What-ifs are the order of the day in broadcast
television since the news broke that NBC is having internal discussions about cutting nightly prime-time from three hours to two (four hours to three on Sundays) possibly as soon as fall 2023.
What-if No. 1: If NBC goes ahead with its prime-time paring plan, what will affiliates do with the hour that precedes their late newscasts?
What-if No. 2: If a gradual chipping away at prime time eventually goes beyond that nightly one hour, what will affiliates have left to tie them to their
networks?
One answer to the second one: As the “Fiddler On The Roof” song goes, “A little bit of this, a little bit of that”
(“Anatevka”).
advertisement
advertisement
There will still be sports such as NFL football (with the Super Bowl every four years) and Olympics; plus, NBC News -- most notably
“Today” (pictured above) and “Nightly News.” And, as an added bonus, “Days Of Our Lives.”
A caveat before continuing: The
wholesale elimination of NBC prime time seems unlikely, at least for the time being (which could constitute years).
Having said that, the evolution of
television has been fast-moving for the last decade or more, so who knows?
Mitigating against such a wholesale jettisoning of prime time: Networks and
affiliates are intertwined. Unraveling the tangle of their relationships might prove counter-productive to both.
“So infatuated with streaming are the
traditional networks that they seem to have forgotten what their affiliate partners bring to the table: A massive distribution system, powerful brand value and reportedly $2 billion per year to each
network in the form of program payments,” wrote media consultant and local TV veteran Hank Price for TVNewsCheck last May.
“Though it
seems to have slipped their minds, the networks also know their success is directly tied to the brand strength of their affiliate bodies.”
As for what
the affiliates might do with the third hour of prime time if and when NBC exits, expanding their late news into the time period seems to be leading the list of guesses on this subject.
To cite Hank Price again, he suggests in a TVNewsCheck column this week that some network affiliates might welcome NBC relinquishing the hour, mainly because Fox
affiliates in many markets have run 10 p.m. newscasts completely unopposed in the time period, and have profited handsomely in the process.
“Going to
head-to-head [with Fox] in the time period would level the playing field,” Price wrote this week. "Most importantly, a one-hour newscast would double late news inventory, nothing to sneeze
at.”
A possible pitfall, however: Local stations have been adding news hours like crazy over the last few years. Local markets are saturated with TV
news. Can they profit from more of it?