New Strategy for NBC
Monday, October 26, 2009
By: Amy Johnson
NBC's Universal Television Entertainment chairman Jeff Gaspin recently announced that the network would not be producing programs to profit margins.
The network is trying something different than most networks have done. Their new idea is that a network does not have to spend a hefty profit on a show; by producing a show that is really cheap and easy to make, a big profit can still be made in their time slots.
While NBC is producing cheap shows, competing networks are soaking up the ratings but is paying for expensive sitcoms. Those sitcoms may be getting stellar numbers, but they are also affecting the network's profit margin negatively.
An example of NBC's new idea was when they moved “Jay Leno” to nine o' clock. NBC has yet to see if this plan has worked as Leno hasn't discovered its ratings resting point quite yet; baseball playoff programming on Fox and TBS have taken away some of his viewers.
This move may prove to be very smart on NBC's part; by lowering the costs of producing shows, NBC's budget will not see as big of a blow. The question is how will viewers take to these changes? Most well-liked sitcoms are ones that have been around for a few years and cost more to produce. If more networks go to this idea, many viewer's favorite shows could be canceled.
2 comments:
This is an interesting strategy by NBC. While producing the Jay Leno Show is helping out NBC's bottom line, it seems to be a clear example of 'you get what you pay for.' Because there's no money invested in the show, it doesn't have good writers and is really struggling. It's no surprise why people aren't tuning in. It's not good.
I agree with Zach on this one, you get what you pay for. No I think its a matter of viewers not tuning in at all. The cheap route doesn't seem to work well in the long term plan at all.
-Chris
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