COM 110: Chapter 9

Chapter 9

TV Programming

Two reasons

•Information

•Entertainment

The Rise of TV News

Pew study, March 2010: In order, local news, national news, cable news are more popular than the internet for news

• 78% of Americans say they get news from a local TV station.

• 73% say they get news from a national network such as CBS or cable TV station such as CNN or Fox News.

• 61% say they get some kind of news online.

• 54% say they listen to a radio news program at home or in the car.

• 50% say they read news in a local newspaper.

• 17% say they read news in a national newspaper such as the New York Times or USA Today.

Roper findings: The assassination of JFK first led TVs introduction as a source of major news

Current News Trends

November 22, 1963• Within 10 minutes of the shooting,

TV news had the story

• for 4 days, all regular programming was suspended, and TV news took over

• 500 million people in 23 countries were watching as well, as the coverage was fed to a new device: the communications satellite

• News expanded from 15 minutes to 30 minutes nightly

Kennedy Assassination News Coverage:•CBS•ABC•NBC

TV and Civil Rights

• 1957: Little Rock, AK -- TV captured the violence upon integrating Central High School

• covered thousands of civil rights rallies in Washington, DC

• Montgomery sit ins

• revealed the hatred of the Ku Klux Klan

Vietnam War• Called the “first

television war”

• Demonstrated TVs ability to bring distant events into our living rooms

• TV made many major advances: portable cameras, satellite relay systems, color, videotape relay

On the Moon

•TV news grew with the space program

•“Space shots” were a major focus in TV news reporting

Lunar Landing on TV

•Witnessed by the largest global TV audience up to that time

•Small camera was mounted on the steps of the landing craft

•Nixon talks to the astronauts via phone

•RCA camera set up in lunar soil

TV News comes of age

• TV and Civil Rights

• TV in Vietnam, (2)

• TV on the Moon

• MLK Assassination

TV news is big business

•Civil Rights, Vietnam, Watergate, Challenger and Columbia disasters, Hurricane Katrina all brought TV news to the forefront

•http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4JOjcDFtBE

The new newscaster

• In the 1970s, a new breed of newscaster was emerging

• Younger, more daring, good-looking, modern, stylish

• Women anchors began to appear

• “happy talk” with one another between stories

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iQ7zAPhkyw

ENG•Dependence on new communications

technologies

•Electronic News Gathering: emerged I the 1970s, when portable video cameras and recorders became commercially available

• Included a lightweight TV camera and small videotape recorder.

•Today: includes camera-recorder combos – aka camcorders

SNG•Prior to ENG, TV news relied on big and

costly film equipment, film stock had to be processed and physically assembled, or edited. No way to do it “on the fly.” Film could not be re-used

•Satellite News Gathering: refers to the use of mobile trucks mounted with satellite communications equipment to report local, national and international events

News gathering today?

March 2010 Pew Research study on The New News Landscape: Rise of the Internet, Understanding the Participatory News Consumer, news today is….

• Portable: 33% of cell phone owners now access news on their cell phones.

• Personalized: 28% of internet users have customized their home page to include news from sources and on topics that particularly interest them.

• Participatory: 37% of internet users have contributed to the creation of news, commented about it, or disseminated it via postings on social media sites like Facebook or Twitter.

TV news as showbiz

•TV news is subject to ratings, and can be quite profitable

•Sweeps: intense periods of competition for ratings, when Neilsen conducts local TV surveys

•Sweeps periods: February, May, July & November

•Minidocs: short documentary series

24/7 News•C-SPAN begins in 1979

•CNN starts in 1980

•Fox News, Headline News, CNBC, MSNBC, Financial News Network all follow suit

TV News Today• Coventuring: usually occurs between a

local news leader at a network affiliate and an independent station

• TV also coventures with radio

• Example: WIVB staff completes a 10pm newscast for WNLO 23 in Buffalo

• Coventuring can save stations money; provide stations new forms of revenue

• Regional cable-news: 24 hour cable news for a localized region

TV News Jobs•News director: overall responsibility for

the news department. Hires personnel, establishes and enforces policies, evaluates newscasts, responsible for budgets

•News Producer: in charge of a specific newscast. Maintain editorial control over stories, prepare the lineup of stories, determines stories’ lengths, proofreads copy, makes last minute changes

TV News Jobs

•Assignment Editor: sends out reporters and photographers to cover news stories. Maintain a future file – stories that will air in the future (30-60 days in advance).

•Field producer: prepares research and background for a story, scouts locations, coordinates coverage

•Reporters: research stories, obtain interviews, edit tape, record voiceovers

TV News Jobs

•Writers: some larger organizations may employ writers to create the copy for reporters or anchors to read

•Editors: create “packages,” pre-produced, self-contained news stories

•Editing software: Final Cut Pro, Avid Newscutter

Issues in TV News•The Pew study acknowledges TV news is the

primary source for news; also shows credibility has steadily declined between 1996 and 2004

•Perceived preoccupation with scandal, the “tabloidization” of news

• “Missing White Woman Syndrome”

TV Entertainment Programming

•A major TV network may spend more than $25M a week on entertainment programming

•3 ways a TV station or cable company can acquire programming

•Network, Syndication and Local Origination

Network Programming

•Original programming funded by, produced for, and distributed by the major TV and cable networks

•Lost, Grey’s Anatomy, The Office

Cable programming

•Works a little differently than network programming; it originates via the network directly to cable franchises

•No affiliate distribution

Syndication• TV programming sold by distribution companies

to local TV stations and cable services

• Off-network: appeared first on the networks and are being re-run by local stations or cable systems

• First-run: shows produced exclusively for syndication

Local origination

•Programs produced by local TV stations for viewers in their own communities

Networks

•ABC

•NBC

•CBS

•FOX

•UPN + WB = CW

Affiliation•The individual stations that receive

network programming

•To become an affiliate, a station must enter into an affiliation agreement, where the major networks pay a fee for broadcasting network programs (network compensation)

•The fee ranges from $500-10K an hour, depending on the station’s market size, popularity and coverage area

Affiliations today…

•Due to the high cost of creating original programming, networks and affiliates partner to bring exclusive programming to their markets (i.e. deals with the NFL)

•Today, compensation occurs when networks provide affiliates with more time within network programs for local sales

•Local affiliates can charge more for ad time during a popular network programming during prime time

The network programming process• Financial interest and syndication rules: “fin-syn” rules

limited network participation in the ownership of programs produced for them and in subsequent syndication

• Networks pay license fees to use the programs rather than paying for them outright

• Fin-syn rules were abandoned by 1995; now networks can own their own shows, and syndicate them after they complete network runs

• For example, NBC owns Law & Order

PTAR

•Prime time access rule: implemented by the FCC in 1971 (and mostly scrapped by 1996) restricting the amount of time an affiliate could accept from the network – in effect, allowing networks to control no more than 3 hours of the 4-hour prime time nightly schedule (typically 8-11pm)

•Meant to stimulate independent (or local) TV production, the early fringe typically will be filled by first-run syndication (Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy)

TV Programs

•Created by major studios or independent producers

•May follow one of the three network seasons, or not follow a season at all

•Major studios create most of the TV programming on the air

Pitching a program• Programs get on the air two ways: some commissioned by

the network, some pitched

• Pitch is based on an idea or concept, and a short story narrative – known as a treatment (sample script)

• Development process: involves lawyers, accountants and agents

• The program is developed under the terms of a step deal – contractually puts the show together in a series of phases

• Network gets “right of first refusal” the right to prohibit the production company from producing the show for another network

• Each year, the networks will order 30-35 pilots to be produced

• Pilots go to test audiences before they make it (or not) to the TV schedule

Program Costs

•Major miniseries: $4-7M

•Movie of the week: $3-5M

•Adventure/mystery/drama: $2-4M

•Sitcom: $0.9-2M

•Reality/newsmagazine: $0.75 – 1.5M

(per episode)

Public Television•Operates in reverse fashion from the

major networks

•PBS charges membership dues to its stations

• Individual stations decide when to run programming

•PBS “Core-schedule” is designated for same-night carriage, but not a must do

•Must-carriage allows for national marketing of shows

TV Syndication

•Syndicators: companies that sell programs directly to TV stations and cable services

•$9B annual business

•Two primary buyers for syndicated programs: local TV and cable networks

Syndication Market

•Over 1300 local TV stations obtain syndicated programming to fill their programming schedules

•Major buyers: TNT, TBS, Lifetime, USA

•NATPE (National Association of Television Program Executives) show: where syndication buyers can see what’s out there

Off-net syndication

•Normally at least 100 episodes are needed to launch it off-net syndication

•Ideally, the number is 130 – to allow a show to run episodes twice annually (260 weekdays in a yearly schedule)

•Scheduling a show to run in the same daypart each day is known as stripping

Programming strategies

•Audience flow: moving audiences from one program to another

•Putting together programs that attract the same audience

•Popular shows as a lead-in to new shows

•Challenge programming: when a network or station goes head-to-head with a major competitor