In Depth

Academy Awards Get Social Media Makeover to Attract Younger Viewers to Its TV Broadcast

By Andrew Hampp
Advertising Age

Like all things Hollywood, Oscar is getting some work done to keep up a more youthful appearance.

Along with the ballyhoo surrounding the Best Picture category, now with 10 nominees instead of five for this year's 82nd annual telecast, airing March 7 on ABC, the ceremony is getting its first social-media push to attract younger viewers.

The Academy Awards show has lost a good deal of its golden luster in recent years as the entertainment telecast of the year, sinking to all-time ratings lows in 2008. Viewership increased only 13% last year, making it the third lowest-rated broadcast in Oscar's televised history. The main culprit? Many of the nominated films in recent years have achieved less-than-blockbuster status at the box office, ultimately appealing to older, more-sophisticated audiences -- last year's median age was 49.5, just enough to age the telecast out of its advertisers' most-coveted target audience.

But, until last year's telecast, a lack of social media tie-ins also seems to have kept the Academy from realizing its full potential. Oscar pools and predictions have long been a parlor game that the Academy never harnessed through its online channels, and the ceremony has been notably absent from even its own websites, not to mention the lack of Facebook or Twitter applications to keep viewers engaged online in a real-time basis.

But the Academy is banking on a decidedly more populist list of nominees ("Avatar," "Up" and "The Blind Side" are among the 10 Best Picture candidates), a pair of new media-friendly producers (Adam Shankman and Bill Mechanic), a team of agency partners (Omelet, Los Angeles, handling creative, Norwalk, Conn.-based Media Storm handling media) and an aggressive social-media strategy to change all that this year.
Janet Weiss, the Academy's director of marketing, wanted to embrace the unique format of this year's telecast in all of the awards show's marketing, thus the tagline, "You've never seen Oscar like this." The controversial expansion of the Best Picture slot was the initial impetus behind the decision.

"There's a lot of pros and cons in terms of people's opinions about it, but we decided to embrace it," she said, citing Messrs. Shankman and Mechanic as key players in crafting the show's marketing strategy. "There will be a lot of surprises that will make for a very entertaining show -- it really is going to be an Oscars you've never seen before."

One of the Academy's first milestones debuted last week, when the nominations were streamed live online for the first time at Oscars.org and on the Academy's Facebook page, facebook.com/The Academy, which was watched by more than 170,000 unique viewers Tuesday morning. Oscar.com, a joint production from the Academy and ABC, is also being revamped this year, hosting more video and exclusive content from nominees, as well as widgets for Oscar pools and predictions for the second year in a row.

Also on deck is -- wait for it -- an Oscars iPhone app, launching later this month, which fans can use to see how their Oscar predictions stack up against others. The Academy plans to release behind-the-scenes footage from the preparations and rehearsals leading up to this year's telecast, which is also being syndicated to online video sites and digital out-of-home networks.

"For a really conservative organization, we're trying to push the envelope into new media and new strategies," Ms. Weiss said. "We're giving people a peek behind the curtain, and hopefully they'll see the Oscars is more relevant for them today."

One thing that won't be present in the telecast, however, is an interactive integration of Twitter or Facebook, something the show's producers would have liked to integrate, as Mr. Shankman is an avid Twitter user and has already made Academy execs nervous for tweeting too many details about the show's rehearsals.

"We won't get accomplished everything we want to this year," Mr. Mechanic, the show's co-executive producer, told Ad Age. "If you look at the [Academy's] site, it's really better than it's ever been, so hopefully next year we'll be able to execute 50% of what we wanted to. This year we'll probably only accomplish 20% of what we wanted. We always wanted Twitter and Facebook to be used, not just by Adam but by others to speak to an audience that has not traditionally viewed the Oscars as important as it certainly is."

But several social-media analysts said the Academy and its partners would be wise to walk before leaping into the awards show's first fully interactive telecast.

Joseph Jaffe, a social-media blogger for Powered, pointed to the recent Grammys telecast for examples of what not to do when integrating new media into an awards telecast. The Black Eyed Peas' attempts to incorporate fan-submitted videos into their performance went largely unnoticed; Bon Jovi's fan-selected song seemed dated; and the 3-D tribute to Michael Jackson was poorly marketed in advance and left many viewers isolated when it came to viewing the performance properly at home, he said.

"One of the biggest mistakes being made is this idea that leaning forward is better than leaning back," he said. "All I can say is, it's not too late for the Academy to achieve three goals with social media -- one, to drive live tune-in; two, to enhance the experience; and three, continue the conversation afterward. It's an elementary strategy, yet people are still neglecting the pre-, neglecting the post-, and butchering the during."

David Berkowitz, senior director-emerging media and innovation at digital hotshop 360i, argued that the Academy and its agency partners could still be doing more to engage viewers on platforms other than its home page, such as creating an easily searchable Twitter account.

"Right now their site seems stuck in a time when the web was a lot less social, and one of the most prominent features is the message board," he said of Oscar.com. "But then you look at their Livestream page on Facebook, and it's this fantastic experience for sharing and embedding any video. They don't have any of that on the Oscar site. It'll be interesting to see if the Oscars tries to incorporate more of that closer to the awards show, given how much conversation there is around the Oscars right now."

Steven Amato, co-founding partner of Omelet, the Academy's creative agency for the second year and agency of record for 2010, pointed to the collaborative process between all of this year's partners as the driving force behind the Oscars' long-awaited embrace of new media and marketing tactics.

"We're working with some of the most innovative, smart-minded show producers, who are brilliant and very open and have great ideas themselves, and listening to them, working and interfacing daily with them," he said. "It really is about spanning all the touch points of the Oscar brand iteration to ABC and all the media channels."

And as Hollywood comes off its best year ever, Ms. Weiss is hopeful the record turnouts at the box office will have a halo effect on the awards.
"We believe the Oscars is about movies and watching movies in the theater. Our marketing campaign is going to seek to remind those moviegoers it's for them. With this field of 10 nominees, we have such a broad range of films nominated in best picture category, we really hope there's something for everybody this year."

Carole Tomko, President and General Manager, Discovery Studios

“ ‘Curiosity’ is John Hendricks’ vision. We’ve partnered with leading researchers, institutions and foremost experts to deliver a five-year, 60-part series on the great questions of science, technology, civilization and the human experience.”

TVWeek: Congratulations on your new responsibilities, first of all. If you could tell me a little about Discovery Studios. And then we’ll go a little bit, if it’s okay with you, about the project with John Hendricks.

Carole Tomko: Absolutely. I’m happy to. Discovery Studios is divided into three separate subdivisions. So we have a TV content group, and that TV content group is the largest supplier of content across the US networks. Since we established studios in 2007, we’ve produced over 500 hours of content for the US networks.

We also have a branded entertainment or short form group, and that group has really become the critical internal resource group for custom content brand sales. [It works] very closely with ad sales. And we produced last year about 80 projects.

And then the third group is the footage and music services group, which not a lot of people know about. And we have 14,000 tracks in Discovery music source, and we have over a 120,000 digital catalogue stock footage clips that we make available internally and externally as well. And so that’s the footage and music group. This last year, what we also did, is we established a science unit, which is where Curiosity will come in. And we also established a foothold on the West Coast. We have a 22,000-square foot facility. So we’ve got full presence in L.A. as well as the East coast.

TVWeek: That sounds like a huge responsibility and a lot of opportunity. If we could transition a little bit to the Curiosity Project from Discovery founder John Hendricks, and where you see that going and your role in that.

Tomko: Sure. My job really is to take John’s vision, and his personal leadership and to make this five-year multiplatform initiative that will really satisfy the audience’s curiosity. So Curiosity is the joint venture between Discovery and [Hendricks’ upcoming adult education academy in Colorado] Experius. And we’ve partnered with leading researchers, institutions and foremost experts to deliver a five-year, 60-part series on the great questions of science, technology, civilization and the human experience.

So each one-hour episode will focus on one great question. And we’ll delve into that, and then each episode will also have a huge amount of deep dive content online that we’ll have for the viewer as well.

TVWeek: Well, it sounds absolutely fascinating. I’ve known John for many years, and it sounds right up his bailiwick. What I was wondering about is, will you be doing arcs with any of these topics that will be multi-episodic?

Tomko: Right now, no. Right now everyone will be standalone but I’ll give you an example. Nanotechnology is something that we’re currently researching. And the human genome. So those are two topics or areas that we’re heavy into the research stage. And it’s very likely that both of those arenas will cut across a number of questions, which will cut across a number of episodes. But it probably won’t be that we do a human genome episode part one, part two and part three.

So that’s the phase that we’re in right now—looking at all the research areas and working with all of our partners to figure out what are these really cool things that are enduring questions. We have our filter and we’re coming at them in a quintessential Discovery fashion. Turning those questions on its head. So you’re probably thinking , OK., I’ve seen shows on gravity, I’ve seen shows on time, I’ve seen shows on the human genome. My job is to bring this to the audience in a comprehensive fashion that’s never been done before.

And I actually think Discovery—which is why you’ve decided to honor Discovery I’d imagine—is really the only company that can do this in the way we’ll do it. There’s no one else that’s got all the US networks and the global reach that we have that can allow them to reach across all of them.

We’ve got How Stuff Works, so that will be a platform. And we not only have How Stuff Works, but on all of our Discovery platforms we’ve got an education arm that reaches over 1,000 teachers. So this series will definitely, be pulling curriculum along those areas as well. Then we’re going to be partnering with all of the leading institutions as well and reaching out through them. And then John’s got the Experius Academy, which is an adult learning center. So it’s a really interesting franchise approach that feels right for someone like Discovery. I think we’re the only company that can really do that.

TVWeek: When is this going to air?

Tomko: We’ll start premiering on Discovery Channel, 8pm on Sunday nights in February, 2011.#

To read our introduction to this special report, "Cable TV Programmer of the Decade," click here.

To read our interview with Discovery President and CEO David Zaslav, click here.

To read our interview with Bruce Campbell, President, Digital Media and Corporate Development for Discovery, click here.

To read our interview with Bill Goodwyn, Discovery's President, Domestic Distribution and Enterprises, click here.

To read our interview with Henry Schleiff, Discovery's President and General Manager of Investigation Discovery, Military Channel and HD Theater, click here.

To read our interview with Marjorie Kaplan, President and General Manager, Animal Planet Media Enterprises, click here.

To read our interview with Laura Michalchyshyn, President and General Manager, Planet Green, Discovery Health and FitTV, click here.

To read our interview with Joe Abruzzese, President of Discovery Advertising Sales, click here

To read our interview with Eileen O'Neill, President and General Manager of TLC, click here

To read our interview with Clark Bunting, President and General Manager of the Discovery Channel, click here.

Part Two of Jon Stewart and Bill O'Reilly on 'The O'Reilly Factor,' February 3, 2010

To see the first part of this interview, click here. O'Reilly continued talking to Stewart on his show the next day, Feb. 4th. To see that interview, click here more »

Jon Stewart and Bill O'Reilly on 'The O'Reilly Factor' February 3, 2009, Part 1

This part one interview of Feb. 3 continues if you click here. more »

Papa John's Has a 30-Second Spot In the Super Bowl, But it Didn't Buy the Air Time From CBS or Any TV Stations

Emily Bryson York
Advertising Age

Papa John's has found a back door to the Super Bowl: The chain will run a 30-second spot just before halftime for the latest installment of its "Papa's in the House" campaign -- but its check for the ad time will be written to the National Football League, not to CBS.

Papa John's chief marketing executive, Andrew Varga, declined to give the price of his company's deal, or confirm that a 30-second spot from the NFL costs less than the $3 million asking price from CBS.

The spot will be filmed at the Pro Bowl this weekend, showing founder and CEO John Schnatter delivering pizzas at that game in the hopes that it will look like a Super Bowl giveaway. Papa John's had hoped to film live on Super Bowl Sunday, but was told it would be impossible, due to game-day security. The company is still mum on specifics, but Mr. Schnatter's giveaway is meant to salute NFL fans as well as those behind the scenes at games.

In its "Papa's in the House" commercials from agency Z Group, Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., Mr. Schnatter has delivered pizzas at a birthday party, field-hockey game and a fire house. On New Year's Eve, the company partnered with Countdown Entertainment and the Times Square Alliance to film Mr. Schnatter delivering pizzas to the crowd watching the ball drop. The chain did a similar integration with the NFL for the Jan. 17 playoffs.

While the NFL has done a number of integrations in the past, most famously with Burger King's King character, Mr. Varga said this is unlike previous integrations in that it will not be using licensed NFL footage, but creating content in collaboration with the league. As for Papa's decision to hop on the Big Game bandwagon this year, Mr. Varga said, "from a timing perspective it couldn't have been better."

He said that consumers have displayed real interest as to where Papa will pop up next. "We have the opportunity to take it to the greatest house of them all, which is the Super Bowl. And just the whole notion, when the opportunity came up, where were we with our messaging and that we believed we could take it to the biggest level." On a regional level, Papa John's already sponsors nine NFL teams, among them the Baltimore Ravens, Washington Redskins and Indianapolis Colts.

Papa has built up to its buy with a sweepstakes for two tickets and accommodations for the game, and related special offers, such as the "Super XL IV," an offer of any extra-large pizza with four toppings for $11.99, and the "1st and 10," any large pizza for $10. Consumers also have reason to hope for a high-scoring game. Anyone ordering a large cheese pizza for $9 during the three days after the game will get a free topping for every touchdown scored.

There's also a series of charitable components to the deal. Papa John's will make donations to Habitat for Humanity, up to $1 million in addition to the $100,000 already donated to help earthquake victims in Haiti. It's also signed former Colts coach Tony Dungy as honorary chairman of the "National Football Month" it declared in mid-January. Mr. Dungy's All-Pro Dads charity, dedicated to helping men become more involved fathers, receives $1 for every "All-Pro Dads" combo meal ordered from the chain's website this month.#

Here's What Joe Abruzzese, Ad Sales Executive Extraordinaire, Did That Changed the Ad Game

In 2002, Joe Abruzzese, then the top ad sales executive at the Tiffany Network, CBS, did a most extraordinary thing. He jumped to cable, taking the helm for ad sales at Discovery Communications.

As one top media agency person told TVWeek at the time, "It's a watershed moment. The ad sales departments at the cable networks are filled with former broadcast network managers, but it's an incredible statement that Joey has made leaving CBS, where he was well ensconced as the sitting president of ad sales, his relationship with Mel aside." In the eyes of many, Abruzzese's move legitimitized cable as an ad vehicle in a way it hadn't been before.

The reference to "Mel" is to Mel Karmazin, who was running CBS at the time, and is known as a pretty tough executive. At a 2006 press conference announcing his coming to Discovery, Abruzzese, when asked about Karmazin, said, "Mel made me better at my job." Then he compared Mr. Karmazin to a football coach, adding, "After practice you're beaten up, but at the end of the day you're a better football player.''

Subsequently, over the years, when asked about working for Karmazin, Abruzzese has been oft-quoted as saying that it was like the brutal first 20 minutes of "Saving Private Ryan." Every day.

The reason this anecdote is still worth repeating is that it goes to the core of what Abruzzese is all about. Clearly one of the best and brightest, he's also big on relationships. Relationships with the buyers and media agency managers up and down Madison Ave., as well as the managers inside the company at which he works.

Today we present our recent interview with Abruzzese that we did as part of our special report in which TVWeek recently named Discovery Communications our Cable TV Programmer of the Decade. (If you want to read any of our other interviews for this special report, click here.)

In the interview Abruzzese begins by talking about his relationship with the man who runs Discovery these days, David Zaslav--and he even talks a little about Karmazin. Here's the edited interview:

If a client wants to get involved with Deadliest
Catch, they can probably have four different
platforms with it. So that's the promise of digital.
What we're finding is that kind of thing is only
about half our digital business. The other half is
people who want to buy the Internet for
demographics.

TVWeek: It was huge news along Madison Avenue when you came to Discovery from CBS. In many ways, it was a watershed moment for cable: The top ad sales executive at CBS, one of the storied broadcast networks, moving to cable. How many years have you been here now?

Joe Abruzzese: Six years.

TVWeek: So awhile. And clearly you were well established here when David Zaslav joined the company in 2007. Did you know him before he got here?

Abruzzese: I did not. Since David has been here, though, I’ve learned that he’s an incredibly hard charger. Very smart. Knows our business. Gets concepts as quick as I’ve seen anybody get concepts, and can get what you’re saying in a nanosecond. You don’t have to explain it, you don’t have to have a long meeting.

Also, you can get to him very quickly. He’s very accessible. And he has great management skills and very trusting about what people do. We have very little differences, but when we have differences we talk it out. He solicits dialogue, he wants your opinion. We don’t then vote, but he’d definitely find the right solution.

The difference between David and a lot of executives is that David looks at the company and says, “What can this company be when it’s going at full bore?” I think that is something that is really terrific. As opposed to saying, Discovery’s brand is great. TLC’s brand is great, it’s really saying, “Okay, how much greater can they be? What other parts of the company can we make greater?”

Hard to compare him to Mel Karmazin [my boss at CBS]. But I would say this: When I worked for Mel, Mel taught me one thing—try to find the value in everything you sell. Mel’s style points were a little low, but I will tell you that he brought out the best in people because he said, “Find the value in what you have to sell.” Whether it’s an older demographic, whatever you have. David’s kind of the same way. Find what values you have in what you sell. Also, find the value in the networks that are there now.

There’s a few things that are self evident. Take Discovery Health. It’s a a pretty good brand, but somewhat limited, so we’re turning it into the Oprah network. That’s really unleashing value.

Take Discovery Kids, which was somewhat limited, and now we're going to partner with Hasbro, which is phenomenal.

Those kind of moves are changing our company. We changed Discovery Times into ID. And we’ve gotten some traction. We started putting “48 Hours” on and it got great response. Now we’ve invested a little bit of money and it’s started to grow leaps and bounds.

But when David got here he said “How do we make this thing really big?” So he hires Henry [Schleiff], an established executive, and we put money behind it.

Now, walk over to Planet Green. Honestly, nobody is really in on the Green space, besides us. So as successful as it is, we have an island there. This is all within the last couple of years. Think about taking all the networks that had been limited. Limited value. Now it’s great value. Along with rebranding Discovery Channel, getting TLC back on it’s feet, not to mention Animal Planet.

Take Animal Planet. At one point we took the tact with Animal Planet saying, it fits the portfolio because it fits parents with kids. Which is really wrong. Now it’s Animal Planet, be what it can be. And Marjorie [Kaplan], who runs it, is doing a wonderful job letting it be what it can be in its own space, and it really doesn’t have a competitor.

So we have all these cylinders running. So David has pushed everybody to get the value in what they have. And I think there’s a lot more. For example, we don’t really interact very much with international but there’s great exposure in international. We have a few deals with clients. It’s not revolutionary but it could be. We’re wide open for working together.

TVWeek: Where else do you see value potential?

Abruzzese: Probably Science. Science, right now is a great network. But we’re looking at that next to say, "Is that the next big Discovery Channel?" And where does it fit? And does Science feed into Discovery? So science programming now sometimes hits off, goes into Discovery. So we have this feeder team.

HD is a great network. Now everybody is into HD so it’s going to find its own value. And it will. So David, instead of saying, “Oh, we’re doing great,” says, “What more can we do with everything we own? And that’s the biggest difference that we have now with his being here.

TVWeek: You’ve spoken about the changes at the networks, and how they are unleashing value, which I realize you hope will also translate into more sales. What about your department. Any changes you’ve made lately?

Abruzzese: Well, our latest incarnation is that we’ve established two new sales teams. And they are the emerging net sales teams. This is literally in the last six months. We have a male sales team, that is emerging networks which have a male skewing audience: Science, Military and HD. And we have a female sales team which is ID, Fit and Planet Green.

So we’re really trying to sell value as opposed to leverage. Again, trying to sell the value proposition as apposed to the leverage proposition. We don’t just sell ratings because HD is not rated. Planet Green’s not rated. So it’s really the concepts of these networks.

TVWeek: Does that make it that much more difficult?

Abruzzese: Yes and no. It’s difficult yet it’s easier. It’s difficult because you’ve got to convince clients when I can’t tell them exactly what they’re getting, but here’s the environment. And it’s a targeted environment.

But if you do just meat and potatoes, calculate CPMs and so forth, it’s harder. But it’s interesting. And where we are going to be in a year from now, I have no idea. But it’s going to be better. It’s going to be bigger.

TVWeek: And as you’ve transitioned now and continue to do so with some of these networks, are you getting new advertisers to come aboard? Because Discovery as a company has been around for a while—and in that sense its very well known on Madison Ave.

Abruzzese: We have new advertisers. We just wrapped a deal up with Coleman stoves. Big deal with Coleman. I think one of the first times they’ve been on. And they’re big with Discovery. So we get a lot of new advertisers coming in now. We’ve done a good job with that.

But it’s about bigger shares for advertising. If you look at all the metrics now, we’ve worked really hard and we’ve added value and we’ve outpaced other networks in sales these last three or four months. About three or four quarters. If you look at what’s happened with the broadcast networks, you can see what’s happening. They’re still into selling their old platforms which are coming down. We’re building it up, and we’re still getting the money. It’s still coming over. And those are the reasons.

We’re also a little more strategic. One of the ways we’ve done it, not to get too far in the weeds, is we have an essential negotiation team who controls pricing, planning, proposals. And you can’t write a deal without going through this team. The team controls everything including DR [Direcrt Response], paid programming, ADU [Audience Deficiency Units] and so forth. So we evaluate the deals coming through. Is it better to sell it for cash, give it as an ADU, distribute it for DR for getting a better price? So that really makes it more strategic and we constantly are looking at all our options for the time we sell. What does the next month look like? The next quarter look like? And it’s not just selling time. It’s being more strategic about selling time.

TVWeek: Please tell us how the Internet has factored into this, and how do you think it’ll factor into ad sales moving forward.

Abruzzese: To be totally honest, I think for everyone the expectations were a lot higher than the reality has been. The way I see it, if clients want extensions of what they’re doing, the Internet is a great place to get the extensions. The Internet, mobile, VOD[Video on Demand], you name it.
And if a client wants to get involved with “Deadliest Catch,” they can probably have four different platforms with it. So that’s the promise of digital. What we’re finding is that kind of thing is only about half our digital business. The other half is people want to buy the Internet for demographics. So, you’ve got kind of a horizontal integration with networks, clients and shows, or vertical integration with demographics across our networks.

So we’re still trying to figure it out, and we’re actually thinking about restructuring our digital sales team to find the best way to do this, and it would probably be in that form: A vertical and horizontal integration. To find which would make the most money.

And as a company, we’ve invested a lot of money in digital. We’ll see if it pays off. If it doesn’t pay off in actual cash, it may be paying off in effectiveness in advertising. And that’s the hope.

TVWeek: I think you’ve given us a great snapshot of the ad sales picture here. Anything you want to add?

Abruzzese: We’ve covered so much! Getting back to David for a minute, I think David is a good guy who cares much about everyone’s success personally as it is. And he really wants everybody to work together. There are really no silos here.#

Index to Stories for our Special Report: TVWeek's 'Cable TV Programmer of the Decade,' Discovery Communications

To read our introduction to this special report, "Cable TV Programmer of the Decade," click here.

To read our interview with Discovery President and CEO David Zaslav, click here.

To read our interview with Bruce Campbell, President, Digital Media and Corporate Development for Discovery, click here.

To read our interview with Bill Goodwyn, Discovery's President, Domestic Distribution and Enterprises, click here.

To read our interview with Henry Schleiff, President and General Manager, Investigation Discovery, Military Channel and HD Theater, click here.

To read our interview with Marjorie Kaplan, President and General Manager, Animal Planet Media Enterprises, click here.

To read our interview with Laura Michalchyshyn, President and General Manager, Planet Green, Discovery Health and FitTV, click here.

To read our interview with Joe Abruzzese, President of Advertising Sales for Discovery Communications, click here

To read our interview with Eileen O'Neill, President and General Manager, TLC, click here

To read our interview with Clark Bunting, President and General Manager of the Discovery Channel, click here

Clark Bunting, President and General Manager, Discovery Channel

"Our business is based on our ability to track an audience, make sure that we are consistent with the brand values and the company as a whole, bring in advertisers and make sure the cable affiliates say, 'You know what, we see this is really valuable.' "

TVWeek: So, first of all, I don’t remember Discovery Communications without you. I think you were one of the first employees there.

Clark Bunting: I’ve been here a long time. It’s funny because we are very active in helping mentor young people and helping kids from university who would otherwise not have a shot at getting into the entertainment business. They’ll always say, ‘How did you get your job here?’ and I’ll say "I answered an ad in the Washington Post."

TVWeek: And as I recall, that really is how you got your first job at Discover.

Bunting: It’s absolutely true.

TVWeek: Well, they really made a good hire. And as I recall, you were on the team that thought up Shark Week, back in 1988, right?

Bunting: Yes. [Discovery founder] John Hendricks, Steve Cheskin and I were all part of that. And it’s kind of funny, Chuck. At the time we were trying to think what can we do [to make a splash and get attention], what kind of stunts? And it was then we were coming to the conclusion that if we had a theme week—which was pretty early on before folks figured out theme weeks and stunts and how stuff like that works. And it was one of those moments where we’re saying, "well, maybe we could do a week of sharks."

Swear to God, nobody in the moment knew [what it would become]. That really was one of the greatest promotional stunts in probably all of cable .

It’s funny, the number of times we came up with these great ideas in the early days here and later people will come up to us and say, "Well how did you know [that it was going to be so successful]?" And the honest truth is, you don’t when you come up with the idea. And if anybody tells you they do, they’re lying.

TVWeek: Actually this gives us a chance to talk about something that is a great strength of any company that does well over the years, like you guys have, and certainly an executive who’s done well. Could talk for a moment about the importance of being given the opportunity to try something new and different and being able to fail and not lose your job?

Bunting: That’s absolutely true. Our 25th anniversary is coming up and we’re going to pull together a tape on the worst shows we ever made.

TVWeek: As silly as that might sound, it’s incredibly instructive. I tell young people about the legendary TV programmer who was at NBC, Brandon Tartikoff, and the number of terrible shows he came up with. He wasn’t shy about talking about them. He was a truly great programmer, and he realized the importance of trying something even it it flopped.

Bunting: I’ve had some bad ones. One of my personal favorites was called "Oceans of Air."

TVWeek: Tell us what that was.

Bunting: It was going to be about wind. And [a colleague] at one point says to me “Dude. What are the pictures?” And I said, “I don’t know, it’s trees. Fields of wheat. A lot of power behind wind, right?”

TVWeek: Well, you’ve also had some wonderful successes.

Bunting: Discovery is the number one media brand in the world. We can’t tell anybody what to think, of course, but on a good night you can say, ‘Here’s something important to think about.’ And the agenda setting opportunity is a treasure that very few programmers anywhere else in the world get to hold in their hand. And I think that is a great responsibility and a great burden of sitting in these chairs at this corporation.

Because you have to have it right. You’ve got to make sure the facts are correct. And at the same time people actually pay attention to these stories we tell. And these are stories that go worldwide.

So, again, it’s not so much that any given moment at any given night I look at the Science Channel or ID and say ‘Oh my god this is the best story we’ve ever told.’ But you look at the batting average at any given time and if you look at what I would call the holy trinity of ratings, revenue and brand, first and foremost in this building—and I hope it will always be first and foremost in this building—is brand.

TVWeek: I think that’s a very smart idea and a lot of people don’t keep their eye on that.

Bunting: Well if you look at a lot of what’s happening, in my opinion, cable has become broadcast.

TVWeek: What do you mean by that?

Bunting: Well, a lot of what you would have found in certain kinds of general entertainment has migrated from what was broadcast to cable. And cable, across multiple platforms, multiple medias, multiple devices, you look out there and just about anything that you would’ve thought about 20 years ago would be broadcast is now cable. And in abundance.

So what we have to do is continue to figure out, with all that clutter, and lots of people doing nonfiction now, how do we punch through the clutter? And the one thing that will always continue to be the bright shining light is brand.

When you look at it you say, "I think Discovery can tell almost any story but through a Discovery lens." And if you use that lens, and you use that as sort of the content compass of what we should do and what we could do, I think that’s where Discovery has an importance in the world of content disproportionate to its distribution.

TVWeek: That make sense. And I like the brand argument. Let me ask you a question about the Science Channel. Unfortunately, I’ll bet there are a lot of people out there who would say that in order to tune into something that sounds so dry and not entertaining as the Science Channel they’d have be drunk one day of the year and even then they probably wouldn’t do it. So how do you get people engaged in something that is so important, for example, as science? How do you make that engaging television?

Bunting: We get ‘em drunk two days a year.

Nah, but there is a great challenge and great dilemma with science. Like many of the networks that have done extraordinary well the name is a promise. And if you’re like me, I was traumatized by calculus in high school, I was traumatized by chemistry.

TVWeek: Right. I think that’s been many people’s experience.

Bunting: So I look at that label. And when I look at it, it literally looks like a periodic table. So what we’re trying to do with science is open the promise of science up, 'cause science is everywhere. Science is part of your everyday life. You use science when you decide when to cross the street. You use science when you turn your automobile on, when you get in the elevator. We have a great editorial and creative range. One of those shows that you’ll see—a personal favorite—is called “Punkin Chunkin.”

"Punkin Chunkin" is basically how far can you throw a pumpkin. Huge amounts. And we have air cannons, we have trebuchets [sort of a giant wooden slingshot], and we have centrifugal spinners. All really deep and cool engineering and science behind those devices that throw a pumpkin 4400 feet this year. So what it does is: it’s fun, it speaks to American ingenuity, it’s inventive entrepreneur. We have a range of teams featured on the show that you wouldn’t believe. People from NASA, an all female team called Bad Hair Day, two guys who are literally just tinkerers in their backyard. And that is the kind of thing that speaks to people, that says science can be fun. Science can be accessible. Whoopi Goldberg and her “Head Games” show that we have.

At a meeting earlier this week we were talking to folks proposing to land a device on a comet. And they’re going to land that device on a comet, hopefully. NASA funding, all that sort of thing. In 2022. So, in conversation with these folks, and literally a room full of rocket scientists, what are we going to learn? And we learn about the composition of comets. How much ice, how much water, much of their chemistry.

Someone asked, “So why are you doing this?” And one of the scientists said, “Because it’s cool.” So I look at that and say, from the standpoint of science, we can do everything from “Punkin Chunkin” to “Young Scientist Challenge” with Will Smith to “Head Games” with Whoopi Goldberg to things as aspirational as being part of covering the landing of a device on a comet 12 years from today. That’s a pretty broad editorial and creative range.

TVWeek: I think most viewers, if you ask them to mention science programming, would pretty much just say PBS’s “Nova,” which I think most people would say is a pretty amazing show.

Bunting: I’m hopeful that they would say Discovery as well. I think Nat Geo’s done good work, particularly in the early days of Expedition. But I think what Paula [ S. Apsell, Nova’s senior executive producer] has done with “Nova’ is brilliant. The challenge of Nova is that those are handcrafted films. That’s handcrafting a custom car.

But we have to have hundreds of hours of original programming, on an annualized basis, intended for a broad audience that we have got to grow. Our business is based on our ability to track an audience, make sure that we are consistent with the brand values and the company as a whole, bring in advertisers and make sure the cable affiliates say, “You know what, we see this is really valuable.”

One of the things we think that the Science Channel can do is really drop down an octave and help young people get interested in science, technology, engineering and math. Stem education. Get kids to say, ‘calculus is cool.’

When I was growing up I wanted to be an astronaut. Everybody wanted to be an astronaut. And I look out there now, and we don’t have our next Carl Sagan. We don’t have our next David Attenborough. We don’t have our next Jacques Cousteau. So one of the things we’re looking to do—Debbie Myers the brilliant general manager of the Science Channel, does Talent School. So there’re all these really bright scientists out there. But they are not necessarily outstanding science communicators. And what we feel we have an obligation to do is get kids interested in science. But those kids are only going to be interested in science if we have great communicators.#