Tomorrow Will Be Televised … and Predicted

I know from years of experience that predicting viewer behavior and the performance of programs is as much of an art as a science, which is why I was happy to participate in a recent Simon Applebaum podcast for his program Tomorrow Will Be Televised. Marc Berman, Programming Insider's Founder/Editor-in-Chief, and I sat down and discussed various aspects of the TV landscape. The overarching subject was how TV was performing so far in 2020 and where it might be going as the year progresses- an imposing subject especially during a pandemic.

The Big Story So Far in 2020
For me, the biggest story for 2020 so far is the uncertainty and sense of unknown. Will we get a second wave of the pandemic? Will consumers regain their confidence? How will that impact advertisers? From a measurement perspective we have seen over the past six months an expanded use of screens, a jump in co-viewing as families are sheltering-in-place and children are attending school virtually. We have also seen a great increase in news viewership to inform us about unprecedented past events as well as the upcoming election.

Berman concurred. "We are in a world of unknowns now. We don't really know what is going to happen. Anything can happen." He noted that finally in the previous week, the five broadcast networks announced what they are planning for the new season. "But the question is will they be starting the fall season in the fall?" Last season, he pointed out, there were 17 new series, 36 new shows. This year we have only 8 new TV shows. "What they are doing is using content from other sources to fill the schedule." He added that another unknown is live sports. "Will we have Sunday night Football? I don't know." I added that the absence of live sports, such as NFL Football could depress ratings.

The pace of production is a concern according to Applebaum, whether in LA or New York. "Everyone is on pins and needles as to when the shows will be produced," he stated. "When the coronavirus pandemic started there were 70-75 scripted TV shows that were in production here in New York. Pilots that weren't made and we don't know when production will be coming back."

A Cause For Some Optimism
My note of optimism here is the sudden availability of what I call "origination content" from sources such as, for example, the Metropolitan Opera that are streaming past performances from their library or the ability to sample programming from international providers. This enables viewers to sample content from a range of heretofore undiscovered sources. Discovery is a positive aspect of all of this uncertainty.

For Applebaum it is the smart TV which is the center of all of the activity. "We are seeing more people watch television over their Smart TV sets and smart devices, subscription, the major services such as whether it is Disney+ or Apple+ or Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon. We are seeing more Smart TV services get off the ground," he noted. And advertisers are taking note of this trend.

Add to this the various new uses for these screens such as online wellness – meditation and yoga – gaming, virtual meetings that bring people together, so the screen will expand as it becomes smarter, I added. It is also humanizing a lot of the talent when they broadcast from their homes, offering fans a way to connect even more to their favorite hosts. "It's an interesting situation," stated Berman, "because in the time of uncertainty … it's almost a creative challenge and there is a lot out there to consume." For Berman, he couldn't imagine a show like American Idol as working virtually, "but it did work. The contestants were at home performing and it felt personal. It felt comfortable."

Data, Program Production and the Viewer
With all of these wonderful streaming services and new places to discover content, the researcher in me is a little worried about how all of this will be measured. There are still many walled gardens and our ability to compile all of these proprietary data sources continues to be challenged. For the viewer it is a great opportunity to see more content. For the industry, it may be a challenge collecting the data.

Berman wondered if there is a tipping point where there are so many choices and the viewer gets fatigued. But with all of the potential new and co-productions being available through the myriad of services, it may spark viewer enthusiasm as it increases choice. "The way to make all of this work, financially as well, is (co-production and partnerships) as a growing trend," he stated, "The content has been stellar."

With all of this content out there, how can your programming be discovered by the consumer? Marketing plans will have to be re-evaluated and very creative to best navigate all of the available platforms and opportunities to view. "I've been noticing a lot of live events," noted Berman, who attended a special event for The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel before the pandemic, "They were making it more interactive, more live. That is on hold now but maybe it will go back again."

The future may be uncertain but one thing is sure, the media industry remains an indispensable element in people's lives and what happens in the next six months may set the tone for the foreseeable future. Certainly a medium that continues to offer compelling, original content in flexible formats is here to stay … providing we can figure out how to best measure it.

This article first appeared in www.MediaVillage.com

Content that Makes Meaningful Connections. Interview with Producer Donald Perry

I met producer Donald Perry at the recent Multicultural summit and was fascinated with his impressive background and current project Family Pictures USA. 

“I've had a very unusual career path. I started off as a Foreign Exchange Trader with JP Morgan,” he explained, and from there into the intense world of high finance. In his spare time he wrote “lots of sci-fi, thriller, fantasy stuff, even published a series of novellas...oh, yeah, and that book of erotic fiction that every writer has to do at least once!”

His creative side kept calling. “One day, I started giving notes to a friend of mine on a film project he was working on - a personal doc about self-identity and negotiating the various ways of being Black. By the end of the project, I had my first film writing credit and I was hooked.” By 2010, Perry was writing full time for film and now has four feature documentaries as well as many shorter pieces. 

Charlene Weisler: Tell me about Family Pictures USA and how it got started.

Don Perry: For the last 9 years, we've been traveling around the USA, as well as to Canada and a few places in Europe, Brazil and Africa, engaging communities around their shared values and experiences. Family Pictures USA is a TV series and transmedia project that explores neighborhoods and cities through the lens of the family photo album to enlarge our understanding of history, our diversity and our shared values. We like to call it the antidote for the divisiveness that undergirds our national, even international, malaise. 

The program emerged out of the audience development project we created around Through a Lens Darkly. While making the documentary, we found that certain kinds of images were not easily accessible through museums, libraries, various institutional collections so we basically started a crowd-sourced mechanism for activating private archives, which became the Digital Diaspora Family Reunion Roadshow. We've held over 55 live events, some of which lasted over several weeks, in over 40 cities on 3 continents; interviewing over 3000 participants about their family history, photos and connections to place. 18 months ago, one of our funders suggested we might have a TV show in there somewhere and we've been deep into the development process ever since. Last summer, we filmed a pilot episode in Detroit and now, we're looking to take what we've learned into wider distribution.

Weisler: How is it different from other genealogical programs.

Perry: This isn't a genealogical show at all. We focus on the stories within the family photo album... the personal testimony about the who/what/when/where/why behind the image looking for patterns, relationships and connections that unite one person's story to someone else's, perhaps someone they've never met or never imagined they had a connection to. These aren't only through family lineages, which has happened at various events, but more through people having experienced something in common, like being at the same place, at the same time, but from opposite sides of the street and witnessed an event or took part in something that was so impactful that it needed to be captured in a photograph. What we're really looking to uncover is the mystery behind that little spark of the Divine that exists just in the moment the photograph is taken. The spark we all experience every time we take a photo - a compelling desire to commit something to memory in a tangible...now digital...way.

Weisler: In an era of multiplatform, what is your digital and multiplatform strategy.

Perry: We started this project back in 2009, when there really wasn't social media as we know it today. We have been adapting the project to the new landscape. Our strategy going forward will be pretty agnostic; As long as there is an audience to reach, we'll create content for platforms that will appeal to them where they are. On Facebook and You Tube, we do short modules, from 2-minutes to 15-minutes; on Flickr we have tons of albums depicting our various events; on Instagram we have images and short stories. We generate a lot of content when we go into a location and we can cut it to fit any set of parameters, from short form to longer formats.

Weisler: How can your program encourage diversity, new ways of thinking about race and connection.

Perry: Most of our problems as a society stem from our ignorance about "The Other," people not like us, people who are different, whether by race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, religion, class. If "They" aren't like "Us" then They are treated as outsiders, with all the suspicion that goes with not being part of the tribe.

We physically bring people from a wide range of different corners of a community together in one place, which is a cornerstone of our production process. We create a space where people can feel comfortable sharing some of the most intimate narratives about themselves, their families and their history. We give people a place where their voice is heard, honored, respected...often for the first time outside of the confines of their own close inner circles and families. In that moment of sharing their story in their authentic voice, they reveal their humanity, loves, hopes and dreams for themselves and their children and grandchildren. We learn about moments of tremendous pain which they have suffered, but which they have also overcome and found a certain peace. We create a palpable link from one person's eyes to another's heart. The payoff is, as Antonio Lucio, CMO at HP, Inc., said in an article in AdWeek recently, “It is harder to hate someone you know.” 

This article first appeared in www.Mediapost.com

Q&A Bill Abbott - Crown Media

Although Bill Abbott started his career as a buyer at an agency, he soon moved into Research where he honed his strong analytical skills and then on to Affiliates and Sales. But it was in Research, according to Bill, where he gained his strong grounding for his future media roles – what drives the bottom line and what determines success and failure.  His current position as the CEO of Crown Media gives him the ability to put all of his experience to good use in steering his corporation through a sea of media change and disruption.  In this fascinating interview, Bill talks about Independent networks, Hallmark programming, current research efforts in his company and some insights into how the media landscape will look in the next five years.

The five videos of the interview are as follows:

Subject                                                 Length (in minutes)

Background                                                 (6:33)

Independent networks                                 (4:32)

Programming                                              (7:20)

Research and Data                                      (5:18)

Predictions, Smart TV and DVRs               (6:15)

Charlene Weisler interviews Crown Media CEO Bill Abbott who discusses his background in this 6:33 minute video:

Crown Media CEO Bill Abbott talks to Charlene Weisler about Independent Networks, such as Hallmark, in this 4:32 minute video:

 

Charlene Weisler interviews Crown Media CEO Bill Abbott who discusses Hallmark programming in this 7:20 minute video:

Crown Media CEO Bill Abbott talks to Charlene Weisler about research and data in this 5:18 minute video:

In this final video, Charlene Weisler asks Bill Abbott to comment on DVRs, Smart TVs and the overall media landscape in this 6:15 minute video: