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?