Everyone knows that NBC ratings have been dreadful this season, and now from the NYPost's Page Six comes a story that it's Katherine Pope that is to blame for the recent failures of NBC's Lipstick Jungle and My Own Worst Enemy not Ben Silverman:
With yesterday's cancellation of two NBC shows produced by sister company Universal - "Lipstick Jungle," which starred Brooke Shields, and "My Own Worst Enemy," which featured Christian Slater -culpability falls on Universal Media Studio PresidentKatherine Pope, who oversaw both doomed series.
In the story, Silverman not only comes off without blame for the failures, but praised for increasing the profitability of the network:
But Silverman, 37, has been able to cut costs at the network and seems to be satisfying his bosses, particularly NBC chairman Jeff Zucker.
In fact, one network insider actually praised Silverman, saying, "The company is very happy with Ben. He is deep in negotiations to re-up his contract with NBC, and he has the network up 50 percent profit from year to year."
I'd applaud too, if I were sure that claim were true. Problem is, the NBC network financial results are so buried inside the GE corporate results that it's difficult to tell what the financial situation is at NBC, so everyone is reduced to relying on unaudited claims, whether from Zucker, Silverman or unattributed "insiders" like the NYPost.
Here's an alternate explanation that fits the facts we know are true (falling NBC ratings, the early failure of two shows added under Silverman's watch): Silverman *is* in trouble and he's doing his best to wage a PR offensive on both the "it's Pope's fault" and the "but, our profitability is up!" fronts. I'd love to hear directly from someone who really knows the inside situation.
Reminds me of when President Bush said, “You’re doing a heck of a job, Brown” to his Fema director after Katrina.
whether he’s riding high or not, you must admit he is living the charmed life. After all, he’s a ROCK STAR! Self-proclaimed rock star, but still, he *did* have a cameo on Entourage. He’s obviously very good at spin and PR, even if Kevin Reilly always seems to skewer him in the battle of the barbs…
Edit: oh, and he’s just shifting blame. And for a while, it will likely slide off of him like a friend egg off of new teflon. But soon, Sunday Night Football goes away and NBC’s own USA Network might sometimes beat the mothership during primetime.
They’ve lost MOWE and LJ to ratings woes, and waiting in the wings are Knight Rider, Heroes and (though I hope I’m wrong) Chuck. That’s five shows in trouble. I don’t see how any amount of PR will stop the pointing fingers from finding him eventually.
The $hit is hitting the fan and he is stepping aside and letting it spatter all over her.
Yes, right now he is the golden boy but soon it is all going to come back and bite him in the ass.
Oh and FrankJ, Heroes is not in danger of cancellation…at least not yet. It is getting bad press, but it is still doing well in the demos.
NBC was so poorly run, I wouldn’t be shocked if it’s making more money now. However, the BRAND IMAGE of NBC is corroding away. I’m sorry but MOWE last week & KR last week pulled in CW numbers. That is bad no matter how you look at it.
One reason that NBC makes more money is they spend less. They aren’t promoting shows as much as they used to. Valuable advert spots are being kept to sell vs promote.
DD, the fear with Heroes is the continuing downward trend. At $4 million an episode, if this trend continues, it’s not going to be sustainable.
Until Heroes stops hemorrhaging viewers I’d say it’s in trouble, and is bound to be giving more than a few executives at NBC heartburn.
They have promoted the hell out of this week’s HEROES. There were commercials during nearly every break from the football game last night, and I’ve seen them all week not just on NBC but on USA.
I don’t think NBC/Universal made the changes in the Heroes writing staff to just cancel the show at the end of this season. If that were the case they would have left the show as is and canned it in May.
I strongly believe that NBC will give the show at least one more season to see if the “ship can be righted.” I mean, what else do they have that can even bring in the demos that Heroes does? New shows are often more misses than hits, would you really cancel something you can at least count on for the unknown quantity?
I could see if all the other NBC shows were doing fantastic, possibly dropping Heroes. But NBC is hurting, they won’t drop Heroes until they have to.
I see a lot of people mentioning the 4 million per episode price tag. I have it on good account that is the current cost of the episodes. Season 1 was roughly about 2.5 million an episode. MBC wants the style of the show to go back to season 1, which was more plot and character, less special effects. That formula worked well, no one complained about the lack of effects either. If they go back to that style of production the price per episode will drop a little, and these days every bit helps.
Max, they made the changes to see if this spring the numbers will stabilize. If they demos drop to sub 3.0, I can’t see them keeping it. I also can’t see how they can get it down to 2.5 million an episode, unless the actors and writers take pay cuts and they kill most of the cast off. Costs go up each season because actors and writers get raises.
Nick, we’ll see if all the promotion paid off, but I don’t think the problem is people forgetting Heroes is on.
Julia, I fully agree, but I did find it interesting in how hard they pushed HEROES this past week. Cross network massive promotion. The commercial even alluded to season 1 and hinted this would be like that. It was if anything good marketing, if the BRAND IMAGE of HEROES isn’t already crap to the masses that is. I guess we find out tonight.
I think it was good marketing too. Eclipse, eclipse, the glory of season one – remember season one? Come back and give us a try. Come on, you know you want too. The only thing missing was a “Save the cheerleader…” reference. I’m sure it will be effective enough that last week’s numbers will be improved, though that might have happened even by doing nothing. I’m very interested to see tomorrow’s numbers. Sadly, more interested than actually seeing tonight’s episode, but I will watch anyway.
Robert, right but they did a good job of showing Claire from season 1 (and about 15 pounds lighter, cough) instead of showing her now.
Personally i think Heroes has “lost” its way: After the “save the cheerleader, save the world” its been running amock through the centuries.
Chuck is still “mildly entertaining” totally gave up on pushing daisies. It’s plain boring!
I think NBC knows it is facing a rapidly diminishing Monday night audience. Chuck is kind of stagnant in the ratings, Heroes is still dropping despite demo numbers, and they just canned MOWE. NBC is scrambling to find the remaining viewers amongst it’s big draws that it knows may find it in their heart to tune back in. We’ll see if it works.
I can only hope Chuck does well tonight too, because with the push behind Heroes the show is basically on it’s own right now.
NBC is where CBS was until CSI was birthed…NBC does the same promtion and the same “style” of shows time after time…Gone are the days when comedy ruled…
Cosby, Cheers, Seinfeld…and drama was drama like ER…
NBC has garbage reality shows – stupid comedies and weak drama – except for the ‘LAW & ORDER” series(which have been messed up because of moving them all over the board & which I now watch in syndication on weekends because there are soo many of them.)
So NBC -sell your LAW & ORDER SHOWS to other network/ late night syndication world…and close your doors…
Or do something new – HEROES SEASON 1 was on the right track – but you became your old self too soon, too much!
FrankJ, the good news for Chuck (and TSCC) tonight is that the MNF game of Buffalo and Cleveland doesn’t seem to be a huge draw. The bad news may be that for all I know the game will air locally on the NBC affiliates in those markets.
I think that going back to Hero’s season 1 would be a mistake.
I was okay with very little use of powers in the begining because that is what always happens in Origins, but if they go back to plot with little to no powers, they may loose the comic book fan base which has been very loyal up to this point.
I said this in another thread but i’ll repeat here because it is pertinent. I think Chuck is going to basically tread water ratings wise with minimal gains until the Super Bowl. WHen NBC does the Super Bowl event with the 3-D episodes with alot of promotion during the SUper Bowl for it; I think than CHuck will see a significant gain with the 3-D episode.
I just checked, Robert. ABC has the game in Buffalo and FOX in Cleveland.