Season of the Dinosaurs
KITMAN, MARVIN
On Television SEASON OF THE DINOSAURS by marvin kitman In the course of petitioning the Federal Communications Commission for relief from one of its new rules—the reduction of network "prime...
...In fact, television viewers who are expecting something different this season need to be reminded of some basic truths...
...Thus the true pilot cost to be absorbed by each series [sold] is roughly two and a half times the cost of its own pilot, or close to $900,000 per half-hour series in today's market...
...If a record sells a million copies because of the "A" side, the "B" side shares in the royalties...
...All the programs are supposed to be "relevant," "aware," "now"—in short, all the things the critics have said they weren't...
...As far as the public interest is concerned, though, the new rule has already done some good by finally bringing the cost of television pilots out into the open...
...They used the latest film techniques: rapid cutting, electronically altered images, psychedelic explosions of color and sound, and rock music...
...All of the money, I'm sure, doesn't go into the creative end of the show...
...They switch and switch the dial until they settle on the least objectionable program...
...The Interns (cbs, Fridays, 7:30 p.m...
...Make Room for Grandaddy (abc, Wednesdays, 8 p.m...
...On Television SEASON OF THE DINOSAURS by marvin kitman In the course of petitioning the Federal Communications Commission for relief from one of its new rules—the reduction of network "prime time" programming from four to three hours to encourage more local shows—Screen Gems revealed the cost of making a pilot, that sine qua non of selling a series to the networks...
...That's just optimistic talk...
...When situation comedies are failing as a genre, for example, the networks order more of the same...
...Its programs are like the "B" side of a hit record...
...From what I've seen so far of the contemporary, relevant shows, the question critics will be debating is whether this season is the same as 1961 or 1963...
...Expanding and exaggerating the errors of the old schlock," Klein says, "is a characteristic symptom of future schlock...
...Rather, only those who are still alive...
...The organizing principle is something called "Future Schlock...
...Making the most out of failure has been financially rewarding for the industry...
...If at first the networks don't fail, they try, try again...
...All the real experts know that the networks will rerun both the promos and the programs...
...Didn't we [nbc] buy Phyllis Diller after she failed...
...By the second week of the season, when the knowledgable critics start watching the programs, presumably there will be nothing to find fault with...
...is another Make Room for Daddy...
...As Klein says, "The dinosaur grew to its greatest height right before its extinction...
...While Screen Gems has managed to sell 19 film series to the networks since 1965, its petition declared that it has produced 46 pilots during this period...
...But it wasn't until she was such a fantastic success in Breakfast at Tiffany's—it lasted two days on Broadway—that cbs gave her her own show this year...
...The first is to fulfill current programming needs: something to go on between the commercials...
...We won't know how good the series really are until the networks begin showing us some of those $100,000 episodes...
...This is the Year of Youth and Social Consciousness in the medium...
...Alan King once said about the risk factor, "I've lost more pilots than the Luftwaffe...
...That Dann gave up a salary "in excess of $100,000" to go to work for Sesame Street at $25,000 was one of television's truly inspirational riches-to-rags stories last summer...
...After 19 years at the networks, his list of credits includes Beverly Hillbillies and Hee-Haw...
...Mike Dann, the vice president in charge of programming at cbs who quit this summer to work for Joan Ganz Cooney's Children's Television Workshop, is a classic example...
...They must have believed the fcc did not know these elementary facts...
...Everybody knew about the fantastic talent of Mary Tyler Moore after her success in The Dick Van Dyke Show...
...At cocktails parties, the right people said, "Oh...
...Youth and Social Consciousness may have a bad name by the end of the year...
...The 20- and 60-second promotional films announcing them already have cashed in...
...As long as the programs move, the people will buy it...
...From past observation, fcc rules, the foundation of broadcasting, are as solidly built as those fabulous William Zeckendorf real-estate projects one always saw sketched out in the New York Times...
...The process by which bad programs are put on the air by men like Dann is not as aimless as it may seem...
...They were probably right...
...The motto of that department was "Your Guess Is as Good as Ours—At Least...
...Thus the new Mary Tyler Moore Show (cbs, Saturdays, 9:30 p.m., est) is another Debbie Reynolds Show...
...The worst situation comedy on the air last season was The Tim Conway Show, one of those million-dollar ideas about an airline pilot that cbs bought...
...It loosens them up...
...Announced on the front page one week, they are modified or dropped completely the next, on the shipping page, beside the television listings...
...There are three bad programs on the air...
...According to Screen Gems' accountants, a half-hour pilot now costs "in excess of $360,000," and the average half-hour program in a series—after the pilot has been sold—costs $105,000...
...Whether or not the new shows look like a million bucks this year doesn't seem to matter as much as usual...
...Somewhere in those figures must be the studio champagne party celebrating the creative achievement of sticking the networks with yet another of those half-hour shows responsible for television's reputation for quality entertainment...
...Isn't it possible that somebody high up at the network thinks Conway is a very funny fellow...
...By the end of the first week of the advance promotion campaign, there were rumors that this season's plugs may actually be better than the shows...
...The others, who are always striving for quality, either go out of their minds or into public television...
...The more secure television executives, or at least the ones who are less self-demanding, realize this...
...The message in the miniversions of Woodstock that have been playing on tv sets is designed to let the public know at a glance that the networks are finally with it...
...to justify his existence, he would put on a quality program like Death of a Salesman once every seven years or so...
...Failure adds luster," Klein responded...
...For all the series on the air this season have only two real functions...
...While it may seem that the television industry strives for quality, my theory is that the programming departments at the networks are primarily concerned with filling up space and time...
...is another Medical Center...
...Klein's thesis is that people don't watch television programs...
...Next year, according to this speculation, the networks will be able to rerun the promos instead of the programs...
...His pronouncements on the television industry carried such weight that Variety headlined them as "The Gospel According to Saint Paul...
...He believes that the seeds of decay are present in the network concept of television...
...They come home with nothing to do, and they say, 'Let's watch tv...
...I asked...
...This figure does not take into account the cost of the very substantial number of projects that fail to reach the pilot stage...
...When he came home at night, his wife and three teen-agers looked at him with a certain disgust...
...Quality is one of those imponderables all the networks would like to have, but it isn't necessary...
...The second is to supply additional material for Paul Klein's thesis...
...It is a dying institution, yet nobody knows it but him...
...In the end, he was a sort of Willie Loman, a man who turned the corner and found a dead-end sign...
...The promos which began running in August were unusually well-written, acted and directed...
...In the case of television, the medium itself is the "A" side...
...They watch television," he explains...
...After Conway bombed in a half-hour show the network rewarded him this season with a new show, only twice as long...
...Whatever failed yesterday in television," as Paul Klein explained, "the networks revive for tomorrow...
...The same viewers who watched the original Danny Thomas show will be watching the sequel," Klein explained...
...Paul Klein quit his network job to go into the cable television business...
...Klein is a former network vice president, a 41-year-old mathematician who for years was in charge of audience measurement and research at nbc...
...The thought of not watching tv is foreign to them...
...you're the fellow who puts all the crap on tv...
...But $900,000 is as good an argument as any for viewers to suspend judgment on the new shows, whose pilots are being shown as first episodes during the premiere weeks (September 13-27) of this new season...
...It also does not include what Screen Gems described as "the expense of maintaining a staff of high salaried personnel to create . . . properties...
Vol. 53 • September 1970 • No. 18
