Babies With Guns!

(or How the Upfront and Fall Premiere Seasons are Killing Our Business)

This week, NBC (full disclosure: my employer) has captured headlines with its new approach to the Upfront Season. The new approach, called NBC Infront, a sort-of trade show at the Javits Center. Instead of three hours of montages, celebrity appearances, and line graphs meant to spin numbers, NBC decided to treat advertisers and buyers to the ideas of synergy, new media and integrated advertising.

This is a welcome change. I think it's high time that we stopped spending tons of money on a big production that people humored us by sitting through, just so they could meet Terri Hatcher at the after-party. The show, the graphs, the whole shuck and jive doesn't sell one extra spot, in my opinion. Most buyers have a good idea what they're going to buy and which networks they're going to support even before the curtain rises on the Upfront Season.

And that's because buyers - like viewers - don't care a fig about the networks; they care about the shows.

So now, I'd just like to ask, can we stop the rest of the madness associated with the Fall Launch?

I applaud NBC for not only upsetting the traditional Upfront apple cart, but for offering a full, completely thought out plan for a year round season.

Nevertheless, come September or October, the big four will engage in the same bloodsport that we subject audiences to every year; the bloodsport of new shows, or what I call, "Babies with Guns".

Consider: Networks spend millions of dollars funding "product development", the development of new shows to fuel ratings; you know, the currency by which we live and breathe. We have entire teams of executives who incubate new show ideas with producers, writers, directors. We fund scripts. We fund design. We fund pilots - big budget pilots! These are babies that have received the very best attention we could lavish on them in the womb.

Then, come spring, we take bets on which of the shows have the best chance at survival. We decide to keep certain babies, and let others go. We commit to our babies, and we do it publicly. We invite our little world - advertisers, network and local execs, and let's not forget those competitors - to see the baby. "Come see the baby! Isn't it wonderful? Isn't it hilarious? Don't you just wanna snuggle up with it and a bag of Doritos on the couch?" And then we sit down with the invited guests to ask them to contribute to the baby...

After, it's time to introduce the baby to the world. Mind you, this baby is our future; and not in some "I believe that children are the future" way. No! These babies will either make sure we stay fed or drag us into obscurity and tough financial times. So, we spend more millions touting the arrival of the baby. "Come see the baby. You gotta see the baby. It's the 'best baby of the new season'!"

Finally, in the fall, we give birth to the baby. Our baby comes into the world, as viable as we could make it. We put all our hopes into the baby. We cross our fingers and hope that our baby grows to be big and strong and more popular than everybody else's baby. YAY BABY!

There's just one problem: Everybody else is putting out babies of their own.

Correction: We have a ton of babies, and so does everyone else. There's a glut on the baby market! And there's only so many bottles (viewers) around to keep these babies fed and healthy. In fact, it's probably a better analogy to say we (the industry) put all of our babies in the same playpen and force them to fight for the few bottles that are in there. And the only ones that survive are the babies with a little something extra - babies with guns. Because - let's face it - to survive, these babies have to kill each other off.

This system is a waste. On this I can say I agree with my company's position completely.

The question now is, When do we - all of the networks - stop playing this zero-sum game?

This Infront presentation is a start, promising to engage the network in a "year of premieres". But we all know that the Fall will be the big stage. That's where we'll put our best babies in a cage match to the death with everybody else' best babies. I shudder to think that the industry will simply play the same old game come the fall, but, being a realist, I know that old habits die hard.

I hope to God I am wrong, because it's a waste.

Allow me my soapbox for just a little longer...

It's time to take a lesson from our cable friends. The best network to learn from, in my estimation, is FX. Yes, FX! Ignore the Cops reruns all day for a second. FX has developed a true year-long season, even if its just for one night a week. At this point, Tuesday night on FX is a prime example of how to protect good babies. You don't put your best babies in the ring against bigger babies. You don't put your best babies in a crowded playpen.

FX has mastered a roster of good shows for an audience with a particular perspective; people into shows with an edge, that push the envelope of propriety in favor of interesting storytelling. And they rotate them. That's it. The Shield is on for 13 weeks, then Nip / Tuck is on for 13 weeks, then The Riches is on for 13 weeks, then Dirt is on for 13 weeks, then Damages is on for 13 weeks, and the process starts all over again. Simplicity itself. Develop an audience space, and then keep them engaged. No bloody mess, no wasted millions, very few dead babies.

If broadcasting is dead, as so many network execs are trying to convince us (and I don't believe it is, but for sake of argument...), then it is high-time to stop playing with the old broadcast model that results in dozens of dead babies, millions of wasted dollars, and thousands of wasted man-hours every season.