NBC cuts: the end of US network TV?

By Jason Deans / Television 06:31pm

In today's announcement of 700 job cuts at NBC Universal comes a shattering admission from TV division chief exec Jeff Zucker: NBC will stop scheduling scripted comedy and drama 8pm-9pm, in favour of cheaper reality and gameshows.

So NBC thinks it is no longer commercially viable to run comedy and drama in its early primetime schedule - and this from the broadcaster that gave the world a string of 80s and 90s hits including The Cosby Show, Cheers, LA Law, Hill Street Blues, ER, The West Wing, Friends, Frasier and Seinfeld.

NBC is also cutting its news operations as part of plans to save $750m a year - and re-invest some of the money into digital media.

Is this the beginning of the end for the advertiser funded, US network TV business model?

Zucker told the Wall Street Journal advertising interest isn't high enough to justify spending on scripted shows in the first hour of primetime from 8pm so the network may play gameshow Deal or No Deal instead of a struggling drama such as Friday Night Lights.

Deal or No Deal costs about $1.1 million an episode, compared with the $2.6 million it takes to make Friday Night Lights, the Journal reported.

Now, NBC will still run drama and comedy in the remaining two hours of primetime each night, 9pm-11pm.

And these drastic measures have been forced on NBC after a disastrous couple of years, in which it has slipped from being the top rating US network to third place in the current season, behind CBS and ABC. NBC's ratings decline has cost the company $800 million in advertising income, according to Bloomberg.

To a certain extent NBC is a victim of its failure to find hit shows to replace the Seinfeld-Friends-Frasier generation that allowed it to dominate the US TV market in the 90s.

But even though CBS, with the CSIs, and ABC - with Lost, Desperate Housewives and Grey's Anatomy - are currently more commercially successful, US analysts believe the new ecomics of digital media mean they are likely to follow NBC's lead in cutting spending on news and scripted entertainment programming.

So is this a watershed moment - the final unravelling of the US network TV business model after 50 years or more?

The networks invested huge sums in comedy and drama each year, with the flops axed after a few episodes more than compensated for by the hits, which brought money pouring in from advertising, domestic syndication, international sales, and more recently video and DVD revenue.

At the apex of all this, NBC's Must See TV Thursday night comedy and drama line-up was a cultural fixture of 90s US broadcasting, kicking off for much of decade with Friends at 8pm and featuring shows such as Seinfeld, Frasier, Mad About You and ER.

Network audiences have been shrinking for 20 years or so, as the growth of cable TV channels such as HBO, Showtime and Discovery ate into their ratings. But even with annual audience shares for each of the main channels falling to around 10% in the last few years, network TV remained a profitable business.

Now, with the growth of broadband and digital rivals such as Google, Yahoo! and YouTube, it seems a tipping point has been reached.

This will have repercussions in the UK - for one thing, if the supply of US drama and comedy begins to dry up.

And for ITV. If NBC, for years the most successful player globally in the ad-funded network TV business, cannot make the sums add up anymore, how long before ITV's owners follow its lead and cut back on news and entertainment programming investment

Overall,

I think broadcast TV is dying because there are too many other options avaliable through digital cable and satalite dish You get so much more varity with those choices The only plus for the broadcast networks might be for people who can't afford cable or dish who are forced to rely on broadcast TV. But I think for such people, they may watch such a limited amount of TV as it is that they either don't know when a big one-time hit comes out or don't care.

For people with cable and dish options, the question is become more relivant as to why should they care about the broadcast networks anymore? Premium channels allow the viewer to see their movies uncut and commercial free, something that broadcast networks couldn't do because of advertising revenue loss. Video on Demand and DVD buying choices, along with optional cable and dish services like DVR's show that people who have the added channels are going to other avenues for their entertainment.

The MUST SEE TV for the networks are vested on the interests of big deal prime time events: such as sports playoffs and championships, or prime time specials with provocative adventurus interests with big money payouts or people doing "risky" or "stupid" things. But the straight laced series that so many grew up with in the 70's-90's doesn't seem to fit in with today's youthful impatient generation whom TV marketing executives like to target.

This is one of several reasons why commercial TV executives continue to lose their audiences to digital cable and dish TV.

Jack

It saddens me to think that NBC has no faith in thier programming that they would decide not to make sitcoms and dramas. Sure, they can be expensive, but IMO reality shows are a horrible alternative and game shows are a fad that has had a resurgence lately thanks to "Deal Or No Deal," but how long will that popularity last?

It looks like NBC doesn't want to spend money to make money. So I guess I can say good bye to "Studio 60," which costs about 3 million an episode.

Thank god that they put deal or no deal on cause if they didn't then they would still be like in 5th place in the raitings.

If NBC wants two save a few bucks, they should close down MSNBC.

They tried, it's not working.

I read another article though and they were talking about how 2 of the bigger hits this season were 8 O'Clock shows....Ugly Betty on ABC and Jericho on CBS. NBC just doesn't know how to launch script shows anymore and they'd rather just take the easy way out.

i say as much as i hate this idea of no comedy or drama at 8 lets let mr i hate good programing zucker try out this mornic idea because i really think if it fails and im positave that it will the big boss eill finally get it though his pea brain that zucker is a moron and we will finally get someboddy in there who knows what they are doing. i will feel bad for kevin reilly but he is a good programmer and will land at some other network where he will not be second guessed about every decison he tried very hard but its hard to get any work done when you have morons for bosses.

NBC just doesn't know how to launch script shows anymore and they'd rather just take the easy way out.

Exactly.

I read another article though and they were talking about how 2 of the bigger hits this season were 8 O'Clock shows....Ugly Betty on ABC and Jericho on CBS. NBC just doesn't know how to launch script shows anymore and they'd rather just take the easy way out.
Yeah...whoever greenlights their scripted programming doesn't know quality and what the public likes to see. Fire them first, then see what happens.

Jay Leno jokes about NBC in his monolog all the time. He said the other night that NBC is laying off 700 employees, which is more than the amount of their viewers, lol.

Jay Leno jokes about NBC in his monolog all the time. He said the other night that NBC is laying off 700 employees, which is more than the amount of their viewers, lol.
:lol: I think I remember that.

From the IMDb (http://www.imdb.com/news/sb/2006-10-20/#tv5):

Displaying a striking disagreement among NBC Universal's top executives, Kevin Reilly, the company's entertainment president, took issue Thursday with Jeff Zucker, the company's TV chief, over Zucker's remarks on Wednesday that the network plans to eliminate scripted shows during the 8:00 p.m. hour, replacing them with game and reality series. As reported by today's (Friday) Daily Variety, Reilly told a Beverly Hills luncheon Thursday, "You can't be exclusive with reality at 8:00. You have to be in the scripted business. It's not an absolute." Appearing to publicly overrule Zucker, Reilly said that the network plans to continue airing My Name is Earl and The Office during the 8:00 p.m. hour on Thursdays. Other analysts questioned the strategy further, suggesting that dumping low-cost shows into the 8:00 hour would affect ratings for the 9:00 hour. Only last May Zucker had said that he planned to concentrate on strengthening the 8:00 hour, calling it "the key driver" of the rest of the schedule. Meanwhile, today's New York Post, citing sources close to NBC, reported that "the relationship between [Zucker and NBC Universal Chairman Bob Wright] recently has been steeped in tension." The Post noted that Zucker recently passed on Ugly Betty, which has become a big hit on ABC -- at 8:00 p.m.

I think we will have to wait and see what NBC actually does because, obviously, the company has no idea.

From the IMDb (http://www.imdb.com/news/sb/2006-10-20/#tv5):



I think we will have to wait and see what NBC actually does because, obviously, the company has no idea.
Zucker is an idiot. He has completely destroyed NBC.

Zucker is an idiot. He has completely destroyed NBC.i agree .heres an idea why dont all the so members who agree with walking tall and myself pool our money hire a small airplane and put walking tall's statement in skywriting over 30 rock maybe then bob wright will get the message?.

i agree .heres an idea why dont all the so members who agree with walking tall and myself pool our money hire a small airplane and put walking tall's statement in skywriting over 30 rock maybe then bob wright will get the message?.
:lol:

lets be honest the quality of TV programming has suffered due to satellite tv TIVO etc, NBC use to have great shows such as Friends-Seinfeld etc. Zucker has ruined the network. they need to find the Quality programs that they had years back because Deal or No Deal aint one of them and oh yeah ER....played out.

From Broadcasting & Cable (http://broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6383721.html?display=Breaking+News):

So there will be no new scripted on at 8?

I don’t think I can say that, because there are certain timeslots where we will have to program a scripted show to counter a reality hit.So I can’t preclude that from happening.There may be shows at 8 that are smaller rated, but based on costs and loyal audiences and ancillaries may make it a very viable success, and that is one of the things we will look at in the future.

"Smaller rated?" Did he really say that?

Saturday Night Live's "Weekend Update" had an item about the NBC cuts and at the end of it, they said the name of their next game show would be Who Wants To Have A Roll Of Pennies?.:D

Saturday Night Live's "Weekend Update" had an item about the NBC cuts and at the end of it, they said the name of their next game show would be Who Wants To Have A Roll Of Pennies?.:Dthat was my fave update joke of last saturday's show it was funny but than again i wouldnt be surpised if jeff zucker didnt really think about putting a show like that on nbc

For people with cable and dish options, the question is become more relivant as to why should they care about the broadcast networks anymore? Premium channels allow the viewer to see their movies uncut and commercial free, something that broadcast networks couldn't do because of advertising revenue loss. Not only because of lost of ad revenue, but FCC regulations as well.

Tim Goodman
At 8 p.m., you won't find comedies or dramas on NBC
Tim Goodman

Monday, October 23, 2006



Thursday's announcement that NBC Universal was running around with a corporate machete in some psychotic act of cost-slashing, upper-management panic-attack nonsense had the distinct look of self-mutilation.

Having said many times that the TV industry is run on fear and cluelessness, it's always nice to have NBC confirm this so frequently. Thursday was no exception. Never mind the 700 -- or was it 7,000? -- layoffs that are planned. That's a business story. Never mind, even, the NBC News/MSNBC/CNBC mash-up that may soon take place, above and beyond office space consolidation.

You can take all your doomsday junkies who talk about the end of journalism and how bad that is for the world and put them in a sealed room. The point is not that NBC wants to kill the nightly news or even televised news as we know it. NBC, and parent company GE, want to make money, period. If they think they can make a dollar by having Keith Olbermann sit on Brian Williams' shoulders and do a post-Brokaw, dog-and-pony deconstruction of the day's news, they'll do it.

And, by the way, NBC is not alone in wanting news to make more money. Every network does. NBC just wrapped it up in a bunch of Web 2.0 nonsense it knows nothing about. (Maybe it will start hyping Williams' blog as a download on iTunes?)

No, the thing to take away from Thursday's unbelievably public display of cluelessness and paranoia is that GE wants more money -- and it wants the money now. That's a dog-bites-man story if there ever was one. But the fascinating little addendum to it was that NBC was going to dump scripted fare -- comedies and dramas -- from the 8 to 9 p.m. time slot, and use reality and game shows exclusively. This appears to be the idea of former NBC Entertainment President Jeff Zucker, who nearly drove the network into the ground when he was at the helm, though it also has the stamp of his boss, Bob Wright, who is nearly unrivaled in his inability to discern quality fare from, say, a cinder block.

This revolution of the 8 to 9 p.m. time slot is laughably wrongheaded and caused Kevin Reilly, who has Zucker's old job of entertainment president, to say the edict was not absolute. Reilly was at a Hollywood Radio and TV Society luncheon Thursday and was quoted in Variety as saying, "You can't be exclusive with reality at 8. You have to be in the scripted business. It's not an absolute." Translation: "My Name Is Earl" and "The Office" won't move from Thursday's lineup. (The irony there, of course, is that Zucker should be starring in "The Office," not Steve Carell).

One would think Reilly's remark should prompt a closed-door discussion. (Reilly, who's done a far better job as entertainment president than Zucker -- once he got out of the mess Zucker left him with -- is a respected programmer and should look immediately to free himself from the bad marriage he now finds himself in with NBC. Unless NBC fires Zucker, which seems unlikely because people who fail upward tend to have an angel of mercy near them, then Reilly ought to keep his head on a swivel.)

This notion of a reality/game show hour from 8 to 9 p.m. truly shows Zucker's lack of vision and programming acumen. Why blindly limit that hour to nonscripted fare? Sure, reality shows and game shows are cheaper to produce and cost GE less money. Hmmmm. Anyway, has anyone ever tried this in the history of network television? Has there ever been success with this formula? Why does every other network have a scripted hit in the 8 p.m. time slot? Do these questions even need to be asked?

Look, ABC is currently doing something similar. It has "Wife Swap" (Mondays, not a hit) and "Dancing With the Stars" (Tuesdays and Wednesdays, hits). ABC also uses "America's Funniest Home Videos" to kick off Sunday night (which starts at 7, not 8) with mixed results, followed by the hit "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" at 8. Results? Mixed. But it also has "Ugly Betty" on Thursdays at 8 p.m., which has turned out to be one of the biggest freshman hits of the season and was renewed for a full 22 episodes. If ABC Entertainment President Steve McPherson was hamstrung by the Zucker Rules, he'd be out of luck. And you can bet that if McPherson wants to try another scripted series at 8 p.m., he'll do it without worrying about parent company Disney's bottom line first.

It's hard to imagine that even Zucker believes a genre-specific block from 8 to 9 p.m. is a good idea. Maybe he doesn't. Maybe this is a world-class ass covering because Wright, his boss and the chief executive of NBC Universal, thinks the reality and game show idea is brilliant. Wright has proven his lack of programming knowledge relentlessly in the past, and he told USA Today on Thursday: "Tuesdays and Wednesdays, we're running the best-scripted programming on television, but the audience just isn't there for it."

Boy, that is rich. On Tuesday, NBC has the highly acclaimed, but dead-on-arrival drama "Friday Night Lights" at 8 p.m. The series has gone up against "House" on Fox, "NCIS" on CBS and "Dancing With the Stars" on ABC -- each of them bona fide hits. Perhaps that has something to do with it? You're right, Bob. The audience isn't there because they're watching those other shows, two of which are scripted. On Wednesday, Wright is simply out of his mind, because "30 Rock" and "Twenty Good Years" are both unfunny sitcoms, the latter being exceptionally and obviously not funny. Both of those series are being aggressively ignored by viewers, not because they're scripted, but because they're bad. In fact, CBS is running a freshman drama, "Jericho," opposite them and it was just picked up for a full season.

Maybe the problem at NBC isn't bad programming, it's bad management? Nah, couldn't be. At the very least, the network has had bad luck. "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" got a lot of hype but failed to launch. "Kidnapped" was one of the better serial dramas but got lost in the fall crush. You know what? That happens. Both of those series are/were exceptional. But in the end, the audience always decides. And the audience is fickle. It can not be fully understood. Many network programmers will tell you (in confidence, of course) that they don't know what will or won't work. Television is an inexact science, which is precisely why it's fear based and overrun with paranoia.

Nina Tassler, who's the entertainment president at currently robust CBS, told USA Today that NBC's ideas about the state of television are off base: "They're addressing corporate ills as industry trends, and that's just not the case."

So good luck to NBC in further beating "Deal or No Deal" to death. The only way this new philosophy for the 8 to 9 p.m. block is going to work is if the network gets four more reality or game show hits -- and fast. Of course, if developing hits and putting them in the right spot was so easy to do, Zucker would probably still be entertainment president

^ Good article. NBC has no idea what it is doing.

How NBC needs to deal with this

Mondays

8:00- Deal or No Deal
9:00- Heroes
10:00- Medium

Tuesdays

8:00- Dateline
9:00- Friday Night Lights./ New Drama
10:00- Law and Order: CI

Wednesdays

8:00- The Biggest Loser
9:00- 30 Rock
9:30- The Office
10:00- Studio 60/ New Drama

Thursdays

8:00- Deal or No Deal
9:00- My Name is Earl
9:30- New Comedy
10:00- ER

Fridays

8:00- 1 vs 100
9:00- Las Vegas
10:00- Law and Order

Sundays

7:00- Dateline
8:00- Americas Got Talent 2
9:00- Law and Order: CI
10:00- Crossing Jordan

WHAAAAAAAAAAT???

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

Jeff Zucker is a Chicken Shmuck! You know it's one things to come and ruin a once-proud network, but to take the chicken schmuck's way out, this will not do!!!

If someone can boot his pathetic excuse of a network exec out of the office, then perhaps NBC might be great again, but then again w/ the new wave of online media streaming, cable channles and the wave of garbage-pathetic-abysmal-worthless reality shows (that I won't name), looks like NBC will be gone just like UPN and the WB in another couple of years.

NBC needs to face the fact ABC is kicking their ass on Thursdays. They should move "Earl" and "The Office" back to Tuesday.

Example:
8:00- "My Name Is Earl"
8:30- "The Office"
9:00- new show
9:30- "30 Rock"
10:00- "Studio 60..."

NBC should bring back Three Wishes starring Amy Grant.