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A Befuddling Game Show Slides, Despite ‘Synergies’

September 15, 2013 by

But it turns out that something was out of tune. When the “Quiz” had its premiere last Monday, NBC scored a 1.7 Nielsen rating with viewers between the ages of 18 to 49, the demographic valued most by the network’s advertisers. Instead of growing from episode to episode, as NBC encouraged the show to do by scheduling it for 10 nearly consecutive nights, the show caved in; a 1.5 rating on Tuesday shrank to a 1.3 on Wednesday, a 1.1 on Thursday, a 0.8 on Friday, and a 0.7 on Saturday.

Total viewership fell to 3 million on Saturday from 6.5 million for Monday’s debut. NBC wanted a national event; what it got instead was a national shrug.

Were the ratings a repudiation of Comcast’s much-promoted “symphony” approach to creating new entertainment franchises? Untold numbers of people throughout the broadcaster’s parent company, NBCUniversal, which is wholly owned by Comcast, had spread the word about the game show through special segments on “Today” and other newscasts, elaborate graphics on the bottom of the screen of other shows, Twitter messages and other tactics. NBC and other media companies have been trying these sorts of synergies for decades, but since Stephen B. Burke became the chief executive of NBCUniversal in 2011, he has made it a special priority, calling it “Project Symphony.”

Questions about what went wrong with “Quiz” simmered as the prime-time show took a previously scheduled one-day break for football on Sunday, but the view among some observers was that the game play, not the promotional efforts that accompanied it, had missed the mark.

“It all comes down to content,” said Brad Adgate, who studies ratings patterns for Horizon Media.

Similarly, when asked if NBC’s synergies had failed, John Tinker, who tracks Comcast and other media conglomerates for the Maxim Group, said he’d suggest “a more traditional problem: it’s not a great show.”

“Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” this was not, despite NBC’s dreams that it would be. The show took a beating from television critics as soon as it started, mainly for having an overly complex format. Entertainment Weekly called the premise “a little horrifying.” The Hollywood Reporter called it “confusing and boring.”

In short, contestants were supposed to answer questions correctly so they could keep answering questions, beat other contestants and win more money — but asterisks and exceptions abounded, testing even the most patient viewers. Several people called it “the most confusing game show ever” in exasperated Twitter messages to Ryan Seacrest, the show’s host. Some critics pounced on Mr. Seacrest, whose omnipresence can easily be exploited for jokes. From NBC’s point of view, though, Mr. Seacrest was one of the show’s saviors.

For his part, Mr. Telegdy, the network’s president of alternative and late-night programming, said on Sunday, “We would absolutely do it all over again, in terms of the scale, ambition and the risk it represented.”

While he displayed disappointment about the ratings slump, he noted that “Quiz” had lifted NBC above its normal ratings levels for early September, which can only be a good thing for a beleaguered network that is about to introduce several new dramas and comedies for the fall.

The three million viewers on Saturday, on what is usually a dormant night for network television, represented NBC’s best performance in the time slot since a rerun of “It’s a Wonderful Life” last December. Still, given the high expectations, the New York magazine ratings buff Joe Adalian was moved in a Twitter post to rename the show “Million Dollar Mistake” after several consecutive days of declines.

NBC would not say just how costly “Quiz” really is, but consider this: More than 500 people have been employed by the production in New York City. Barring a stunning turnaround — the show will resume in prime time on Monday and wrap up on Thursday — the network is unlikely to start citing it as a successful application of synergy. But it’s unlikely to back away from the “symphony” idea either.

“When we get all parts of the company working together, we’ve been astounded by how successful we can be,” Mr. Burke said at a Merrill Lynch conference. He didn’t mention the “Quiz,” but he said the NBC singing competition “The Voice” and the company’s wide-reaching coverage of the Summer Olympics had both benefited from cross-promotional efforts.

“Million Second Quiz” received a boost, too, if NBC’s research into awareness about the show is any indication. Awareness levels were abnormally high beforehand but, like an anticipated Hollywood blockbuster that goes bust, most of the people who heard about the show did not actually tune in. Many who did were not compelled to stay. And the show suffered an irritating setback on Night 1: so many viewers followed Mr. Seacrest’s instructions to play the game online that NBC’s servers were overwhelmed.

“By the end of the week, we had found our footing,” said one of several executives who, when granted anonymity to speak self-critically, suggested that “Quiz” might have benefited from a test episode ahead of time (something known in the TV industry as a pilot). If there is a silver lining for NBC, it might be on viewers’ smartphones: the network says 1.3 million people have installed and played a total of 23 million rounds on its “Quiz” app.

Mr. Adgate of Horizon Media said he would be watching again this week, though he doubted that the low ratings were a setback for NBC as a whole. “Not everything Comcast puts on symphony is going to work,” he said. “There are going to be misses along the way, and one week in, this appears to be one of them.”

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/16/business/media/a-befuddling-game-show-slides-despite-synergies.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

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Cable Channels Like Current and Ovation Feeling Heat

January 6, 2013 by Leave a Comment

The outlets in the second group, the independent channels, are feeling threatened these days. Some of the distributors they depend on — Time Warner Cable, DirecTV, Verizon FiOS — are talking about dropping underperforming channels from their lineups, or at least paying them less. Al Gore’s low-rated Current TV, for example, was at risk of being dropped when it decided to sell to Al Jazeera last week and was, in fact, dropped by Time Warner on New Year’s Day.

Distributors have talked for years about belt-tightening, but two things are different now: potential Web competitors are creeping up and programming costs are soaring, particularly for sports channels and broadcasters.

“We are having to take a very hard look at our lineup, not unlike a network that takes a hard look at its lineup when deciding what shows it will put on the air,” said Melinda Witmer, who oversees Time Warner Cable’s negotiations with channel owners. She predicted more changes in the future that would “enable us to buy the stuff that we’ve really got to have, and let go of stuff that’s not really moving the dial.”

In practice, independently owned channels are more imperiled than those owned by media conglomerates like the Walt Disney Company and Viacom. “Many lesser networks owned by the large content companies are tied to carriage of their more valuable services,” said Dan York, who oversees programming deals for DirecTV.

VH1 Classic and ESPNU aren’t going away anytime soon. But on New Year’s Day, Verizon FiOS withdrew Youtoo TV, a fledgling channel that features videos submitted by viewers, and Time Warner Cable dropped Ovation, which bills itself as an arts and culture channel. Ovation “is viewed by less than 1 percent of our customers on any given day,” the distributor said in December when it announced the change, adding, “They’ve had ample opportunity to improve the ratings and the content, and have failed to deliver.”

Even if obscure channels like Ovation receive only a nickel a month for every customer, those nickels still add up to tens of millions of dollars in costs incurred by distributors and, indirectly, their subscribers. Of the 10 distributors that together account for 90 percent of TV subscriptions in the United States, Time Warner Cable is taking the most aggressive public stance against low-rated channels like Ovation. Programming costs in general are “out of whack,” the distributor’s chief executive, Glenn Britt, told investors last month, citing a 30 percent increase in the subscriber fees paid to channel owners since 2008.

Mr. Britt has been outspoken about limiting price increases to retain customers who otherwise might eliminate cable. When Time Warner Cable warned that it might drop Current last month, it also singled out low-rated channels like Hallmark, IFC, Lifetime, NHL Network, the Style Network and WE tv.

But to date, none except for Current and Ovation have been dropped by Time Warner. And new channels continue to be given a chance: Time Warner Cable started to carry BBC World News and RLTV, formerly called Retirement Living TV, in the last few months. Some programmers say that’s proof that the distributors are just making empty gestures to Wall Street, talking tough about programming costs but not following through.

Chad Gutstein, the chief operating officer of Ovation, said he did not know why his channel was dropped, “but I do know this: What they say they’re doing, they’re clearly not doing.”

“They’re actually doing things to increase their programming cost growth, to drive those costs up for all the other distributors in the marketplace,” Mr. Gutstein said, by starting an expensive regional sports channel in Southern California, for instance.

But channels with exclusive sports rights are crucial, even though they may make profitable distributors feel impoverished. “Any given one may not have a huge amount of viewership relative to a national service, but if you lose that team, you’re losing subscribers,” said Ms. Witmer of Time Warner Cable.

Dave Shull, who oversees Dish Network’s programming deals, said that “with sports costs increasing so much, including the Time Warner products, I think everyone’s aware that they have to cut costs elsewhere to be able to afford those sports products.”

So what’s a tiny channel to do? Some analysts have suggested that low-rated cable channels should remake themselves as freely available channels on the Web, modeled after channels that YouTube is financing. YouTube channel owners make money from advertising but not subscriber fees.

Another model may entail Web subscriptions, something Glenn Beck pioneered with an online channel called TheBlaze. The owner of the Hallmark Channel recently started an online subscription service like Netflix for its library of Hallmark Hall of Fame movies. But at the same time, many online channels, TheBlaze included, are trying to squeeze onto cable and satellite systems, since the vast majority of video viewing still happens on the TV set, not the Web.

Over all, little has changed in the last few years: no major content player has gone “a la carte” and let subscribers choose only the channels they want to have and no one has started a virtual cable company on the Internet, despite efforts by Intel, Sony and other technology companies to do so. The television ecosystem, which at times has seemed close to its breaking point, has not broken. Both programmers and distributors have found it in their best interests to keep it intact.

Last week, for instance, the 11th-biggest distributor in the country, Suddenlink, was caught up in a fee fight with Fox Networks, the cable unit of the News Corporation. Suddenlink proposed that Fox could set prices for each of its channels, big ones like FX and tiny ones like Fox Soccer and Fuel, and then customers could choose to pay for only the ones they wanted.

Suddenlink publicized the offer, calling it “an attempt to respond to what our customers have said they wanted.” But Fox refused the offer. Four hours later, the companies said they had reached an agreement in principle to keep all the channels — and thus keep the system intact.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/07/business/media/cable-channels-like-current-and-ovation-feeling-heat.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

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Familiar TV Anchors Move On, Hoping to Profit on Their Own

June 8, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Television is undergoing a sea change this season as a dozen famous television anchors and celebrities — whose shows are watched by more than 40 million viewers every day — are leaving their longtime perches.

To name a few, on Friday, Jim Lehrer ended his daily duties on the “PBS NewsHour”; on Monday, Scott Pelley replaced Katie Couric on the “CBS Evening News”; on Wednesday, Meredith Vieira will leave the “Today” show on NBC; and later this month, her former colleague Keith Olbermann will start a new show on Current TV.

By now, viewers may barely recognize their favorite shows and channels.

It seems like the most tumultuous time on the small screen in a generation, but much of the tumult is off the screen, in business meetings about how the media industry is transforming.

Although some of those departing, like Mr. Lehrer and Regis Philbin, are leaving their shows because of a generational shift, others are moving on because they want a bigger financial stake in their own brands. Ms. Couric, Oprah Winfrey and Glenn Beck, among others, are taking equity stakes in themselves, separating from the media conglomerates that have profited mightily from their star power.

On Tuesday, Mr. Beck became the latest to take the leap, announcing his own Internet network for subscribers. The promise is that different ways of delivering content, like cable, syndication and the Web, will prove to be more lucrative for star anchors and hosts — still largely an unproven proposition.

As the media industry recovers from the recession, the search is on for the next big thing, and for equally big ratings. “The changes have been nothing less than seismic — so seismic, in fact, that the next generation needs to work even harder to try to put the pieces back together or get some semblance of an audience,” said Jonathan Wald, who produces Piers Morgan’s nightly program on CNN. Mr. Morgan replaced Larry King in January.

Just as the Internet is emboldening stars, it is emboldening media companies: Comcast, which announced its successful bid on Tuesday for eight more years of Olympic Games, intends to make more of the games available online, and Disney intends to turn its main Web site, Disney.com, into an online video destination not unlike Netflix or Hulu.

“We believe we have an opportunity to deliver content directly to consumers,” Bob Iger, the Disney chief executive, told investors last week.

Ms. Winfrey’s arrangement for her new cable channel, called OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network, may be an inspiration for others: her production company owns half of OWN, so if it is a success, Ms. Winfrey, 57, already a billionaire, could earn far more money than she did on an annual basis on “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” the 25-year-old broadcast talk show that ended last month.

All of these comings and goings, of course, hinge on consumers’ willingness to accept change and to follow their favorite hosts to new media homes. In an interview, Ms. Winfrey said she had smiled when she read a viewer’s comment on an Oprah.com message board that said her move from broadcast to cable created no problem “that my changing channels cannot fix.” But Ms. Winfrey acknowledged that finding OWN on the cable lineup has been a big problem for some people, and said she wished more people were watching.

Ms. Couric announced on Monday that she was creating a daytime talk show not unlike Ms. Winfrey’s for the fall of 2012. The fact that Ms. Couric, 54, owns the show with a partner made it an especially attractive proposition for her.

Similarly, Mr. Olbermann walked away from MSNBC in January for a job — and an equity stake — at Current, where he starts on June 20, and Mr. Beck will leave Fox News at the end of this month. Mr. Beck will wholly own his new online network, GBTV, which will charge $5 to $10 a month.

Robust broadband Internet access and connected devices like cellphones and laptops have the potential to let stars “break away from the traditional content-distribution ecosystem,” said Richard Greenfield, a media analyst with BTIG Capital.

Of course, people like Mr. Olbermann and Mr. Beck never would have become stars without that very ecosystem.

Sweeping changes in the media industry have made this an especially stressful time for talent. For some, there is a cautionary model in mind for the future: Johnny Carson, who rarely appeared in public after exiting “The Tonight Show” in 1992 and was said to be deeply unhappy. No stars this year seem to be taking that approach.

In the fall, for instance, Mr. Philbin, 79, is leaving his daytime talk show, “Live with Regis and Kelly,” after 28 years. “Time for the old guard to go!” Mr. Philbin said, laughing, in an interview last week.

But this does not mean he is retiring. In fact, Mr. Philbin went out of his way to say he was not. “I’m getting to the end of the line, and I thought, ‘Maybe I’d like to try to do something a little different,’ ” Mr. Philbin said, declining to disclose any details about his next show or shows.

It may be easy to leave a television show, but it is certainly hard to stay away from television. Mr. Philbin’s friend, Mr. King, has acknowledged that fact in interviews, saying that his instinct on big news nights is still to head into the studio. Mr. King is now hosting four hourlong specials for CNN each year.

For some, Tom Brokaw is the model. He stepped down from “NBC Nightly News” in 2004, but he produces and hosts documentaries, writes books and offers commentary on NBC. “I more than keep my hand in, and yet I’m not chained to a desk,” he wrote in an e-mail message on Tuesday night during an intermission from “Don Pasqual,” an opera performance at Holland Park in London.

Mr. Lehrer, 78, who had gradually reduced his role on the “News Hour” for two years before deciding to stop being a regular anchor, will continue to weigh in on editorial decisions, and will anchor on some Fridays.

Ms. Vieira, 57, who will be toasted by her co-hosts Wednesday morning, told “Today” viewers last month that “I’ve really had a great time, but time is one of those weird things — you can never get enough of it.” She said she wanted more time with her family.

Like Mr. King and Mr. Lehrer, Ms. Vieira will still have a part-time job: she is expected to meet this month with NBC News executives to talk about becoming a contributor to a prime time newsmagazine that NBC is creating.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=904fe39250b3ea2319dca113bb7efb24

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