Entertainment chiefs have said it before, but Fox is changing the way it does business to more accurately reflect the way viewers are consuming entertainment, said Fox Entertainment chairman Kevin Reilly at this summer’s press tour in Beverly Hills on Thursday.

That includes more year-round premieres, many more originals and fewer repeats, and more flexibility when it comes to the number of episodes that compose a series.

“We were born of certain practices that are from a different era,” Reilly said. “The 35-week season no longer makes sense. The last time I checked the calendar was 52 weeks long. Viewers just want there to be a good show on the air when they want to watch.

“We are no longer able to be in an environment where we heavy up on repeats. Instead, we need to move repeats to other platforms. There, we can offer a better consumer experience where we can better reap the rewards. On the network, we need to have less repeats and fewer fallow times of the year.”

Kevin Reilly also positioned the network as the starting point in a structure that includes many platforms, including Hulu, video on demand, Netflix and others.

“The value of a network platform is in launching brands that drive worldwide businesses. The network is a big part of how we finance and monetize our content in a very vibrant industry. The same value is not created on other platforms,” he said.

That’s why scheduling—where and when a viewer can watch a show—is becoming less important than marketing—driving viewers to tune in to the network to see that show in pattern.

“It’s getting harder to get people to say ‘I’m going to watch that now,’” Reilly said. “It’s fine if they watch in a later window, but if everybody waits, we’ll never get to that later window. [It’s all about] how you promote this stuff. The network is still the first big platform, but we also need to keep that network [promotional] element of ‘hey, you like this show, here’s one that’s coming that you also might like and it’s also from Fox.’”

Reilly advocated looking at viewership in longer windows, so that live plus seven and even 30-day windows are considered when evaluating how many people are watching a show.

“Behaviors are changing and we’re just catching up now in terms of the ways we measure that. As analysts of TV, we’ve got to do a better job of getting our hands around it. So far, we haven’t been able to roll it up and synthesize it in a way that’s useful to you guys,” addressing the reporters in the room.

Reilly also said that it’s time to start evaluating basic cable ratings in the same way that broadcast networks are evaluated. Essentially, if AMC’s “The Walking Dead” can be the highest-rated show on television, then excuses shouldn’t be made for smaller shows like FX’s “Louie” or HBO’s “Girls”—shows that are critically acclaimed but that don’t garner much viewership.

“I think the amount of hit status assigned to things that are servicing a small segment of the audience is disproportionate, while there’s a muted response to shows that are actually servicing a much bigger segment. Cable has the same budgets, same talent as we do. We didn’t have that when we started at FX, but everyone has caught up.”

In a bit of programming news, Keith Urban will return as a judge on “American Idol” in January, while the rest of that panel still is being figured out.

Also, “Glee”‘s tribute to Cory Monteith will air as the third episode, and then the show will go on at least a three-week hiatus as the Major League Baseball playoffs take over Fox’s primetime schedule. Monteith’s character, Finn Hudson, will be written off the show in a way that addresses the issue of drug addiction, but the character won’t necessarily die of an overdose like Monteith did, Reilly said. The Glee cast also is shooting a series of public service announcements on the dangers of untreated addiction that are being produced by Ryan Murphy, Glee creator and executive producer.

Brief Take: Broadcast networks remain the biggest players in the diverse multiplatform world universe, but they are still figuring out how to best use that status to their advantage.

Tags:


  Save as PDF