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‘Cops’ Is Moving to Spike TV

May 6, 2013 by Leave a Comment

“Cops,” one of the original reality shows on television, is moving to cable after 24 years on network television.

Starting in September, new episodes of the show will be televised exclusively on Spike TV, the president of Spike, Kevin Kay, announced on Monday. Spike will also have the rights to some past episodes of the series.

The announcement came two days after “Cops” had its hourlong season finale on the Fox network, which introduced the series in 1989 and has carried it ever since. Fox signaled to the producers of “Cops” that it likely wouldn’t renew the show for another season, thereby giving it time to sell it elsewhere.

Mr. Kay of Spike told TV Guide that for several years he had been interested in picking up “Cops” and the opportunity arose this spring. “It’s the perfect show for Spike,” Mr. Kay said. “We want the fans to just shift over hopefully effortlessly.”

Spike said the episodes would be shown Saturdays at 8 p.m., as they have been on Fox for years. In a statement, the creator of “Cops,” John Langley, praised Spike for sticking with the time slot. He added, “It may be bold to say, but we are looking for yet another record-breaking run with Spike!”

“Cops” helped to distinguish Fox when it was a relatively new network in the late 1980s and early 1990s. But the network ordered fewer episodes of “Cops” this season, and it televised sporting events on many Saturdays instead. The network will continue to play up sports programming on Saturdays next season.

Fox similarly canceled the “America’s Most Wanted” in 2011, after pairing that show with “Cops” for over a decade. John Walsh, the host and producer of “America’s Most Wanted,” moved it to the Lifetime cable channel, but Lifetime cancelled it in March. Mr. Walsh is now said to be shopping the show, or a spin-off of it, to other channels.

Other series have moved to cable from broadcast with more success.

TBS, for instance, continues to televise “Cougar Town,” a sitcom that it picked up from ABC.

“Cops” is a logical fit for Spike, which has a number of other crime-oriented reality shows and has positioned itself as a channel for 18- to 49-year-old men. The channel, while relatively small, can repeat the episodes many more times than a network like Fox ever could.

It is expected to use “Cops” as an anchor on Saturday nights to introduce new shows in the time slot immediately after it.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/07/business/media/cops-is-moving-to-spike-tv.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Media Business Tagged With: , ,

Economix: The Old vs. the Young

May 3, 2013 by Leave a Comment

The Great Recession has been a disaster for the employment prospects of the young. Almost one in four teenagers looking for a job still can’t find one.

Americans 16 to 24 years old suffered the sharpest drop in employment between 2008 and 2010, and jobs for young workers have barely ticked up since then.

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, via Haver Analytics

Today, only 45 percent of young Americans in that age group have a job, almost 6 percentage points less than when the recession started in December 2007.

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, via Haver Analytics

The story is quite different at the other end of the life cycle. Eighteen percent of Americans of retirement age hold a job, some 2 percentage points more than when the recession started. The employment rate of these elderly workers is at its highest since May 1965 — before the enactment of Medicare. They are filling the largest share of jobs since 1956.

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, via Haver Analytics

So what’s going on? Older Americans may have a more pressing need for a job. The homes of many are probably still underwater. Though the stock market has recovered the ground lost during the downturn, interest rates remain near all-time lows — crimping the elderly’s income from savings.

And we should expect the employment rate of the elderly to continue rising. The structure of Social Security benefits is one of the most important determinants of employment among the elderly. And Social Security is getting stingier over time.

The age of full retirement rose by two months for many workers entering retirement at the beginning of the recession. It has remained constant since then, but is expected to start rising again for workers born in 1955 and after, who will reach full retirement age in a few years.

Over the long term, this might be a good thing for the economy, raising the nation’s sustainable growth rate — the growth manageable without inflation — above the 2.25 percent forecast by the Congressional Budget Office. But in the next few years, young workers would probably prefer older workers to retire.

Article source: http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/03/the-old-vs-the-young/?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Economy News Tagged With: , ,

You’re the Boss Blog: ‘I’d Be Happy to Share My Thoughts and Experiences as We Go Down’

December 13, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Staying Alive

The struggles of a business trying to survive.

On Dec. 10, 2009, I was sitting at my desk, reading this blog — I think it was a post by Jay Goltz. My business was not doing well. His was struggling, too, but clearly he wasn’t as close to the edge as I was. I sent the following e-mail to the editor of this blog:

Hey Loren,

Love the blog. Great crew. One thing I’ve noticed: you are missing a blogger whose business is in the process of going under — which, if statistics aren’t lying, is a significant percentage of your target readers. Maybe it’s too much of a bummer, maybe you just haven’t found a willing candidate. Well, I’m here and I’m qualified — I’ve been running a custom furniture manufacturing business for 24 years and this recession is slowly killing us. I’d be happy to share my thoughts and experiences as we go down (or not, there’s still some hope.) How about it?

Paul Downs

Two months later, long after I had forgotten about the e-mail, I received a reply:

Hi Paul,

Sorry for the (very) delayed response. I’m still struggling to catch up with the e-mail — as you can see. But thanks so much for your comments — and also for your intriguing idea. I hope your business is doing better, but if you’re still interested, I would be eager to hear more. What kinds of things would you want to write about?

Loren

I wrote back (in part):

Thanks for getting back to me — I didn’t think I’d hear from you. It’s not a fully fleshed-out idea right now, as the inherent problem is knowing whether we are really going to fail or whether we will pull out of the death spiral. I suppose one way to structure it would be to keep a diary and start telling the story only if the worst happens. Another would be to confess at the outset that we don’t know what’s going to happen, but here’s what’s happening today, and then proceed with posts. …

There are plenty of subjects for posts — here are some of the things I’ve been dealing with in the last two years:

Main Subject: Layoffs

– Do you tell the workers that trouble is brewing, or keep them in the dark in the last minute to keep them from jumping ship? (We went through this in the summer of ’08 when it seemed that jobs were still available). Effects of a keep-them-ignorant policy (which my partner insisted on) were very negative.
– The moment of truth, announcing layoffs, and the odd cheerfulness that everyone felt at finally knowing their fate.
– The day-after-layoff speech to the remaining workers.
– The second and third time around. Becoming hardened to the horror. How the survivors react.

Main Subject: Vendors Debtors

– Getting far, far behind on payments to vendors
– Negotiating a deal to get caught back up, and how that worked out.
– Lines of credit and credit cards — what happened when my partner took most of our cash and paid down our L.O.C. without my permission.
– How I finally got a handle on cash flow.

Main Subject: Customers

– We live and die by the sales cycle. What it consists of in our business.
– How do/should you mask your desperation to your clients?
– Negotiating prices when the alternative to a sale is a zero bank balance.

Main Subject: My Partner

– How hard times changed our relationship. How we act as our interests converge and diverge. Keeping it civil.

Main Subject: Plan B

– The forehead smack: What would I do/have done differently to avoid this situation?
– What’s next for me, and how to set it up?
– When will I know it’s time to pull the plug?
– What are the legal consequences of going out of business? How is it actually done? How long does it take? How much does it cost?

I’d give you some more right now but I have to get a little more work done today. Also, I have to be in New York at some point this week … right now it’s looking like Thursday morning. Want to get a cup of coffee?

Looking forward to hearing from you,

Paul Downs

So that’s how I started writing here. Over the last two years I’ve written about most of the subjects on my list, and a few more. One promise I haven’t kept, though, is to document the actual failure of my business. Fortunately, it has turned around and we are now doing better than ever. We’re about to turn a profit for the second year in a row, I’ve doubled my salary, and I’ll be handing out bonuses to my workers.

I’ve always disliked the emphasis on success that is pervasive in business journalism. It seems that every story has a happy ending, with the implication that failure is unusual, and probably the fault of the failee. Which is nonsense. Starting a business, particularly for the first time, is a leap into the unknown. Mistakes are inevitable and costly. And there are outside forces, beyond anyone’s control, that can be even more destructive. Putting a happy ending on every story paints a distorted picture of what it’s like to run a business. It plays down the unending struggle that owners go through to learn and grow. I have tried to write honestly about the things that I don’t understand, or haven’t done well, and I think it has been very valuable to me to do so. I hope readers have derived some benefit as well.

Now that my business is doing better, it’s tempting to crow a bit about the things that are going well. But I don’t want to bore anyone, and I don’t want this to end up as just another “I struggled, I suffered, and then I succeeded” story. So I’m going to throw out two questions:

1) Have you heard enough?
2) What subjects would you like me to write about?

Please keep in mind that I’m only qualified to write about my own experiences. I’m not a reporter, and I don’t want to be one. But if there’s some aspect of running a small factory that you would like to know more about, let’s hear it.

Paul Downs founded Paul Downs Cabinetmakers in 1986. It is based outside of Philadelphia.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=de605ab2cdab937ab18797475dad1f8c

Filed Under: Small Business Tagged With: , ,

You’re the Boss: The Comment That Changed My Business

June 14, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Staying Alive

Last week I wrote about what I’ve learned from blogging — including the useful feedback it has brought. Of all the comments I’ve received, one stands out because I followed the advice and it has made a large difference in our shop. It came from John, and it was left on a post called “I Know I’m Doing This Wrong.” Here’s John’s comment:

How about a short get-together on a regular basis. No one sits down. Everyone gets a couple of minutes to talk, ask questions, rant. The Boss, too. No personal attacks. That gives you a chance to share your problems or concerns. Perhaps opening of the day. Perhaps midmorning break, perhaps over lunch. Perhaps a combination.

When I say I followed the advice, what I mean is that I kind of followed some of the advice. John’s meeting sounded a little more confrontational than we would need, but I liked the idea of a short, regular meeting where anyone could speak.

In the first 24 years of our existence, we had never had regular meetings. If we got everyone together, it meant that there was some kind of trouble, most likely to be addressed with a harangue from the bosses. These sessions were, in my experience, a good way for management to blow off steam, but they rarely had a long-term effect.

John’s comment made me think about the nature of our shop communications. They were intermittent, inconsistent, and incoherent. We had no way of making sure that information passed to everyone. If people had good ideas, they either kept them to themselves, or they might pass them to one or two other people. We needed a way to coordinate our work, so that everyone knew the best way to do his own job and to make sure he wasn’t creating problems in subsequent steps. I also wanted to introduce the basic financial parameters to everyone. The employees had no knowledge of the financial side of the business. I wanted them to understand the connection between sales, what happened on the shop floor, and cash flow.

John’s comment prodded me to get something going. I decided that a once-a-week get together with a consistent agenda would be a good place to start. So we began meeting on Monday mornings at 9:00. I bring donuts for everyone. (Pavlovian conditioning.) Here’s what we talk about:

First, we review the sales from the previous week, and our backlog. I tell them whether we need overtime or not. I then cover cash flow (money in, money out, net for the week, and net year to date.) Next comes a cash flow forecast for the coming week and a discussion of any unusual spending (machine purchases, big credit card bills, etc.) We review our build and ship schedules. Then the floor is opened to anyone who wants to talk about any subject. We usually have one or two things to discuss, generally technical issues. Solutions get decided then and there, and everyone knows the final decision. The meeting lasts from 20 minutes to half an hour. Cabinet makers are not chatty people, so comments tend to be short and to the point.

The meeting has been a good thing to do. Having everyone on the same page with regard to technical and scheduling issues has been extremely useful. During our recent reviews, I asked everyone whether I should keep up with the financial information. They all wanted to continue with it. Several remarked that they had had no idea how much it cost to run the business. It’s been a huge relief to me to share the numbers. Now everyone has a good idea of what mistakes cost us and how their efforts to increase production contribute to our success.

Next: The Worst Comments

Paul Downs founded Paul Downs Cabinetmakers in 1986. It is based outside of Philadelphia.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=c6c8fc82fc2c97d9b38291f154ab9908

Filed Under: Small Business Tagged With: , ,

In Shift, Ads Try to Entice Over-55 Set

May 14, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Marketers like Kellogg’s, Skechers and 5-Hour Energy drink are broadening their focus to those 55 and up, who were largely ignored in most of their media plans until recently. During next week’s upfront announcements, the annual preview of the fall television season, network executives are planning to introduce shows created to have broad appeal, including to older viewers, and the ad dollars they represent.

This amounts to a reversal in thinking that took hold during the 1960s, when advertisers first started aiming for baby boomers, the largest segment of the United States population. But the reasons for the shift are not just demographic, they are economic.

As a result of the recent recession, unemployment rates for younger age groups have been far higher than those for older Americans. The most recent unemployment rate for those 20 to 24 years old is 14.2 percent; for those 25 to 34, it is 9.4 percent. The rate for people aged 55 to 64 is only 6.2 percent.

Financially, the disparity is similar. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, those people aged 45 to 54 and 55 to 64 had the highest median weekly earnings of any age segment in the United States: $844 and $860, respectively. Meanwhile, those 20 to 24 had weekly earnings of only $454. Those who are 25 to 34 earned $682.

Stephanie Pappas, a senior planner for BBDO NY, said there was now good reason for ad clients to seek the mature audience.

“In some ways, they are the ideal consumer. They have money, they consume loads of media, and they remain optimistic,” she said.

The bimonthly magazine for AARP has been pushing to attract new advertisers, according to Patricia Lippe Davis, the vice president for marketing for AARP media. Recently, products previously thought of as youthful — brands like Jeep and Shape-ups by Skechers — have advertised in AARP.

“The grandkids say I’m ‘really cool now’ but what they don’t know is I always was,” reads the text of the Jeep ad.

“We’ve seen an increase in advertisers targeting this booming demographic, many of whom are not the types of advertisers you’d expect to see in our media properties,” Ms. Davis wrote in an e-mail.

For decades, television has been the most determined proselytizer on behalf of the premium value of reaching consumers aged 18 to 49. In the 1960s, ABC found itself hopelessly uncompetitive with CBS and NBC in what was then the standard ratings measurement, total households. So the network adopted a strategy to appeal to younger viewers with programs like “Batman,” “Shindig,” and “Mod Squad.”

The idea caught on, and even as the boomer generation grew older, advertisers continued to court younger viewers — first on the theory that they had not yet established brand loyalty, then because they were harder to reach than mature viewers who watched far more television.

Since then, all advertising sales have been based on two main groups, those people aged 18 to 49, and those 25 to 54. Once viewers reached 55, they were considered all but valueless.

In the last decade, NBC has been a central force in pushing that view, as the home of youth-oriented hits like “Friends” and “The Office.” But Alan Wurtzel, the president of research for NBC Universal, initiated a study last year into a group he labeled “alpha boomers,” the leading edge of the baby boom generation, which is now turning 65.

For companies to avoid shifting advertising and marketing attention toward older Americans is “a big mistake,” he said. “You risk not only growth, but at some point you risk your brand.”

Mr. Wurtzel said that as NBC put together its lineup of potential new series for fall, he made the programmers in the company aware of the attractiveness of the 55-plus audience. He described it as “one of the things we look at when we look at pilots.”

The network has already ordered a new series, “Playboy,” set in the 1960s, and this week renewed the drama “Harry’s Law,” which stars Kathy Bates, who is 62.

Mature consumers also seem to be spending on categories not traditionally associated with older people. NBC’s study of those people 55 to 64 showed that they spent more than the average consumer on categories like home improvement, large appliances, casual dining and cosmetics.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=3cfebf814d3de45c13db35f71e156484

Filed Under: Business News Tagged With: , ,