I'm sure you've heard of ...
Question: I'm sure you've heard of NBC's decision to cancel their Upfront presentation. Instead, it's opting to reveal a 52-week lineup during a "spotlight event." OK, first of all, you can call it whatever you want, it is still an Upfront presentation. Second of all, didn't Fox fail miserably in its attempt to create a year-round schedule a few years back? I am sick of Jeff ("Couldn't-create-a-hit-in-10-years") Zucker and his minion, Ben Silverman. Both seem equally useless at their job. In the meantime, NBC continues to go down the tubes, in the ratings and in terms of creativity. I'm 25, yet I still remember the glory years of NBC. How about instead of adapting to the new way things are done, as Zucker continues to say, NBC spend some time worrying about creating respectable, creative shows? With crappy programming such as
American Gladiators and
My Dad Is Better Than Your Dad, NBC is not staying ahead of the curb but is instead being left far behind. Are you as tired of Zucker and Silverman as I am? Sorry for the rant.
Answer: Hey, why apologize? I think you may have a future as a media analyst. You're only echoing here what most of us were thinking when NBC was busy spinning its "52-week season" theory as if it were something new and game-changing. As you said, Fox has already been there and botched that — and, incidentally, network TV has been a year-round business for a while now. If I were to believe that NBC was going to launch its big guns during the summer (as opposed to another cycle of
America's Got Talent and other disposable filler), then maybe I'd take notice. But the changes are likely to be gradual and have more to do with the process of selling shows than the development and scheduling of programming. It's true, of course, that some archaic elements of pilot season, premiere week and sweeps months deserve to be shaken up. But I'm with the unnamed advertising source who was quoted in
Variety's story earlier this week, suggesting, "They're making a big deal out of this, and we don't really think it's a big deal. It seems to us like they're trying to save money rather than stake out a leadership position." Which, in a nutshell, pretty much says what I think about NBC's current regime, a group sadly lacking when it comes to that "vision" thing.
