Doesn’t the ad industry ever get weary of the BS they hear at the Upfronts and NewFronts every spring?
It’s true that most of the TV networks and Web sites
make their announcements of new shows with all good intentions -- even Yahoo, most likely.
Still, amid the turmoil making headlines once again about Yahoo -- most
notably, its ongoing struggle to make money and the allegations of profligate spending attributed to CEO Marissa Mayer -- it takes your breath away to think back to the company’s NewFront
presentation last April and consider everything that has not come to pass in the months since.
It was one of the biggest such events of the whole
Upfront/NewFront season, which stretched from late February to mid-May. Yahoo’s NewFront was held at Lincoln Center, in prestigious Avery Fisher Hall, on Monday evening, April 27. The line to
get in stretched from the Hall’s doors, across the Lincoln Center plaza all the way to 62nd Street.
advertisement
advertisement
The presentation seemed to pack the Hall -- capacity 2,738 seats. A techno-DJ provided music designed to pump up the crowd and/or burst the eardrums. A press release issued
that day said Yahoo announced “18 new series” at its “2015 Digital Content NewFront.”
Maybe they announced 18, but I can only
remember them announcing four, with two of them standing out as the shows Yahoo touted the most. Guess what: Neither show ever saw the light of day.
One was
a music competition show called “Ultimate DJ” from producer Simon Cowell, which was the reason why a DJ had so prominent a spot in the Hall that evening. This show was supposed to do for
club DJs what “American Idol” had done for pop music. Unfortunately for club DJs the world over, “Ultimate DJ” was abandoned a few months later.
The other “big show” Yahoo announced was called “The Pursuit,” a network-television-style sitcom that Yahoo boasted would be a modern-day “Friends.”
“The Pursuit” (as in: “the pursuit of happiness”) was supposed to be about a group of 20-somethings living in New York in the present day. “Friends” need never
worry about being overtaken by “The Pursuit.” This show -- so ballyhooed at the NewFront last April -- was abandoned also.
Three other shows were
highlighted at the Yahoo NewFront too -- “I Am Naomi,” described as a talk show hosted by fashion model Naomi Campbell; “Riding Shotgun with Michelle Rodriguez,” a car series
featuring Rodriguez, one of the stars of the “Fast and Furious” movies; and “Community,” the low-rated NBC sitcom that Yahoo picked up after NBC cancelled it.
The news that Yahoo had decided not to go ahead with “Ultimate DJ” and “The Pursuit” was widely reported last year. I searched for similar such
stories about “I Am Naomi” and “Riding Shotgun,” but found none, which leads me to believe they may not have been abandoned. However, I couldn’t find them on
Yahoo’s own Web site, so who knows?
As for “Community,” its sixth season ran on Yahoo from last March to June. It was a centerpiece of
Yahoo’s on-demand streaming service, Yahoo Screen, which Yahoo shut down earlier this month. “Community” won’t be back for a seventh season.
At Yahoo’s NewFront last April, the company’s new shows were announced principally by Kathy Savitt, chief marketing offer and head of media. She left the company last September.
She went to work for STX Entertainment.
What’s the point of this trip down NewFront Memory Lane? Just this: As Yahoo has no doubt discovered, getting
TV shows from the idea stage to actually airing them is not easy. Making announcements and promises about new shows -- and spending lavishly on a glitzy presentation at Lincoln Center in New York --
are apparently much easier, even for a company whose inner workings are as chaotic as Yahoo’s. If Yahoo plans on having another such presentation this spring, here’s hoping it produces
something more than just hot air.