MediaSavant
02-04-2004, 10:08 PM
...and you think it's bad now.
Peacock's feathers are all mussed up
Tim Goodman
Monday, February 2, 2004
©2004 San Francisco Chronicle | Feedback | FAQ
URL: sfgate.com/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/02/02/DDGTN4M05Q1.DTL
Finally, a reality show that was good for something.
Last week NBC continued its quest to alienate not only the producers of its own shows but also the viewing audience. The Peacock moved "The Apprentice, " its hot new reality show featuring Donald Trump, to Thursdays because it was getting bloodied in the gobstopper by Fox's hot old reality series "American Idol" on Wednesday nights.
Having grown a bit bored with "Idol" and its creation of vile, ferociously mediocre and manufactured talent, it's good to see at least one lovely side effect to the show: It made NBC get all stupid in public.
Truth be told, the fading empire that is NBC has for years been doing questionable things in the public eye, honing that art this season into jaw- dropping bouts of stupidity. What "Idol" did was make NBC entertainment president Jeff Zucker -- soon to move upstairs and away from the carnage -- do the public perp walk.
Zucker, the whiz kid who turned around the "Today" show and made it a powerhouse (with Katie Couric -- give the guy the Nobel), brazenly approached his stint as entertainment president by not sucking up to the creative community. During Zucker's reign there have been constant rumblings about his heavy hand and executive decisions that have alienated a number of producers of NBC shows.
But much of this goes on behind the scenes, as it should, and you, the viewing public, only get the tail-end fallout. Like this: "Hey, honey, do you know what this crap 'Good Morning, Miami' is?" Or, after that: "I can not believe that they killed 'Boomtown.' I loved that show."
That's your role, essentially. Bemoaning Zucker's befuddling moves. But now things have reached a new level of, well, upper management nimrodian tampering, with the far-reaching ramifications being nothing short of this: NBC has now solidified itself as the network most likely to annoy the bejesus out of its own people.
And its audience.
Never mind the small, aggravating injustices, like starting and stopping shows off the hour or half-hour, resulting in messed up VCRs and confused TiVos (not to mention untaped episodes). Never mind the odd, unknowable rerun patterns for shows. One week it's on, next week and the week after -- reruns.
What has really mucked up the works for virtually everyone are these things, not necessarily in this order:
-- An inability to find a hit to replace exiting hits like "Friends" and "Frasier."
-- Over-promising, under-delivering on fall shows.
-- A lack of patience with series that may need it.
-- A fix-it now mentality bred from fear that often results in the mismanagement of current series.
Oh, there's more, but we're being frugal with our triangles.
Let's take a look, though, at what these management missteps really mean: Quick, name a new hit on NBC? Take your time. No problem, got all day. Right - - "The Apprentice," which just isn't as big a hit as "American Idol," hence some of the current madness. Ooh, ooh! "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy"! Nope. That's a Bravo show that NBC borrows.
The point is, "Coupling" was a disaster, the much-hyped "Lyon's Den" with Rob Lowe was a failure, the magazine-cover magnet and early fall buzz show "Miss Match" was soundly roughed up by CBS's "Joan of Arcadia" and switched out of the time period, and now appears to be missing. Maybe it's on Bravo.
Though the vaunted "Whoopi" series was given some patience and ended up finding a semblance of an audience, its time slot is moving -- for at least the second time -- thanks to the domino effect of "The Apprentice" decision. "Happy Family"? Not happy -- not enough families see it. "Las Vegas"? Congratulations on a minor hit. As the former No. 1 network, you should be so proud.
Perhaps in the plus column could be the pending cancellation of "Good Morning, Miami," whose premise, just for trivia sake, seemed awfully similar to the life story of one Jeff Zucker. Let's go out on a limb and say that might be the reason it was renewed from last fall.
Meanwhile, as NBC's management somehow mysteriously survives a period of less than stellar successes, all around them there are signs of rot. Historians will tell you this -- find the rot, witness the beginning of the end. Just a few weeks into the season, NBC shelved its critically acclaimed series "Boomtown," which is just as well, because the network's ratings-fueled panic had all but neutered the content anyway. Besides, they had to move Alicia Silverstone's struggling "Miss Match" from going head to head with that girl who talked to God, and once you get to moving pins on a push board, anything is possible. Poor "Miss Match" -- it even got bumped by "Dateline." Now that's just humiliating.
Back in Burbank, there was a neat game of blame-the-sagging-series. Bypassed was "The West Wing," which had just had all the creativity and subtleties sucked out of it by John Wells, whose other series, "ER," had long become as relevant as a bow tie on a homeless man, but that's another story altogether. As "The West Wing" morphed into "Not the West Wing," NBC played tough guy with "Ed." NBC has always begrudgingly accepted "Ed." But it's like the middle child that gets neither freedom or pampering and so suffers in a kind of silent, unappreciated bitterness. When the Donald and his "Apprentice" appeared, "Ed" had to be moved to Friday nights, where the victim of that move was, you guessed it, "Miss Match."
Oh, and also "Ed," because now "Ed" is all but dead. There's two episodes left and probably no more ever, and NBC will undoubtedly acknowledge this passing in its typical way by saying, "What, we had a show called 'Ed.' Really?"
Meanwhile -- and there's always a meanwhile because the NBC minions are busy little bean counters -- the home viewer kept getting this nagging feeling that the "Law & Order" franchise was encroaching on everything else. "Didn't I see two episodes from each of these shows this week already? Three? Honey, whatever happened to that Rob Lowe show?"
We haven't even begun talking about Thursdays. We'll talk about Thursdays later.
Way off in the background, barely audible, as if coming from a hole, were the sounds of the "Frasier" people. "Hey, this is our last season ever. We used to win you guys all those Emmys, remember? What about us? Hello? Can you throw us down some food?"
But nobody in Burbank heard, because they were shouting into their cell phones all kinds of praise to the "Friends" people for episode after great episode in this, their much-hyped farewell season. What went unsaid when the flip phones snapped shut: "They should have quit last year. Anyway, did you see 'Survivor' last night?"
Before getting much farther into this, you should be reminded that, when pressed about a lack of success this fall, Zucker said the reason was simple. The shows "sucked." He didn't say, "We have continued our terrible overestimation of our fall projects, which could be, come to think of it, my fault."
We're almost about to talk about Thursdays. And Thursdays are really Zucker's Last Stand. You won't want to miss it.
With turmoil starting to seep up through the cracks in the NBC home base, a neat little story broke in the paper: Negotiations to save "Frasier" failed (surprise!) so yeah, this really is the last season of what was once a crown jewel NBC series.
The negotiations went like this: NBC asked everybody to take a massive pay cut. The "Frasier" people said no. Push the chairs back and turn out the lights.
NBC then decided to start hyping the "Frasier" farewell. You could almost, if you closed your eyes, feel the sincerity of the gesture.
Ah, Thursdays. Pause. Breathe.
NBC built its entire fortress on Thursday nights. It was the network mandate. Thursday is the biggest viewing night of the week and networks get to charge more for advertising and also reap the rewards of lucrative movie ads for blockbusters opening the next night. Thursday is where NBC keeps its biggest hits, historically. Once they lose a little lustre, they get shifted to Tuesdays. That's life. Thursdays are for winners.
Now, "Friends" is leaving, "Will & Grace" is sagging and "ER" is on a ventilator. CBS wins this night, leaving Zucker to snicker that NBC makes more money, even in second place (which CBS scoffs at). Nyah, nyah, nyah -- the comeback of the defeated. The only really good series NBC has managed to put on Thursday nights in a post "Will & Grace" world is "Scrubs."
In a perfect world, "Scrubs" would be a huge hit with lots of Emmys. But this is not a perfect world, it's the Peacock, and the network pulls "Scrubs" off the schedule as often as an overbearing soccer coach pulls his fat daughter off the field. It's embarrassing and unfair, but so is life. When NBC "supersizes" -- a Zucker favorite -- it allows "Friends" and others to run longer, say 40 minutes. Getting the butt-end of that is, yes, "Scrubs."
Now, because "The Apprentice" got thwacked by "American Idol" on Wednesday, NBC has decided to move it to Thursday nights. Loser there? "Scrubs, " which gets bumped to Tuesdays, in turn bumping "Whoopi" to a new timeslot and midseason series "The Tracy Morgan Show" -- which needed patience but got none of it -- to Saturday nights. In the TV business being told you're moving to Saturday nights is akin to being told this: "Here's a gun. Go put it in your ear."
Check your playbook: What's on Wednesday nights where "Ed" used to be and then, in its place, "The Apprentice" used to be? Reruns of "The Apprentice." Meanwhile -- and yes, that's yet another meanwhile -- "Ed" is on Friday, "Scrubs" is on Tuesday, "Tracy Morgan" is on Saturday, "Frasier" is on -- but not for long.
That's called making friends, people.
But if you're Zucker and you're looking at the small picture, maybe you see it this way: "The Apprentice" really is a fun show. And maybe it will become the network's new Thursday night staple -- until people get sick of Trump, which, put your money down, might not be too far from now. Still, it's a hit right now, and Zucker is all about now. Which is easy to say when you're leaving the mess for someone else to clean up next fall.
Wait! There's "Fear Factor." That's Zucker's baby. Maybe not the gold standard you want to be known for, but it's a hit right now. (See above.) And if you combine that with "The Apprentice" you get, let's see, um, something short of a legacy.
Peacock's feathers are all mussed up
Tim Goodman
Monday, February 2, 2004
©2004 San Francisco Chronicle | Feedback | FAQ
URL: sfgate.com/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/02/02/DDGTN4M05Q1.DTL
Finally, a reality show that was good for something.
Last week NBC continued its quest to alienate not only the producers of its own shows but also the viewing audience. The Peacock moved "The Apprentice, " its hot new reality show featuring Donald Trump, to Thursdays because it was getting bloodied in the gobstopper by Fox's hot old reality series "American Idol" on Wednesday nights.
Having grown a bit bored with "Idol" and its creation of vile, ferociously mediocre and manufactured talent, it's good to see at least one lovely side effect to the show: It made NBC get all stupid in public.
Truth be told, the fading empire that is NBC has for years been doing questionable things in the public eye, honing that art this season into jaw- dropping bouts of stupidity. What "Idol" did was make NBC entertainment president Jeff Zucker -- soon to move upstairs and away from the carnage -- do the public perp walk.
Zucker, the whiz kid who turned around the "Today" show and made it a powerhouse (with Katie Couric -- give the guy the Nobel), brazenly approached his stint as entertainment president by not sucking up to the creative community. During Zucker's reign there have been constant rumblings about his heavy hand and executive decisions that have alienated a number of producers of NBC shows.
But much of this goes on behind the scenes, as it should, and you, the viewing public, only get the tail-end fallout. Like this: "Hey, honey, do you know what this crap 'Good Morning, Miami' is?" Or, after that: "I can not believe that they killed 'Boomtown.' I loved that show."
That's your role, essentially. Bemoaning Zucker's befuddling moves. But now things have reached a new level of, well, upper management nimrodian tampering, with the far-reaching ramifications being nothing short of this: NBC has now solidified itself as the network most likely to annoy the bejesus out of its own people.
And its audience.
Never mind the small, aggravating injustices, like starting and stopping shows off the hour or half-hour, resulting in messed up VCRs and confused TiVos (not to mention untaped episodes). Never mind the odd, unknowable rerun patterns for shows. One week it's on, next week and the week after -- reruns.
What has really mucked up the works for virtually everyone are these things, not necessarily in this order:
-- An inability to find a hit to replace exiting hits like "Friends" and "Frasier."
-- Over-promising, under-delivering on fall shows.
-- A lack of patience with series that may need it.
-- A fix-it now mentality bred from fear that often results in the mismanagement of current series.
Oh, there's more, but we're being frugal with our triangles.
Let's take a look, though, at what these management missteps really mean: Quick, name a new hit on NBC? Take your time. No problem, got all day. Right - - "The Apprentice," which just isn't as big a hit as "American Idol," hence some of the current madness. Ooh, ooh! "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy"! Nope. That's a Bravo show that NBC borrows.
The point is, "Coupling" was a disaster, the much-hyped "Lyon's Den" with Rob Lowe was a failure, the magazine-cover magnet and early fall buzz show "Miss Match" was soundly roughed up by CBS's "Joan of Arcadia" and switched out of the time period, and now appears to be missing. Maybe it's on Bravo.
Though the vaunted "Whoopi" series was given some patience and ended up finding a semblance of an audience, its time slot is moving -- for at least the second time -- thanks to the domino effect of "The Apprentice" decision. "Happy Family"? Not happy -- not enough families see it. "Las Vegas"? Congratulations on a minor hit. As the former No. 1 network, you should be so proud.
Perhaps in the plus column could be the pending cancellation of "Good Morning, Miami," whose premise, just for trivia sake, seemed awfully similar to the life story of one Jeff Zucker. Let's go out on a limb and say that might be the reason it was renewed from last fall.
Meanwhile, as NBC's management somehow mysteriously survives a period of less than stellar successes, all around them there are signs of rot. Historians will tell you this -- find the rot, witness the beginning of the end. Just a few weeks into the season, NBC shelved its critically acclaimed series "Boomtown," which is just as well, because the network's ratings-fueled panic had all but neutered the content anyway. Besides, they had to move Alicia Silverstone's struggling "Miss Match" from going head to head with that girl who talked to God, and once you get to moving pins on a push board, anything is possible. Poor "Miss Match" -- it even got bumped by "Dateline." Now that's just humiliating.
Back in Burbank, there was a neat game of blame-the-sagging-series. Bypassed was "The West Wing," which had just had all the creativity and subtleties sucked out of it by John Wells, whose other series, "ER," had long become as relevant as a bow tie on a homeless man, but that's another story altogether. As "The West Wing" morphed into "Not the West Wing," NBC played tough guy with "Ed." NBC has always begrudgingly accepted "Ed." But it's like the middle child that gets neither freedom or pampering and so suffers in a kind of silent, unappreciated bitterness. When the Donald and his "Apprentice" appeared, "Ed" had to be moved to Friday nights, where the victim of that move was, you guessed it, "Miss Match."
Oh, and also "Ed," because now "Ed" is all but dead. There's two episodes left and probably no more ever, and NBC will undoubtedly acknowledge this passing in its typical way by saying, "What, we had a show called 'Ed.' Really?"
Meanwhile -- and there's always a meanwhile because the NBC minions are busy little bean counters -- the home viewer kept getting this nagging feeling that the "Law & Order" franchise was encroaching on everything else. "Didn't I see two episodes from each of these shows this week already? Three? Honey, whatever happened to that Rob Lowe show?"
We haven't even begun talking about Thursdays. We'll talk about Thursdays later.
Way off in the background, barely audible, as if coming from a hole, were the sounds of the "Frasier" people. "Hey, this is our last season ever. We used to win you guys all those Emmys, remember? What about us? Hello? Can you throw us down some food?"
But nobody in Burbank heard, because they were shouting into their cell phones all kinds of praise to the "Friends" people for episode after great episode in this, their much-hyped farewell season. What went unsaid when the flip phones snapped shut: "They should have quit last year. Anyway, did you see 'Survivor' last night?"
Before getting much farther into this, you should be reminded that, when pressed about a lack of success this fall, Zucker said the reason was simple. The shows "sucked." He didn't say, "We have continued our terrible overestimation of our fall projects, which could be, come to think of it, my fault."
We're almost about to talk about Thursdays. And Thursdays are really Zucker's Last Stand. You won't want to miss it.
With turmoil starting to seep up through the cracks in the NBC home base, a neat little story broke in the paper: Negotiations to save "Frasier" failed (surprise!) so yeah, this really is the last season of what was once a crown jewel NBC series.
The negotiations went like this: NBC asked everybody to take a massive pay cut. The "Frasier" people said no. Push the chairs back and turn out the lights.
NBC then decided to start hyping the "Frasier" farewell. You could almost, if you closed your eyes, feel the sincerity of the gesture.
Ah, Thursdays. Pause. Breathe.
NBC built its entire fortress on Thursday nights. It was the network mandate. Thursday is the biggest viewing night of the week and networks get to charge more for advertising and also reap the rewards of lucrative movie ads for blockbusters opening the next night. Thursday is where NBC keeps its biggest hits, historically. Once they lose a little lustre, they get shifted to Tuesdays. That's life. Thursdays are for winners.
Now, "Friends" is leaving, "Will & Grace" is sagging and "ER" is on a ventilator. CBS wins this night, leaving Zucker to snicker that NBC makes more money, even in second place (which CBS scoffs at). Nyah, nyah, nyah -- the comeback of the defeated. The only really good series NBC has managed to put on Thursday nights in a post "Will & Grace" world is "Scrubs."
In a perfect world, "Scrubs" would be a huge hit with lots of Emmys. But this is not a perfect world, it's the Peacock, and the network pulls "Scrubs" off the schedule as often as an overbearing soccer coach pulls his fat daughter off the field. It's embarrassing and unfair, but so is life. When NBC "supersizes" -- a Zucker favorite -- it allows "Friends" and others to run longer, say 40 minutes. Getting the butt-end of that is, yes, "Scrubs."
Now, because "The Apprentice" got thwacked by "American Idol" on Wednesday, NBC has decided to move it to Thursday nights. Loser there? "Scrubs, " which gets bumped to Tuesdays, in turn bumping "Whoopi" to a new timeslot and midseason series "The Tracy Morgan Show" -- which needed patience but got none of it -- to Saturday nights. In the TV business being told you're moving to Saturday nights is akin to being told this: "Here's a gun. Go put it in your ear."
Check your playbook: What's on Wednesday nights where "Ed" used to be and then, in its place, "The Apprentice" used to be? Reruns of "The Apprentice." Meanwhile -- and yes, that's yet another meanwhile -- "Ed" is on Friday, "Scrubs" is on Tuesday, "Tracy Morgan" is on Saturday, "Frasier" is on -- but not for long.
That's called making friends, people.
But if you're Zucker and you're looking at the small picture, maybe you see it this way: "The Apprentice" really is a fun show. And maybe it will become the network's new Thursday night staple -- until people get sick of Trump, which, put your money down, might not be too far from now. Still, it's a hit right now, and Zucker is all about now. Which is easy to say when you're leaving the mess for someone else to clean up next fall.
Wait! There's "Fear Factor." That's Zucker's baby. Maybe not the gold standard you want to be known for, but it's a hit right now. (See above.) And if you combine that with "The Apprentice" you get, let's see, um, something short of a legacy.