News

At Long Last, Conan Takes Command

Sat, 30 May 2009 16:03:00 -0800

It’s been three months since Conan O’Brien hosted his last “Late Night.” While he’s been off the air, he’s hardly been out of the spotlight. Following the lead of predecessor Jay Leno, Mr. O’Brien spent a big chunk of his late-night interregnum touring the country, visiting NBC affiliates in dozens of cities, part of a carefully orchestrated campaign to build good will with his de facto bosses at the station level. Mr. O’Brien has kept a somewhat lower media profile during most of his break from broadcasting. But that’s changed in recent weeks in the lead-up to his June 1 “Tonight Show” takeover, with Mr. O’Brien popping up on the covers of publications as diverse as Parade to the New York Times Magazine. Two weeks ago, he also made time to chat with TelevisionWeek Editor Josef Adalian about preparations for the transition, the cultural significance of his new job and why he hopes to still be jumping on top of his desk when he’s in his seventies. An edited transcript of their conversation follows: TelevisionWeek: So it’s almost June 1. Are you freaked out yet? Conan O’Brien: I’m in a very serene state of denial. They’ve told me it’s June 1, 2011, which has helped me stay very calm. I’ve been hypnotized into believing I’ve got two years left to prepare. TVWeek: You’ve had a long build-up to the takeover. Mr. O’Brien: Yeah, [we’ve had] five years. But most of those five years, you have to host the “Late Night” show. You have to give that 100% of your attention. We’ve only been able to switch to hyperdrive since Feb. 20. And I spent a month of that on the road going on my affiliate wam-a-jam. TVWeek: How was touring the country, visiting with local stations? It seemed a very Jay Leno kind of thing to do. Mr. O’Brien: I think it’s what you do, especially since these are the guys putting on the show. I took the band Phish with me. It was a beautiful happening. TVWeek: Did Dave do a tour? Mr. O’Brien: I think he did. I don’t know if it was as extensive. I think I may have set some record with the 30-city tour. That may be a new record in the neediness hall of fame. TV Week: Is your job as host of “The Tonight Show” different than your job as host of “Late Night”? Is your mission different now that you’re hosting a franchise that is even more legendary than what Letterman handed you with “Late Night”? Mr. O’Brien: Fundamentally, there probably isn’t a difference. I think these shows are an extension of the hosts’ personality. They go out there every night. They comment on what happened that day. They try and make people laugh. They interview people. So in a very fundamental sense, the mission doesn’t really change that much. The rest of it, you have to get into the show in order to find out. There are ways in which this show will probably change me, but it’s hard for me to say how that’s going to be in a vacuum. I might sound a little bit arrogant if I say, “Well, as ‘The Tonight Show’ host, I’m the chosen representative of America.” Those thoughts probably lead to madness. A good “Tonight Show” host is someone who is just following their instincts and trying to put on a funny show every night and let the rest follow from that. TVWeek: Is late night, specifically “The Tonight Show,” still the institution it once was? How has it changed since the last time someone took over? Is it easier? Mr. O’Brien: I wouldn’t say it’s easier at all. There was a time when “The Tonight Show” was the only game in town. I envy that position. It’d be nice if this was the only show. Now we’re living in a world where there are 35 shows out there. And because the culture and the technology are changing so rapidly, you have to work all that much harder to stay relevant. My job, in a way, is to figure out as we go along what is this latest version of “The Tonight Show.” I accept that my “Tonight Show” is never going to mean to the country as a whole what Johnny Carson’s “Tonight Show” meant because television’s changed too fundamentally. He was the only person. No late-night show has that monopoly now. But that said, to a certain extent ... it’s all about the host. Jay’s show has changed since he started. It’s important for the host of “The Tonight Show” to keep changing and evolving as he goes along. TVWeek: What was your thinking about the set? Mr. O’Brien: I wanted it to look like a really high-end steak restaurant. We did a lot of polling and most Americans are very comfortable in a steak restaurant. I literally want people salivating when I’m in the monologue mark. I was talking with [production designers] and said, look, “The Tonight Show” is this 60-year-old franchise, and it’s very important that we take it seriously. I’m going to put my stamp on it and, unfortunately, there’s no altering my core personality now. But I said to them, I think this show should look elegant. It should be a beautiful space. We should acknowledge that I’m not in New York anymore, that I’m in L.A., but in a way that feels like it has some connection to our past in New York. And that led to deco, because art deco was a movement that has a distinct New York version and a distinct L.A. version. So we went with L.A. deco. It’s 30 Rock, but it’s this cool Los Angeles version of it. You know, Rick Ludwin [head of late night for NBC] came in the other day and said, “It’s beautiful, it’s beautiful.” He said, “It looks like ‘The Tonight Show.’” And what he meant was, it doesn’t look like Jay Leno’s “Tonight Show.” It just looks like the “Tonight Show.” That’s nice. TVWeek: Even the logo ties into the deco phase. Mr. O’Brien: I really do love the logo. Logos are tricky. They need to be something that can endure being slapped on a lot of locations and still work. They have to be like a metal brand that you can put on anything and it works. TVWeek: You pay a lot of attention to these details. Mr. O’Brien: I felt this way when I took over the “Late Night” show from Letterman. I take the responsibility of these kinds of things very seriously. When I took over “Late Night,” I really felt the sense of experimentation and play and fearlessness that David Letterman’s show had. I didn’t want to do anything remotely like what Dave did, but I wanted us to keep that spirit. Now it’s a trust that I’ve been handed. And I have different concerns now than I did in 1993. In 1993, when I was young punk I didn’t care what the lighting was. I was all about just the ideas. Now I’ve evolved somewhat in that I want people who come on the show to look good. I want things to have an elegance. One of our aims should be that really funny things happen on the show, but that people look good, too. People haven’t fallen asleep quite yet. I’m used to my viewers being completely conked out. I do think the visual statement is important on this show. TVWeek: Are you still as much of a comedy student, almost a comedy snob, as you were when you took over “Late Night”? Mr. O’Brien: I take the comedy really seriously. I want it to be funny. I’m not comfortable doing things that aren’t funny. That’s like nails on a blackboard to me. If I know something’s no good but I know we can get away with it, that makes me very uncomfortable. Any host like myself is in a volume business. You don’t do shows when you feel you have all the best material. You do shows every night because you have to do a show every night, and so sometimes something’s not ready but you do it anyway. That’s just built into the job: You can’t be in love with every piece you perform. That said, I’m always going to really care about something being funny. That’s just my nature. One of the evolutions that happens to you is, when I was 30, I cared about the comedy almost to the exclusion of everything else. When I first started doing the job I had an almost condescending attitude toward interviews. I just thought, “Look, I just want to set the world on fire with my strange ideas. I wanted to show people that we were completely fearless.” I learned fairly quickly that the part of the show where you sit and talk to Marisa Tomei is really important, too. And it’s got to be good. That’s when I figured out “How do I be myself?” in that kind of environment. I learned to care about those kinds of things. TVWeek: You’ve changed a lot over the last 16 years, in other words. Mr. O’Brien: The biggest misperception is that suddenly Conan’s shifting from 1993 “Late Night” to 2009 “Tonight Show”. Well, no. There’s a Conan that hosted the show in 1998 that’s different than 1993. And there’s a Conan who hosted the Emmys twice, who had to grow and adjust to do that. There have been specific phases you go through. In the last two years of “Late Night,” we really changed and expanded Act 1. We’d do full-blown sketches from the monologue. If people haven’t been paying attention, and they tune in again in early June, they might think, “Oh, he completely, radically changed himself.” Well, no I didn’t. It’s been a long time coming. TVWeek: It’s sort of hard for me to think of the young guy I first interviewed in 1993 is now just four years away from turning 50 and a father of two. Does it feel natural? Mr. O’Brien: I don’t think it does to anybody. I used to think people in their 70s probably feel very old. I realize now, Oh, no they don’t. They probably feel a lot like I do. If they’re lucky, they feel pretty good and they have pretty good energy and they have a lot they want to accomplish. You just get a different perspective. I really don’t feel any different than I did in 1993. I have a tremendous amount of energy, and I like being physical in my comedy. I have wondered sometimes, ‘Wait a minute, can you jump up on a desk and dance with Mr. T when you turn 50? Is that going to be cool?’ And then I realize, you just can’t think about it. I’m going to keep doing what feels right to me until they give me the hook. And then I’ll do it on the Internet. TVWeek: You still seem like the same guy you were back in the 1990s. You still seem normal. Mr. O’Brien: It’s funny. That can be exaggerated. I’d like to pretend that I’m a completely normal person, but I definitely have my moments. There can be a belief that, ‘Oh, he’s like Richie Cunningham. And then he hangs up the phone and he goes down to do a show, and it doesn’t seem to get to him.” But I take things very seriously. I almost get into an intense, anxious depression when I’ve got to do a performance or be funny. That’s always been with me. I’ve been that way my entire life. I was that way when I had to write a “Simpsons” script. I was that way when I had to write a “Saturday Night Live” sketch. I’ve been that way throughout my entire “Late Night” hosting career. I don’t just walk around with a chipper smile. But I think people don’t see that as often. I think that would be the biggest misperception about me. People that know the television Conan and who then hang around me for a bit are sometimes a little taken aback. ‘He’s lying on the couch, and he’s just staring. What’s going on? He seems really anxious!” I get that way. TVWeek: Maybe it’s not that you’re still “normal.” But you’re still you. Mr. O’Brien: That is true. Look, if I haven’t changed now, I don’t think it’s ever gonna happen. People who have known me a long time have always said, “You’re the same person who was in improv class with me,” or, “You’re the same person that was in high school with me.” And I think that’s true. It’s a product of how I grew up. I think that’s also true of the people who work with me, too. If I start to get out of line with Mike Sweeney or Jeff Ross they’re going to let me know. Nobody kisses up to me. I wish they did. But nobody does. And every now and then when someone does, I just find it creepy and annoying. I think it’s good that I have a team of people that are gonna tell me when something’s not good enough. Match that with my own self-hate, and you have a pretty good recipe.

TVWeek Goes Online as Market Changes

Sat, 30 May 2009 16:00:00 -0800

I’m Chuck Ross, the editorial director and publisher of TelevisionWeek and TVWeek.com. If you’re reading this in our print edition, it’s the last column I’ll write, as today we publish the last regularly scheduled print edition of TelevisionWeek. If you are reading this at TVWeek.com, it’s the first of many blogs I’m planning to write. Regardless if you are at this moment holding the paper edition or looking at a computer or PDA screen, let’s get the commercial message out of the way: This column is being presented by Debmar-Mercury and its new syndicated comedy “Meet the Browns.” “Tyler Perry and TBS have turned the traditional sitcom model on its head with hit comedies like ‘Meet the Browns’ and ‘House of Payne,’” Mort Marcus, co-president of Debmar-Mercury, has said, and local TV audiences are in for quite a treat when Debmar-Mercury starts syndicating “Meet the Browns” next year. Tomorrow, by the way, my blog at TVWeek.com will be presented to you by a network that attracts the Type-H male viewer that advertisers crave: a business owner, a proud father and into wine, not beer. So if you’re a marketer—or media planner or buyer working for a marketer during this upfront season—and if this male viewer is one you need to reach—you know where to look: The History Channel. So, whatd'ya think? Do these commercial messages, presented this way, bother you? In fact, we did NOT really sell the sponsorship of this column to Debmar or the History Channel. But, quite frankly, don't be surprised if such sponsorships eventually become commonplace. And the way I've just presented them, embedded in this piece, is probably nothing like any print advertising you've seen before-but it's nothing that's particularly new or revolutionary. It's a sponsorship format that I've stolen from TV's first newscasts over 50 years ago-and those guys were just copying what had been done for years and years before that on radio. By the mid-1950s, about 40 million people a week were tuning into NBC’s live, signature evening newscast. Here’s a partial transcript of the newscast that was broadcast on April 18, 1955: “Ladies and gentlemen, a good evening to you. This is John Cameron Swayze reporting the news for the biggest car of the low-priced three, Plymouth.” An announcer then said, “Plymouth, the car that’s making news, presents the Plymouth News Caravan. The excitement, the drama, of today’s news today, produced for Plymouth by NBC.” Mr. Cameron—and his Washington D.C. correspondent, a young reporter named David Brinkley—then proceeded to deliver the nightly news, with placards on their desks reading “Plymouth presents” and their names. When it was time for the first commercial, Mr. Swayze intoned, “Now, to New York’s famous hotel Waldorf-Astoria for important news about Plymouth.” What follows looked like another news story about a Plymouth press conference. At the end of the 15-minute newscast Mr. Swayze said, “Well, that’s the story folks. Glad we could get together. Remember to tune into the Camel News Caravan at this time tomorrow night, brought to you by Camel. No other cigarette is as rich tasting, yet so mild as Camel. Now this is John Cameron Swayze saying goodnight for the all new ’55 Plymouth, the biggest car of the low-priced three.” I dwell on this because advertising is germane to what’s going on here at TVWeek. We announced last month that in the current environment there isn’t enough advertising demand to support any more print editions of this publication after today. From here on out, after a rich publishing heritage that’s lasted 27 years thus far, TelevisionWeek will exist virtually exclusively online at our longtime Internet address www.TVWeek.com. As most of you know, TVWeek has not published a hard copy on a weekly basis for more than a year—there just hasn’t been advertiser demand that we do so. Thus on many weeks we’ve been available with a digital online edition only. In fact, the interests of our readership has long demanded that we publish news daily at TVWeek.com, which we’ve been doing and will continue to do. Too often these days you’ll read that such-and-such a publication has gone exclusively online, discontinuing its print edition “to better serve our readers.” We find that justification suspicious. What publisher would not rather still have a healthy print publication as well as a robust Web site, with considerable advertising support for both? Our journey over the past two-and-a-half decades isn’t particularly different than that traveled by many publications—and is shorter than many, longer than some. For most of our lifespan we were known as Electronic Media, and primarily served the syndicated TV marketplace. But due primarily to consolidation—consolidation on both the TV station ownership side as well as on the program producer side—we’ve gotten fewer and fewer ads for syndication. We broadened our ad base considerably over the last several years, but still came up short. So we will carry on online. Some of you may be wondering why we are doing even doing that. We are doing so because we fervently believe in the necessity of the journalistic endeavor. More than a decade ago the prestigious Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism came up with this definition of the purpose of journalism: “to provide citizens with accurate and reliable information they need to function in a free society.” Of course here at TVWeek we aren’t doing something as high-minded as that. But we ardently believe that we serve a similar high-minded purpose for the professionals in the TV business: we provide you with the accurate and reliable information you need to do your jobs better. And if real journalistic coverage of the business of TV on a regular basis disappears, there will be five people—or 45 people—who will have enough of an interest to blog about what you do on a daily or even hourly basis. And maybe they’ll get it right and maybe they won’t, and who knows what self- interests they’ll bring to the table. Don’t get us wrong—we have a number of folks who blog for us today and we’ll have more in the future—but the blogs need to be tempered by the accompaniment of real journalism, and we will continue to do that. As we make this transition we’ll be losing a few more staffers, and that’s always painful. Greg Baumann, our editor since the spring of 2006, will be leaving, and we will miss him. Greg’s done a tremendous job during a very trying period. Our executive editor, Tom Gilbert, will be staying, as will our deputy editor and blogger, Joe Adalian, who becomes editor of TVWeek.com. And I’ll be staying as the managing director of TVWeek.com and all of our online products. Our monthly NewsPro section of TVWeek has always been popular with our TV-station newsroom and cable-news readership, and it’s been a success story on the ad side as well. So, as we’ve previously announced, NewsPro will be spun off as its own print publication starting in August. Mr. Gilbert will also run it. Online you can still find NewsPro as part of TVWeek.com. We will continue to produce live events when we believe we can make a needed contribution. For example, our Upfront Summit at the Roosevelt Hotel in April was a major success. We’ll also bring you webinars of topics that are of interest to you, and write a white-paper online when a subject matter demands one. Will we make it online? Right now we have a vigorous online readership. Furthermore, we’ve gotten commitments from enough advertisers to keep us going online for the next year or so. We are grateful for their support of the kind of journalism we do. And don’t be surprised, as we work with our advertisers to present their messages to you, that we may try some creative new approaches, including some new ideas, as we mentioned at the top of this column, that are 50 years old. Let me know what you think. In the premiere issue of this publication, published on May 3, 1982, our editor-in-chief, Rance Crain, and his top editors wrote: “Our exclusive niche will be defined as the wide range of electronic media, in all its new, old and emerging forms. We believe in the need for a publication that will blow away all the smoke and pull together, in a meaningful and useful way, the relationships involved.” That continues to be our guiding principle at TVWeek.com. See you online. Sincerely, Chuck Ross

New Look, Additional Features at TVWeek.com

Sat, 30 May 2009 15:57:00 -0800

As previously announced, this is the last regularly-scheduled print edition of TelevisionWeek. From now on the publication will exist exclusively on the Web at its Web site, TVWeek.com. The site has been given a complete redesign, with several new features, including: —Open Mic, a new blog featuring commentary and analysis from TV industry insiders and executives. —The Twitterati, an Twitter aggregator featuring feeds from a wide variety of TV-centric sources. —An expanded TVBizWire section, with the latest industry headlines from the TVWeek.com staff and publications across the Internet. Josef Adalian, deputy editor and columnist, will become editor of TVWeek.com. As previously announced, TelevisionWeek editor Greg Baumann will be leaving the company. Mr. Adalian will oversee day-to-day operations at the Web site, while offering news reporting and analysis of the TV industry via his recently launched blog, TV MoJoe, and his weekly column. He will work closely with Tom Gilbert, who continues as executive editor of TVWeek.com. Chuck Ross will oversee Mr. Adalian and Mr. Gilbert as managing director of TVWeek.com “Joe is one of the finest journalists I know,” Mr. Ross said. “As we continue our tradition of news you can trust exclusively on our Web site, I can think of no one better to lead us.” Mr. Adalian joined TVWeek in May 2008. He had previously spent a decade at Variety, where he was TV editor. During his nearly 20-year career in journalism, Mr. Adalian has also been a reporter for the New York Post and the Boston Herald. He served as TV critic for the Washington Times in 1994. Mr. Gilbert, who will be based in New York, joined TelevisionWeek (then Electronic Media) as managing editor in 2000 and was named executive editor in 2005. A veteran entertainment journalist, he previously was managing editor of both Variety and The Hollywood Reporter, and immediately prior to joining TVWeek was an editor at the Los Angeles Times.

Marketing Syndie’s ‘Office’

Sat, 30 May 2009 15:44:00 -0800

Affiliates airing NBC Universal’s “The Office” are rolling out the show’s syndication advertising campaign, ahead of the customary July pushes. NBC, without a new first-run program to advertise this year, is focusing its promotional energy on “The Office,” which is entering broadcast syndication in September. Under the banner “The Office is Branching Out,” NBC Universal is planning a multi-phase approach to get viewers up to speed about “Office” in broadcast syndication, Donna Mills, NBC Universal vice president of marketing and affiliate relations, said. The first phase contains mostly clip-driven spots from the show that are currently airing in some markets, Ms. Mills said. “The Office” promos launched early in part because Fox affiliates airing “The Office” wanted a spot to air during the finale of “American Idol” on May 20. Stations are also receiving custom promos from NBC Universal, with cast members discussing specific markets. The promo package includes call-letter jingles and behind-the-scenes clips. Subsequent phases of the advertising push include character-specific spots and highlighting the fact that “The Office” in syndication allows viewers to enjoy episodes from the beginning of the series, Ms. Mills said. Stations will also have access in August to a video content-management system developed by DG Entertainment that will allow affiliates to search clips of the show by keyword, giving them the ability to cut station-specific promos. For instance, stations can search for every instance the word “five” is said on “The Office” and use those clips to create a custom promo highlighting that “The Office” is airing five times a week. Ms. Mills said a Tampa station that is airing “The Office,” the independent WMOR-TV, started its promo push in March. The station has already requested talent to appear at a Tampa Bay Rays baseball game, and is pitching contest ideas to NBC Universal. “That just shows the excitement around this show, and how exciting stations are to have it, and how excited we are to push it,” she said.

Smith & Co. Expands Reach

Sat, 30 May 2009 15:41:00 -0800

The producer of “Hell’s Kitchen” is getting into the Cupcake business. A. Smith & Co. has signed a series development deal with Cupcake Brown, the crack addict turned lawyer, motivational speaker and best-selling author. The alternative-production powerhouse is looking to build a reality show concept around Ms. Brown. The deal with Ms. Brown is part of a packed slate of existing and future projects in the works at A. Smith, the Los Angeles-based production shop that has turned into an alternative-TV powerhouse for founders Arthur Smith and Kent Weed. The company is preparing to launch the second season of ABC’s “I Survived a Japanese Gameshow” later this month. Its A. Smith Company Properties unit, headed by Frank Sinton, has helped the company dramatically expand its cable operations with shows such as “Pros Vs. Joes” for Spike and “Trading Spaces” for TLC. And then there’s the “Hell’s Kitchen” franchise. “It’s become this great ride for us,” Mr. Smith said of the Gordon Ramsay-anchored brand, which is produced in conjunction with ITV Studios. “Nobody knew that it was going to be as big as it has become. When we started, the novelty of reality shows was starting to fade.” Indeed, Fox can’t seem to stop dining in Mr. Smith’s “Kitchen,” which wrapped its fifth cycle last month. Another season will start up in July, with season seven already in the can for a 2010 premiere. The original series has been supplemented by “Kitchen Nightmares,” a successful spinoff in which Mr. Ramsay tries to help struggling eateries whip themselves into shape. And in November, the network plans to extend the brand further with a live cook-along-with-Gordon special. Mr. Smith, who possesses the reality-producer gene for promotion, said season six of “Hell’s” is nothing less than “phenomenal.” “It’s the most intense season we’ve had yet,” he said. “In some ways the last season was our comedy season. Season six is different.” Mr. Smith is nearly as upbeat about the sophomore season of “I Survived a Japanese Gameshow,” which just won the Rose D’Or best of 2009 award for best reality program. “It’s one of those shows you work really hard on, and sometimes we wonder if anyone appreciates this,” Mr. Smith laughs, adding that the Rose D’Or award is a nice validation of his staff’s efforts on the ABC series. “I Survived” is actually two shows in one. Half of the show is a traditional reality soap, capturing the drama of Americans living in the alien culture of Japan. The other appeal of the series comes from American contestants attempting to compete in over-the-top Japanese games (“Big Bug Splat on Windshield,” anyone?). Mr. Smith said season two of “I Survived” will depart from the show’s first year. “The novelty is gone, so we really have to push it,” he said. “We have to make all of it bigger and better.” That means contestants will likely play at least one more Japanese game show in each episode. Time spent following the contestants off-stage might be cut back, Mr. Smith hinted. The show’s episode count has also been increased, up to 10 hours (versus last summer’s seven-episode run). “I’m so happy we got a second season,” Mr. Smith said. “The first season was so hard, it was almost impossible. The whole show is a test of international relations.” In addition to his network projects, Mr. Smith has expanded his company’s production capacity with the launch of A. Smith Company Properties, the unit devoted to cable projects. Mr. Smith said bringing on Mr. Sinton to run the unit was key to quality control. “We were turning down cable work because we didn’t have the time,” Mr. Smith said. “We had to increase our capacity, so we brought in Frank. It lets us be a big boutique.” While Mr. Smith spends most of his time working on network projects, A. Smith Company Properties “will probably do nine or 10 shows” this year, Mr. Smith said. “We have three shows at Tru, two shows at Spike, and projects for Travel, BET, Discovery and TV One,” he said. “I would have never been able to do all this if we hadn’t gone to Frank.” At Tru, Mr. Smith has teamed with producers Michael Braverman and Barry Bloom for “Conspiracy Theory,” a project that will be hosted and produced by Jesse Ventura. A. Smith & Co. is also developing the “Dummies for Life” books into a potential syndicated series. As for the deal with Cupcake Brown, Mr. Smith is, true to reality-producer fashion, mum on details. “But we have an idea that’s based on overcoming,” he said. “She’ll be working with people who are in trouble and getting them over it.” The tentative title for Ms. Brown’s project is “House Arrest.” “In a society where tragedy has the ability to overtake an individual’s life course, we feel strongly that her narrative will translate well to television,” Mr. Smith said. Ms. Brown’s dramatic life story, documented in her Oprah-approved memoir, “A Piece of Cake,” has possibilities beyond the reality TV arena, Mr. Smith said. “This will be a movie one day,” he said, noting that A. Smith & Co. has purchased the life rights to Ms. Brown’s saga. Mr. Smith, like many reality producers, is hoping his company will be able to expand into scripted projects. A. Smith has a scripted development deal at Fox Broadcasting and is already working on one idea at the network, Mr. Smith said. “We’re good at telling real stories,” he explained. “Now we’re going to try to do it in a dramatic fashion.” Mr. Smith said he also has another “half dozen shows in the closet that we don’t talk about it.” His challengeis getting shelf space on broadcast and cable networks, many of which these days seem content to keep expanding current concepts to almost ridiculous lengths (see VH1’s “Daisy of Love”). That’s one reason Mr. Smith is so upbeat about the return of “I Survived a Japanese Game Show” to ABC. While not a breakout hit last summer, the network saw enough potential in the concept to renew it—a display of patience Mr. Smith believes needs to be repeated at other networks if the unscripted genre is to continue flourishing. “Networks have to give shows that are doing modest ratings a chance to come back,” he said. “You have to take risks. Viewers are really discerning now. I don’t think they’re going to keep falling for the same rhythms.”

TV Twittering: A Subtle Art

Sat, 30 May 2009 15:37:00 -0800

When Fox’s “Prison Break” ran its series finale last month, fans of the show were left wondering if the lead character was really dead. Their response was to go online and post a whole lot of “WTF?s” in chat rooms, fan sites and Twitter, using the Internet acronym for “what the f**k?” For 20th Century Fox, the studio behind the series, a WTF? or two is a good thing. It means fans are curious and engaged. Fox’s efforts to use social media to both gauge and shape buzz for the series finale illustrates one of the ways in which TV programmers can harness social media. In this case, the studio judiciously doled out clues on social forums rather than issuing a blatant promotional message for “Prison Break: The Final Break,” an 88-minute DVD releasing July 21 with never-before-seen episodes. Those efforts also embodied the findings of a study that suggests networks will likely have more success using social networks for brand building, as Fox did, than for driving tune-in. According to research firm Knowledge Networks, Twitter is best used by TV networks to connect to influential people, such as bloggers, reporters and critics, than it is to encourage viewers to tune in at 8 p.m. Despite Twitter’s meteoric rise, the service is still only accessed regularly by a small percentage of the population. A recent Nielsen study found that 60% of people who sign up for the service stop using it after one month. Twitter Saved ‘Chuck’ That doesn’t mean the social-networking service hasn’t reached a critical mass. NBC was on the receiving end of a fan-driven campaign to save “Chuck” from cancellation that used Twitter to demonstrate audience devotion to the show. The network cited the campaign in its decision to spare “Chuck.” Also, Internet users tend to dismiss more overt sales and tune-in messages on social forums, said David Tice, vice president of the media practice at Knowledge Networks. “With Twitter, people don’t succeed with the hard sell. It needs to be more subtle,” he said. That’s why Fox monitored word of mouth on Twitter, Facebook and MySpace communities in the weeks leading up to the “Prison Break” finale, as fans speculated about whether the lead character would marry his longtime love. The episode itself didn’t provide the answer but after the West Coast finale aired, the studio posted a wedding photo of the fictional couple in social forums, said Steven Melnick, senior VP of marketing for 20th Century Fox. Only then did the studio officially announce that it would release two more episodes in the DVD, which will address the WTFs that fan posted about the character’s fate. “The level of engagement by fans was pretty extraordinary and it’s the kind of chatter we track regularly, which is one of the benefits of these social networks,” Mr. Melnick said. “It’s more effective to give them a piece of content to react to and forward around, than give them a message that the DVD is coming on July 21.” Engagement Key NBC uses Twitter to share production information, pictures and news on upcoming guest stars for shows, said Jared Goldsmith, director of digital promotion strategy at NBC. “The key is engagement. This lets fans become a part of the process to peek behind the curtain,” he said. He emphasized that Twitter is a communication tool and to use it for anything more is tricky. “We don’t want it to be a spam tool,” he said. Programmers also need to remember Twitter is still not mainstream. “Social media wasn’t a big factor in terms of a reference or a resource for what shows to watch,” Mr. Tice said, adding that 32% of social media users said they used social media regularly or sometimes as a reference for information, reviews, or recommendations on TV programs, with most relying more on friends or media reports. Social media can be a valuable way to garner press attention, Mr. Tice said. For instance, rather than “tweet” tune-in messages, Discovery Channel uses Twitter to share “insider” content like pictures or updates from a shoot, links to behind-the-scenes videos and alerts to the media regarding breaking news, said Katherine Nelson, VP of communications for the network. The network has also created talent accounts for stars like “MythBusters’” Adam Savage and “Dirty Jobs’” Mike Rowe. To be effective for a network, Twitter should be interactive, said Scott Lackey, co-founder and strategic director at advertising agency Jugular. Networks need to be ready to have conversations with fans, share songs and even live “tweet” interviews with talent or stars, he said.

Struggling Soaps Seek New Niche

Sat, 30 May 2009 15:34:00 -0800

Soap operas may be borrowing from one of their favorite plot lines—patient is in a coma, on life support, hanging on by a thread—but they aren’t dead yet, and networks and studios are working to find ways to keep the genre viable. Most recently, the cancellation of “Guiding Light” on CBS renewed fears that daytime TV dramas are fated to be written out of television’s scheduling script. “I think daytime soap operas as we know them—the regular five-day-a-week, long-running serialized stories—are going to be a quaint vestige of yesteryear,” said television historian Tim Brooks, co-author of “The Complete Directory to Prime Time and Cable TV Shows.” “I don’t think they have a future in that form.” Even though daytime audiences have dwindled, advertisers still covet those highly engaged and loyal audiences that are still watching. The question is whether the genre can overcome the social changes that have led to soaps’ difficulties, particularly the migration of female audiences away from the TV during the day. TelevisionWeek spoke to some of the experts in the field and zeroed in on the top ways networks and studios have been exploring to keep the genre alive, and what to look for before another long-standing title is cut. 1. Explore online video as a delivery method and marketing tool. Taking a nod from prime-time content delivery online, ABC (“All My Children,” “General Hospital,” “One Life to Live”), CBS (“The Bold and the Beautiful,” “Guiding Light,” “The Young and the Restless,”) and NBC (“Days of Our Lives”) all offer online access to their daytime staples, whether as clips or full episodes. Offering content online ensures that dedicated fans can stay up to date with the shows and remain loyal to the series, while the network and its site reap the benefits of those viewer numbers. “It’s never been easier to watch a television show, with all the digital technology available,” noted Ed Martin, a TV critic for JackMyers.com and blogger for the Huffington Post who covers daytime dramas. “I’m not sure overall the situation is as dire as people thinks it is, it’s just that people are watching shows in crazy ways that aren’t being measured.” Online access to content can also help increase title awareness through the viral explosion of a particular clip or storyline, such as the Luke and Noah storyline on “As the World Turns.” The fan channel LukeVanFan on YouTube, dedicated to providing updates on the gay characters’ love story, has drawn over 3 million channel views, with its most popular clip nearing 2 million viewers to date. 2. Increase audience reach through cable network distribution. Disney-ABC Television Group’s SoapNet airs ABC’s “AMC,” “GH” and “OLTL” in addition to NBC’s “Days” and CBS’ “YATR” and some of the other networks’ daytime dramas throughout the day, including prime time. That allows access for viewers who aren’t watching during traditional daytime hours. According to Brian Frons, Disney-ABC TV Group president of daytime, viewership on SoapNet accounts for about 25% of those titles’ total impressions. Using cable as a means to maintain or possibly increase viewership, however, may not be the solution for those titles that are struggling more than others. “I think that if you took a successful soap to the right [cable] network that had broad distribution, high CPMs and a high subscriber fee, it certainly could work,” said Mr. Frons. “I think if you have weak show, and it’s weak on broadcast, then it’ll be weak on cable.” Mr. Frons said Disney-ABC has no plans to move any of its soap operas exclusively to cable. 3. Keep story quality as priority No. 1. While exploring different delivery methods and production models is important, it is vital that the writing quality doesn’t decline, alienating viewers. “It’s all about the writing,” said Jonathan Reiner, Emmy-winning writer for “Starting Over” and former editor at TV Guide Online and Soap Opera Weekly. “One of the reasons ‘Guiding Light’s’ revamp failed is because the writing was too weak to overcome the amateurish production values. It really is all about the writing—the characters, the emotions, the relationships and the payoffs.” In the late 1970s, the advent of the Luke and Laura rape-turns-romance story line on ABC’s “General Hospital” changed the game for daytime soaps and the way the genre told its stories. The show became a phenomenon through its controversial storylines. Some 30 years later, however, audiences may view those as clichéd topics. 4. Find new ways to expand the creative talent pool. Bringing new writing and creative talent to daytime dramas seems like a quick way to bring a fresh voice to any title, but it is very difficult due to the nature of these shows’ production models. It’s difficult to find new talent that can begin contributing to stories if they don’t already know the extensive and intricate backgrounds of many of the characters. To begin anew and disregard the past would be insulting to viewers and potentially drive away more of them. The five-day-a-week episode model is also difficult, and it takes a certain kind of writer that can successfully work under those constraints. 5. Cut costs of production without sacrificing quality. While it is important to retain characters on any series for the sake of story continuity, it becomes expensive for soaps to keep some of their long-time personalities on the show. Some soaps, however, are finding themselves letting go of on-screen talent left and right for the sake of cutting costs, in addition to scaling back on location shoots and using fewer sets. There will be a point of diminishing returns, however, when cuts can no longer be made without damaging a program’s quality. “Guiding Light” changed its presentation model to a hand-held, grittier and more realistic feel—an experiment in budget reduction that failed—and “Light” paid for that choice with the ultimate cost. 6. Leave soap operas alone entirely. As one industry insider noted, it may be that the only way to keep the genre alive is to leave all shows alone, especially when the reasons for all drops in viewers may be completely out of networks’ and producers’ control. “For all the DVRs, and the taping, and the SoapNet—attempts to find ways to move them around—the problem is that women, the target audience, don’t have the time to devote to [soaps],” said Mr. Brooks. “When something is in decline, it might be unrealistic to say you can restore it to its previous glory, but you can delay its decline—you can stabilize it sometimes. The underlying social changes would be very difficult to reverse.”

Where Is Hispanic TV on Web?

Sat, 30 May 2009 15:31:00 -0800

Hulu last week rolled out a batch of new initiatives to make the Web-video site appealing to more users. One group of users that was left out: Spanish speakers. That oversight may not be surprising, given the television advertising industry’s ambivalent attitude toward the demographic. As networks get more comfortable with Web delivery of TV shows, however, look for them to try to capture Hispanic and bilingual audiences online and via mobile video. “More and more you see that advertisers want to look multi-platform options to reach their consumers, and the Hispanic audiences are high media users,” said Leticia Juarez, VP of Media and Promotions for the Hispanic ad firm Castells. “The opportunity is there, and it’s a missed opportunity for a segment that is growing tremendously.” Telemundo Executive VP of Digital Media and Emerging Businesses Peter E. Blacker said that his Spanish-language network has participated in discussions with Hulu, a joint venture between NBC Universal, News Corp. and Walt Disney Co.’s ABC. A deal with the site is something that may happen in the future, Mr. Blacker said. “I think it’s just been a matter of timing,” Mr. Blacker added. “We had to first get our new Telemundo.com up and running. We launched our new site in January, and we’ve seen our video numbers as well as our audience numbers skyrocket, but we had to get that under control first.” He said Telemundo is interested in getting its content onto other Web video sites “in the near future.” Telemundo and Hulu, both subsidies of General Electric, began talks about having Telemundo content appearing on the site three months after Hulu’s launch. Since then, the network has been focusing on establishing its online video brand and nurturing a committed audience. In addition to hosting full episodes of its telenovela prime-time content, Telemundo.com also allows viewers to react and interact with other fans to specific scenes. A representative for Hulu did not respond to requests seeking comment. Hispanic and bilingual audiences continue to be more elusive online than non-Hispanic, English-speaking audiences. Part of the problem may stem from Spanish-language media’s failure to deliver content the way its audience wants to consume it. According to a study that the Simmons research company performed for bilingual music entertainment network MTV Tr3s, many Hispanic media consumers are less tethered to a computer than non-Hispanic counterparts. By the same token, they demonstrate greater hunger for online video content. Of the 20.6 million Hispanics online each month, those using the Web for watching and downloading video outpace non-Hispanic Web users, according to a North American Technographics Benchmark Survey for Telemundo. Among those seeking online video, a larger amount would also prefer Spanish-language content over English. Given Hispanics’ less prevalent use of computers to access Web video, it may not be surprising that more viewers in that group prefer mobile devices to watch clips than in non-Spanish speaking demographics. MTV Tr3s VP of Programming and Production Lily Neumeyer said her network’s strategy for online and mobile video is, like Telemundo’s, to build an audience. The network, which aims for younger viewers, currently focuses its online video content on supplementing its broadcast shows by featuring additional clips, interviews and music performances. The goal is to drive traffic to the network and build awareness of its brand. “We really believe in exposing our audience to our content in a multiplatform basis,” said Ms. Neumeyer. “We do know that young people are interacting with content everywhere, but we’d like to really asses how much is too much and how much is too little, because our main purpose right now is to grow our distribution and our exposure on air.” Networks that traffic in Spanish-language and bilingual video content also face a challenge that bedevils their English-language counterparts: No one has figured out a way to profit from it on the same scale that old-fashioned TV does. And Spanish-language media companies may find that some of the same problems that have challenged them in the television business—marketers who don’t understand how to sell to Hispanic audiences—persist in the Web-video world. “As an advertiser, we want to associate our brand with content that is Hispanic-relevant, culturally relevant, and that is quality premium programming,” said Ms. Juarez. “The content is there, but it’s the deals that have to be struck.”

CBS Seeking a Return to Form

Sat, 30 May 2009 15:28:00 -0800

Over at CBS, offbeat is off the schedule. In the past few years, CBS used upfront week to unveil something a little off-kilter, experimental or quirky. It tested a singing Hugh Jackman in “Viva Laughlin,” a small town grappling with nuclear holocaust in “Jericho” and a couple of families from the ‘70s coming to grips with the sexual revolution in “Swingtown.” Next season, however, is very reassuring—and it’s all very deliberate, part of a must-win formula that ad buyers and Wall Street analysts attribute not only to the network’s entertainment executives, but also to CBS Corp. Chief Executive Leslie Moonves. “Les Moonves is very much a hands-on manager, and just is really involved in the consistency of the programming grid,” said Michael Nathanson, a media-industry analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein. At stake: the continued good health of the CBS network, the financial driver of its parent company. Successful programs can drive more revenue in syndication and international distribution. What’s more, CBS is less insulated from fluctuations in ad spending than rivals such as Time Warner, News Corp. or even NBC Universal, all of which have multiple cable outlets to provide revenue. Steady and reliable appears to be working. Between Sept. 1, 2008 and May 17, 2009, CBS has been able to win more ad dollars than its broadcast-network competitors, according to TNS Media Intelligence. CBS secured approximately $4.03 billion during that time period, TNS said, while ABC took in about $3.67 billion, NBC lured about $3.02 billion, Fox received approximately $2.99 billion and CW took in about $361.9 million. “Because it’s so important, CBS is thinking about ratings more than other guys,” Mr. Nathanson said. The network posted an 11% increase in total viewers for the 2008-2009 season, while notching a 3% gain in viewers between 18 and 49 and an 8% gain in adults between 25 and 54.

A Win-Win for ‘Biggest Loser’

Sat, 30 May 2009 15:25:00 -0800

With seven seasons under its belt, NBC’s “The Biggest Loser” is still growing—particularly in developing alternative revenue streams beyond advertising. “Loser’s” consumer-product lines, which include items such as CDs, weight-loss plans, DVDs, workout equipment and now a Nintendo Wii video game, has garnered around $75 million in revenue, NBC said. The game, announced last week, will use the Nintendo Wii’s balance board, and will track users’ weight and nutrition goals. “Loser” trainers Bob Harper and Jillian Michaels will be prominently featured in-game. As shows and producers contend with shrinking advertising revenue and tighter budgets, “Loser” is shaping up to be a model for programs whose product lines might outlive the programs that spawned them. Mark Koops, managing director and co-head of domestic television at Reveille, co-created and executive produces “Loser.” He said the show was originally conceived as a series about plastic surgery, but was reworked to use the “old-fashioned” way to lose weight. In conceiving the show with Reveille founder Ben Silverman, part of the pitch was to mold the program into the 21st century version of Weight Watchers, Mr. Koops said. “That remains our goal and aspiration,” he said. “I think we’re on the path to fulfilling that.” They’re shooting for that goal with enterprises including BiggestLoserClub.com, a subscription service that allows users to track their eating and exercise patterns online. Mr. Koops said that while subscription numbers tend to fluctuate, currently around 50,000 people have memberships. There’s also a partnership with home-shopping channel QVC, which brings the recent winners of “Loser” on to promote goods. Mr. Koops is quick to point out that the creative quality of the television show, produced by Reveille, 25/7 Productions and 3 Ball Productions, is the most important part of the business. Alternative revenue streams, including consumer products, brand integration, and international sales aren’t the main focus, he said. “They all come secondary to a television show that resonates with its audience,” Mr. Koops said. Still, the allure of the consumer product opportunities is growing, especially during rough economic times. Kim Niemi, senior VP of NBC Universal Television, DVD, Music and Consumer Products Group said additional cash-flow streams can help nudge a show to air, and can bring momentum to a program. “People are looking for those opportunities, but the creative has to drive it,” she noted. Ms. Niemi said she’s not concerned about overextending the franchise because NBC Universal and Reveille are careful to apply the “Biggest Loser” brand only to products that fit the show’s ethos. “It’s not about putting ‘Biggest Loser’ on something that exists,” Ms. Niemi said, “but making sure it fits with the philosophy of what we’re teaching people.” While “Biggest Loser’s” finale in mid-May posted its highest ratings since 2006, it’s not beyond the realm of the possible that the show’s offshoots would survive past its TV run. Mr. Koops said licensees understand the possibility of cancellation. Those companies trust the brand enough, he said, to sign multiyear deals with Reveille—despite the lack of a long-term official commitment from NBC. “From my view, I think it’s set up and has the potential to have a long shelf life,” Ms. Niemi said.

Guest Commentary: An Invitation to Advertisers, From Your Pals at the Networks

Sat, 30 May 2009 15:21:00 -0800

TO: Our advertisers FROM: CBS, Fox, ABC, NBC and the CW RE: This year’s TV upfront You’ve been singing the same song for months: Money is tight. You want price rollbacks. You’ve got no reason to put down cash early when scatter looks so cheap and is so readily available. So, yeah, we realize this upfront is going to be prolonged and you’ll use non-broadcast media as a bargaining chip. But here’s how we will once again get you to fork over a majority of your ad dollars to TV: We’re going to be flexible this year. Need to hold some cash in reserve? Go ahead—we’ll wait. Need to make a case to the CFO about why it costs so much to sponsor next year’s “Lost” finale? Take your time. We’ll still do business with you. Just keep in mind: If the economy starts to rise, so, too, will our prices. Not that we’re admitting to discounting to start with. And while you’re thinking about it, here are some things to ponder. You need us, and we know you do. You really need to speak to our Thursday-night audiences to help goose your movie openings and weekend sales. You’d better reserve some of our ad time now for holiday pitches. We’ve got the scale no one else has. And for all the talk of metrics in other media, and all our own musings on measurement, the bottom line is we both know nothing moves product like TV. Oh, and by the way, doesn’t it stand to reason that our audiences, hoping to conserve cash just like you, are going to stay at home and watch even more of our programming in the weeks ahead? We’ll make some concessions. Even though TV is a mass medium, you’ve been crying out for a range of stuff that plays to specific demos and psychographics. We get that. You want to latch on to specific episodes, programs, audiences. And we’ve been giving it to you—well, at least a little bit. But now we’re really going to crank it up (well, just a little bit more). And no, we’re not talking Web video. Were you listening to Fox Broadcasting’s Jon Nesvig? He made the point in the best upfront of the week, talking up limited-availability opportunities, such as this fall’s “Gordon Ramsay: Cookalong Live” and an interactive “Simpsons” scavenger hunt during which characters and “Simpsons” references will be tucked into Fox shows, promos and, yes, commercials. You heard how Subway saved “Chuck” by talking to NBC about stepping up its presence in the show, where it has already had some rather intrusive appearances. “Chuck” won’t be back until 2010, and who knows what will happen to its fan base in the meantime, but isn’t this the specialized kind of stuff you people say you’re asking for? It’s sort of like a magazine publisher telling you about a special themed issue coming out months from now. There’s only so much space, and the chance won’t come up again, so you’d better get your money down. By the way, we’re not like a magazine publisher, so get that idea out of your heads. You’re making us work harder. Instead, fill your mind with this: This stuff isn’t easy for us to do. We’re a mass medium. We’re set up so that your messages hit the greatest number of people. We take your ads and fling them around the schedule so lots of people see them and they make an impression on weary consumers. We aren’t really prepared to create customized ads for each and every one of you in each and every one of our shows. This stuff takes months and months of work. We know you’re hurting, however, so we’ll try to do our best (and let’s be honest, when ABC—known among you folks for being a little stiff-necked when it comes to product integrations—lets the Enterprise from “Star Trek” fly though the O in the title sequence of “Lost,” it’s obvious we’re more than open to this kind of thing). But it’s going to cost a little more—OK, a lot more—than usual. You don’t really have anywhere else to go for broad reach. But let’s not fight. You need mass delivery. We need your money. There’s got to be a way to get you to the table. The door is open, and we’re pretty sure you’re going to walk through it before Labor Day rolls around. Brian Steinberg is TV editor of Advertising Age.

Changing Lanes in the Media Game

Sat, 30 May 2009 15:18:00 -0800

Often in this feature we have written about changes in media usage. As TelevisionWeek changes from a print publication into a Web-only existence, it seems fitting to wrap up this print column with a discussion of change, and how to maximize your TV advertising dollar by embracing the concept of change itself. For example, McDonald’s restaurants have not changed much since you were a kid, right? Wrong! McDonald’s continually revises its selling messages to compel us to revisit the restaurant. How dedicated is McDonald’s to television? At right is a list of the fast-food chain’s various television selling themes over the last 40 years. See how many of these changes in slogan sound familiar to you. No, McDonald’s has not been resistant to changing times; instead they have embraced change. Maybe that’s why McDonald’s sales are +3% in a recessionary economy. Changing your mind about change is the first and hardest step. For example, I enjoy reading TelevisionWeek when flying or while I am waiting in so many client offices for meetings to begin. The print version is irreplaceable in that way. But I also must admit that I also read the daily TVWeek.com e-mails and visit the TVWeek.com Web site once a week to get the latest in trends and TV news. So in reality, I engage with TVWeek electronically six times per week and I read the print version just once. So if I had to choose to give up one of these mediums, I too would chose to pass on the print model, since my iPhone and laptop give me all of the same TVWeek information, whenever, and wherever, I want to be. Changing your opinion about change is the hardest part of change. When planning an effective TV campaign, all of us at ESA & Co. believe that we need to move with the customer, or the customer will move on without us. Put into TV terms, that means we now need to embrace the fact that our traditional TV viewer has moved to Web video, Facebook, Twitter and blogs. No, we are not losing a viewer; instead, we are gaining multiple ways to engage with that very same viewer. Here, then, are our best tips to manage through a changing retail and media world. 1. Stay true to your original mission. Just because the media mix is morphing into something that you did not plan at the beginning of the year does not mean that your original mission of selling boxes, units, cases or tickets changes. In the end, it’s all about sales results. 2. Stay close to the cash register. A campaign is only a success if the person spending the ad dollars generates 10 to 20 times the amount back in revenues. Anything else is a moderate success at best. 3. Remember that the consumer moves with or without you. Ever see those nature documentaries from Africa? Those giant herds of wildebeests move as a massive crowd and very little can stop them from their migration. This is how consumers move—at a slow and deliberate pace. You’d better be moving with them, or they will leave you behind. 4. Media today is taken for granted. Ever miss the score on a late-night sporting event? Odds are that before you ever have to do much, you will learn that score as you go about your daily routine. TV, Web ads and monitors everywhere you go will bring that information to you. The consumer is not in love with any media; they just choose which media to use based on their own convenience. It’s all about what’s easy for them. 5. Always respect the basics of retail television. The retail covenants apply no matter what new media you are buying. TV ads work because they sell a product or service. Branding is dead in a recession; sell value and urgency if you want to drive business now. 6. Create the excitement to attract the consumer. I recently read about a software program that enables consumers to “choose” the types of ads that they receive. Asking the consumer to know what they’ll want in the future is a fool’s game. Consumers live in a “now” world and they have no idea what they might want one week, one month or one year from now. Stay willing to adapt and you will find that your television advertising campaign will always find ready buyers. Finally, I want to thank Chuck Ross, Greg Baumann and Tom Gilbert for all of their support these last few years. You have truly produced the best and most-read TV trade magazine—TVWeek. Here’s to new horizons! Adam Armbruster is a senior partner with Red Bank, N.J.-based retail and broadcasting consulting firm Eckstein, Summers, Armbruster & Co. He can be reached at adam@esacompany.com or 941-928-7192.

The Job's the Thing

Sat, 30 May 2009 15:15:00 -0800

When the National Association of Hispanic Journalists meets June 24-27 in San Juan, Puerto Rico, its members will focus on one topic: staying afloat in a tempestuous industry. Navigating an increasingly tough journalism environment is a trend that has been addressed in previous NAHJ conventions, but the current economic downturn has had a devastating impact on the organization’s members. “If people weren’t convinced before about the depth of changes going on in the news industry, they’re convinced now,” says NAHJ executive director Ivan Roman. “And they’re convinced that we’re not talking about a problem that will get better when the economy gets better. We’re talking about fundamental shifts in how people produce and consume news and how it’s paid for.” That means that attendees to NAHJ 2009 will find themselves at a radically different convention. “We blew up the model of what the NAHJ convention usually is and made it all about training,” said Miami Herald foreign correspondent Frances Robles, who is NAHJ 2009 programming co-chair with Miami Herald Assistant World Editor Nancy San Martin. Ms. Robles noted that past NAHJ conventions have dealt with issues impacting Hispanic communities, from immigration to the census, but that the realities of being a journalist in today’s tough environment mandates a change in focus. “As Nancy and I sat down and made a list of what we needed, we kept in mind the number of people who lost their jobs,” she said. “I’ve been going to NAHJ for 15 years and we fell into a routine of going over the same topics. Those seem irrelevant now that our journalistic world is falling down around us. We need to be changing our careers.” NAHJ President O. Ricardo Pimental concurred. “Before, we could weigh in on issues large in the media, and we still do some of that,” he said. “But we’ve had to focus on helping our members stay afloat.” Mr. Pimental bemoaned the fact that, although the election of President Barack Obama highlighted the gains this country has made in civil rights and diversity, it was a step forward that still is not reflected in the newsroom. “It seems to be at odds with the issues we’re suffering in the workforce as far as diversity goes,” he said. “One does not affect the other.” 75 Hours of Training At NAHJ 2009, courses offering training in multimedia tools and techniques have tripled from last year’s offerings, said Ms. Robles, who noted that members can choose from 33 sessions totaling approximately 75 hours of training. In addition to courses on blogging, Twitter, video editing, podcasting, search engine optimization, streaming video and audio slide shows, NAHJ 2009 also will feature two cyber labs that will remain open throughout the convention. Mr. Roman said some four-hour and eight-hour sessions are intended to provide maximum training in a short timeframe. “The idea is to emerge from San Juan with a wave of Latino journalists who are knowledgeable when it comes to multimedia journalism,” he said. “NAHJ has always offered training, but initially it was about getting Latinos in major newsrooms. Since then, we’ve reinterpreted that in a much broader way. It’s about people doing journalism, period, whether it’s freelance or in Spanish-language media.” New Tools, New Ideas The new media environment not only requires Latino journalists to learn to use new tools, but to become more entrepreneurial, and Mr. Roman acknowledged that it’s a transition not everyone will make. “Some people have felt for a long time that being a journalist was following the traditional route of working in a major newsroom,” he said. “Many journalists are still in that box. Many others have had to struggle on their own as a freelancer or their own entrepreneur. What we’re looking at in training our folks to have multimedia journalism skills is how some of them can translate that into entrepreneurial journalism, to tell the story they want to tell and not be dependent on a major newsroom. “Each journalist has to figure out for himself if that’s what he can do,” he continued. “Everyone has to figure out their mentality to see if it fits for them or not. We’ll lose journalists who can’t make the transition.” 600 to 700 Expected One piece of good news is that NAHJ received two grants—$100,000 from the Ford Foundation and $50,000 from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation—to pay for 76 journalists to attend the convention gratis. That’s not only been a lifeline for those journalists but also will boost the attendance at the convention, which Mr. Roman expects to draw between 600 and 700 people. Past conventions have numbered 1,600 to 2,000 attendees. NAHJ veterans also noted—with some surprise—that young Hispanics continue to flock to careers in journalism, a bright spot in an otherwise grim picture. KRON-TV anchor Ysabel Duron, who is being inducted into the Hall of Fame this year, said that, although she believes it’s still “a bit of a challenge” to recruit young Latinos, her own nephew is a successful graduate of NAHJ’s student group and has found a job as an NBC correspondent out of Burbank. Likewise, incoming Hall of Famer Juan Gonzales, who founded community newspaper El Tecolote and chairs the journalism department at City College of San Francisco, reported that journalism still has an appeal for young Latinos. “I’ve seen more and more Latino students, especially women, majoring in journalism,” he said. “They think, ‘I might not work for a newspaper but maybe I’ll start my own newspaper or find some other way to write my stories.’ They are passionate and enthusiastic and just want a chance to learn and make their own inroads.” The hope is that, at NAHJ 2009, some of that enthusiasm for adopting new-media techniques and new world journalism economics will catch on among the organization’s membership. “We don’t want to engage in hand-wringing and wallow in the trauma of what’s happening,” Mr. Roman said. “We want to look ahead and see how this creates opportunities. What we need to do is look at how we can create media that we own, establish policies—governmental or otherwise—that allow more access to media on the part of our community. “If we learn how to do it well, we can seize control of our story and tell it more effectively than having to depend on mainstream media to do so,” he said.

Keeping His Eye on Diversity

Sat, 30 May 2009 15:12:00 -0800

O. Ricardo Pimental, president of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, is editor of the editorial pages of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, a position he has held since June 2004. Before joining the Sentinel, Mr. Pimental held editorial positions with the Sacramento Bee, the Fresno Bee, the Stockton Record, the Tucson Citizen and the San Bernardino County Sun. He was a Washington, D.C., correspondent for McClatchy Newspapers and a nationally syndicated columnist with the Arizona Republic, writing on public policy with a focus on Latino affairs. He also is the author of two books of fiction, “House With Two Doors” and “Voices From the River.” He recently spoke with TelevisionWeek correspondent Debra Kaufman about the effects of the economic crisis on Hispanic journalists, and how his organization is helping its members prepare for a future in which the profession will be very different than it is today. TelevisionWeek: As we go into NAHJ 2009, how are the economy and, at the same time, the crisis in media impacting Hispanics in the newsroom? Are Hispanic journalists losing ground? O. Ricardo Pimentel: Yes, they are, particularly when viewed within a certain context. Hispanics are the fastest-growing segment of our population, and yet their numbers have gone down in the nation’s newsrooms. This is borne out by the ASNE’s (American Society of News Editors) most recent survey. While the losses were not as pronounced for Hispanics as they were for African Americans and Asians, it did occur. And in the context of the Hispanic population growth, any loss is puzzling, given that newspapers and broadcast news have an obligation to cover the communities in their midst. Part of this is a matter of last hired/first fired. Minorities tend to be on the lower rungs in the newsroom. They’re often the younger folks. And in shops with union contracts, this could be a factor. We plan to explore that issue, among others, in a proposed Unity summit on diversity that we’re trying to convene with various stakeholders in August. It could also be a matter of folks seeing the writing on the wall and bailing for other jobs out of the news industry. Perhaps it’s a combination of factors, but in any case, the industry is ill-served by not paying more attention to retention of minorities, even in this economic downturn. TVWeek: What other events have been seminal over the last year for Hispanic journalists and readers/viewers? Mr. Pimentel: The economic downturn is the shadow that casts a pall on all of us right now. It has caused newspapers and TV stations to cut staff. And they’re doing it, in my view, without proper regard to what’s lost when it comes to diversity and what’s lost when diversity suffers. The ability to cover various communities suffers. But that’s not to say that when the economy gets better, our troubles go away. I think there’s something more fundamental happening in media that the industry is going to have to pay attention to, meaning changes in how people consume news and how advertisers buy advertising. These things will not go away just because the economy gets better. The industry will need to pay more attention to this, and to their credit, a lot of folks are. TVWeek: Do you believe that a paucity of Latino journalists will negatively impact coverage of issues relevant to the Hispanic community? Mr. Pimentel: The whole immigration issue, while that’s not the only issue affecting Hispanics, looms large. We worry about a news industry’s ability to cover such a complex issue when you don’t have the people on staff who understand all the nuances and sensibilities inherent to the issue. The election of President Obama heralds a potential for broad immigration reform to occur, which means that it will be in the news even more than it has been. And the announcement by the Department of Homeland Security to focus on employers rather than just workers also has implications for how people will cover this story. But it all comes down to if you’re going to have the people in-house to cover the story. TVWeek: What has the NAHJ been doing over the last year to improve the situation of Hispanic journalists? Mr. Pimentel: We have looked at ways internally that we can help members who have lost jobs find jobs. It has become somewhat of a full-time task for one member of our staff. In addition, we are crafting training programs aside from the ones held at our convention. We’ll take this training out on the road to the various regions, in keeping with what we’ve done before. The need has never been as dire as it is now. It’s all about membership services for us these days. We’ve had to focus on helping our members stay afloat. TVWeek: What about the next generation of Hispanic journalists? Are Hispanic youth gravitating toward careers in journalism or not? Mr. Pimentel: We’ve not found any loss of appetite among the students to go to these programs. I think there is broad recognition, even in journalism schools, that journalism will survive in some form. What form that takes is a big question. But one thing everyone is fairly certain of is that it’ll be a multimedia future. Reporters can’t just be print reporters and TV reporters can’t just be TV reporters. TVWeek: Does new media offer more possibilities for Hispanic journalists? Mr. Pimentel: One of the bright spots of the ASNE survey was the increase in diversity among online staff. I think new media does represent opportunity for entrepreneurial journalism, for creating your own Web sites. The barrier to entry has become much easier. What we have to watch for is whether the kind of big journalism that TV and newspapers do now—the watchdog journalism—continues to survive. While new media holds a lot of promise, the fact is that new-media business model hasn’t so far been able to support the kind of big watchdog journalism that requires large staff and a commitment of time. I know there’s a sense that newspapers are broken, that TV news is broken, but it’s not the news part that’s broken. TVWeek: Looking forward, are you optimistic at all? Mr. Pimentel: Maybe I’m being naïve, but I think journalism will survive because it has to. Our democratic society demands it. It will be far different than it is today and I’m less confident that we’re moving quickly enough on fixing the business model to make that happen. But it will survive in some form. Latino journalists will be integral because they have skills that are shared by journalists generally and have additional skills with being bicultural and, in many cases, bilingual. There’s a continuing need for Latino journalists. And NAHJ will continue to help the industry understand that, to cover the stories it needs to, it needs Latino journalists and other journalists of color.

2009 Hall of Famer: Ysabel Duron

Sat, 30 May 2009 15:09:00 -0800

A weekend anchor of San Francisco’s “KRON 4 Weekend Morning News” since 1992, Ysabel Duron is an award-winning journalist whose career began in the graduate-level television program at Columbia University in New York in the summer of 1970. “It was a Ford Foundation program to get minorities into the media,” said Ms. Duron, adding that Geraldo Rivera was one of her classmates. Ms. Duron was working at KTVU-TV in Oakland, Calif., where she won her first Emmy Award in 1974 for her reporting of the Patty Hearst kidnapping. “The 1970s were probably the most interesting and varied of my career, because of the stories I got to cover,” she said. “That included the Patricia Hearst kidnapping, the murders of [San Francisco Mayor George] Moscone and [San Francisco Supervisor Harvey] Milk, the Black Panthers, the ascension of Ronald Reagan and Jerry Brown. There were so few women, and we were trying to prove ourselves, and we had an opportunity to try a lot of things that hadn’t been done by women before. It was a challenging time and a great time.” Now, more than 30 years later, Ms. Duron can look back on a career of pioneering “firsts,” award-winning stories and several honors. In 1982, at KICU-TV (San Jose), Ms. Duron’s four-part series “Trouble With Teachers” won the John Swett Award for Media Excellence, the highest award given by the California Teachers Association, and was honored by the Radio-Television News Directors Association (RTNDA) of Northern California. Ms. Duron was the first Latina anchor in Chicago mainstream news, reporting and anchoring “Channel 5 News at Sunrise” at WMAQ-TV, the NBC O&O, for four years. Also while at WMAQ, she won a team Emmy for breaking news coverage of the Laurie Dann school shooting. At KRON-TV, Ms. Duron’s work included “The Child I Never Held,” a 1991 series about Ms. Duron’s reunion with the son she gave up for adoption, which was honored by the RTNDA, and, in 1998, “Life With Cancer,” focusing on Ms. Duron’s winning battle with cancer, which received an honorable mention from the American Women in Radio & Television’s Gracie Awards, and an Excellence in Journalism Award from the Northern California Society of Professional Journalists. A highlight of her career was stints working abroad. “My aspiration has always been to be a foreign correspondent, so I was always thrilled to get the opportunity to travel,” she said. Ms. Duron’s work as a board member of the Washington, D.C.-based International Women’s Media Foundation, whose goal is to empower female journalists around the world, has taken her to Mexico, Chile and Argentina. In 1997 she was inducted into the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences’ Silver Circle for “more than 27 years of meritorious work as a journalist.” Other honors include a May 2000 Governor’s Citation from the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences of Northern California; being named one of America’s top 100 Hispanic Women in Communications by Hispanic USA Magazine; and becoming a 1990 fellow of the National Hispana Leadership Institute in Washington, D.C. “I’m proud to join my fellow Latinos in the Hall of Fame,” said Ms. Duron. “Each has made a mark on the world of journalism and made a difference in the representation of Hispanics and coverage of their issues. I’m proud that I have been able to be a practicing journalist and newscaster for all these years.”