simplicity

The New York Times has an interesting article on NBC ending fall-debuts and instead going to a year-round schedule

NBC Universal took a big step toward undoing one of the television industry’s oldest traditions by announcing Tuesday that it would move to a year-round schedule of staggered program introductions. The move is intended to appeal to advertisers, who crave fresh content to keep viewers tuned in.

From a business perspective this makes complete sense. Again as the article states this isn’t a brand new idea

The idea of a 52-week schedule is not really new. Most networks now have programming scattered throughout the year with specific shows set aside for summer, like “Big Brother” on CBS (though it was used in the regular season this year because of the strike) and others for midyear like “24″ and “American Idol” on Fox and “Lost” on ABC.

But where NBC has a potential edge over its competitors, is that it will announce the entire schedule ahead of time

But NBC intends to give advertisers a much earlier look at its plans for the entire year. That will presumably make it easier to match advertisers to specific shows, an idea that is growing in popularity.

My personal belief is that depending on the way NBC handles the line-up this will end up being great for viewers or an absolute travesty. NBC can’t be willing to just “fill” the schedule by padding it with trashy reality shows, bad sitcoms, or awful dramas. Obviously there’s a reason why brand new shows, except reality shows, are not released during the summer. It’s a difficult time to capture and keep viewers, but with selective quality programming you can succeed. HBO for example has had great success releasing shows during the summer season such as Entourage and Flight of the Conchords, the quality programming keeps viewers tuned in.

Finally it is understandable that this is a positive for marketing/advertising agencies in particular, giving them the ability to put input into potential shows as well as giving them a head-start on their campaigns. But I only hope that the shows are storyline focused, as opposed to being streaming billboards. Such was the case this past week, with the remake of the Knight Rider movie where you couldn’t get away from anything Ford related, either during the movie or during the commercial breaks. I’m hoping that the co-chairman of NBC Entertainment is true to his word

But Mr. Graboff said this did not mean NBC would base its programming on input from advertisers. “The ultimate decision is going to be made by program executives who believe in the shows,” he said.