March 29, 2024

Advertising: Sophomore Slump Afflicts Once-Promising TV ShowsDarren Michaels/Warner Brothers Television

Even with increased competition from cable television and online entertainment, networks could always count on new hits to be their strongest line of defense. And for decades the best thing about these new shows was that they continued to get stronger in their second season.

But in the television season about to end, some of the most popular new shows from a year ago have not built on their initial success — and in fact have wound up in premature decline.

The excitement that surrounded the introduction, in fall 2011, of comedies like “New Girl” on the Fox network, “Two Broke Girls” on CBS, and “Last Man Standing” on ABC, and the family-friendly drama “Once Upon a Time” on ABC, largely fizzled in season two, as their ratings fell.

That does not include the calamitous plunge for more marginal shows, like NBC’s “Smash,” which lost half its audience this year and was canceled last Friday.

“It’s something new for breakout hit shows to be down in their second year,” said Warren Littlefield, who put a generation of hits, including “Seinfeld” and “Friends,” on NBC when he led its entertainment division in the 1990s. “And yes, it’s alarming.”

Monday is the start of what is known as upfront week in New York, when the networks show off their new programming to advertisers. In the last few days, the networks announced the new shows they have ordered, and their message was unmistakable: We need new hits — a lot of them.

The four major networks will present a total of at least 41 new series next season, surely among the most to be introduced in one season. And they are not finished; other shows are expected to be announced within weeks.

Hit shows that gather momentum in their second seasons can create a cash cow that will produce revenue for years, even decades. Many shows that later emerged as cultural touchstones were helped by a jump in ratings in their second seasons, including “The X-Files,” “C.S.I.” and “The Simpsons.”

Not every new show last season faltered. The CBS drama “Person of Interest” grew, and ABC’s “Scandal” has caught fire this season. But most have skidded, for a variety of reasons.

Executives say one factor in the downturn for second-year shows has been the across-the-board ratings drop afflicting the industry. Every network is down in the category most closely watched by advertisers — viewers ages 18 through 49 — by margins ranging from 3 percent for CBS to 21 percent for Fox.

“Obviously, this has just been a terrible year for network television,” said Brad Adgate, the senior vice president for research at Horizon Media, a media buying company. “And it means this pilot season is the most important for the networks that I can remember.”

But there are other reasons. Anne Sweeney, the president of the Disney-ABC Television Group, pointed to changes in the content. “Each of those shows had different issues,” she said, referring to the slumping series. “Creative choices were made that impacted how viewers felt about them.”

Mr. Adgate said too much was asked of some of the new hits, such as counting on them to prop up whole nights. “In the case of ‘Two Broke Girls,’ I think CBS asked it to be a linchpin show,” he said. “It’s not a linchpin show yet, like ‘Big Bang Theory.’ ”

This season CBS moved “Two Broke Girls” to Mondays at 9 p.m., the so called tent-pole spot for that night. Even with delayed viewing counted, it is down almost a million viewers among the 18-to-49 group.

Mr. Adgate also cited the sweeping, often disruptive, issues network programmers face. “You have the competition from cable,” he said. “And now streaming video. And you have young people turning off their TVs. How can a show grow in that environment?”

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/13/business/media/sophomore-slump-afflicts-once-promising-tv-showsdarren-michaels-warner-brothers-television.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Media Decoder Blog: Fox Shelves ‘Ben and Kate’ on Tuesdays

The dismal year for new television comedies continued Wednesday with Fox pulling “Ben and Kate” — one of the few modestly praised new comedies of the year — from its schedule

The show, about a brother and sister living together with her young daughter, has posted weak ratings all season, but Fox executives said earlier this month that they would remain committed to it. That was before this week, when “Ben and Kate” attracted only 2.6 million viewers and a low 1.2 rating in the audience group Fox most seeks, viewers between the ages of 18 and 49.

Numbers for “New Girl,” Fox’s strongest comedy from last season, which has followed “Ben and Kate” on Tuesdays, have deteriorated all season; they hit a new low Tuesday with just a 2.1 rating in that 18-to-49 audience and only four million viewers.

Starting next week, “Ben and Kate” will be replaced on Tuesdays by repeats of “Raising Hope,” another Fox comedy that is struggling in the ratings. (It drew only four million viewers and a 1.7 rating in the 18-to-49 category this week). The night’s other Fox comedy, the new entry “The Mindy Project,” is also barely surviving. On Tuesday it reached just under three million viewers and scratched out only a 1.5 rating with the 18- to 49-year-old viewers.

Comedy on Tuesday appears to be nearing complete rejection: NBC’s two new series, “Go On” and “The New Normal,” both sank to new lows this week, even though Tuesday’s strongest network, CBS, was offering only repeats all night. Both new NBC comedies have had their ratings plunge since they were separated from the powerful lead-in of “The Voice.” Their once-secure status as shows set to survive the season could now be threatened.

Fox is promising to bring “Ben and Kate” back later in the season to finish its run of episodes, but its fate — cancellation — seems sealed.

Article source: http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/23/fox-shelves-ben-and-kate-on-tuesdays/?partner=rss&emc=rss

BBC to Cut 2,000 Jobs and Show More Reruns

Mark Thompson, the broadcaster’s director general, told his staff that the changes — which amount to cuts of about $1.03 billion a year, or a 20 percent reduction in spending over five years — would lead to a “smaller, radically reshaped BBC.”

He said that no television or radio stations would be closed down and that some money would be reinvested in new programming and services.

The BBC is financed mostly through a government-approved license fee, paid every year by every household in Britain that owns a television set. The fee brings in about $5.5 billion a year. In the early part of the century, spending increased annually, allowing the broadcaster to expand its services and introduce channels.

But after a series of embarrassing episodes, including the disclosure of the huge salaries paid to bureaucrats in the organization, the BBC was forced to curtail spending. Last year, confronted with a Conservative-led government skeptical of its financing model, the BBC agreed to freeze the license fee at its current rate of £145.60, or about $224, a year until 2017.

The steps amount to a 16 percent cut in income, the BBC says. It has also decided to redirect 4 percent of its spending. Among other things, Mr. Thompson said, it plans to invest more money in dramas and comedies for its flagship channel, BBC 1. Its second channel, BBC 2, will broadcast only reruns in the daytime.

Some of the employees whose jobs are being eliminated may be “retrained and redeployed,” Mr. Thompson said. In addition, 1,000 workers will be relocated from London to Salford, near Manchester, where the BBC has moved a portion of its operations.

Unions reacted with dismay, saying that the BBC would lose credibility and audiences if it continued to cut its services.

“They are destroying jobs and destroying the BBC,” said Gerry Morrissey, general secretary of Bectu, a union that represents technicians.

Mr. Thompson said that after years of budget cutting, the broadcaster had trimmed its spending as much as possible and could not sustain another freeze or decrease in the license fee.

“I don’t think we could do this again,” he said. “Another real-terms cut in the license fee would lead to a loss of services or potentially a diminution of quality, or both.”

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