Monday, Feb. 01, 1971
Future Schlock
There is no truth to the rumor that business is so depressed in the television industry that the networks are piping canned laughter into their elevators. But times are not exactly prime when cheapie daytime game shows are scheduled after dark and when reruns start in January (sec following story). Another ominous signal: news specials are being threatened with low-visibility time slots--and there may be fewer such programs.
Clearly, the networks are in a tight profit squeeze. Their combined advertising billings were off 3.8% in the last quarter of 1970, and some commercial minutes are currently being "fire-saled" at discounts of up to 40%. Meanwhile the networks' costs are heading in the other direction. The National Football League has auctioned air rights at so extortionate a price that neither CBS nor NBC is making anything from the sport.
Bye-Bye, Beethoven. The three co-stars of Bonanza now command salaries so high ($15,000 each per segment this season, $16,000 next, $17,000 the year after) that NBC has had to pare the number of fresh episodes produced to 27. On other series, the standard TV year--once 39 originals and 13 reruns--has shrunk to as low as 18 new shows; filling out the schedule are repeats and special pre-emptions. Austerity has resulted in an increase in reruns and a cutback in specials. CBS, for example, filmed a 200th-birthday tribute to Beethoven but never aired it for lack of a sponsor.
Two Government actions are also encouraging network retrenchment. One is the ban on cigarette advertising, which will cost the three networks $151.9 million or 8.8% of their annual revenues. The other is a Federal Communications
Commission ruling that will, in effect, limit the networks to three hours of nightly programming between 7 p.m. and 1 I p.m. (6 p.m. to 10 p.m. in the Central Time Zone) starting next fall. The well-intentioned goal is to give independent producers and individual stations an incentive to present more diversified fare. But, as FCC Chairman Dean Burch argued in his persuasive dissent, the result will probably be more uniformity, or worse. Affiliated stations and syndicators are unlikely to gamble on costly, high-quality programming in the time they will get back: four hours a week from CBS, 3 1/2 from NBC. (ABC, having anticipated the cutback, will have to rejigger its schedule but surrender only one more hour.)
Trial Balloon. The time ruling and the general economic slowdown have provided two short-term advantages to the industry, however. With fewer available hours (and thus commercial minutes), the networks will probably be able to hold the line on rates. And because hard times have hit the consumer as well as the TV business, viewers have been less able to afford to go out at night. Thus the networks' combined audience has risen 1.4 Nielsen points this season, or an average of 1.7 million viewers per minute.
But at a time when the public is watching more (about six hours a day in the typical household), there is less worth watching. The prospect is for a surfeit of quiz shows and reruns. There are already reports, which are perhaps trial balloons, that NBC and CBS may move their money-losing Tuesday night news specials First Tuesday and 60 Minutes to Sunday afternoon. Then the programs would not run at all during the endless football season. Asked what viewers could look forward to in prime time, former NBC Vice President Paul Klein replied: "Future schlock."
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