Bottom Line Is Still Tops in TV Programming

To the average TV viewer, it might be hard to comprehend a prime-time schedule that requires choosing between “NYPD Blue” and “Law & Order,” sets quiz shows “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” and “Weakest Link” against each other in several time zones and places “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and its spinoff, “Angel,” not only on different nights but on different channels.

The best way to analyze decision-making in television these days, however, boils down to a simple phrase: Follow the money.

The broadcast networks unveiled prime-time lineups for the coming season this week specifically for the purpose of getting media buyers to place bets on their bills of fare. With the U.S. economy slowing and advertising budgets being reduced accordingly, network sales departments--influential in the best of times--had an even more compelling argument this year: Money is going to be tight, so give us something we can sell.

And so programmers did, even if certain maneuvers might seem confounding, such as CBS’ throwing new sitcoms starring Ellen DeGeneres and Daniel Stern into the abyss of Friday nights, ABC’s situating its high-profile comedy starring “Seinfeld’s” Jason Alexander opposite “Frasier” and Fox’s giving a fall berth to superhero spoof “The Tick,” a series that had network executives so leery most assumed it would be quietly disposed of during the summer.

If all goes as planned (and remember, Fox has announced programs each of the last four seasons that were never broadcast), there will be 33 new series spread across ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, WB and UPN in the fourth quarter of 2001, compared to the 30 introduced last fall. Of that crop, a third survived to a second season--a higher percentage than usual, which explains why TV scorecards are generally filled out in pencil.

Members of the Writers Guild of America, who recently came to terms with networks and studios on a new contract, may be left wondering what they have won. The number of comedies and dramas (there are 45 of each) has dipped since last year, as alternative formats from “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” and “Weakest Link” to “Survivor” and “The Mole” encroach on precious network shelf space.

Some of that turf has also come from prime-time newsmagazines and, again, money tells the tale. Unscripted fare has demonstrated an ability to draw large audiences at a relatively low cost, including more of the young viewers advertisers want, than news traditionally does.

‘Reality Is Here to Stay’

Fox Entertainment Group Chairman Sandy Grushow, who once tried to swear off the genre, summed it up this way for reporters Thursday: “Reality is here to stay. If you look across all schedules, everybody’s doing it.”

Indeed, Fox’s Thursday-night strategy includes enticing CBS’ “Survivor” audience to visit “Temptation Island” once “Survivor” ends, creating a two-hour viewing block of shows, both of which are being sued by disgruntled former contestants.

Advertiser resistance to concepts such as “Temptation Island” is about all that has kept the “Survivor” herd in check; by contrast, media buyers have evinced a healthy appetite for highbrow fare such as “The West Wing” and “Once and Again,” which attract hard-to-reach viewers who tend to be more affluent and educated.

In another trend with financial implications, those who sit through closing credits will notice a handful of companies continue to supply the vast majority of programming. Units of Viacom (whose holdings include Paramount and CBS) and Fox have a hand in producing more than half of regularly scheduled prime-time series, with 16 of the 20 programs on the Fox network provided by 20th Century Fox or other News Corp. subsidiaries.

Such figures fuel allegations that networks favor programs they produce in order to cash in doubly, selling the reruns if they succeed. So when NBC slotted “Crossing Jordan,” which the network owns, in a coveted 10 p.m. Monday time slot, the producers of “Third Watch” and “Law & Order: Criminal Intent” quietly fumed.

“We would never place a show in a preferred time period because it was solely an NBC show,” NBC West Coast President Scott Sassa stated this week, an assertion greeted with skepticism by rivals, perhaps because they do precisely that when scheduling their own networks.

Looking at shows for which writers can still ply their trade, the emphasis appears to be on escapism, with half a dozen new series featuring either CIA agents (“24” and “The Agency”), Justice Department agents (“Undercover”), pretty young spies (“Alias”), thieves who behave like spies (“Thieves”) or government agents tracking wolves who can assume human form (“Wolf Lake”).

Less Crime, More Crime Dramas

Moreover, improved crime statistics are hardly reflected in prime time. Six NBC dramas have a law-enforcement milieu, with the “Law & Order” franchise expanding and former co-star Jill Hennessy playing a medical examiner in “Crossing Jordan”--nicknamed “Cutesy, M.E.” by some who recall Jack Klugman in a similar role.

There will be plenty of courtroom drama as well, including two former cops on “NYPD Blue,” Amy Brenneman and Kim Delaney, duking it out in the same hour, portraying a judge and lawyer, respectively, in “Judging Amy” and “Philly.”

Family comedy has engineered a minor comeback, featuring recognizable faces such as Jim Belushi (“The Dad”) and Reba McEntire (“Deep in the Heart”), undaunted by the fact that TV’s angel of death claimed sitcom vehicles built around Geena Davis, Bette Midler and John Goodman before Passover.

Perhaps this season’s biggest casualty, meanwhile, is the made-for-TV movie. Facing lower ratings, executives determined that one-shot movies are less cost-effective to promote than series that viewers can return to week after week, prompting CBS and NBC to each eliminate one movie night.

“We don’t have the [promotional] resources we had five years ago or 10 years ago,” Sassa noted.

In short, the expense doesn’t justify the reward, which is just a fancy way of saying follow the money.