Commentary

Who's REALLY Looking For Big Broadcast Hits?

Short-form programming? Cable-like niche, or “dark” programming? Forget it -- at least at Fox Television Group, according to new  senior executives Dana Walden and Gary Newman.

"We're not looking to do smaller, dark programming,"  Newman tellsThe Hollywood Reporter.  "We're looking to have big, broad commercial hits." Fox hopes its upcoming drama about the music industry, “Empire” gets to that level.

Mind you, they aren’t the first TV executives with this plan. CBS has been following it successfully for years, and has been the number-one network in terms of prime-time viewers for a long time.

NBC recently decided to look in this direction as well. Think of “The Sound of Music." Family entertainment is also doing well at Hallmark, whose past holiday season was its best yet.

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Still the days of new TV comedies or drama sustaining 20 million-plus viewers will be hard to come by. “Big Bang” may get 20 million viewers a week. But what else? NFL? Even some of those high-flying football numbers have taken a dip.

Fox doesn’t want to go back to its former enior executive’s Kevin Reilly's affection for cable fare -- in particular those “dark” shows.  Still,  AMC’s “dark” “Walking Dead” is still the leader among 18-49 viewers -- for all of TV, cable and broadcast. Seems that’s the definition of being “broad” -- for some anyway.

Others would consider “The Sound of Music,” “Big Bang Theory” or “The Voice” as better examples of big commercial TV broadcast hits. Who wouldn’t want to make room for those shows?

1 comment about "Who's REALLY Looking For Big Broadcast Hits? ".
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  1. Leonard Zachary from T___n__, January 12, 2015 at 3:43 p.m.

    The decline in audience linear TV programming and the double digit growth of retransmission fees for that same content in a bundled payTV model do not add up.

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