was never our agreement. Every proposal we made during negotiations made clear our position that library product was covered, and the AMPTP never objected to that position. The guild will not allow this to stand.’"

It has been hard to understand the overall situation as an industry outsider. I try to understand it based upon my experience with the media conglomerates as a buyer of electronic music media. So far, in our household we’ve been screwed out of the licenses for about 150 tracks of music during the period the conglomerates showed total disregard for the rights of their paying music customers. In the end, of course, they lost and unlicensed mp3 downloads are the norm. It was hard for them to sue the thousands and thousands customers who told them that their contract (license) sucked and proceeded to share music. But I’m still out about 150 licenses I paid for and certainly Sony doesn’t care.

Unfortunately, those who actually create the art, be it in music or movies or TV shows, are not in a position to protect their financial interest except through contracts with the conglomerates. And the last time, the writers and actors felt they got screwed in their contract provisions for DVD revenue.

This time around the writers, who went out on strike trying to protect their interests, were again screwed by AMPTP. But they were also screwed by their fellow workers and themselves. I guess that is because some members of these “guilds” don’t like to think of themselves as belonging to a union, so the writers and apparently a lot of actors don’t get the fact that the directors are not workers, they’re middle management who have a whole different set of interests and frequently do not depend on “union scale” set in the guild contract.

When, in the middle of the writers strike, the DGA started negotiations early and settled on a contract, the DGA - “middle management” - essentially sold out the creative workers and caused unprecedented pressure on the WGA to settle.

The rank and file of the Hollywood union movement failed to back the writers. After being out of work for several months and under pressure from some GE subsidiary for payments on debt, they wanted the writers to settle with GE so GE could make a lot more money on the backs of the workers.

While SAG members did walk around on sidewalks with picket signs supporting the writers, many still continued to work finishing movies and episodes of TV shows that had already been written. Yep, real solidarity there.

And there was really little Rosenberg could do as his own members owed money to GE Capital and they weren’t about to risk anything more than they absolutely had too. No “workers of the world unite” spirit there.

Now, of course, we’ll see what happens. This WGA dispute reminds one of the United Auto Workers situation in Detroit. It’s older writers and actors whose income depends on the residuals for films and TV series released before 2008. Just like it’s the UAW retirees who are frequently characterized as the burden on the U.S. auto industry.

If we could just dump these stupid unions and euthanize everyone over 55, our country wouldn’t be a drag on the international corporations. And the rest of us could watch movies and TV in total happiness.

Gee Rosenberg, as the writers struggled last year, the directors “got it”, the Teamsters and other trade union members “got it”, and finally the writers “got it” along with the AFTRA actors. Why don’t you “get it”? Even the majority of SAG members want to be reduced to WalMart class compensation. Or do they? We’ll see.

The rest of you. How would you vote regarding a strike authorization?

The K-Mart of Television Signal Providers

A recent lengthy commentary in The Hollywood Reporter is perpetuating an impression created by financial analysts regarding Dish Network, the satellite TV signal provider.

It doesn't delve into the problems created by the EchoStar Communications Corporation split this year, or even indicate an awareness of the balance sheet differences between November 2007 EchoStar Communications Corporation and November 2008 Dish Network, differences which are like night and day.

It does identify a truth that should dominate the rest of the analysis of the company. It's "Charlie Ergen's company."

When Charlie was a 30-something, he started EchoStar. When Charlie was 40-something he got EchoStar DBS going.

Charlie will be 56 in March. The now "Old Charlie" still may be a tenacious techie dreamer. Probably he has a really good idea for that 700MHz spectrum Dish Network is on the hook for. But finding what amounts to startup money in 2009 to do anything with that spectrum isn't going to be improbable, it's going to be all but impossible. And I believe Charlie's heart is with the new Echostar, the one that owns Slingbox and makes the ViP receiver/recorder boxes. That Charlie isn't the logical 21st Century mentor of the new Dish Network.

The new Dish Network is a retail service operation. Like WalMart, it demands clever marketing while renegotiating contracts with its suppliers, the various media companies and local channel owners. But that's also where the WalMart analogy completely breaks down. Acquiring those television signals can't be outsourced to producers in third world countries so Dish's prices can be kept low and still maintain a meaningful profit margin. The analogy to WalMart is flawed.

DirecTV and the new Dish Network compete against established cable and telecom companies that offer at least three products: (1) television signals, (2) internet connections, and (3) telephone service.

All these television signal providers are now selling insert advertising. On the other hand, Dish Network's sibling EchoStar designs and sells boxes designed to skip advertising while Dish Network needs to get a cash flow stream going from those ads.

DirecTV has already hedged it's hardware bets by repartnering with TiVo which is run by a former NBC executive and is already working to help advertisers get through to commercial skipping viewers (see this article). DirecTV has a cousin's relationship with media producers and has already put it's toe in the media production market. And in 2007-2008 it committed huge sums to the only real product it has to sell - TV signals - and huge sums to market to new customers during the runup to a major change in it's product from analog SD TV to digital HD TV.

Yes, EchoStar Communications Corporation offered HD early, developing really cool hardware and offering pioneering HD signals from HDNet and VOOM, much like a 20-something techie fiddling in the garage, definitely not like a 50-something marketing veteran laying out a 5-year plan for dominating a market. Then, just as it started losing the HD retail market advantage, EchoStar Communications Corporation split itself in two in what appeared for all intents and purposes to be a maneuver by Charlie to sell it's retail service component, Dish Network, and keep the garage, Echostar. That didn't work because nobody bought Dish Network before the economic meltdown.

In fact today Dish Network superficially looks like the WalMart of television signal providers. But the analysts' analogy is wrong. Dish Network has no real control of the cost of it's product and most certainly has no control over the content in its product. The advantage has gone to its competitor who recognized the truth about its mature product - TV channels. What appeared to be a somewhat expensive contract for a "cable" channel signal was, in fact, all DirecTV had to market. To DirecTV it wasn't foolishly signing too expensive contracts for signals, it was investing in the future, it fit into a logical market plan. Charlie is still holding out for bargain basement prices.

In the meantime, 50-something-Charlie's Echostar decided to make cool DVR boxes for OTA television viewers. These viewers, so far in the 40 years of "cable" channel existence, have had no need for "cable" channels and, apparently, wouldn't spend the money on a TiVo. And irony of ironies, Charlie has Dish Network dealing with the retail problems of these boxes which likely will alienate many who will ultimately switch to a signal provider, most likely an uncomplicated one which would either be cable or telecom company.

The only good advice in that article is this: "So, revisit Dish shares next year. Your Wal-Mart shares have served you better in 2008; those are down only a few bucks in the past six months and up year-to-date."

Yes, let's see what the new Dish Network without the new EchoStar looks like next November. Maybe Old Charlie really does have his finger on the door-to-door retail television signal service market.

Heck, I'm already "invested" heavily just as a customer of this company I think is analogous to the 1999 K-Mart. I'm eagerly awaiting its February "Blue Light Specials" (annual package and pricing changes) and wondering if it will ultimately need its "Sears Holding."

Rita does rock!

Under normal circumstances, I'm reluctant to recommend 30-minute sitcoms because people's sense of humor differ significantly. But "Rita Rocks" which started last week on Lifetime is a pretty good new family sitcom - some clever lines and good actors. Like all sitcoms at the start, it's a little bit uneven but it is well done.

Lifetime is repeating all six previous episodes next week. If you like family comedy, give it a try. I think you'll like it.

The plot summary: A woman who is nearing 40 works in a "Bed, Bath and Beyond" type of store starts a garage band with her neighbor, her mail carrier, and her teenage daughter's boyfriend, while her husband picks up some of the chores.

The adult regulars in the cast are familiar faces, including:

Rita (the lead character) - Nicole Sullivan (The King of Queens, Kim Possible, many others)

Patty (the mail carrier) - Tisha Campbell-Martin (My Wife and Kids, many others)

Jay (the husband) - Richard Ruccolo (you'll recognize him)

Owen (the unemployed neighbor) - Ian Gomez (Drew Carey, Jake in Progress, many others)

I too am a Seeker

A two hour premier of the new series "Legend of the Seeker" will occur Saturday. Reviews have been...ah...mixed? But it is the pilot and we all know pilots today have to be crammed with everything. Typical are these comments from Variety:

"The producing team of Sam Raimi and Robert Tapert enjoyed considerable success a few years back with "Hercules" and "Xena,"....

"...There's nothing howlingly bad here (except perhaps for a few of the supporting performances), but nothing particularly distinctive, either. Rather, "Legend of the Seeker" feels like a hodgepodge of better sci-fi/fantasy fare, including slow-motion action sequences that looked way-cool in "300" and this time around merely feel like a cheap way of ensuring nobody gets clipped by an errant sword.

"Disney is producing and distributing the 22-episode order, which in light of the show's youth-oriented qualities could easily have played on one of the studio's cable platforms. Thus exploring the wilds of firstrun syndication is probably the most daring aspect of "Seeker's" familiar quest."

But I'm a great deal less jaded than many reviewers and feel more like these comments in TV Squad:

"Wow, "syndicated adventure series." Whatever happened to all of those cheesy syndicated adventure shows that used to dot the television landscape?...There aren't too many of them anymore, replaced by reality, home improvement, court shows, and talk shows, or not replaced at all.

"...It sounds silly and over the top and Legend of the Seeker is a horrible title (unless you're making a kids video game or a follow-up to the self-help book The Secret), but this could actually be a lot of fun...."

Personally, I like traditional fantasy over reality TV which is not only fantasy but frequently a depressing attempt to provide escapist entertainment. I prefer evil wizards to Donald Trump.

Because it's syndicated, it is offered on an independent or affiliated channel in each area of the country, though not in all DMA's. And, of course, it may not be available from your local channel in HD. But do not despair as it is offered nationally on WGN starting at 5 pm EDT (also see schedules for KTLA and WPIX). It will be repeated on Sunday.

The show has an official web site where you can put in your Zip Code to find out which local channel it is on. There is also a 10-minute preview video that was presented earlier this month on a 30-minute special hosted by Lucy Lawless (apparently the special is available from iTunes). An unofficial web site is also up and running.

The Hilarious Video on The Absurdity of the Digital Conversion

A truly hilarious video from "Talkshow with Spike Fereston" is making the rounds on the internet.

You need to watch the video before any of this post makes sense. With that said, here it goes folks.

The video demonstrates how truly stupid the February 2009 digital "cutoff" is, a government mandated technological change that will have the most negative effect on the most vulnerable - mostly poor and dependent people.

There is no logical reason not to continue analog TV broadcasts for another five years while people discover that another choice for broadcast TV has been developing and actually represents something desirable. The cutoff is a move by the covetous, enabled by a bunch of mostly old men in Congress several years ago who either (1) really don't care much about what happens in the day-to-day lives of mostly poor and dependent people or (2) are just too dumb to see the big picture.

The video clearly presents the absurdity of the policy. Yeah, there are phone numbers in addition to web sites, and government coupons that are confusing and don't cover help with installation, and boxes that may or may not work in your location. None of that resolves the fundamental flaws in the policy.

Many are going to be surprised. No one took their "land lines" away from them before they began to appreciate the value of the cell phone, and most still have land lines. Before this video, I never saw anything in the new, spiffy media that truly addressed the impact of this change.

Unfortunately, some have gotten hung up because the video using humor portrays the difficulty affecting a member of the population that will have the most members struggling - old people, people my age.

Some have taken offense that the character is portrayed as an "elderly, almost senile woman." Senile. The term is applied to older people and it means a deterioration, an illness, which as we age we all fear more or less.

In fact, a better term has entered the lexicon more recently to describe what is depicted in the video: "clueless", which means "Lacking understanding or knowledge." (Dictionary.com). The problem is "clueless" behavior at any age resembles to some degree "senility." It's just that old people get tagged with "senility" when they are just "clueless", which is ageism and is as disturbing as overt racism, sexism, etc.

In this case, an older person was used because a greater percentage of people over 60 are "technologically challenged" than in other age groups. Don't let your internal "politically correct" alarm stand in the way of understanding the basic message of the video. The person portrayed in the video is not senile, just clueless, and it has nothing to do with ageism.

The February 2009 analog TV cutoff will affect people of all ages most of whom are among the least able to cope with the change and who are most dependent on broadcast TV. And this humorous video brings that truth out of the closet.

A Weirdly Misplaced Quality Show - Easy Money

Newly misplaced. One TV show. Surprisingly mature plot, clever writing, with solid direction and acting, Last seen in the vicinity of The CW on Sunday, lost in the noise. If found, call HBO or AMC. Answers to the name of Easy Money.

Easy Money is a show that is as well produced and as offbeat HBO's Big Love, AMC's Mad Men, and Fx's The Riches. The only problem is that it debuted in October on Sunday at 9:00 pm on, get this, The CW.

Media Rights Capital (MRC) bought The CW's fall Sunday night prime time. At 7:00 pm they scheduled In Harms Way, a reality series from Dirtiest Jobs' Craig Piligian that features people with dangerous jobs in places like subway tunnels, avalanches, and hurricanes. Not being a reality TV fan, I can't tell you anything about this show. At 8:00 pm they offer Valentine Inc., a truly vacuous show about the Valentine family, a group of Greek gods living in today's Southern California attempting to keep their true identities secret as they do whatever it takes to bring soulmates together, including hiring a romance novel writer who is supposed to help them.

But at 9:00 pm is this incredibly misplaced quality show about a family that runs "Prestige Payday Loans", one of those strip mall check cashing storefronts, and making a fine living at it. The Buffkin's matriarch is Bobette, played by Laurie Metcalf. Morgan Buffkin, her son played by Jeff Hephner (The OC), helps keep the business and family together. The only problem is he's morally troubled by the nature of the business and he inadvertently discovers he may not be her biological son nor sibling to brother Cooper played by Jay R. Ferguson or sister Brandy played by Katie Lowes. You'll recognize the rest of cast as all top actors, also.

Supposedly MRC is committed to 13 episodes of Easy Money (and Valentine, Inc.). However, they have put the shows on 4- to 6-week hiatus supposed to give the writers time to catch up on scripts.

In fact, MRC should find a couple more reality shows to fill the time slots which were in the past, and are today, total losers for The CW. They should dump Valentine, Inc., and shop Easy Money around to the cable channels. Easy Money should have been on HBO. It's that good!

Eleventh Hour v Life on Mars - Brit Adaptations Skirmish

Two shows from British television premiered against each other Thursday night - Eleventh Hour and Life on Mars. We weren't impressed with Life on Mars in our household but more on that later.

Eleventh Hour, on the other hand, was better than the Brit version.

The surprise was how much better we liked Rufus Sewell as Dr. Jacob Hood than we did Patrick Stewart and how ok we were with Marley Shelton in the Rachel Young part played in the Brit version by Ashley Jensen (Christina in Ugly Betty).

Sewell really made the Hood part his own with greater force of personality than Stewart.

We hadn't expected the American version pilot to be the same plot as the Brit first episode. The two scripts had the same basic plot outline. The Brit version from Granada Television ran 90 minutes on ITV which did give more time to develop the plot and characters.

But apparently some kind of "artistic differences" at the producer level caused plot changes in subsequent episodes and the Brit version only had four episodes. I hope we will have four seasons and fully realize the show's potential.

Then there's Life on Mars. We watched the English show on BBCA. I loved it, my wife was ambivalent about it. We both did not like the American pilot. The show in this episode was just too much like the Brit version. Whatever else, there were significant cultural differences between 1973 England and 1973 America.

Harvey Keitel was fine (what else?). Jason O'Mara is an actor we like, but and O'Mara is playing Sam too much like John Simm did.

And Gretchen Mol just looks too 21st Century. Liz White in the English version looked and "felt" like a slightly above average young English woman in 1973 struggling to find a place in law enforcement. Mol looks like a 2008 hottie dressed up for a Halloween Party as a 1973 NYPD police woman.

And here we go again with post 90's American TV pilots squeezing it all in to grab every viewer. In the British version it took a few episodes before Sam even chats with Annie about his secret and his thoughts on what it means. They had no need to develop a male-female intimacy in the first hour because they weren't going to cancel the show if the female 18-39 demo wasn't impressed.

So in the American version we have the new guy, lost, confused and uneasy, just tell some woman in the station: "Hey, I think either I've traveled back in time, this is all a dream, or I'm nuts. Now take me home then let's go solve crimes with our guns and stuff." But hey, she has a degree in psychology. Yeah, maybe, if her degree was in parapsychology, maybe.

The premise of the show isn't bad - how does a 2008 top investigator used to all the 21st Century rules and csi gadgets and criminal databases function in a 1973 police environment? Opportunities for tension and struggle abound.

We will try a few more episodes. But I have my doubts.

Life

One show carried over from the disaster of last year is extremely well written, has stimulating characters played by strong actors, and is directed with great care. Unfortunately it's on NBC.

The show is Life. Yes, on the surface it's just another police procedural. But it also has a backstory that drives a subplot that is actually moving towards early resolution, not something to keep up ad nauseum as in so many shows.

They did change a supporting character this year and it's a good change.

The show was "given a chance" by NBC airing new episodes on Monday night the past two weeks as well as on its regular time of 10 pm Friday.

I'm hoping that they scheduled it on Friday because it's a less expensive show to produce. And because of that, they might consider shifting it to USA where characters are welcome? Life has some great characters.

ESPN and The Secret Life of an American Teenager

It's official now, because the Nielsen's confirm it. Broadcast TV and cable channels are competing equally for the same prime-time audience. And the Monday night competition clearly presents the picture. But before I deal with this Fall's Monday lineup, let me offer this "startling" fact that recently came to light.

The Tuesday mid-season finale of ABC Family’s "The Secret Life of an American Teenager" beat every show aired by ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC and the CW among 18-34 women and 12-34 year old women, and this includes the second week of The CW's "90210". In fact, it beat "90210" by double and triple digit percentages. "Secret Life" was watched by 4.5 million total viewers, "90210" by 3.2 million. Of course, Fox's premier of "Fringe" drew 9 million viewers. But "The Secret Life of an American Teenager" wasn't even on most media experts radar late last spring.

I wanted to know which among the hot industry media covered will be 2008's biggest TV industry news story, "The Secret Life of an American Teenager"? A Google News archive search turns up not one story before June. A search on Fox's "Fringe" turned up about 195 stories. (I probably didn't do the search right.)

Take it from this old guy, "The Secret Life of an American Teenager" is a good show particularly considering its target audience. It has strong character development, talented actors, effective direction, and is topical - the central character is a pregnant teen in a middle-class home. Look out broadcast TV, because it'll be back in January.

Now about Monday night....

This past Monday in the 8 pm time slot, the second-season premiere of "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" drew 6.3 million viewers, NBC's "Deal or No Deal" 9.6 million, the CW's "Gossip Girl" 3.1 million and so on. Oh but when the broadcast numbers were totaled, there were 12.5 million viewers missing. They were watching the Green Bay Packers-Minnesota Vikings game on ESPN. Yeah, that's right, cable's ESPN drew in the most viewers.

Here's the wrinkle as we approach the last week in September. As usual, and for reasons this writer cannot fathom, the broadcast networks have a huge investment in Monday night competition. At 8 pm we'll have to choose from Fox's "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles", NBC's "Chuck", ABC's "Dancing with the Stars", CBS's "The Big Bang Theory" and "How I Met Your Mother", The CW's "Gossip Girl", or we could and apparently will, watch ESPN's "Monday Night Football."

In the 10 pm slot, in addition to the ABC, CBS, and NBC fare, TNT has added to that mix Steven Bochco's "Raising the Bar" which drew 7.7 million viewers in its premier.

Of course, because the industry media, like the government, is still in 1958 instead of 2008, we still see dutifully reported the Nielsen's overnight's for broadcast TV as if it was a meaningful picture of what's going on. In fact, the declining broadcast TV viewership is part of a bigger picture which the industry needs to see.

For all intents and purposes, The CW's Tuesday lineup of "90210" and "Privileged" next week will be in competition with ABC Family's "Lincoln Heights" and "Greek", not with Fox's "House" and "Fringe".

And the Tuesday 10 pm lineup, CBS's "Without a Trace", ABC's "Eli Stone", and NBC's "Law & Order: SVU", isn't fairly reported without the numbers on FX's "The Shield".

In other words, the viewers have discovered that ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, and The CW are just five channels among 20+ meaningful nationwide programming choices, not the hundreds of local channels rapidly abandoning their last local obligation (and only viewer attraction), local news.