TV OR NOT TV? THAT IS THE MULTI-MILLION-DOLLAR QUESTION
The fall broadcast season could look like nothing we’ve ever seen before
When the Fox broadcast network announced its big new shows for the 2020-2021 television season last week, the list contained a curious name: L.A.’S Finest. The police drama had not only been commissioned by a rival company, Spectrum — it had already aired there a year ago.
With productions potentially sidelined for months, a fall calendar normally filled with shiny new scripted series and returning favourites will instead contain retreads like L.A.’S Finest. The networks are even considering news and other kinds of program that rarely grace prime time.
“It’s horrible what’s going on around the world but also in this industry,” said Preston Beckman, a longtime network television executive whose resumé includes both Fox and NBC, alluding to many of the 900,000 entertainment workers sidelined by the lockdown. But, he added, “it will be an opportunity to redefine a lot of television.”
Broadcast TV is a highly interdependent organism. Networks order pilots, a few of which become series that then are scheduled for the fall. There, with the help of highly rated NFL games and Major League Baseball post-season contests, the shows launch to potentially tens of millions of viewers, whose interest attracts advertisers. But this year nearly every part of that life cycle has been disrupted.
Sports leagues remain a question. Brands also have less money to spend on advertising, and consumers are reluctant to buy the products. And, most important, networks may not have the shows that could drive all of this.
“The fall is going to be tricky for any network that relies on original programming,” said Robert Greenblatt, chairman of Warnermedia Entertainment and former chairman of NBC Entertainment. Warnermedia’s own CW has already said it will push the start of next year’s prime-time television season until early 2021.
Network television is sometimes seen as a fading business. But its hits continue to collect an audience most streaming shows could only dream about. Even with drops in recent years, nearly a dozen broadcast shows averaged eight million viewers or more this season, with four of them — The Masked Singer, The Voice, NCIS and FBI — routinely topping nine million.
Most of the roughly 50 pilots ordered this year were never shot. That means network executives would have to order full series with nothing but a script on which to base their decision, a process they have historically resisted.
Not that they could shoot those programs — or any returning ones — if they wanted to. To make a September debut, series need to begin shooting by July or early August at the latest. Yet production is nowhere near restarting.
“Making the decision to shut down is easy. Opening it up again is much harder,” said Scott Edel, who runs the entertainment department at the Los Angeles office of the law firm Loeb & Loeb.
The two biggest U.S. production hubs, Los Angeles and New York, remain in broader lockdown.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, held a roundtable with top Hollywood figures last week and said that there will soon be guidelines released for production to restart in a number of California counties. But he said that L.A. County — where many of the sound stages are located — would not be one of them. The county continues to experience more than 1,000 new coronavirus cases on many days.
Many TV shows have established crews and sets on Hollywood and New York stages, and replacing them would be expensive and inconvenient. Stage space and crew availability elsewhere are already tight.
Some say a return to normal production routines in the fall is unlikely given the health and liability concerns.
“The actor is going to be the least protected person on set,” Jon Huertas, star of NBC’S This Is Us, said on the roundtable. “We can’t film with PPE on.” He acknowledged it’s plausible production would not restart until 2021.
What the fall television scene will look like is anyone’s guess. News programming could be added, especially in advance of the election. Late-night shows could be moved to a prime-time slot of 10 p.m. Reruns are a possibility. Programming from Canada, Britain and other English-speaking territories could also be snapped up by broadcast networks. For example, NBC recently acquired CTV’S medical drama Transplant, about a Syrian doctor who flees with his sister to Canada to build a better life. The CW, which already airs CBC’S Burden of Truth, has picked up that network’s detective series Coroner, and BET+ has scooped up CBC’S Diggstown.
Meanwhile, individual networks can pursue tailor-made solutions. CBS could air series that have already been made for and shown on its All Access streaming service — series such as The Good Fight and Star Trek: Picard that have drawn fan bases. This would, experts say, allow the network to sell advertising at a traditionally high rate while offering in essence its own commercial for a streaming service, though it could prompt some All Access customers to drop their service.
The CW said it would air the modern fairy-tale series Tell Me a Story, which aired for two seasons on All Access. The company has also said it will air Swamp Thing, a show that aired for one season on its DC Universe service.
ABC said it would bring back 2019-2020 shows such as Stumptown and Black-ish for new seasons and also move forward with a new series from the titanic TV creator David E. Kelley, vaguely calling the programs its “slate for the 2020-2021 season.”
One of the few networks trying to push through with minimal changes is CBS, announcing a fall schedule of some two dozen returning shows along with two fresh series, including a reboot of The Equalizer with Queen Latifah. But privately, few in the television business believe the schedule will come to fruition anytime soon, though others choose to be optimistic.
“You could see a lot of creativity and innovation in the fall without the regular shows,” Beckman said. “At least, that’s what I’m choosing to believe.”