Network New Season Announcement Calendar

[MediaSavant]

Here are the dates for the six broadcast network "upfront" programming announcements and presentations to advertisers for the Fall season:

May 12th -- NBC
May 13th -- WB and ABC
May 14th -- CBS
May 15th -- UPN and Fox

For people unfamiliar with the term "upfront", that is the season in which most advertisers negotiate advance deals with all the networks.

It usually begins after the big networks make their announcements and proceeds through the Summer, finishing by September.

Cable has "upfront" announcements also, but they usually occur sporadically throughout April and May.

[LadyCrais]

Is there anything about this that we need to be looking for, aware of or can take advantage of?

[MediaSavant]

Originally posted by LadyCrais
Is there anything about this that we need to be looking for, aware of or can take advantage of?

If there were something obvious to me that fell under "campaign strategizing" I would have put it in that section, but I don't see anything obvious.

However, for people who are of the belief that UPN is really considering the show--a belief I don't share--the upfront announcements in May would be a deadline of sorts.

[Twich]

That means step it up...spread the niceness..maybe flowers and a singing telegram to networks that we think might be important to our future? Spread the love sort of thing??? Make them notice us now (again)...well before the deadline?

[Dominar of Action]

I don't think anyone here has ever realistically thought that Farscape could make it onto this fall's schedule at UPN or any other network, unless the syndication rights were to magically become available within the next couple of weeks, which ain't gonna happen. The fact that the May upfronts do not include Farscape is irrelevant to anything we're trying to accomplish.

[Vampgrrl]

Farscape I dont see on network TV period altho I can see it on Viacom SciFi...that said there is no way Farscape will be on TV for the 2003/04 season. If and *when* Farscape comes back, Moya needs to live again and contracts would have to be signed.

[MediaSavant]

Originally posted by Dominar of Action
I don't think anyone here has ever realistically thought that Farscape could make it onto this fall's schedule at UPN or any other network, unless the syndication rights were to magically become available within the next couple of weeks, which ain't gonna happen. The fact that the May upfronts do not include Farscape is irrelevant to anything we're trying to accomplish.

I don't understand why everyone keeps harping on the syndicated rerun rights when it comes to UPN or any broadcast network.

UPN, THE NETWORK, DOES NOT PURCHASE RERUNS OF OLD SHOWS. They just don't. They don't have the timeband to run them in since Primetime, for them, consists of only ten hours of programming a week and all of that is originals.

Rerun rights were just as irrelevant for Buffy and Roswell when they picked up those shows.

That aside, I still don't believe UPN has ever considered picking up Farscape. But, the syndication rights have nothing to do with that.

Where the syndication rights were harped on were in a discussion of other cable networks picking up the show.

[AgentSun]

has anyone thought of contacting majel roddenberry? i mean, sure, she's got the bias cause she's the second in command of the roddenberry empire, but she's done amazing things with Andromeda, and Earth: Final Conflict before it jumped the shark. Farscape could be the quirk that could bring more audiences to the roddenberry name...

then again i dont know. both projects outside of trek have been roddenberry ideas. and i just don't see the same quality from andromeda in enterprise...

[Tokeya]

Originally posted by MediaSavant
However, for people who are of the belief that UPN is really considering the show--a belief I don't share--.


MS, you certainly have a right to your own opinion, but as I recall we DID receive word that UPN has and still is showing interest - remember kimrb. ;)

[MediaSavant]

Originally posted by Tokeya
MS, you certainly have a right to your own opinion, but as I recall we DID receive word that UPN has and still is showing interest - remember kimrb. ;)

Yes, everyone is entitled to their own opinion.

I remember kimrb. Nothing she said was convincing to me.

But, everyone does have a right to their own opinion.

Absolutely.

[Vampgrrl]

I dont think that UPN was very serious about it simply because it is a network, broadcast in the semi traditional sense. I do believe that Viacom would be interest in the show itself for other venues on a niche channel. I also believe that whatever shot Farscape has rests with the future ownership of USA Networks/SciFi channel. Vivendi is NOT interested...however, that ship is sinking...I have some hope that Viacom might be.
I will hold off on considering that more until and if DK chats after 4x22 airs in the United States.
YOu better believe I'll be over at #farscape at irc.scifi.com after the show...

[Dominar of Action]

UPN, THE NETWORK, DOES NOT PURCHASE RERUNS OF OLD SHOWS. They just don't. They don't have the timeband to run them in since Primetime, for them, consists of only ten hours of programming a week and all of that is originals.First of all, no need to shout. We know that UPN doesn't run repeats in its primetime. We are not the simpletons you seem to think we are. However, if you would think outside the box for a moment, *if* a first-run network *were* interested in picking up an established show with franchise potential, it would also require that an avenue be available for a large number of new viewers to play catch-up on prior seasons. DVDs won't do it. Sci Fi won'd do it. However, if a basic cable channel picked up the syndication rights and aired them in order at 6:00 or 7:00, then it could possibly make the idea of new episodes more attractive to UPN or some other first-run cable network.

I'm not saying that's what's going on, but it's at least a possibility that shouldn't be discarded out of hand. If we are to believe Rockne, then *nothing* will happen until those rerun rights are out of Sci Fi's hands. I tend to think he knows what he's talking about.

[MediaSavant]

Originally posted by Dominar of Action

I'm not saying that's what's going on, but it's at least a possibility that shouldn't be discarded out of hand. If we are to believe Rockne, then *nothing* will happen until those rerun rights are out of Sci Fi's hands. I tend to think he knows what he's talking about.

First, thanks for explaining why you keep harping on the reruns. I don't agree with your premise, but I understand now where you are coming from. I apologize for shouting.

Secondly, the way I interpret Rockne's statements is that he discounted a regular network like UPN from picking up the show from Day One as did Julia Blake when she stated that Henson wasn't actively pursuing that angle when interviewed shortly after the announcement. He seemed to be totally thinking from the perspective of other cable networks picking up the show.

Not all writer types know the business end of things. That's why many of them work with business-oriented EP's and let them handle that part. This is something I've learned from studying showrunners for years. (There's a good book called "Showrunners", BTW)

I'd like to be the first person to predict who the Farscape rerun rights will go to when they expire.

I predict they will go to...

(drumroll please)


The SciFi Channel. (yes, they will be renewed)

[Shipscat]

gag me.

[Digger]

I'd like to be the first person to predict who the Farscape rerun rights will go to when they expire.

It wouldn't bother me one bit if SciFi renewed the rerun rights as long as Vivendi were not the owner of SciFi. Vivendi has proven that they are not financially able nor creatively inclined to continue with Farscape. As I've always thought, our best hope lies in having someone buy the network who has more money and a stronger commitment to quality programming. That's why I continue to hope Viacom will come through with a compelling bid in the next month or so.

[Vampgrrl]

Yeah...I dont have a problem with Skiffy if Skiffy didn't seem like they wanted to kill the show. I think it's clear when those rights are up SOMEONE who isn't Vivendi will own Skiffy and if they consider Farscape valuable...I dont have a problem with that.

I'll be interested should DK chat after 4x22 in the US that Friday night to hear his take on everything. He has said previously he was a member of TPTB so he does have a good understanding of how things work.

[waltersgirl]

i predict that MS will be proven wrong.

[DangerWillRobinson]

Originally posted by waltersgirl
i predict that MS will be proven wrong.



I guess we will find out in 2005. I think that is the date in which they expire and hopefully another broadcaster can get them from ScFi's cold hand.


Then again maybe Viacom will buy ScFi. Three years is a long time to wait.:(

[blue]

Does this all have to do with the deregulation of what media can own by the FCC?
Here are some articles I found on the subject:
Business/Financial Desk | December 30, 2002, Monday
MEDIA: Gazing Into 2003: The Balance of Media Power Is Poised to Change -- Regulation; F.C.C.'s Chief Seeks To Remove Restraints

By STEPHEN LABATON (NYT) 523 words
Late Edition - Final , Section C , Page 6 , Column 1

LEAD PARAGRAPH - If all goes according to plan, 2003 will be the most important year in the tenure of Michael K. Powell as head of the Federal Communications Commission.

Mr. Powell is preparing to unleash a set of proposals in the next few months that will unshackle the nation's largest broadcasters and telecommunications conglomerates from restraints that have prevented them from growing. He is armed with a broad deregulatory agenda and a series of court opinions that have questioned or struck down some of the agency's most pivotal and longest-lasting rules.

google search key words:Regulation; F.C.C. Michael K. Powell Federal Communications Commission media

Business Week Online:
JANUARY 23, 2001
NEWS ANALYSIS

How Michael Powell Will Guide the FCC
Under its new chairman, expect easier mergers, less regulation, and more encouragement of high-speed Internet services

Few federal agencies are as important to the New Economy as the Federal Communications Commission. Under a sweeping deregulation measure approved by Congress in 1996, the FCC is charged with fostering competition among telecommunications players and charting a new regulatory roadmap for access to the Internet.
So what changes are in store at the FCC under the Administration of George W. Bush? After eight years of Clinton-style activism, look for a freer hand on mergers and faster deployment of high-speed Internet services, say lobbyists, activists, and FCC watchers.
The FCC will be more laissez-faire -- in part because of the rise of Michael Powell, son of Secretary of State Colin Powell. A current Republican commissioner, he was named by Bush as the new chairman on Monday, Jan. 22, to succeed William Kennard, who left the post on Jan. 19. "In recent years, we've seen less emphasis on deregulation," says Richard Wiley, lobbyist, former FCC chairman, and Republican eminence grise on all things telecom. "We may see more of it, now."
CONSERVATIVE CORE._ One key difference between Powell and the two Democrats who headed the commission during the Clinton Administration is likely to be his take on competition. While Powell has yet to say how he might differ from his predecessors, there are some hints: A conservative to his core, Powell already has come out strongly against forcing companies to do things that aren't directly related to the issues before the commission.
During negotiations over the AOL-Time Warner merger, for instance, neither he nor fellow Republican Harold Furchtgott-Roth pressed AOL to open its instant-messaging system to rivals as a precondition of the merger. The majority Democrats forced the concession.
Powell has taken a go-slow attitude on most other forms of regulation, too. In December, 1999, he voted with the majority in supporting a project to examine how much public-interest programming broadcasters should have to present in exchange for their newly granted rights to digital-TV spectrum. At the same time, he chided the commission for rushing to judgment on a medium that barely exists at this point. "The wiser course would have been to initiate this inquiry at a time when we understand more about the proposed, or likely, applications of digital television," he said at the time.
"VERY, VERY POWERFUL."_ Powell has "compassionate conservative" streak, too. Along with the rest of the commission, he has backed efforts to increase telephone use on Native American reservations. At the same time, he has criticized colleagues for not examining the efficiency of those programs before increasing their funding.
Powell will likely steer a center-right course that's bound to win favor with the Republican Congress, predicts Andy Schwartzman, president of the liberal Media Access Project in Washington, D.C. Powell is neither an ideologue nor given to fighting for its own sake, says Schwartzman, who adds: "The critical thing is that Michael Powell is going to be very, very powerful."
Over the next four years, the Baby Bells will continue to push for permission to offer long-distance services within their own territories. To do that, they must first show that they've opened their markets to competition for local-phone service. But few expect that Powell will be as tough on applicants as Kennard and his predecessor, Reed Hundt, were.
GIVE AND TAKE._ Powell also seems eager to work with Congress on giving the Baby Bells a free hand in high-speed data services. Lobbyists and Capitol Hill staffers predict that Congress will pass legislation this year freeing the phone companies to roll out high-speed Internet services nationwide, regardless of how much -- or how little -- competition they face in local-phone markets. In exchange, the Bells will pledge to give other Internet service providers a chance to sell their services to consumers.
"The [new FCC] will tend to defer more to what they perceive to be a marketplace solution," says Glenn Manishin, a telecom lobbyist and lawyer who represents the Bell companies' competitors in local markets. After eight years of Clintonian activism, marketplace solutions will be the new regime's calling card.

By Will Rodger in Washington
Edited by Thane Peterson

September 30, 2002

A Lone Voice for Regulation at the F.C.C.


by Stephen Labaton

WASHINGTON, Sept. 29 — In a steel band, Michael J. Copps would play the violin.

The lone Democrat at the top of the Federal Communications Commission, Mr. Copps has sounded a broad regulatory theme at a time when his other colleagues are playing a deregulatory trio. His views, attuned to what for decades was the mainstream approach to regulation of the nation's broadcasters and telephone companies, are now seen by his colleagues as out of step with the new economy.

As Michael K. Powell, the F.C.C. chairman, and his two Republican colleagues have begun a process to relax a host of rules — most notably the regulations that limit the size of the nation's largest media conglomerates — Mr. Copps has been the only member of the commission to urge caution and voice appreciation for the existing rules. Alone among the commissioners, he has promoted those rules as vital for encouraging diversity of voices, local programming and consumer choice.

In recent months, Mr. Copps who is 62 and a historian by training, has spoken to trade groups and others about the historic and legal significance of regulating "in the public interest" and the need to keep or restore a host of rules that the other commissioners have generally opposed or been silent about. Some of his top priorities — preserving the concentration rules, encouraging affirmative action in the workplace at media outlets, and maintaining tough accounting oversight of the telephone giants — have little support at the rest of the agency.

But he also has an important political patron, Senator Ernest F. Hollings, Democrat of South Carolina, for whom he once worked and who now heads the relevant committees that oversee the F.C.C. and set its budget. Should the full Congress come under Democratic control after the election, Mr. Copps may gain considerable influence in slowing down Mr. Powell's deregulatory push, particularly since Mr. Powell's alliance with the two other Republicans at the agency, Kathleen Q. Abernathy and Kevin J. Martin, is fragile.

"There is the potential here to remake our entire media landscape, for better or for worse, for a long time to come," Mr. Copps said in an interview in his office last week. "The stakes are incredibly enormous."

By law, no more than three members of the agency can be from the same political party. Because of partisan wrangling in the Senate, the five-person commission has one vacancy. That has left Mr. Copps a frequent dissenter.

His views and dissents are seen by some members of the commission as quaint — relics of the Progressive and New Deal eras that Mr. Copps specialized in when he was a history professor at Loyola University of the South. They argue that his admiration for a broad-based "public interest" approach to regulating the marketplace is no longer relevant in the Internet Age, which they see as a time when value of regulations should be measured by a precise economic cost-benefit analysis.

But outside the agency, Mr. Copps has been widely praised by a motley group of consumer organizations, labor unions, small broadcasters and conservative groups who see him as their only ally at the F.C.C. Telecommunications law leaves significant discretion to the regulators to act "in the public interest," and Mr. Copps's supporters see his campaign to apply a broad and historic formulation of that standard as heartening at a time when his colleagues are taking a narrower view in an effort to phase out the government's role in favor of the marketplace.

L. Brent Bozell III, the conservative columnist, former top aide to the former presidential candidate Patrick Buchanan and founder of the Parents Television Council, says Mr. Copps is "a voice in the wilderness" in his effort to curtail sex and violence on the airwaves.

"Copps, more than anyone else in a leadership position at the F.C.C., is concerned with the degradation of culture and the messages directed at children," Mr. Bozell said.

Mr. Bozell said that when he met with Mr. Powell, the head of the agency, he was told that the commission "doesn't receive a lot of complaints" about the issue. "There is this fear at the F.C.C. about Hollywood and an unwillingness to take a stand," Mr. Bozell said. "Copps has, and I applaud him for it."

Mr. Copps has also had support from Mr. Bozell's major target, the artistic community in Hollywood, for urging the commission not to roll back a series of rules that have limited the size of the nation's largest media companies.

"He understands that to have very few people control so much media is a dangerous thing for democracy, whether it is on the extreme right or extreme left," said Victoria Riskin, president of Writers Guild of America West, which represents 8,500 writers in television, film and news. The guilds representing virtually all of the creative talent in Hollywood have unified against Mr. Powell's efforts to rewrite the rules.

The review of the ownership rules is the most important issue now before the F.C.C. Earlier this month, the commission announced its intention to reconsider the rules, partly because Mr. Powell has been skeptical of them and partly because a federal appeals court has questioned the justification for some of them.

The current rules restrict a newspaper from owning a TV station in the same city. They prevent a media conglomerate from owning two television networks. They prohibit a network from owning stations that broadcast to more than 35 percent of the nation's homes. They restrict a broadcaster from owning two television stations in the same market unless there are at least eight other competitors. And they restrict a company from owning more than eight radio stations in the same market.

Within the F.C.C., Mr. Copps's influence is limited. He has asked that the agency conduct a series of nationwide hearings on the ownership rules and collect evidence by reaching out to a variety of interested parties, from artists to minority broadcasters. When representatives from unions and consumer groups made a similar request at a meeting with Kenneth Ferree, a close F.C.C. colleague of Mr. Powell's and the head of a task force now studying the rules, Mr. Ferree was said by several participants to have dismissed the idea as "an exercise in foot-stomping."

Mr. Copps disagrees."It's not foot-stomping, it's pulse-taking," he said. "We're talking about redrawing the landscape in ways that can't be undone. We need to hold hearings in some of the media markets and talk to a cross section of stakeholders and see what this will do to issues of diversity and localism and voices and choices."

Though his accent has a distinctly Carolina lilt, Mr. Copps is a native of Milwaukee. His family moved in 1959 to Spartanburg, S.C., where he attended Wofford College. Intending to become a lawyer, he changed his mind after falling under the spell of a history professor. He earned his doctorate in American history at the University of North Carolina.

After teaching for four years at Loyola, Mr. Copps came to Washington in 1970 to be a low-level assistant to Senator Hollings. He rose to become Mr. Hollings's chief of staff.

"I was glad to have somebody that erudite," Mr. Hollings said. Mr. Copps is now playing a vital role at the F.C.C., Mr. Hollings said, because Mr. Powell and the rest of the commission have taken such a narrow view of the public interest.

"This fellow said it was a nebulous standard and you cannot categorize it," Mr. Hollings said, referring to a statement Mr. Powell once made about the public interest standard. "He is gung ho on market forces. He is a guy who believes there should be no regulation. That's how he approaches regulation."

Mr. Copps left Mr. Hollings's staff in 1985 be a lobbyist, first for Collins & Aikman and then for the American Meat Institute. For most of the Clinton administration he served at the Commerce Department, rising in 1998 to become the assistant secretary for trade development. Last year, at the urging of Senator Hollings, he was appointed a commissioner by President Bush.

Mr. Copps says his views reflect his strong admiration for the progressives — from Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson to Franklin D. Roosevelt — and his devotion to their ideals is in plain sight. Adorning his commission office are wall-sized campaign posters from earlier times. One, a 1932 campaign placard, features two pictures with the phrase: "Roosevelt & Garner — End Prohibition." Another sports a picture of Harry S. Truman and his favorite slogan: "The Buck Stops Here."

Asked about a poster of Calvin Coolidge, he replied, "You have to be bipartisan in Washington."

© New York Times