The Movie Business Book by Jason E. Squire

Author:Jason E. Squire
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Touchstone
Published: 2004-04-06T04:00:00+00:00

Ratings are the barometer of television programming, and are responsible for setting the lifeblood of the broadcast business, the values of advertising time.

The history of movies for television can be traced back to the launching of the Hallmark Hall of Fame, sponsored by Hallmark Cards, on NBC in 1951 with Amahl and the Night Visitors. This was a simpler time in the television industry, before cable and before home video. There were only three networks (CBS, NBC, ABC), and the bulk of their programming was original series. By the 1960s, feature films had been added to the schedules, the networks having licensed them for television airings in their first after-theatrical exposure. As audiences began leveling off, network executives realized that viewers were perceiving these movies as used goods, since they had already been shown in theatres. Also, for the money these licenses were costing, original movies could be produced and a library of original movies-for-television could be built, premiering on the network and garnering subsequent revenue in overseas TV and domestic postnetwork TV syndication. Barry Diller is the ABC Television network executive credited with launching the “movie of the week” format in 1969, which each week premiered original movies costing under $1 million.

By the 1970s, all three networks were making original movies of the week (MOWs) at a good pace. A turning point was the Sunday night when an original MOW beat a rerun of Gone With the Wind in the ratings. The movie for television had come of age. Highlights along the way include Brian’s Song and That Certain Summer in the 1970s and Something About Amelia, An Early Frost and Adam in the 1980s.

During the same period, networks were experimenting in long-form, defined as a movie or miniseries running more than two hours. The landmark, multinight Roots miniseries on ABC in 1977 became a cultural phenomenon, with high ratings posted every night. Roots: The Next Generation followed two years later. Long-form programming required appointment viewing on the part of the audience. Classic examples were Centennial and Rich Man, Poor Man. The miniseries reached a peak with The Winds of War, which successfully ran for eighteen hours over seven nights in 1983, then began a downtrend, as viewers were less inclined to return to the same TV appointment night after night and more inclined to use their VCRs.

The 1990s began a network era of belt-tightening and reduced ratings, with fewer dollars spent on original programming and more on newsmagazines (20/20, Dateline NBC). By 2000, reality-based shows (Fear Factor, Survivor) represented a new creative cycle; these shows cost networks some $400,000 an hour and often delivered more viewers than an original movie costing $2 million per hour.

Another trend leading to the decline of original broadcast movies was the discovery that networks could effectively counterprogram against movies taken from recent headlines with the same story on a newsmagazine show. The magazine show would tell the same story in condensed form, with a more up-to-date outcome, and the original movie’s ratings declined as a result.

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