Adweek : Television

NBCUniversal Expands Licensing Deal With Amazon

Maura McGowan — Fri, 17 May 2013 16:32:47 GMT

NBCUniversal will bring a broader range of content to Amazon Instant, TechCrunch reported.

The network has expanded its licensing deal with Amazon to include the shows Covert Affairs, Defiance, Grimm, Hannibal and Suits, as well as the Syfy programs Alphas, Eureka and Warehouse 13. NBCUniversal will also provide children's series for the Kindle FreeTime unlimited, including Curious George and the Land Before Time.

Amazon has been amping up its content offerings to compete with Hulu and Netflix. Prime members can stream more than 40,000 titles on a wide variety of platforms including iOS, Xbox, Wii (U) and Roku. The online retail giant is also developing its own TV set-top box.

Ad-Supported App to Bring CW Programming to Apple TV

Maura McGowan — Fri, 17 May 2013 16:06:55 GMT

The CW Network will bring its programming to Apple TV with a new, ad-supported app, Deadline reported. The CW will be the first network to make its content available directly on the Apple TV set-top box, rather than through a third party like Netflix or Hulu.

The CW announced the partnership at its upfront presentation on Thursday, where network execs offered advertisers market penetration through digital platforms. In fact, greater than 20 percent of the network's audience watches content through digital sources, such as the CW TV Now app, available for Xbox and Windows and soon supported on Apple TV.

The network responsible for Gossip Girl, The Vampire Diaries and America's Next Top Model also announced the launch of CW Seed, its new digital channel with interactive opportunities and original series.

"If the CW is what's now, then CW Seed is what's next," CW president Mark Pedowitz said.

According to Deadline, Pedowitz cut ad deals on Thursday based on the number of viewers who see an ad 7 days after it airs, in order to keep up with the ubiquity of DVR usage.

Big Bang Star Simon Helberg Reads Einstein

Emma Bazilian — Fri, 17 May 2013 03:51:26 GMT

Who Simon Helberg
Age 32
Accomplishments Plays Howard Wolowitz on CBS’ The Big Bang Theory; voices Bian Zao on Nickelodeon’s Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness
Base Los Angeles

What’s the first information you consume in the morning?
The first information would have to be Twitter, probably. I’m often indisposed while looking at Twitter, in various states of undress—but not for any raunchy reasons, just because it’s early or late.

Who are your favorite tweeters?
There’s a guy whose handle is @igeekanddrink—I think his name is Jacy—who has the most absurd tweets. Patton Oswalt is hilarious. I also like to follow The New York Times and some Hollywood news to keep up, and I’ll follow some science stuff so I can pretend like I know what I’m doing when I come to work.

What occupies your mind in the car?
I listen to Howard Stern on Sirius XM. I’ve been a big Howard Stern fan since I was 10—way too young to be listening. Sometimes I try to listen to new music, but I guess I like the rhythm and the sound of neurotic people yelling at each other.

Have you ever been on Howard Stern?
I haven’t, actually. I’d be kind of terrified, but I’d also be very, very excited. What’s fun about his show is that you feel like you know the workplace environment so well and you know every character. It’s like a sitcom.

How do you listen to music?
I buy a ton on iTunes, and I’ve been doing Pandora more recently at home. I miss the world of going into CD stores, though. I was actually talking with [co-star] Jim [Parsons] about it the other day, how that was such a big part of our lives as kids and in college. When I would make any money, I would always equate it to how many CDs I could buy.

Are you a TV junkie?
Growing up, my whole schedule and life revolved around TV. As far as now, there are some shows that I won’t miss. Game of Thrones is a big one, Girls…whatever is on HBO, I’ll watch obsessively. The sad truth is that there is a fair amount of Bravo on my TiVo, and I can’t blame my wife as much as I’d like to. I have a very guilty dark side when it comes to the Real Housewives of anywhere.

Your character on The Big Bang Theory is an aerospace engineer. Do you ever try to keep up on the topic?
I do have an interest in physics, and I’ve attempted some of the books that are supposed to be easier to read—some Richard Feynman, The Elegant Universe and some Einstein. When something comes up on the show completely foreign to me, which tends to be a lot of the time—especially with the science fiction stuff—I’ll familiarize myself as much as I need to in order to make sense of what I’m saying.

Give us the skinny on your favorite app.
I really enjoy the dictionary app. I love words and looking them up and having a list of all these strange, cool ones that I didn’t understand or know before. I don’t know why.

The CW Stacks Up the Sci-Fi

Anthony Crupi — Thu, 16 May 2013 20:56:55 GMT

The CW today announced a radical tinkering of its prime-time Feng Shui, shifting two bubble series to Monday nights and placing its new series in unexpected time slots.

The new lineup centralizes the network’s sci-fi programming in a three-night midweek cluster, while pushing its more traditional fare to the margins. Starting with Tuesday nights, the first of the three genre showcases, the CW has paired its Vampire Diaries spinoff, The Originals, with its veteran franchise Supernatural.

Sliding The Originals in the 8 p.m. slot subverts the notion that new series are best served by leading out of established shows, and it also negates the possibility of an all-bloodsucker block. The time slot promises to be particularly challenging for The Originals, as it will go head-to-head with the 800-lb gorilla that is the ABC newbie Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

The breakout drama Arrow returns to its Wednesday 8 p.m. perch, where it sets the table for the new sci-fi strip, The Tomorrow People. Based on the weird ‘70s U.K. kids’ show of the same name, TTP is about a race of high-cheekboned telepaths (Robbie Arnell, Peyton List, Luke Mitchell) who are being hunted down by a group of paramilitary scientists.

The pairing with Arrow should give the newcomer a lift; per Nielsen, the superhero drama was the most-watched series on the CW this season.

On Thursdays, the network’s top-rated show in the 18-34 demo, The Vampire Diaries, will lead into the costume drama Reign. That this hot-blooded story of the life of Mary, Queen of Scots (Adelaide Kane) is shacking up with a show about vampires is another odd twist, but placing Reign in the marquee time slot is a sure sign that the CW is in love with the new series.

In the past three seasons, two freshman series (Beauty and the Beast and Nikita) performed well enough in the post-VD slot to merit renewals, while the uneven Kevin Williamson drama The Secret Circle was one-and-done in 2011-12.

Bookending the three new nights are two pair of more earthbound returning series. Hart of Dixie and Beauty and the Beast stack up on Monday nights, while sophomore show The Carrie Diaries and the long-running America’s Next Top Model will strut their stuff on Fridays.

Midseason dramas include Star-Crossed (formerly Oxygen), a sort of interstellar Romeo and Juliet meets District 9, and The 100, a dystopian sci-fi caper about a group of juvenile delinquents who are sent back to Earth to determine if the planet can be re-inhabited 95 years after a global thermonuclear war killed off all sentient life.

Speaking at the CW’s upfront reception, president Mark Pedowitz said the network this summer wil look to revive Whose Line is it Anyway? Should the show find an audience, the CW would next try its hand at scripted comedy.

The last time the CW experimented with comedy was in 2010, when it picked up the Canadian import 18 to Life for a summer run. Low ratings prompted the network to yank the show after just three episodes. Before that, the CW aired 18 episodes of David Guarascio and Moses Port’s Aliens in America, its first and only original comedy series. (The net did carry a number of legacy comedies originally developed at precursors UPN and the WB.)

The CW’s fall schedule is as follows. New series are in bold:
 
MONDAY 
8-9 p.m. — Hart of Dixie 
9-10 p.m. — Beauty and the Beast 
TUESDAY 
8-9 p.m. — The Originals 
9-10 p.m. — Supernatural
WEDNESDAY 
8-9 p.m. — Arrow 
9-10 p.m. — The Tomorrow People
THURSDAY 
8-9 p.m. — The Vampire Diaries
9-10 p.m. — Reign 
FRIDAY 
8-9 p.m. — The Carrie Diaries
9-10 p.m. — America’s Next Top Model

TBD: Premiere dates and time slots for midseason dramas Star-Crossed and The 100, as well as the TMZ co-produced unscripted series, Famous in 12. A six-episode final season of Nikita is also due at a later date.

USA to Integrate Content and Social Chatter

Maura McGowan — Thu, 16 May 2013 17:41:04 GMT

Many TV networks have been partnering with Twitter to capitalize on the social media zeitgeist, but Comcast's USA Network is going rogue in the quest for cross-platform audience engagement.

USA will aggregate real-time conversations about its programming on Twitter and Facebook and incorporate them into its own revamped website and mobile platform, The Wall Street Journal reported. The cable channel plans to integrate social media conversations with USA's own content and run ads alongside.

Advertisers will be able to run ads on the TV and website simultaneously.

USA already has its own forum, Character Chatter, which draws 30,000 viewers at a time. The network hopes to monetize this audience, augmenting it with fans pulled from social media.

Jesse Redniss, senior vp of digital at USA Network, thinks that network partnerships with Twitter might be shortsighted, telling the Journal that Twitter is "kind of encroaching" on networks' relationships with their audiences. "We want advertisers to be able to come to us and say the best experience around this show is going to be on USA's properties," he said.

Though Twitter is the indisputable hub of TV hubbub, cable channels including Bravo, MTV and TBS have integrated social media into their own Web and mobile platforms.

USA Unveils Sci-Fi Drama Horizon, First Sitcom Pickups

Sam Thielman — Thu, 16 May 2013 17:32:06 GMT

USA is revisiting science fiction with a new show from Walking Dead producer Gale Ann Hurd, called Horizon. The show, set during the Second World War, will follow a secretary at the FBI as she investigates the death of her husband, the disappearance of a girl, and Nazi spies in the U.S. "Anybody who's a producer of Terminator 2 I'm a little bit in awe of," network co-president Jeff Wachtel told Adweek. "What you're seeing in Horizon is our desire to step into new areas and in new ways."

The 2013-14 season will also see USA's very first original sitcoms, which the network will launch using syndicated episodes of ABC's hit, Modern Family.

The two new comedies are Sirens, which follows Chicago EMTs who have trouble dealing with normal life; and Playing House, a single-camera sitcom about two best friends (Jessica St. Clair and Lennon Parham) who reunite after leading very different lives. Sirens is created by Denis Leary and Bob Fisher; Playing House is created by its stars. "They came in for a development meeting and we just fell in love with their energy," Wachtel said of St. Clair and Parham, both vets of improv troupe The Upright Citizens Brigade. "We said, 'let's just shoot a presentation,' and when we did, we were just so taken with it."

Chris McCumber (co-president with Wachtel), said that comedy "has been a long-term strategy for us," dating back to the 2010 acquisition of Modern Family. McCumber said that his team's research indicated "only 8 percent crossover between Modern Family (on USA) and viewers who watch it on ABC" in preparation for the show's debut this fall. "We think it's a sound strategy to launch our new comedies."

USA will also expand its daytime offerings with Cat Greenleaf's Talk Stoop, a show on New York NBC affiliate WNBC that will gain a national audience on the cable channel starting in the fourth quarter. Greenleaf will host USA's daytime programming block from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., a decision that will feature prominently in the network's pitch to advertisers—Talk Stoop will offer sponsored segments "that showcase products from USA's marketing partners," according to a network statement.

CBS Pumps Up Its Fall Comedy Lineup

Anthony Crupi — Wed, 15 May 2013 19:25:03 GMT

When you return as many franchise series as CBS did this year, you don’t change the schedule so much as shift the tiles around like a giant Rubik’s Cube.

The top-rated broadcast network today announced a few major shifts in the structure of its prime-time lineup, slotting two new comedies and a drama on Monday nights and expanding its Thursday night sitcom block to a full two hours.

Leading out of How I Met Your Mother in the Monday 8:30 p.m. slot, the Rob Greenberg (Frasier, HIMYM) comedy We Are Men stars Tony Shalhoub, Kal Penn and Jerry O’Connell as a trio of divorced bros who live in the same apartment complex. At 9:30 p.m., Chuck Lorre’s Mom features Allison Janney and Anna Faris as an estranged mother-daughter battery.

Bumping Hawaii Five-O from the 10 p.m. slot is the new drama Hostages. Produced by Jeff Nachmanoff (Homeland) and Jerry Bruckheimer, the taut thriller stars Toni Collette as a surgeon who, along with her family, is being held captive by a rogue federale (Dylan McDermott). The twist? The FBI agent will free the lot of them if Collette’s character agrees to kill the president.

Person of Interest begins its third season in the Tuesday 10 p.m. slot once occupied by the canceled Vegas and Golden Boy, while Wednesday remains untouched.

On Thursday nights, The Big Bang Theory and Two and a Half Men will bookend the newcomers The Millers and The Crazy Ones, while sophomore hit Elementary holds onto its legacy slot at 10 p.m.

The Millers, from Greg Garcia, features the talents of Will Arnett and Margo Martindale (The Americans, Justified), while The Crazy Ones marks Robin Williams’ return to series television for the first time since Mork and Mindy said “Nanu-Nanu” for the last time in 1982. Sarah Michelle Gellar plays Williams’ ad executive daughter.

Midseason entries include the dramas Intelligence (Josh Holloway) and Reckless (Anna Wood), as well as the new comedy Friends With Better Lives. Mike & Molly returns for its fourth season at a later date.

CBS will walk buyers through its entire 2013-14 schedule this afternoon at Carnegie Hall. The fall campaign is spelled out below; new shows are in bold.

MONDAY 
8-8:30 p.m. — How I Met Your Mother
8:30-9 p.m. — We Are Men
9-9:30 p.m. — Two Broke Girls
9:30 p.m. — Mom
10-11 p.m. — Hostages
TUESDAY 
8-9 p.m. — NCIS
9-10 p.m. — NCIS: Los Angeles
10-11 p.m. — Person of Interest 
WEDNESDAY 
8-9 p.m. — Survivor 
9-10 p.m. — Criminal Minds 
10-11 p.m. — CSI
THURSDAY 
8-8:30 p.m. — The Big Bang Theory
8:30-9 p.m. — The Millers
9-9:30 p.m. — The Crazy Ones
9:30-10 p.m. — Two and a Half Men
10-11 p.m. — Elementary 
FRIDAY 
8-9 p.m. — Undercover Boss
9-10 p.m. — Hawaii Five-O 
10-11 p.m. — Blue Bloods 
SATURDAY 
8-8:30 p.m. — Comedytime Saturday
8:30-9 p.m. — Comedytime Saturday
9-10 p.m. — Crimetime Saturday
10-11 p.m. — 48 Hours
SUNDAY  
7-8 p.m. — 60 Minutes 
8-9 p.m. — The Amazing Race
9-10 p.m. — The Good Wife
10-11 p.m. — The Mentalist

MIDSEASON (Slots TBA):

Intelligence, Reckless, Friends With Better Lives, Mike & Molly

Nielsen Explores Mobile TV Tracking With ABC

Maura McGowan — Wed, 15 May 2013 16:12:00 GMT

ABC will participate in Nielsen's first test of new technology designed to track mobile TV viewers, Variety reported.

The test, part of Nielsen's Online Campaign Ratings system, will run until September, tracking consumers who view ABC content on its website and mobile apps. This will allow ABC to measure audience demographics as well as the frequency and reach of online ad campaigns.

The news comes a day after the network unveiled a new app, Watch ABC, which offers a live stream of programming for smartphones and tablets.

“Viewers have demonstrated that they want to watch ABC content everywhere they can," said ABC president of sales Geri Wang at the network's upfront on Tuesday. "That increasingly means on their smartphones and tablets. This trial with Nielsen is a significant next step in allowing us to help advertisers see the whole picture.”

ABC Overhauls Fall Schedule

Anthony Crupi — Wed, 15 May 2013 16:02:16 GMT

In what has become a somewhat hoary upfront tradition, Jimmy Kimmel on Tuesday took the stage at New York’s Avery Fisher Hall and gleefully skewered the broadcast TV business.

“Let’s call the upfronts what it is: Throwing a bunch of shit at a wall to see what sticks. And guess what? You guys are the wall,” Kimmel told the assembled media buyers at the tail end of ABC’s upfront presentation. As he’s done for the past 11 years, the late-night host teed off on the network’s rivals, likening Fox to the Titanic and suggesting that only a lobbying effort to impose immigration reform would save NBC from an advancing Univision.

Of course, ABC received its fair share of abuse, as Kimmel reminded buyers that they were on the verge of investing “$4 billion in a network that rolled a 400-pound comedian off a diving board last week.” (Later, he would return to the bellyflop that was the celebrity diving competition series, Splash, suggesting that ABC would drain the pool next season and rename the show Splat.)

For all that, ABC actually assembled its most promising prime-time schedule in years, introducing a horde of new dramas and comedies designed to free it from broadcast’s ratings basement. (While no one directly acknowledged that ABC will once again finish last among the Big Four in the race for adults 18-49—entertainment president Paul Lee instead focused on the intangibles, describing ABC as the “No. 1 brand in network television”—the proof was there for all to see in the radical reconfiguration of its nightly lineup.)

With only two freshman shows returning in the fall, ABC has plenty of opportunities to try and reinvent itself. Tuesday nights have been utterly transformed, and over the course of the season, the network will introduce no fewer than a dozen new scripted series.

Chief among these is Josh Wheedon’s much-anticipated Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., which leads off Tuesdays in the 8 p.m. slot. Born of the $1.5 billion Avengers theatrical, S.H.I.E.L.D. should bow to monster ratings if ABC cross-promotes the absolute hell out of it on sibling net ESPN.

Wheedon’s show leads into a pair of new comedies and a drama from Steven Spielberg and ER producer David Zabel. At 8:30 p.m., Jeff Garlin stars in The Goldbergs, a noisy ‘80s nostalgia trip that may just as easily been titled George Costanza’s Wonder Years. A fun, if shouty, look back at the era of VHS, floppy disks and Alf, The Goldbergs is pretty clearly Lee’s favorite new comedy.

The 9 p.m. slot is filled by a much more contemporary twist on the family comedy, as Malin Akerman stars as the third spouse of Bradley Whitford in Trophy Wife. The promo reel showcases Akerman’s gift for physical comedy, but there are also some promising one-liners in the mix. “You’re not even a real grown-up,” one of Whitford’s weird children tells her. “Your car is full of garbage and shoes.”

At 10 p.m., ABC offers a 99-percenter drama in Lucky 7. As alluded to in the title, the show focuses on a group of seven gas station employees from Queens who win the lottery. Naturally, complications arise.

Wednesday night ushers in a pair of new comedies, while Nashville remains in the 10 p.m. slot. At 8:30, Back in the Game stars James Caan as the estranged father of a former softball phenom (Maggie Lawson) who coaches a Little League team of misfits. Leading out of Modern Family, Rebel Wilson stars in the raucous Super Fun Night. If the vulgar and funny promo didn’t grab buyers’ attention, Wilson’s personal pitch had them rolling in the aisles. By way of describing the show, the Australian actress said Super Fun Night “is really the anti-Sex and the City," adding “when these ladies are out eating at night, they’re not talking about dick.”

Long a dead zone, ABC’s Thursday 8 p.m. time slot is getting a shot in the arm with Once Upon a Time in Wonderland. A fractured take on Lewis Carroll’s mushroom-gobbling heroine, Wonderland leads off a night of “empowered women,” per Lee. Veteran drama Grey’s Anatomy returns at 9 p.m., followed by the fizzy guilty pleasure, Scandal. The Beltway potboiler is clearly another in-house fave; star Kerry Washington appeared in a filmed skit with Kimmel and Disney Media co-chair Anne Sweeney, and later took the stage with the rest of the cast.

In what seems to be the big trend of this year’s development season, ABC is kicking the tires on a limited series. The sudsy 13-episode arc of Betrayal examines the sexual liaison between an unhappily married woman (Hannah Ware) and her husband’s courtroom nemesis (Stuart Townsend). Betrayal is of a piece with the previously announced concepts in the works at Fox (Wayward Pines, Shōgun) and NBC (Dracula, Crossbones).

Set for midseason premieres are the new dramas Killer Women, Mind Games and Resurrection, as well as the hook-up comedy Mixology. Resurrection’s spooky premise (a boy materializes on his parents’ front porch 30 years after his death) makes it one of the most intriguing new entries on ABC’s slate.

ABC’s complete fall schedule is as follows. New series are in bold:
FALL 
MONDAY 
8-10 p.m. — Dancing With the Stars 
10-11 p.m. — Castle 
TUESDAY
8-9 p.m. — Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. 
9-9:30 p.m. — The Goldbergs 
9:30-10 p.m. — Trophy Wife 
10-11 p.m. — Lucky 7
WEDNESDAY
8-8:30 p.m. — The Middle 
8:30-9 p.m. — Back in the Game 
9-9:30 p.m. — Modern Family
9:30-10 p.m. — Super Fun Night
10-11 p.m. Nashville 
THURSDAY 
8-9 p.m. — Once Upon a Time in Wonderland 
9-10 p.m. — Grey’s Anatomy 
10-11 p.m. — Scandal 
FRIDAY  
8-8:30 p.m. — Last Man Standing  
8:30-9 p.m. — The Neighbors
9-10 p.m. — Shark Tank  
10-11 p.m. — 20/20  
SATURDAY  
College Football 
SUNDAY 
7- 8 p.m. — America’s Funniest Home Videos  
8-9 p.m. — Once Upon a Time 
9-10 p.m. — Revenge  
10-11 p.m. — Betrayal 

Turner Adds Digital Streaming to Its Programming Plans

Sam Thielman — Wed, 15 May 2013 15:43:10 GMT

True to its word, Turner unveiled a solid slate of scripted and unscripted shows at its upfront presentation on Wednesday morning, as well as a major digital initiative: TNT and TBS will stream live content to the networks' websites and by way of newly launched tablet and mobile apps. The streams will be authenticated, as part of parent company Time Warner's much-evangelized initiative, TV Everywhere.

TNT's scripted slate added a third title with an odd couple joined by fate and an ampersand: King & Maxwell (not to be confused with Franklin & Bash or Rizzoli & Isles), as well as a new show from Walking Dead creator Frank Darabont, Lost Angels. The network's reality shows looked a lot like its scripted fare, especially police show Boston's Finest. Dwayne Johnson will star in unscripted series Hero, as well.

The presentation started off with Turner boss Steve Koonin doing his usual shtick by joking around with the audience. This year, the generously-proportioned exec ran backstage and then appeared to back flip, breakdance, unicycle and juggle in an effort to impress ad buyers as body doubles emerged in padding and white wigs. Koonin stepped back on stage after the last performer, panting. "I took eight steps and now I'm winded," he cracked.

TBS, too, started its presentation on a comic note. "As many of you know, last year my company, Funny or Die, bought Turner broadcasting," said Will Ferrell in a taped short that also introduced Charles Barkley as head of the network. "You all know Charles--he's basically been running TBS for the last few years, so that won't be much of a surprise."

Carefully, Adult Swim Expands Into Product Placement

Sam Thielman — Wed, 15 May 2013 10:17:25 GMT

If you want to sit with the cool kids, you've got to look like you belong there.

At a party where Kanye West will play a full set for a venue packed to the rafters with ad buyers, that's the lesson Joe Hogan is trying to politely teach clients as part of the Adult Swim upfront, which, for the first time, is creating a comprehensive plan for product placement with a small number of integrations available to advertisers. The trick is that they're deep integrations: a restaurant could sponsor one of Carl Brutananadilewski's lengthy rants on Aqua Teen Hunger Force (actually, the upcoming season of the show is called—seriously—Aqua TiVo Avoidance Plan), for example.

Adult Swim is one of the few remaining linear networks that gets saleable traction with young men (History and ESPN are the others), and for everyone from video game merchants to potoato chip floggers, that's good news. But the audience comes with careful curation and the assumption that a false note in the programming—especially one that seems greedy—could seriously harsh the buzz that network head Mike Lazzo and his team have worked so hard to create.

"We've been thoughtful in the number of opportunities that we've had," Hogan said. "We've held this stuff fairly close." The opportunities make up for in variety what they lack in quantity: besides Carl's Rants, there's a similar integration with Newsreaders' Andy Rooneyish Skip Reming, who's forever going on about the good (?) old days ("Turkey sandwiches were a quarter, and prostitutes were two turkey sandwiches." Paging Subway!) Buyers can purchase a "marketing class" devoted to their product in the recently renewed China, IL, as well as instructional videos in Chris Elliot's Eagleheart, and NTSF:SD:SUV: will feature producer/actor Paul Sheer talking about how [your brand here] helps him keep San Diego safe.

"A 'Carl's rants' on Aqua is something that could be pretty universal—there's really nothing that we're trying to say 'This has to be a QSR,' or 'this has to be an auto,'" said Hogan. "But there are certain opportunities that lend themselves to certain brands. NTSF:SD:SUV: would lend itself to automotive."

Adult Swim has done some product placement before, but only on linear and never as an overall network strategy (there was a Boost Mobile integration on Aqua Teen in 2005 and a Scion integration on Assy McGee—don't look at me, that's what it's called—in 2008). The new plan gives the network a deliberate layout for its integrated spots, a bird's-eye view of where they'll land and when, and a compelling pitch: buy now, because we're not making any more until next season. Hogan hems and haws when asked about specific numbers of spots—there's probably some wiggle room in there somewhere, but it's not much.

The network also has an advantage in the form of several creatives who've worked in advertising before. Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim (better known on the channel as Tim & Eric) are probably the most familiar names to ad folks, but Funny or Die, a website that has been marrying offbeat comedy and advertising for time out of mind, now counts Time Warner as a stakeholder and uses Turner to sell its own ads.

The platform has its own integration—"Clip of the Week"—that Hogan says is going to ease viewers into the idea of more branded content on the network. "We could probably do clip of the day," Hogan says. "That would not be good for our fans. I think our fans would expect maybe a clip of the month. This is such a new introduction for adult swim, to let advertisers get closer to the fanbase." The spot will be sold as an isolated pod, which Hogan says he's happy about ("any time you can put comedy content between comedy programming!"), and it's something that can make the rounds on Twitter and Facebook just as easily as cable television.

Last year, Funny or Die created its own internal division, Gifted Youth, to generate branded material, and there's not just a great deal of talent crossover between the two organizations, there's now a direct financial link between the two of them, so new integrated ads simply codify the kind of work everybody was doing already and offer it in a non-threatening package to buyers.

Clients are by nature conservative, and that's going to be a concern as a material with the kind of edge that Adult Swim fans love can play poorly to a wider audience. Odd Future (which also has a show with Adult Swim—Loiter Squad) is dealing with fallout from a digital spot for Pepsi at which a lot of people took offense, proving pretty handily that what works in the little hermetic world of cool 18-34-year-olds doesn't necessarily work in the general market. Adult Swim had nothing to do with the production and didn't air the commercial, but the incident emphasizes how carefully the network has to craft each of these integrations: edgy, but not nasty; sly, but not offensive.

"I think, again, because Lazzo has been so good about creative freedom and making sure that things are on-brand, our talent is always seemingly excited to work with us. We wouldn't be putting these out to the marketplace if they were not on brand," says Hogan.

And clients want it? "They do," he says. "There's been pent-up demand."

Univision Inks Deal With El Rey, Comes Out Swinging at English-Language Nets

Sam Thielman — Tue, 14 May 2013 18:03:40 GMT

Univision's evp of ad sales Steve Mandala may have left NBCUniversal barely a year ago, but his new home's upfront presentation wasn't at all shy about playing up the Spanish-language broadcaster's sweeps victory over the Peacock. At one point, an animated broom swept the NBC logo off the presentation screen.

The growing network, Mandala pitched, is a place where the general market and the Spanish market "unites in a total-market approach," given the preponderance of Hispanic viewers in every sector. Mandala also delivered direct appeals to specific categories. "If you're in the wireless business, we have growth in a very mature market," he said, "and if you're in the beverage business, we define growth."

The English-language nets, he said, "all seem to be asking for more in the face of declining audiences." It's a pitch many in the audience had heard before—namely at every cable upfront presentation since the rodeo began in February—but Univision is the first broadcaster to make it.

And they pushed it hard, too. The math, Mandala, said, was simple enough for kids to do. The presentation's centerpiece (well, aside from the ad sales team doing The Harlem Shake and networks president Cesar Conde entering flanked by dancers in light-up suits) was a video featuring Falco and several kids in an elementary school classroom discussing pricing.

"If you went into a donut shop, and you paid $2 for a donut, and you only got half a donut, what would you do?" Falco asked the kids. "I'd tell the manager and I'd get my money back," one proclaimed.

Univision also had a major announcements on the programming front—and a very odd one. The network is partnering with Robert Rodriguez, director of, among many others, Planet Terror, Sin City, and El Mariachi, as well as his network El Rey.

Rodriguez's network was a court-mandated function of the merger between Comcast and NBCUniversal two years ago—in order to approve the business deal, the Federal Communications Commission required Comcast to launch several networks owned by a member of an ethnic minority. Diddy, Magic Johnson, and Constantino Schwarz signed on to run the others, but Rodriguez's contribution was by far the most promising. "It's been very difficult to work out, but it works, and the content is great," said one exec at the upfront.

Univision is responsible for back office operations, sales and distribution—basically the day-to-day at the network, with Rodriguez at the helm, green-lighting material including a new scripted series based on the Rodriguez/ Tarantino flick From Dusk Till Dawn, and another scripted series from Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci (writers of the Star Trek and Transformers movies, as well as Fox's sci-fi show Fringe). “El Rey Network will serve as a launching pad to satisfy the tastes of young adults looking for exciting, cinematic, action-packed content," Rodriguez said in a statement.

It's the second unexpected and high-profile deal involving El Rey this week—the network gained an executive on Monday, Scott Sassa, who left Hearst last month after a blackmail scandal.

Atlanta Goes Aereo

Maura McGowan — Tue, 14 May 2013 16:48:30 GMT

In January, Aereo drew ire from broadcast networks by announcing plans to expand to 22 cities. Atlanta will be Aereo's third market, after New York and Boston, CNET reported.

Aereo will launch in Atlanta on June 17 for preregistered users and June 24 for everyone else. The Atlanta region encompasses 5.3 million potential new customers.

Aereo—which faces ongoing legal battles with broadcast networks like CBS, ABC, NBCUniversal and Fox—allows users to stream television via internet-connected devices. Consumers pay $8 per month to access live TV as well as Aereo's cloud DVR service.

Aereo is set to go live in Boston tomorrow.

ESPN, Twitter Expand Partnership

Maura McGowan — Tue, 14 May 2013 16:37:55 GMT

In a bid to secure highly-coveted video advertising dollars, Twitter has been seeking deals with TV networks. Coinciding with the networks' upfronts, the social company reached deals with Fox and ESPN to stream video on Twitter.com and its accompanying apps.

Walt Disney-owned ESPN is expected to showcase its partnership with Twitter at its upfront this morning, The Wall Street Journal reported. ESPN began licensing recaps and highlight reels to Twitter last year. Now the collaboration will expand to include World Cup soccer matches, college football and the X Games.

Fox announced a similar partnership on Monday that will bring clips of TV shows and live events to the social media site. Fox previously used Twitter as a voting system for its singing competition The X Factor and has encouraged hashtag-based conversation about shows like American Idol.

Twitter is also in talks with NBCUniversal and Comcast, looking for more ways to add high-quality video content to the site while generating ad revenue.

Buyers Enthusiastic About Fall TV Prospects

Anthony Crupi — Tue, 14 May 2013 11:14:58 GMT

With the first day of Upfronts Week on the books, there’s a palpable sense that the networks have come a long way toward redeeming themselves after last year’s lousy development slate.

Speaking to media buyers at the Fox post-show party at Wollman Rink in Central Park, one couldn’t help but feel more than a little optimistic about the state of the 2013-14 broadcast schedule. Much of the talk under the tent had to do with Fox’s apparent triumph on the drama front, as buyers eagerly talked up the trailers for newbies Sleepy Hollow, Rake, Almost Human and Gang Related.

“Sleepy Hollow is the most interesting new series I’ve seen so far,” remarked one national TV buyer, who said he’d reserve final judgment until after he has had a chance to review the ABC, CBS and CW presentations. “There was so much going on in that clip—the flashbacks to the Revolutionary War, the present-day cop stuff, the cool slow-motion decapitation—that it almost felt like you were watching a trailer for three different shows.”

Another buyer said that what had seemed like “a goofy premise” when summarized in the show’s log line seemed to hold up really well onscreen. “I mean, we’ll see when we get the pilots,” he said. “A lot of these shows look great when we see them during the upfronts, and you get to episode three and it’s like, ‘What happened?’”

Judging by the applause that bounced off the ornate ceiling of the Beacon Theatre following each drama clip, Fox may have gone a long way toward making clients forget The Mob Doctor. J.J. Abrams’ paranoid android police drama Almost Human was received with particular enthusiasm, and Greg Kinnear’s mordantly funny fuck-up (Rake) was a nod to the all-messed-up-with-no-place-to-go anti-heroes that are Fox’s stock in trade.

Shot through with the sunny, scummy L.A. street vibe of theatricals like Training Day and End of Watch, Gang Related could prove to be the season’s biggest draw among young males. Again, the proof will be in how the pilots scan and whether Fox can build off the first 48 minutes of each opener. But as one partygoer remarked, the broadcaster has put together a drama slate that, at first blush, promises to be as dynamic as that of its formidable cable sibling.

“Some of the new Fox shows look like you could put them alongside the great FX dramas,” said one buyer. “Maybe it’s just how well they cut the trailers, but these shows look like they have a lot to offer.”

As Fox entertainment chairman Kevin Reilly said at the top of Monday’s show, Fox is spending more money than ever on original programming, loading up on 11 new series and a pair of limited “event series.” In yet another nod to the cable model, Fox plans to air single-season narratives that will run around 13 episodes, ensuring they’ll have access to top-flight talent that may not necessarily want to get locked into a 22- or 23-installment broadcast contract.

Among the first stabs at the limited series model will be a reboot of 24 and the self-contained M. Night Shyamalan fable, Wayward Pines. Future installments of the new programming format will include an update of James Clavell’s Shōgun and an adaptation of Jeffrey Toobin’s The Run of His Life: The People vs. O.J. Simpson.

For all the comparisons to cable, let it be known that Reilly isn’t entirely blown away by the competition’s track record. “The quality of original programming in basic cable is really noteworthy, and it’s something we’re competing with,” Reilly said earlier in the day. “But you also have to keep some perspective. Last season, there were 1,050 basic-cable series on the air; of those, only four cracked the top 50.”

On the comedy front, Reilly said he expected that the new Tuesday night sitcoms Dads and Brooklyn Nine-Nine “are going to be a little easier to launch” than his beloved Ben and Kate, which was canceled after its maiden voyage.

“I loved Ben and Kate. I’ll speak for myself—I think my love for it maybe wasn’t as objective about our ability to launch it,” Reilly said, adding that the star power of Seth Green and Giovanni Ribisi (Dads) and Andre Braugher and Andy Samberg (B99) should make the two new comedies an easier sell.

Fox’s fall schedule is much more stable than the one stitched together by NBC. Having renewed just two freshman series (Revolution and Chicago Fire) and five legacy shows, NBC is sending an unambiguous message to the buying community. This season’s results were largely built on the success of Sunday Night Football and entertainment president Bob Greenblatt’s casting move, in which he booked fall and spring flights of The Voice, and that’s not going to be enough to sustain the Peacock in the upcoming season.

To that end, NBC is aggressively courting the middle of the middle-of-the-road, junking its glib Thursday night comedy lineup for broad, family-friendly fare like The Michael J. Fox Show, Welcome to the Family and Sean Saves the World.

Radio City Music Hall cheered the MJF trailer, which had its share of genuinely funny moments. (While some viewers may be uncomfortable with the jokes about the ravages of Parkinson’s disease, the actor’s perseverance in the face of his neurological disorder is truly remarkable. Besides, who doesn’t love Michael J. Fox?)

The upfront crowd was particularly receptive to the charms of the Mike O’Malley comedy, Welcome to the Family, while the organic laughter generated by Sean Hayes’ slapstick in the Sean Saves the World clip was drowned out by a maniacal laugh track. WTF reads like a vastly smarter take on CBS’ doomed 2011-12 comedy ¡Rob!, and Hayes is indefatigable in his desire to entertain. After a season of delivering sub-1.5 ratings in the dollar demo, NBC genuinely appears to have an opportunity to draw a crowd on the night most coveted by movie studios.

While it’s understandable why Greenblatt would be a bit leery of early testing results—early Q scores for Crystal the capuchin monkey indicated that Animal Practice would be the runaway hit of this past season—the results for the James Spader drama The Blacklist are nothing to sneeze at. The programming chief told buyers that the new crime thriller out-tested NBC’s last 125 drama pilots, making it the network’s best-received one-hour show in a decade.

The Blacklist will enjoy the benefit of having The Voice as a Monday night lead-in, which could go a long way toward establishing it as the must-see drama of the fall. But buyers also responded well to Jonathan Rhys Meyers’ turn as the legendary bloodsucker Dracula and J.J. Abrams’ telekinetic thriller Believe, which seems to share a fair amount of genetic material with Stephen King’s Firestarter.

“You look at the stuff we’ve seen over the last few hours and it just feels like [NBC and Fox] made huge strides in their development,” said a buyer after the Peacock’s pitch. “Already, there are a couple of shows that, at least from where I’m sitting, look like they have what it takes to attract a big audience. There may be a few breakout hits in there.”

David Muir Talks About Reporting From Iran

Sam Thielman — Tue, 14 May 2013 02:37:50 GMT

Specs
Who David Muir
Age 39
New gig Co-anchor of ABC’s 20/20 (with Elizabeth Vargas)
Old gig Continues on World News With David Muir on weekends

How did you get started in the news business?
It’s embarrassing when I go back that far, but I was the 12-year-old who wrote the letter to the local news guy—the Walter Cronkite of the town I grew up in. The line in the [reply] letter was “competition in the television newsroom is keen, but there’s always room for the right person and it could be you.”

So you took them up on it?
I was a 13-year-old news intern [at CBS’ WTVH, Syracuse, N.Y.]. They’d measure how much I’d grown year to year. When I graduated, that was my first job, anchoring and reporting the news. And then at five o’clock I was reporting the news and saying, “Here’s Ron Curtis with what’s coming up at six.”

How does the new agenda compare to what you started off with?
It is sort of an insane schedule, I’ll admit it. Last year I worked every day; there was Tahrir Square and Fukushima, and then the famine in Africa. I thought, “At least this year will be easier,” and then they asked me to take on 20/20.

You’ve taken World News to some interesting places.
We had fought for quite some time to get into Iran—visas are hard to come by—and we raced over there not knowing what we’d get, and we expected to have a government minder with us but didn’t. We’d been shooting for about 10 minutes and then the police pulled us aside and we sat in a room for about two hours while they questioned us. We were guests of the government, so we knew we’d get out of there, but it happened again the next day.

Did you get to interact with the locals at all?
There was a moment when we were outside a school where they were teaching English and the boys came rushing out and surrounded the camera and me, and they were fascinated that I’d been allowed in. They had more questions for me than I had for them.

It does sound like an incredibly packed schedule.
When I hear “13-hour flight,” I get excited, because it’s 13 hours no one can get ahold of you on your BlackBerry.

Do you worry that moving to a more prominent position will keep you chained to the desk?
I think the best anchors out there are the ones who globe trot and who are hungry every day to explore another corner of the world. Once I’m done with one project, I’m already thinking, “What’s the next thing I want to investigate?”

What have you witnessed recently that was important for you to see firsthand?
We went to Somalia and we were the first team witnessing the worst famine in a generation.

Are you ever in danger doing this stuff?
We were fired upon by Al Qaeda-linked groups. You’re in bulletproof vests in these convoys, checking on families living in tents. They’re surrounded by what used to be beautiful architecture that’s just been cratered for decades.

Do you get to repurpose stuff from one program to the next?
It’s one of the benefits in crafting this new role. When we break into prime time with this new hour, you’ll not only be covering this news but you’ll be breaking it in prime time at 6:30.

Anything you’ve already done?
The first weekend of 20/20, the whole country was fixated on that boy in the bunker in Alabama. We raced down there and got the first interview with the family and the first video of the boy as he celebrated his sixth birthday. We did it on World News and on 20/20 that night.

These Are the Biggest Hurdles Facing Social TV

Chris Copeland — Tue, 14 May 2013 02:25:24 GMT

TV has a new love—that little blue Twitter bird. And like any new infatuation, the promise of what’s to come is almost too good to be true.

Most recently, the Grammys became #Grammys. Host LL Cool J (@llcoolj), when not busy doing bicep curls off stage, spent most of the evening hyping the “Hashtaggrammys.” At one point, Beverly Jackson (@bevjack), senior director of marketing/social media for the Grammys, tweeted that they were averaging more than 200,000 tweets per minute. The only thing CBS didn’t do in promoting its Twitter social connection was put a hashtag on Carrie Underwood’s dress. She’s @carrieunderwood, by the way.

On the heels of Nielsen and Twitter announcing a Twitter TV rating system and the social giant’s acquisition of TV social monitor Bluefin Labs, it is clear that 2013 will be the year social TV makes its first full-on run at becoming mainstream.

Exactly what that thing will be is still unclear. For social TV to be meaningful to advertisers and TV viewers alike, a few pieces of the puzzle have to be put into place. For one, we need to find a way to make tweeting work for live episodic TV as well as it does for event TV.

Massive watercooler moments like the Super Bowl, the Oscars or even the presidential elections are ideal for social TV. Recent Trendrr Social TV data found that eight of the 10 most popular cable shows were reality/sports content. For the Grammys, the E! Network’s pre-event red carpet show drew as many social TV mentions as The Simpsons, the longest running scripted show on network TV. Scale is a must for marketers, but it’s not there yet for social TV during the average drama or sitcom (with the exception maybe of The Walking Dead; the AMC show’s season premiere did 10 times the social media traffic of The Simpsons on Fox).

We also need to find a way to get hashtag TV out of its own echo chamber and apply some filtering to Twitter. During the Grammys telecast, LL Cool J joked about being backstage trying to keep up with all the tweets being posted. Since the volume of tweets (at 200,000 per minute) would be the equivalent of a full-length novel every hour, I’m guessing no one read every single comment made about the show. This challenge is not only for celebrity award show hosts but also all Twitter users.

This is a big, long-term problem for the social site. If you can’t keep up with the chatter, you have a skewed noise-to-sound ratio. Your network may or may not be made of valuable communicators on a given topic, but without real-time curation by Twitter or another source, you are left with a less than stellar experience. Twitter is reportedly working on this, but it remains to be seen how Twitter’s determination of relevancy impacts individual users. For the time being, it’s too easy to miss entire conversations or be exposed to tweets that fail to paint a complete picture.

The other big hurdle facing social TV is the “where does it happen” factor. The single biggest variable in determining just how real social TV will be in 2013 is the technology experience. GetGlue, Viggle and IntoNow, among others, want to be the de facto destinations for TV viewers who are using a second screen to enhance the first.

At the same time, Twitter is searching for ways to keep people on its own platform to own its combined experience. Other players, from TV manufacturers to console systems, will want in on this as well. The ad dollars flow through this end of the pipe, so there will be a battle to see who can put metrics and scale against the destination. Today, everyone is willing to go to multiple sources and buy inventory, and Twitter continues to increase price based on its clubhouse lead at the moment.

Not every TV show is appointment viewing, and it’s safe to assume that not every show will be hashtag TV. But, as deal flow and content production better align with the social opportunity, social TV is going to explode. Whether that happens in 2013 or beyond is difficult to forecast.

The resolutions to make social work for live TV, balancing noise and sound on Twitter, and owning the platform from which social TV originates will determine if this becomes “The Year of...” or if it simply lacks the clarity to make a breakthrough.

Chris Copeland (@C2Next) is CEO of GroupM Next, the digital innovations unit at GroupM.

Illustration: Sam Brewster

Telemundo Unveils 5 Novelas, Ryan Seacrest Show

Sam Thielman — Mon, 13 May 2013 13:46:22 GMT

"There's no such thing as a comfortable No. 2," Telemundo president Emilio Romano said at a press conference last week, and indeed, the network is trying to take market share away from its juggernaut competitor Univision—up to a 30 percent share to Univision's 60 percent, according to its own research.

The broadcaster has a slew of new programming landing in the fall—five primetime novelas including a show called Camelia la Tejana, which Romano touted as the successor to the company's successful La Reina Del Sur. Ryan Seacrest Productions also has a new show on the net—Superstar Showdown, featuring established musical acts in a sing-off in front of a voting audience. Daytime will feature court show Caso Cerrado and dating gameshow 12 Corazons.

The network will also host event programming, including a special on Billboard's Mexican Music Awards, distinct from the Latin Music Awards, also on the network (Full disclosure: Billboard is owned by Adweek parent company Guggenheim Digital Media); and the Miss Universe pageant.

Plenty of the network's other live event programming will be World Cup-related in preparation for Telemundo's takeover of the popular event in 2015. Telemundo is also starting a billingual production studio called Fluency, which will handle content aimed at younger, acculturated Hispanics who speak to each other in both languages. Telemundo showed off two projects in progress at the mini-studio—La Buena Mala, a Freaky Friday-ish show about a young woman and her novela protagonist lookalike who swap lives; and ISA, a science fiction mystery show.

Sci-Fi, Comedy Dominate Fox’s Fall Schedule

Anthony Crupi — Mon, 13 May 2013 12:42:41 GMT

The boys are crashing Fox’s Tuesday night comedy block, as Seth MacFarlane’s first live-action comedy, Dads, and the Andy Samberg cop caper Brooklyn Nine-Nine will set the table for the female-friendly franchise New Girl and sophomore series The Mindy Project.

Created and written by the people who brought you the feature film Ted and Fox’s Family Guy (MacFarlane, Alec Sulkin and Wellesley Wild), Dads stars Seth Green and Giovanni Ribisi as two successful gaming entrepreneurs who have their lives disrupted when their respective fathers (Peter Riegert, Martin Mull) decide to move in with them.

Taking over the 8:30 p.m. slot vacated by the canceled Ben and Kate, Brooklyn Nine-Nine stars SNL vet Samberg and Andre Braugher (Last Resort, Men of a Certain Age) in a single-camera comedy about a loose-cannon cop and his by-the-book new boss. B99 is written and produced by Dan Goor and Michael Schur (Parks and Recreation).

Pairing the two testosterone-fueled newcomers with Liz Meriwether’s female-skewing comedy is an interesting gambit. On the one hand, New Girl certainly wasn’t being served by last year’s Raising Hope-Ben and Kate battery, and its ratings often reflected that weak lead-in. Then again, in trying to force the demos to interact with one another, Fox could be setting up a middle school dance scenario, with the rowdy boys skulking around on one side of the gym while Zooey and Mindy hold court opposite them.

Much of Fox’s fall schedule carries over from the 2012-13 campaign, with The X Factor taking up a big chunk of airtime in midweek and the Sunday “Animation Domination” lineup tightened by the removal of The Cleveland Show. Fox entertainment chairman Kevin Reilly is once again using the post-Bones hour as a proving ground for a new drama, only this time he’s taking a big swing with the apocalyptic fable Sleepy Hollow. Based on the Washington Irving tale about Ichabod Crane and the pumpkin-lobbing Headless Horseman of Tarrytown, Sleepy Hollow appears to share some genetic material with the network’s dark midseason hit, The Following.

Should Sleepy Hollow stumble out of the gate as did last year’s unambiguously titled The Mob Doctor, Reilly has a face card up his sleeve in Gang Related. The gritty drama pairs Lost’s Terry O’Quinn with Wu-Tang Clan founder and multihyphenate RZA as members of a special LAPD task force created to choke out gang activity at the roots. At press time, no premiere date has been set for Gang Related.

In late fall, J.J. Abrams’ android procedural Almost Human sends Bones to its new Friday night time slot, turning Monday night into a two-hour block of supernatural/sci-fi adventure.

At around the same time the robots and ghostly Hessians start mixing it up, Fox will take the wraps off the new Greg Kinnear vehicle Rake, a Thursday night legal drama that will succeed Glee for approximately three months.

Premiere dates for the new comedies Surviving Jack, Us & Them and Murder Police have not been announced although it is likely that the three freshman series will debut sometime in 2014.

Fox will present its upfront slate to media buyers and advertisers at 4 p.m. today (May 13) at New York’s Beacon Theatre. Its complete fall and midseason schedule is as follows. New series are in bold:
FALL
MONDAY
8-9 p.m. — Bones
9-10 p.m. — Sleepy Hollow
TUESDAY
8-8:30 p.m. — Dads
8:30-9 p.m. — Brooklyn Nine-Nine
9-9:30 p.m. — New Girl
9:30-10 p.m. — The Mindy Project
WEDNESDAY
8-10 p.m. — The X Factor
THURSDAY
8-9 p.m. — The X Factor (results)
9-10 p.m. — Glee
FRIDAY
8-9 p.m. — Junior MasterChef (working title)
9-10 p.m. — Sleepy Hollow (encores)
SATURDAY
7-10:30 p.m. — Fox Sports Saturday
11-12:30 p.m. — Animation Domination Hi-Def (ADHD)
SUNDAY
7- 7:30 p.m. — Late National NFL Game
7:30-8 p.m. — The OT
8-8:30 p.m. — The Simpsons
8:30-9 p.m. — Bob’s Burgers
9-9:30 p.m. — Family Guy
9:30-10 p.m. — American Dad

MIDSEASON
MONDAY
8-9 p.m. — Almost Human (late fall)
9-10 p.m. — The Following
TUESDAY
8-8:30 p.m. — Dads
8:30-9 p.m. — Brooklyn Nine-Nine
9-9:30 p.m. — New Girl
9:30-10 p.m. — The Mindy Project
WEDNESDAY
8-10 p.m. — American Idol
THURSDAY
8-9 p.m. — American Idol (results)
9-10 p.m. — Rake
FRIDAY
8-9 p.m. — Bones (late fall)
9-9:30 p.m. — Raising Hope (late fall)
9:30-10 p.m. — Enlisted (late fall)
SATURDAY
7-10:30 p.m. — Fox Sports Saturday
11-12:30 p.m. — Animation Domination Hi-Def (ADHD)
SUNDAY
8-8:30 p.m. — The Simpsons
8:30-9 p.m. — Bob’s Burgers
9-9:30 p.m. — Family Guy
9:30-10 p.m. — American Dad

TBA: Scheduling for the new midseason series Gang Related, Surviving Jack, Us & Them, Murder Police

ESPN Uses Client Testimonials in Its Upfront

Anthony Crupi — Mon, 13 May 2013 03:18:25 GMT

There’s an uncommonly large crowd on hand for this taping of SportsCenter, as some 2,000 observers are huddled around as anchor Hannah Storm winds down the 9:30 a.m. segment. Throwing to a taped interview with what appears to be a retired Ivy League linebacker, Storm introduces her virtual guest as Peter McDonough, the chief marketing and innovation officer at Diageo North America.

This particular installment of SportsCenter isn’t being broadcast beyond the confines of New York’s Best Buy Theater, and McDonough hasn’t suited up to chat about Penn’s third conference title in four seasons. (For one thing, he’s a Cornell man.) Instead, as part of ESPN’s 2012 upfront presentation, he’s agreed to offer a testimonial on how the network’s sales team has delivered significant results for Diageo over the last several months.

As part of a yearlong deal, the liquor distributor signed on as a presenting sponsor of the ESPN series Pardon the Interruption and Around the Horn. The “Diageo Happy Hour” execution put the company out in front of legions of younger male viewers while throwing a spotlight on its Guinness Black Lager brand. But the sponsorship didn’t end there.

“What was really exciting was how it would satisfy a second objective we had, which was reaching the multicultural consumer,” McDonough said, adding that a similar strategy was used to pitch Captain Morgan Rum to Hispanic viewers of ESPN Deportes. “I couldn’t be more excited about this partnership.”

This marks the third year in which ESPN will thread client testimonials into the fabric of its upfront presentation. Previous participants included Gatorade, Taco Bell and Goodyear. The sports giant will have three more brands in the wings (Macy’s, Cheez-It and Subway) when it unveils its 2013-14 slate on Tuesday, May 14.

A nod to the mutual trust between the network and its clients, no money changes hands when ESPN books its testimonials. “We didn’t want to simply go up there and remind everyone that we delivered their GRPs,” said Ed Erhardt, ESPN’s president of global customer marketing and sales. “The idea was to identify senior clients who were willing to talk about how the relationship they have with ESPN was driving their sales and business goals. I mean, isn’t that why we’re all here?”

As a top 10 sports investor—per Nielsen, Subway in 2012 spent $114.3 million on TV sports programming—CMO Tony Pace is the kind of guy you want to have up there extolling the virtues of your sales team.

“We’ve been working with ESPN for a long time, and this is just a great way to thank them for their good work,” Pace said. “Not only does this present an opportunity to talk about some of the things we do with ESPN that are unique to our brand, but we’re also getting our message out beyond the venue. Even though this is ESPN’s show, an awful lot of other media outlets will hear about it.”

Pace is particularly enthused about Subway’s association with ESPN personality Bill Simmons. A longtime supporter of Simmons’ podcast, Subway was a founding sponsor of his sports/pop culture site, Grantland.com.

Do NewFronts Really Affect TV Pricing?

Sam Thielman — Mon, 13 May 2013 03:17:57 GMT

Google’s Eric Schmidt may have told an audience full of media buyers that Web video had already replaced television last week, but the ad industry isn’t so sure the NewFronts are going to make that much difference when it comes to moving ad dollars.

“They’re a distraction,” said Pivotal Research analyst Brian Wieser (formerly lead forecaster for Magna Global). “They’re a useful sideshow for developing relationships, but they don’t serve any other practical purpose.”

The mechanics of the video business, Wieser said, haven’t changed at all. Clients don’t have to commit money in this upfront unless there’s a massive discount on already-cheap inventory “because there’s no scarcity.”

Jason Krebs, president of sales/marketing at Blip, couldn’t disagree more strongly. “There is a high amount of scarcity for high-quality video,” he said. “Anybody who says there’s no scarcity is not paying attention and repeating the rhetoric.” Krebs says that the problem is extreme scarcity—there just aren’t as many pure-digital offerings out there that demonstrate the production value consumers are used to on linear cable or broadcast. “House of Cards (on Netflix) is an anomaly, but not for long,” he said.

To some extent, comparison between the NewFronts and the upfronts—or even between more than two or three NewFront presentations—is an apples-and-hand grenades proposition. Google and Hulu have radically different business models; Netflix is a name on everyone’s lips and it doesn’t even take advertising. But most industry execs agree that digital companies are going to have to create higher-quality, higher-profile shows if they’re going to take any share away from TV.

“When The Walking Dead premieres, you wouldn’t miss it,” said Francois Lee, svp and group client director, MediaVest Worldwide, one of several agencies that called on video companies to up their games in an open letter last week. “It’s on the subway, it’s outside, it’s on networks, and with a lot of the digital content, you don’t see that level of promotion.”

On television, production begins months in advance. Then networks winnow down as many as 100 total programs in development into a fraction that will air. “It’s true there are millions and millions of dollars spent on this stuff, and it doesn’t always work. But there’s an attempt made to make it a buzzworthy event,” Lee said.

Wieser says the NewFronts hold out the promise of a bargaining chip that buyers desperately want. But for a bargaining chip to be credible, you have to be able to walk away from the negotiation, and digital may not be there yet. “That will only happen if five or six big brands go out publicly and say, ‘We’re putting 20 percent of our budget into Web video,’ and they’ll have to follow through,” Wieser said.

Krebs dissents. “The differences have already been felt,” he said. “TV executives don’t go five minutes in a traditional upfront without talking about their digital abilities.”

Fox Hopes to Get Its Mojo Back With New Prime-time Slate

Anthony Crupi — Mon, 13 May 2013 02:38:17 GMT

In the midst of putting the finishing touches on his network’s fall prime-time schedule, Kevin Reilly is in full-on survivalist mode. The Fox entertainment chairman is stocking up on new dramas and comedies like a man filling the larder of a fallout shelter, nearly doubling down on the five freshman series he ordered this time a year ago.

“I’m going to overstock the shelves,” Reilly told Adweek just days before Fox’s May 13 upfront presentation at New York’s Beacon Theater. “We need the original hours. Last year we were confident with our development slate—perhaps too confident—and when one drama stumbled out of the gate, we only had one in reserve.”

While that midseason backup turned out to be one of a handful of successful broadcast launches (when a week of time-shifted viewing is applied to The Following’s same-day deliveries, the show averaged a 4.3 rating in the 18-49 demo), Reilly’s not taking any chances. Last week, Fox gave the green light to five new comedies and four dramas, two of which are representative of the sort of big-swing genre exercises Fox steered clear of last year.

While the garrulous and refreshingly candid programming boss was reluctant to play favorites, Reilly’s enthusiasm for the drama Rake erased any ambiguity about where it stands in the Fox hierarchy. Starring Greg Kinnear as Keegan Joye, a flaming dirigible of a criminal defense lawyer/degenerate gambler with a near-pathological inability to censor himself, Rake is the quintessential Fox drama.

“We’re still the home of the Great American Asshole Protagonist,” Reilly cracked, adding that Kinnear’s character comes from a long line of charismatic bounders. “Rake’s a modern iteration of The Rockford Files, which was my favorite show when I was a kid. Greg is great in it, and he really brings the charm to a guy who has a lot of issues.”

Among the other newbies that earned a berth on Fox’s schedule are the dramas Sleepy Hollow, Gang Related and the J.J. Abrams sci-fi cop show, Almost Human (working title).

Beyond the fresh batch of content, Reilly is looking to shake up the cookie-cutter broadcast model by ordering a full complement of limited series. “To a certain extent, network television was created with a one-size-fits-all template. But airing 22 episodes and a lot of repeats…that’s simply not the universe we live in anymore,” he said.

To that end, Fox is planning to develop a number of self-contained story arcs that will in their entirety run for just 10 to 12 episodes. Among the minis in the hopper are M. Night Shyamalan’s supernatural neo-Noir, Wayward Pines, and an adaptation of Jeffrey Toobin’s The Run of His Life: The People v. O.J. Simpson.

The seeming surfeit of original hours will likely have an impact on one of Fox’s most enduring franchises. Reilly said he is considering a move that would shave some hours from American Idol’s weekly running time, while the less sturdy X Factor could be shunted to an alternative slot after this season. “It’s locked in for this fall, but that’s definitely something we would think about,” he said.

NBC Breaks a Lot of Eggs to Make its 2013-14 Omelet

Anthony Crupi — Sun, 12 May 2013 23:05:27 GMT

Since ER flatlined in 2009, NBC’s Thursday night lineup has been the Drunk Uncle of prime time television. But in a radical move to reclaim its movie-night mojo, the Peacock is planning a major overhaul of the three-hour block.

Beginning this fall, the criminally underwatched Parks and Recreation will lead off NBC’s Thursday night roster, leading into three new sitcoms and the well-received drama, Parenthood.

At 8:30 p.m., the Sony Pictures Television sitcom Welcome to the Family takes the spot vacated by the canceled Up All Night. Starring Mike O'Malley, Mary McCormack, Richardo Chavira and Ella Rae Peck, WTF is a culture-clash comedy about Anglo and Latino families who’ve been thrown together in the wake of an unanticipated pregnancy.

At 9 p.m., Will & Grace alum Sean Hayes will carry Sean Saves the World, a comedy in which a divorced gay dad goes overboard in his attempts to be BFF with his ‘tween daughter. Closing out the two-hour comedy block is the self-explanatory Michael J. Fox show.

After four seasons of laboring away in the Tuesday 10 p.m. slot, Parenthood this fall will get a crack at NBC’s Thursday night showcase. Once the home of ratings monsters ER, L.A. Law and Hill Street Blues, NBC’s Thursday 10 p.m. slot has in recent years been a graveyard of sorts, hosting a series of flops that includes Prime Suspect, Awake, The Firm, Do No Harm and the freshly-culled newsmagazine, Rock Center with Brian Williams.

Given the parameters of the new Thursday night schedule, Season 5 of the cult fave Community will be delayed until at least mid-season, although the show is nowhere to be found on NBC’s official roster.

The sweeping changes don’t stop there. Revolution is being evicted from the plush post-The Voice lead-out slot, moving to Wednesday nights at 8 p.m. in deference to the new James Spader drama, The Blacklist.

NBC still believes in broadcast’s beleaguered 10 p.m. slot; as such, the Peacock has restocked every nightly anchor slot with new drama fare or a returning series that has been shifted to a new time slot. The Dick Wolf drama Chicago Fire will slide back a day to Tuesday nights, while the Blair Underwood vehicle Ironside (a reboot of the badass 1967-75 Raymond Burr series of the same name) rolls into the Wednesday night vacancy.

On Friday nights, actor Jonathan Rhys Meyers (The Tudors) will endeavor to explain how a guy who can’t see himself in a mirror manages to remain such a dapper gent. The limited series Dracula follows all-new episodes of third-year genre series Grimm.

NBC has invested in so much new content that it will hold a number of high-profile premieres until mid-season. Among the newbies set to make a splash after the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics are the J.J. Abrams drama Believe and a pair of freshman Tuesday comedies (About a Boy and The Family Guide).

Once the top-rated Sunday Night Football juggernaut cleans out its locker for the winter, NBC will begin airing the Dermot Mulroney-Gillian Anderson Beltway potboiler, Crisis.

NBC will present its formal upfront pitch to media buyers and advertisers tomorrow (Monday, May 13). Its complete fall and midseason schedule is as follows. New series are in bold:

FALL
MONDAY
8-10 p.m. — The Voice
10-11 p.m. — The Blacklist
TUESDAY
8-9 p.m. — The Biggest Loser
9-10 p.m. — The Voice
10-11 p.m. — Chicago Fire
WEDNESDAY
8-9 p.m. — Revolution
9-10 p.m. — Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
10-11 p.m. — Ironside
THURSDAY
8-8:30 p.m. — Parks and Recreation
8:30-9 p.m. — Welcome to the Family
9-9:30 p.m. — Sean Saves the World
9:30-10 p.m. — The Michael J. Fox Show
10-11 p.m. — Parenthood
FRIDAY
8-9 p.m. — Dateline NBC
9-10 p.m. — Grimm
10-11 p.m. — Dracula
SATURDAY
Encore programming
SUNDAY
7- 8:15 p.m. — Football Night in America
8:15-11:30 p.m. — Sunday Night Football

MIDSEASON
MONDAY
8-10 p.m. — The Voice
10-11 p.m. — The Blacklist
TUESDAY
8-9 p.m. — The Voice
9-9:30 p.m. — About a Boy
9:30 p.m.-10 p.m. — The Family Guide
10-11 p.m. — Chicago Fire
WEDNESDAY
8-9 p.m. — Revolution
9-10 p.m. — Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
10-11 p.m. — Ironside
THURSDAY
8-8:30 p.m. — Parks and Recreation
8:30-9 p.m. — Welcome to the Family
9-9:30 p.m. — Sean Saves the World
9:30-10 p.m. — The Michael J. Fox Show
10-11 p.m. — Parenthood
FRIDAY
8-9 p.m. — Dateline NBC
9-10 p.m. — Grimm
10-11 p.m. — Crossbones
SATURDAY
Encore programming
SUNDAY
7-8 p.m. — Dateline NBC
8-9 p.m. — American Dream Builders
9-10 p.m. — Believe
10-11 p.m. — Crisis

It’s Official: Seth Meyers Named Late Night Host

Anthony Crupi — Sun, 12 May 2013 19:41:24 GMT

NBC on Sunday locked in the final piece of its late-night schedule, naming Seth Meyers the host of Late Night. The Saturday Night Live head writer and “Weekend Update” mainstay will succeed Jimmy Fallon, who in February 2014 takes over The Tonight Show from Jay Leno.

Lorne Michaels will produce the new-look Late Night, as well as The Tonight Show.

In its 31-year history, Late Night has been steered by three hosts: David Letterman (1982-93), Conan O’Brien (1993-2009) and Fallon (2009-present). While he’s hardly an éminence grise, Meyers will be 40 years old when he takes on the Late Night gig, making him the oldest entertainer to slide into the role. Letterman was 35 when he kicked off Late Night, O’Brien was a sprightly 30 and Fallon was 34.

An SNL mainstay since 2001, Meyers was the odds-on favorite to inherit Fallon’s job.

“We think Seth is one of the brightest, most insightful comedy writers and performers of his generation,” said NBC Entertainment chairman Bob Greenblatt, by way of announcing the move. The programming chief went on to add that Meyers' 12 seasons on SNL “helped him hone a topical brand of comedy that is perfect for the Late Night franchise.”

A premiere date for Late Night with Seth Meyers has not been disclosed, although it’s likely that the New Hampshire native will take the reins immediately after NBC’s coverage of the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics.

As the producer of The Tonight Show, Late Night and SNL, Michaels effectively will control every hour of NBC’s post-prime schedule, other than Sunday night.

In a statement, Meyers acknowledged the power of the Canadian Svengali, joking, “I only have to work for Lorne for five more years before I pay him back for the time I totaled his car. Twelve-thirty on NBC has long been incredible real estate. I hope I can do it justice.”

Meyers will remain on the SNL staff through this fall, whereupon he’ll transition to his new gig. While Michaels has not identified a replacement anchor at the “Weekend Update” desk, the smart money’s on comedian/writer John Mulaney, who has made a cottage industry out of making Bill Hader break character in the popular “Stefon” skits.

If nothing else, Michaels may want to retain the services of the absurdly funny Mulaney, who last week learned that his comedy pilot had been passed over by NBC.

ABC, CBS Firm Up Their Fall Schedules

Anthony Crupi — Sat, 11 May 2013 03:55:51 GMT

On the Friday night before the TV world converges on New York for the upfronts, word about their respective orders, renewals and cancelations is starting to trickle in from the ABC and CBS camps.

First, the bad news. As expected, ABC has pulled the plug on freshman series Red Widow, Malibu Country and How to Live With Your Parents (For the Rest of Your Life). Also not coming back in the fall are Happy Endings and Body of Proof.

On the other side of the ledger, the network has ordered a slew of new shows, including the Joss Whedon thriller Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and a pair of David Zabel-penned (ER) dramas, Lucky 7 and Betrayal.

All told, ABC has picked up seven new dramas, some more seemingly familiar than others. In what sounds like a Xerox copy of a Xerox copy of USA Network’s Psych, Mind Games stars Steve Zahn and Christian Slater as brothers who use psychological manipulation and the short con to help deliver results to their clients.

The River Styx reverses its course in Resurrection, a spooky drama in which the dead of Arcadia, Mo., begin to return to their loved ones. Produced by ABC Studios, Resurrection represents yet another attempt to tap into the supernatural zeitgeist.

Also cleared for takeoff is the procedural Killer Women (Tricia Helfer) and the spinoff Once Upon a Time in Wonderland.

ABC also heavied up on comedy, committing to five newcomers. The retro family sitcom The Goldbergs tested particularly well, and while CBS last spring passed on the Rebel Wilson pilot Super Fun Night, a second effort with a revamped cast helped earn the show a spot on ABC’s fall roster.

Other new ABC comedies include: Trophy Wife (Malin Akerman), Mixology (Blake Lee) and Back in the Game (Maggie Lawson).

If you were involved with an underperforming CBS series, today was basically Michael Francis Rizzi’s baptism. Freshman series Golden Boy and Vegas were both whacked, leaving Elementary the sole survivor of the class of 2012-13. Also not returning in the fall is the Rasputin-like comedy Rules of Engagement and veteran procedural CSI: NY.

Having already booked a huge chunk of its prime-time lineup for a return engagement, CBS had to clear out a few time slots for its new crop of shows. Among the confirmed series orders are four comedies and a pair of dramas.

The big investment in comedy is a bit of a reversal for CBS, which ordered just one sitcom (the quickly canceled Partners) before last year’s upfront. The four new projects boast an unimpeachable comedic pedigree (Robin Williams, Anna Faris, Will Arnett and Tony Shalhoub are the real standouts), and the producers attached are a veritable murderer’s row: Chuck Lorre, David E. Kelley, Jerry Bruckheimer and Greg Garcia.

To the surprise of absolutely no one, CBS snapped up Lorre’s latest effort; with four series on the air at the same time, Lorre finds himself in the company of prolific producers like Norman Lear and Aaron Spelling. Mom stars Anna Faris as a newly sober woman who moves back home to Napa Valley to try and pick up the pieces with some help from her mom, Allison Janny.

Marking the first time CBS will have a single-camera comedy in the lineup in five years, Kelley’s The Crazy Ones stars Williams as a slightly touched advertising executive and Sarah Michele Gellar as his creative-director daughter. The Millers features Arnett as a recently divorced guy whose parents move in with him for an extended stay, while We Are Men is an ensemble piece starring Shalhoub, Kal Penn and Jerry O’Connell as a bunch of divorced dudes who live in the same short-term rental complex.

On the drama front, CBS has ordered a series that seems to share some DNA with its sophomore hit, Person of Interest. Intelligence stars Josh Holloway as a super-sleuth who has a microchip implanted in his brain that allows him access to the “entire electromagnetic spectrum.” Also booked for the coming broadcast season is Hostages, a conspiracy thriller starring Dylan McDermott and Toni Collette.

As CBS Corp. CEO Les Moonves likes to remind investors, it’s not easy to break into the No. 1 network’s prime-time lineup. That said, by the time CBS unveils its fall schedule, it is likely to have picked up another drama or two.