November 2, 2009 Turner Entertainment Sees the Broadcast Networks as Its Fattest Target By BRIAN STELTER NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/02/business/media/02tnt.html?_r=2&ref=business&pagewanted=print If there is a fault line between the big but shrinking broadcast networks and the small but growing cable networks, it would run right through Steve Koonin’s office in Atlanta. Mr. Koonin, the president of Turner Entertainment Networks, has been orchestrating the TNT cable channel’s growth for almost a decade, from a unit best-known for “Law and Order” reruns to a financial powerhouse for the parent company, Time Warner. In another sign of its growing reliance on original programming, TNT is expected to announce Monday that it will begin showing “Southland,” the critically acclaimed but abruptly canceled NBC police drama, starting in January. With the move, “Southland” becomes the rare TV series to be dropped by a broadcaster and revived by a cable outlet, where it will compete at 10 p.m. with NBC’s “The Jay Leno Show.” TNT was talking to the producer of “Southland,” Warner Brothers, within hours of the cancellation in October. “We want to provide what the broadcast networks aren’t,” Mr. Koonin said. As NBC’s verdict for “Southland” indicates, the “counterpunching opportunity,” as Mr. Koonin puts it, involves scripted series. TNT’s biggest claims to fame are “The Closer,” which stars Kyra Sedgwick, and “Saving Grace,” starring Holly Hunter. Like other cable channels that are known for original shows, TNT saves most of its ammunition for the summer, when broadcasters are not at the top of their game. But the summer strategy is slowly evolving. On Dec. 7, TNT will introduce the hourlong comedy-drama “Men of a Certain Age,” which will star Ray Romano, star of the CBS sitcom “Everybody Loves Raymond.” The series follows three college buddies as they face middle age. In January, TNT will begin to show the seven episodes of “Southland” that NBC introduced last spring, and the six episodes that NBC ordered but did not show. It will monitor the show’s ratings performance before deciding whether to order more. “We’re not slaves to everything except our brand,” Mr. Koonin said. “It’s the only idol we worship.” Mr. Koonin knows branding, having joined TNT in 2000 from the Coca-Cola Company, where he was the vice president for consumer marketing. He sharpened TNT’s identity as a channel for dramas, adopting the slogan “We Know Drama” in 2001. Later, he turned to TNT’s sibling cable unit, TBS, as a springboard for new and rerun comedies. He now oversees TCM (Turner Classic Movies) and truTV (formerly Court TV) as well. Together, the channels — which are run as one business — represent about 10 percent of all cable viewing, Turner says. “We’re managed and organized much more like a consumer products group than we are a TV network,” Mr. Koonin said. In 2007, Mr. Koonin and his colleagues submitted a three-year plan to executives at Time Warner, the parent company of the Turner Broadcasting unit, of which TNT is a part. The plan, they said at the time, was to schedule three nights of original series in 2010. They reached the target one year early. Next year, Mr. Koonin expects TNT to show at least eight original series. Looking beyond three nights a week, “There seem to be some 10 o’clock opportunities today,” he said, alluding to NBC’s prime-time talk show starring Mr. Leno. Most of the hours of TNT’s day still consist of network reruns and movies. But Mr. Koonin said the original programs are responsible for a “substantial and growing” portion of the channel’s revenues. TNT averages a million viewers at any given time, enough to make it one of the 10 most popular channels on cable. Among 18- to 49-year-old viewers, the channel placed fifth in prime time in mid-October, the most recent week of available Nielsen ratings. TNT also ranks No. 5 on the research firm SNL Kagan’s list of cable advertising earners. The company estimates that TNT will take in $884 million in ad revenue this year, up about six percent from the last year. But Mr. Koonin emphasizes that his target is not bigger cable channels like FX or USA. It is the broadcasters. In the long term, he said, “if we focus on other cable, we’re not going to grow.” There have been missteps. Introducing “Raising the Bar,” a legal drama from Steven Bochco in September 2008, at the same time that many broadcast shows were making debuts, “was foolish,” Mr. Koonin concedes. This year it dropped “Trust Me,” a series set at an advertising agency. “Raising the Bar” and another, “Dark Blue,” are awaiting decisions about their fates. “We’re going to have failures,” Mr. Koonin said. “But we know if our brand is strong, then our shows have an opportunity. That’s why our brand is the most important asset we have.” Cable shows differ from broadcast in significant ways. Cable seasons regularly top out at 13 episodes, rather than the 22 or 24 of broadcast. Producers may shave a day or two off the production schedule for each episode. Marketing budgets are generally lower. But the stars, the sets, and the scripts are all costly. In the case of “Southland,” NBC was paying Warner a license fee of about $1.6 million for each episode. (It reportedly dropped the program because it was more cost-effective to show the newsmagazine “Dateline” instead.) TNT will pay $1.4 million to $1.5 million an episode. Some budget trims will have to be made if a new season’s episodes are ordered. But Mr. Koonin said the show would retain its lead actors and its writing staff. On cable, “will the show look the same? The answer’s yes,” he said. After nearly 10 years at Turner, he says he still finds himself rebutting wrong-headed assumptions about cable “every day.” But he takes that as a challenge: “This is David, as an industry, toppling Goliath,” he said. -- ================================ George Antunes, Political Science Dept University of Houston; Houston, TX 77204 Voice: 713-743-3923 Fax: 713-743-3927 Mail: antunes at uh dot edu *********************************** * POST TO [email protected] * *********************************** Medianews mailing list [email protected] http://lists.etskywarn.net/mailman/listinfo/medianews
