NBC Finally Comes Around to a Year-Round Programming Plan

By Lisa de Moraes
Wednesday, February 20, 2008; C07

NBC Universal announced yesterday that its struggling NBC broadcast network from now on will take an innovative year-round approach to the television season.

As opposed to the other broadcast networks, which take a year-round approach to the television season.

Fox, for example, which, you know, like launched the biggest show in ages, "American Idol" in the summer and protected it for the past seven years. Fox, which launched "The O.C." in the summer, and has been the No. 1 network for the past two years in the summer with a consistent lineup that includes original episodes of "So You Think You Can Dance" and "Hell's Kitchen," and last summer launched "Don't Forget the Lyrics." Fox, which took a big risk by saving episodes of "24" to run nonstop starting in January.

And let's not forget CBS, which for years has had "Big Brother" as the centerpiece of its summer schedule.

Over the past several years shows such as "Survivor," "Idol" and "Dancing With the Stars" all have been part of various networks' strategies of creating hits in the summer that have later moved to the fourth or first quarters. The notion that summer is a "vast wasteland" of programming was abandoned eight or nine years ago. Networks have been launching shows in September, in November, in January and March and April and even June.

But NBC Universal President and CEO Jeff Zucker is a master at making big announcements that the Reporters Who Cover Television gobble up by the shovelful. Remember the NBC 2.0 initiative to eliminate scripted programming in the 8 p.m. hour because at 8 viewers aren't ready to watch scripted shows?

Yesterday Zucker said, "A business-as-usual approach no longer applies in today's multi-platform media environment."

In the announcement NBC Universal said NBC Entertainment would unveil a 52-week prime-time programming schedule to advertisers in April.

Most news media reported that NBC would unveil its schedule in April. But Zucker, in his canned statement, said the "new approach" gives advertisers "an early look at NBC's scheduling strategy." This suggests the April announcement would map out to advertisers NBC's prime-time programming strategy.

Which is totally unlike what other broadcast networks have done in April for the past three or four decades -- which is to map out for advertisers their prime-time programming strategy for the coming year. That includes walking advertisers through which shows are coming back, where the holes are on their lineup, what new shows are the most likely candidates for filling those holes, etc.

Yesterday's announcement comes on the heels of comments Zucker made before and during the writers' strike, questioning the value of the network "upfront" presentations to advertisers.

Interestingly, in yesterday's announcement, the company said all the NBC Universal Cable Entertainment networks will continue to hold their upfront presentations in May, and NBCU-owned Telemundo will continue to have an upfront presentation. Only NBC will no longer have an upfront presentation. Which appears to mean that the only network at the company that is not having an upfront presentation is the one that, in theory, supplies the largest number of eyeballs to advertisers. This seems odd.

And on May 12 -- the day NBC was to unveil to advertisers its next-season programming plans at Radio City Music Hall -- NBCU will instead showcase "the full scale of the NBCU offerings in a unique, multi-media, interactive environment," the company said.

According to someone familiar with the situation, this will be more along the lines of a trade show: Various NBCU properties, including online, NBC Sports, etc., will set up something akin to booths and advertisers can wander around listening to their various pitches. Radio City Music Hall is out.

Execs at various networks were skeptical that the guy credited with taking NBC from first to fourth place in the ratings would be the guy who's going to show everyone else how to better run their businesses.

"He went out there and made proclamations and the other networks shrugged," Preston Beckman, Fox executive vice president for strategic program planning and research, told The TV Column.

"Now it's about him saving face. While Zucker's talking the talk, we've been walking the walk."

* * *

Fox has made it final -- or as final as anything ever is on Fox's schedule: "24" is absolutely, positively not coming back this season. In fact, it won't be back until January 2009 -- a victim of the writers' strike that shut down production of scripted series for upward of three months.

Fox's doctor drama "House," on the other hand, will be back this season with new episodes -- though not for more than two months.

You'll see the first new "House" episode Monday, April 28, at 9 p.m. It will be paired with "Bones," which also is coming back with original episodes starting Monday, April 14.

I know, that was the date Fox promised it would debut Julianna Margulies's new lawyer drama, "Canterbury's Law." But Fox instead decided to move up the launch of that show to Monday, March 10, at 8.

The important thing to focus on here is that "Canterbury's Law" is getting a tryout on Monday night; Fox originally announced the series would air on Thursdays at 9, starting in January, opposite "Grey's Anatomy." This is the TV scheduling equivalent of booking someone a first-class ticket on the Titanic.

"Canterbury's Law" is going to be paired with "New Amsterdam," another new drama that's been sitting on the Fox bench during the strike.

But unlike that show, "New Amsterdam" is getting two "previews" after "American Idol" on Tuesday and Thursday, March 4 and 6.

This may seem surprising, given that drama series about tough and deeply flawed women are all the rage (see "Damages," "Saving Grace," "Closer," etc.). But Fox execs have determined that a singing competition series jammed with ringers is far more compatible with a series about a Dutch soldier in a very bad wig who, in 1642, steps in front of a sword to save a young Native American woman, who thanks him by putting a spell on him that will make him immortal until he finds the one chick he was meant to be with, at which point he will get old and die -- which, you might argue, is a pretty lousy trick to play on someone who has just stepped in front of a sword for you. But our Dutch soldier is no dummy and finds a way to make this work for him, setting his Perfect Chick standards so high that 366 years later, he's still looking, still hot and now minus the really bad wig. You can see how that works so much better with "American Idol."