Online Exclusive: Television Execs Discuss Future of Network, Online Programming

The future of network television will be one of event programming, water cooler shows like “American Idol” and news, an executive with NBC Universal said at a conference on digital entertainment and media. Sitcoms and hour-long dramas will still have their place but as viewing patterns shift those shows will gravitate toward online even with the lack of a profitable business model. NBC is not sitting by and letting network television just disappear and doing what it needs to escape the fate of the music and newspaper industries, said Marc Graboff, co-chairman of NBC Entertainment and Universal Media Studios. “As long as people want to consume content we are one of the purveyors with an historical brand that will carry us forward,” Graboff said during a panel discussion on the future of television at the OnHollywood conference on April 28. Programming with a broad appeal that attracts millions of viewers will still be in demand but perhaps not enough to sustain four networks and the hours each needs to fill prime time, Graboff said. That programming will take the form of large-scale, one-of-a-kind events like the Olympics, Super Bowl and the Oscars. Shows like “American Idol” that get people talking will continue too, as will nightly news broadcasts, he added. The passive viewing experience of sitcoms and hour-long dramas is going through the changes that all networks are concerned about. Younger viewers have either abandoned network programming or don’t set aside time for particular shows as their parents once did. A network website then becomes useful to bring interaction between viewers and those types of scripted shows, Graboff said. As networks put existing programs online and create original programming for new media distribution (downloads, streaming, mobile devices), executives are learning the differences between the two mediums and that what works on one doesn’t necessarily become a success on the other. Take the example of “Quarterlife,” an online episodic series drawing 300,000 views per episode that NBC brought to the network in early 2008 and cancelled after one episode. “There was massive rejection (by the audience,)” Graboff said. That illustrates a challenge that content creators and studios face in putting a series online in that the standards for measuring success have not been established. “Quarterlife” producer Marshall Herskovitz, making an earlier appearance at the conference, called it an arbitrary quality to defining success. Lloyd Braun, a former chairman of ABC Entertainment Television, knows about success having developed and greenlit “Desperate Housewives” and “Lost” two shows that helped turn the network around. Viewers have been conditioned to look at hit shows as ones that are scripted and shown during prime time, Braun said. “I’m not sure that is the form a hit will take online,” said Braun, who co-owns a Santa Monica-based entertainment company. Warner Premiere measures the success of its short-form programming for digital distribution by how much money it brings in from purchases. The “Watchmen” motion comic the studio released last year in advance for the feature film was made available through iTunes in 12 episodes. Shorter versions of the episodes supported by ads could be downloaded to mobile devices. When using transactions as a measuring stick you can know within a week whether a program worked or not, said Lydia Antonini, director of digital development for Warner Premiere, who added that a high number of season passes were sold for the “Watchmen” series. “If you are going to commit to it you are going to commit by the season,” Antonini said.