Downsizing NBC Plots An Unscripted Future

By Lisa de Moraes
Friday, October 20, 2006

BEVERLY HILLS, Oct. 19 On the day NBC announced it would slash about 700 jobs and no longer develop scripted series for the 8 p.m. hour, the network's programming chief had to appear before a packed room of producers, agents and staffers at the TV industry's annual grill-the-programming-chiefs lunch.

"First and foremost, Jack and I will have the same amount of programming on our networks," Kevin Reilly joked when asked about NBC Universal's new slash-and-burn policy, which the network has dubbed NBCU 2.0.

Reilly was referring to Jack Abernethy, CEO of Fox Television Stations Inc., who was onstage with Reilly and his counterparts at the other nets. Abernethy represented "Fashion House" and "Desire," the steamy prime-time soaps of Fox parent News Corp. now airing under the cheeky name MyNetworkTV on many stations that got dumped in the UPN/WB merger -- including Washington's former UPN station, WDCA.

Reilly's self-effacing NBCU 2.0 crack played really well in the room, which had been nervously buzzing about the announcement while the programming chiefs were holed up in a VIP room upstairs at the Regent Beverly Wilshire Hotel. Downstairs the consensus was "NBCU 2.0" stood for NBC's Ratings Next Year.

They were understandably cranky, having read comments by Reilly's boss, NBC Universal television group CEO Jeff Zucker, that NBC will focus on lower-cost programming at 8 p.m. because, as he told the Wall Street Journal, advertiser interest isn't high enough to justify spending on scripted shows. Zucker doesn't like Hollywood; the feeling is mutual.

But they do like Reilly, who was onstage along with ABC's Stephen McPherson, CBS's Nina Tassler, CW's Dawn Ostroff and Fox's Peter Liguori -- all looking relaxed as only TV industry execs whose bosses have not just announced they were going to whack 700 people and no longer develop scripted series for 8-9 p.m. to save money can.

Reilly didn't look quite as relaxed and, after opening with his joke that went over big, got that glassy look that executives always have when they are about to bore you as you've never been bored before with carefully rehearsed corporate-speak.

He talked of a company at a digital crossroads, about how nobody has the answers, how challenges give you the most clarity, how companies on the upswing perhaps put off hard decisions (take that, CBS and ABC), how today's announcement "drew a line" around many practices already in place at NBC and how NBCU 2.0 had galvanized resolve to make the hard decisions -- if not today, or tomorrow, certainly within the next couple of years.

And, in conclusion, he said, "What it means immediately, frankly, is not much to the naked eye."

Reilly noted NBC already runs the heck out of game show "Deal or No Deal" across the week, hinting that the new reality series "1 vs. 100" may become another 8 p.m. utility player.

Additionally, he assured the audience, it does not make sense for NBC to "go into the jaws" of existing reality hits on the other networks -- ABC's "Dancing With the Stars," CBS's "Survivor," etc. -- with reality product.

"So this is not an absolute," Reilly said.

That inspired CBS Entertainment chief Nina Tassler to suggest they were "addressing NBC Universal's corporate ills as an industry case." That's a nice way of saying the problem isn't the industry and lack of advertiser interest, it's the scripted shows that fourth-place NBC has come up with for 8 p.m.

Q&A moderator Andrew Wallenstein, who is the TV features editor at a trade paper and also co-hosts a TV Guide Channel show about the biz called "Square Off," noted that 8 p.m. has produced two of this season's three most promising scripted shows, "Jericho" and "Ugly Betty" (the third is NBC's "Heroes," which airs at 9).

He suggested NBC was, with its no-scripted-at-8 goal, the "canary entering the coal mine." It was the last amusing thing he -- or pretty much anybody else -- said.

Honestly, for a bunch of people who purport to be in the business of entertainment, they certainly do know how to put a crowd to sleep.

Talk was digital platforms this, staggered rollouts that, audience fragmentation here, blah blah there. And to think it wasn't so long ago Michael Moore had the entire room singing the theme song to "The Patty Duke Show."

Sensing the pall, ABC Entertainment chief McPherson -- whose nuts-to-you attitude we admire so much -- asked to see the wine list, suggesting, correctly, that alcohol would do a lot for this event.

Biggest question of the lunchtime Q&A session: What the heck was Jack Abernethy doing up onstage with the networks' entertainment division chiefs?

Grievously, Wallenstein did not ask the question.

In return, the Hollywood Radio & TV Society, the organization throwing the event, aired an ad for "Square Off" at the start of the session.

But not too many people were watching; if you want to get noticed before the actual question-and-answer portion of the festivities begins at the annual grill-the-programming-chiefs luncheon, you need to be grilled steak on skewers surrounded by radicchio and watercress.

* * *

Speaking of NBC, the network has decided not to show Madonna standing on a mirrored cross wearing a crown of thorns when it broadcasts her concert special during the November ratings sweeps.

"The 'Live to Tell' song has been revised for NBC's broadcast special," the network said in a crisp NBCU 2.0 statement Thursday. Technically, that's not the case; the song hasn't been revised, NBC is just not going to show her on the cross. Instead they'll show one of the 14 other camera angles captured during that part of the song in which she's on-cross. When she dismounts, they'll revert back to the Material Girl.

Madonna has said in interviews that the bit where she stands on the cross was meant to illustrate a theme of confession.

Yeah, and I'm the Queen of Freedonia.

Several religious groups told NBC they would boycott one of the concert's advertisers if the cross scene appeared, the Associated Press reported.

An NBC spokeswoman told the AP the network doesn't discuss how its editorial decisions are made, and Andrew Wallenstein, the moderator of the industry Q&A panel with NBC Entertainment chief Kevin Reilly and his counterparts at the other networks, was too busy asking about digital media to put the question to Reilly.

But last summer, Reilly told TVGuide.com that the crucifixion scene probably would be in the special because Madonna, who is one of the TV special's executive producers, "felt strongly about it."

"We viewed it and, although Madonna is known for being provocative, we didn't see it as being ultimately inappropriate," Reilly said back in those carefree pre-NBCU 2.0 days.