While watching "Lost" last night, I wondered if Disney's ABC network finally had a hit new series on their prime-time line-up. I was impressed with the screenplay's intrigue, special effects, and just the amount of money they are obviously investing in this show. My thinking was that Disney may be fijnally trying to get ABC out of the ratings rut by actually spending big money.
I then looked at the ratings chart for last week. CBS was the clear winner by having multitudes of shows ranking in the top-five, followed by NBC with a couple of shows. Finally, ABC shows up in the charts in the eighth ranking show... can you guess which one? Lost. The only other ABC show to rank in the top ten was football, making Lost the only ABC series making the charts!
My next thought was "Something's wrong here!" When I watched the ending of Lost, I was convinced that ABC has a hit that can make it possibly to number one. But why aren't ABC's other shows doing well? What's the answer? Does Disney need to invest in other quality shows, the way it has with Lost? Would that kind of spending put ABC back as a viable player in the network rating wars? And if it did, would ad revenue recover the losses of the increased spending? It would take so much money out of Disney to fill ABC's line-up with big-budget shows on par with Lost that even if ABC made it to number one, I seriously doubt the ad revenue would cover that loss.
After coming to this realization, I began thinking "What should Disney do with ABC?" Give up and sell it? No, they can't do that (or shouldn't do that). So, what could they do? How could the one person who was director of prime time programming at ABC during the late 70's and who made ABC number one back then (Eisner) now be the CEO of ABC's parent company, while ABC today has the worse ratings of all the networks?
I then realized what ABC's problem is. Back when Disney did not own a network, its television shows had to compete with other studios to make it to network television. If Disney's Buena Vista or Touchstone (or any other television production studio Disney owns) created shows that network execs liked, the network execs would jump at signing those shows up.
Today ABC is being used as an outlet to air Disney-produced television shows. There is no need to fear if the network execs would llike what they produce because ABC is there as a virtual outlet to air those shows. So this lets Buena Vista (and other Disney subsidiaries) to produce junk because they have "pre-contracts" with ABC to air those shows, eliminating competition from other studios for air-time contracts.
If Disney were to tell ABC execs that their own studio subsidiaries should not be treated special to other non-Disney studios, and every time slot in prime-time should have equal and fair competition between all the stuidos. This would mean eliminating any monetary incentives ABC has by choosing a Disney studio subsiiary. This kind of fair competition would create the kind of "fire" the Disney studios need to create and produce better shows.
The only problem I see with this solution is... Will NBC allow it's newly owned Universal unit to solicit shows to Disney-ABC? Will Paramount-Viacom solicit shows to Disney-ABC, even though they own CBS? Would this competition also include programs produced by News Corp (FOX) and also Time-Warner (the WB, HBO, Warner Bros) as well?
Your thoughts?
I then looked at the ratings chart for last week. CBS was the clear winner by having multitudes of shows ranking in the top-five, followed by NBC with a couple of shows. Finally, ABC shows up in the charts in the eighth ranking show... can you guess which one? Lost. The only other ABC show to rank in the top ten was football, making Lost the only ABC series making the charts!
My next thought was "Something's wrong here!" When I watched the ending of Lost, I was convinced that ABC has a hit that can make it possibly to number one. But why aren't ABC's other shows doing well? What's the answer? Does Disney need to invest in other quality shows, the way it has with Lost? Would that kind of spending put ABC back as a viable player in the network rating wars? And if it did, would ad revenue recover the losses of the increased spending? It would take so much money out of Disney to fill ABC's line-up with big-budget shows on par with Lost that even if ABC made it to number one, I seriously doubt the ad revenue would cover that loss.
After coming to this realization, I began thinking "What should Disney do with ABC?" Give up and sell it? No, they can't do that (or shouldn't do that). So, what could they do? How could the one person who was director of prime time programming at ABC during the late 70's and who made ABC number one back then (Eisner) now be the CEO of ABC's parent company, while ABC today has the worse ratings of all the networks?
I then realized what ABC's problem is. Back when Disney did not own a network, its television shows had to compete with other studios to make it to network television. If Disney's Buena Vista or Touchstone (or any other television production studio Disney owns) created shows that network execs liked, the network execs would jump at signing those shows up.
Today ABC is being used as an outlet to air Disney-produced television shows. There is no need to fear if the network execs would llike what they produce because ABC is there as a virtual outlet to air those shows. So this lets Buena Vista (and other Disney subsidiaries) to produce junk because they have "pre-contracts" with ABC to air those shows, eliminating competition from other studios for air-time contracts.
If Disney were to tell ABC execs that their own studio subsidiaries should not be treated special to other non-Disney studios, and every time slot in prime-time should have equal and fair competition between all the stuidos. This would mean eliminating any monetary incentives ABC has by choosing a Disney studio subsiiary. This kind of fair competition would create the kind of "fire" the Disney studios need to create and produce better shows.
The only problem I see with this solution is... Will NBC allow it's newly owned Universal unit to solicit shows to Disney-ABC? Will Paramount-Viacom solicit shows to Disney-ABC, even though they own CBS? Would this competition also include programs produced by News Corp (FOX) and also Time-Warner (the WB, HBO, Warner Bros) as well?
Your thoughts?