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It's never too early to market the fall season

Categories: Broadcast TV

Written By

June 19th, 2009

The nets are discovering that it's never too early to tubthump.

Fox's fall marketing campaign began even before last season ended: It ran the pilot of its hot dramedy-tuner prospect "Glee" after the penultimate installment of "American Idol" last month.

ABC began promoing its futuristic drama "Flash Forward" even before it had formally announced the show's pickup, while NBC cranked up the blurbs for "The Jay Leno Show" the very next night after the host signed off from the "Tonight Show" for the last time.

These early efforts are examples of the shift in recent years toward round-the-clock marketing during the summer months as nets gear up to launch their big new shows in the early fall. There's no more waiting until four or five weeks before the launch for the promo spots to land. Network image burnishing and show-specific campaigns are fired up right after the schedules are presented during the mid-May upfronts.

- read the rest on Variety.com

(24) Comments - Add Yours!

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  1. Jeff G

    This proves they are marketing companies and NOT broadcast networks. More effort into selling instead of producing.

  2. Glee will fail

    The Jay Leno Show will survive

    Flash Forward will thrive

  3. I’ve also seen a few The Good Wife promos on CBS.

  4. ZebZ

    It’s time for NBC to start promoting Chuck! There’s only 9 months until it comes back! They have to be on top of these things!

  5. I am not sold on Fast Forward yet.

    If Glee connects with the AI crowd at all it could take off, but it doesn’t seem like a natural fox show, much more an old WB show (not even a CW show)

    Jay at 10 – well it will hard it to fail – since expectations can’t be too high (I think anything around 1.3 the demo and NBC will be happy.)

  6. dollhouse sucks

    Well believe it or not Glee is already nominated for Breakout TV Show , Actor and Actress Categories For Teen Choice awards airing on Fox this summer, even though it only aired 1 episode, i suppose early PR is getting mock awards also?

  7. Kermonk

    Hey, that’s close to English – is that really from Variety? ;)

    254 days until Chuck returns.

    Although “Lester” says it could return earlier
    http://blog.zap2it.com/frominsidethebox/2009/06/news-roundup-latenight-ratings-joy-behar-chuck.html
    (bottom)

  8. Kermonk, I don’t think that’s unique to Chuck. I think a lot of shows slated for mid-season have a similar shooting/potential availability schedule.

  9. Medium switch

    Time for CBS to start promoting Ghost Whisperer/Medium block. Friday nights look to be far more competitive with Law and Order, Ugly Betty Southland and Dollhouse all competing

  10. Jamie

    lmao someone could post a story about the rock on my front lawn and you freaks would turn it around to include a post about chuck in your comments. chuck sucks. the only reason it was renewed was because nbc didnt pick up the other wb produced pilot that it had signed off on.

  11. DenverDean

    I saw a promo that included “Medium” joining CBS earlier this week! I wonder if they will be able to air any episodes before broadcast season. Obviously, NBC has benched it for the summer.

  12. Riff Rafferty

    “There’s no more waiting until four or five weeks before the launch for the promo spots to land.”

    What? This is the dumbest thing I have ever read in my life. Well, okay, no, it isn’t. I read comments on here all the time which are considerably dumber. But it’s still pretty dumb. If the network waits until four weeks before a fall show’s launch to start running promos for it, it’s a damn sure bet they hate the thing and have already given up on it. Were they confusing fall with midseason?

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