Wednesday, May 20, 2009

FOX and NBC: Reading Between the Lines!

A few months ago, comments by Chernoff @ Fox caused a bit of riff in what at the time were stalled AMPTP / SAG negotiations. Basically, Chernoff said that FOX would not air repeats on the network at some point in the future. He also said that they would simply shoot the repeated episodes over to Hulu.com for viewing. This of course freaked out SAG actors already nervous about the poor returns from content on the web.

Now, then you look at a statement from NBC on why they were ordering more episodes on shows than last year. That statement basically said that repeats are now getting less and less ratings. The viewers are not tuning into to watch repeated content and that instead, they would just create more shows and move to a year round slate.

Now, of course, when I say repeates, mean current network primetime shows, not the syndicated stuff that comes on after the local news.

So, if this is true. If more content is going to be ordered and created, and the repeats will be out, how does this affect actors. Well, in the short run, it means more jobs for actors, but without that repeat bonus check, you lose a nice amount of pay for your appearance on a show. So, in the end it will mean less money for actors once again. However, this isn't due to the fact that the network is trying to 'stick it' to actors, and screw everyone over by putting content on the web. It just means that the audience doesn't want to watch repeats anymore. And these days with ratings being examined even more thoroughly, Networks will work quickly to stop the bleeding and keep advertising dollars in house.

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