Taking on Broadcast: Cable Nets Shift Shows to Fall

As the sun sets on the summer, ad-supported cable has wrapped another hugely successful season, as top-tier properties like USA Network and TNT enjoyed the fruits of their investment in original drama series. Through August 23, cable’s household share was 65.4, eclipsing the four-network broadcast share (23.8), giving the upstarts their tenth straight win over their network rivals. Cable’s dominion over the hot months poses a bit of a conundrum, as the sheer volume of hit summer series has led to some overcrowding in prime. On sleepy Sunday nights alone, the 10 p.m. time slot has played host to three high-profile original strips: USA’s In Plain Sight, Lifetime’s Army Wives and AMC’s Mad Men.With so many swimmers splashing around in the programming pool, a few networks have decided to try and make a splash in the fall, launching series in the wake of the new broadcast season. After breezing to a decisive prime-time ratings win this summer––its average nightly delivery of 3.59 million total viewers topped runner-up TNT by 46 percent––USA will bow its latest original strip, the con-artist drama White Collar, in October.According to Bonnie Hammer, USA is still mulling over where it will position White Collar, and while leading out of Monk on Friday nights at 10 p.m. may be the most viable time slot, Thursdays would offer a younger audience. In either case, the show will debut in the latter half of the month. “We intend to launch it late enough that people have already sampled the broadcast menu and are interested in seeing something fresh,” said Hammer, who oversees USA as president, NBC Universal Cable Entertainment and Universal Cable Production. As is the case with USA series like Burn Notice and Psych, White Collar’s 14-episode run will be broken up into two discrete segments. “Most likely we’ll air a bunch of episodes through late fall/early winter, and save some up for later in the first quarter,” Hammer said. The return of Rescue Me helped FX post double-digit ratings gains this summer, including a 10 percent hike among adults 18-49. Per Nielsen, FX finished fifth in the all-important demo, averaging 724,000 viewers, and yet the network hopes to make an even greater splash this fall.FX will bow two new comedies in the fourth quarter of ‘09, eyeballing the animated strip Archer for an October release while prepping the fantasy football farce The League for the following month. Meanwhile, Sons of Anarchy revs up its sophomore run on Sept. 8, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia returns Sept. 17 and Nip/Tuck begins its long goodbye on Oct. 14.John Landgraf, president and general manager, FX Networks, said the two new comedies will appear on Thursday nights, with one leading out of Philly. “We know there’s this rich audience of comedy watchers from 8-10 p.m. on Thursdays, so we’re going to try and pick those viewers up at 10 o’clock,” Landgraf said. “Depending on how we schedule, we’ll have up to 33 weeks of original comedy.”Having picked up all three comedy pilots on its development slate, FX in the spring will bow a new hybrid series from multi-threat Louis C.K. Tentatively titled Louie, the show will blend the comedian’s original stand-up bits with scripted segments filmed in New York. Much of the material will draw on Szekely’s experiences as a recently divorced father of two young daughters.Landgraf hopes Louie will serve as a prototype for a new production model that would grant writers and producers a greater amount of creative freedom while reducing the expenses associated with getting a show off the ground. “It’s the auteur theory brought to TV,” Landgraf said. “Louis can write, direct and produce his own material, and while we’re giving him a relatively small amount of money, he has the liberty to go out there and do the show that he wants to do.” The network formerly known as Sci Fi Channel has long espoused the value of a 52-week schedule, bowing one of its first original series, the alien-invasion drama First Wave, in September 1998. Under the Syfy banner, the network continues to seed all four quarters, with plans to return Sanctuary for its second-season run on October 9, while preparing the ground for the two-part miniseries Alice in December. Created by writer/director Nick Willing, who updated The Wizard of Oz two years ago with Tin Man, the pomo revamping of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland stars Kathy Bates and Caterina Scorsone. Once the holiday season winds down, Syfy will jump back into the fray, launching the much-anticipated Battlestar Galactica prequel, Caprica, on Jan. 22. All of the cold-weather kickoffs come on the heels of the well-received summer strip Warehouse 13, which averaged 3.97 million viewers in its inaugural run, making it the most-watched series in Syfy/Sci Fi history.“We’ve just reupped Warehouse 13 for a second season, and while we’ve not made a decision as to when we’ll bring it back, as it did so well for us this summer, chances are it’ll return at around the same time next year, “said Syfy president Dave Howe. “But we absolutely embrace the year-round programming strategy. If anything, the second quarter was our quiet period this year, and that was a function of our wanting to lay low before our rebranding.” The prospect of trying to compete with broadcast’s fall marketing juggernaut may be daunting, but it’s become clear that the summer cable schedule is reaching a saturation point. “They don’t have much choice. Cable’s running out of real estate in the summer, and they’ve got to put all these shows somewhere,” said Brad Adgate, senior vp, director of research at Horizon Media. “But going into fall is a tough choice. Despite all the erosion, broadcast still collectively does a 40 share in the fall.”Not every cable network is diving into the leaf pile, however. TNT programs three nights of original drama in the summer before picking up the thread again in the first quarter. “You’re not going to get your highest ratings if you put your show on in November,” said Jack Wakshlag, chief research officer, Turner Broadcasting. “Everything gets hot and heavy between September and after Thanksgiving.”

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Taking on Broadcast: Cable Nets Shift Shows to Fall

Anthony Crupi

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Anthony Crupi