Whither the TV Networks?
Getting into the "Fox Programming Presentation" at the Armory on Thursday was a pain, and there weren't enough seats to go around, and it started 20 minutes late. Then the show kicked off with an animated bit created by The Family Guy's Seth MacFarlane. Its incomprehensible punch line was about grinding New York City's homeless residents "into hot-dog meat," and that's when I walked out. Fortunately, moral indignation did not keep me from venturing to Guastavino's for the postparty. One of Fox's clients described the presentation as "painful," while an important person from a prominent ad agency agreed that it "sucked hard."
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StumbleUponMeanwhile, in other News Corp. news, the most interesting story of the week was also the most underreported: the debut of MyNetworkTV. Please stick with me through the business stuff; sex and violence follow.
On Jan. 25, Daily Variety reported that UPN (owned by CBS Corp.) and the WB (jointly controlled by TimeWarner and the Tribune Co.) would merge into a new network called, horsily, the CW. While both UPN and the WB had launched some critical and cult hits and earned some success among females between the ages of, oh, say, 18 to 34, no one would call them thriving. So, they decided to join forces and see what would happen.
On Feb. 22, News Corp., which paid a sick amount of money to acquire MySpace.com not long ago, announced that it would launch MyNetworkTV this fall. With the CW merger, there were all these orphaned affiliates. In New York City, for instance—where we don't want our street people murdered, MacFarlane, you degenerate hack—the WB affiliate became the CW affiliate, and the UPN affiliate, Channel 9, got left in the lurch. Now it's already billing itself as "My9." Throw in some more independent stations, and MyNetworkTV will cover about 90 percent of the country. The invite to its presentation read, "Think differenter."
On Tuesday morning, I went to the Hilton Theatre in Times Square and witnessed an invigorating display of the unrepentant bottom-feeding that makes Hollywood great. MyNetworkTV will run only two one-hour programs for 13 weeks at a stretch—each series will be exactly 65 episodes long. Then they disappear—to DVD, one suspects—and two brand-new soaps replace them. Wash, rinse, repeat. In Latin America, these shows would be classified as telenovelas, a word execs assiduously avoided, instead pointing out that short-form dramatic series have succeeded "on every continent"—insert March of the Penguins joke—"and in over 100 countries." Then they played a cross-cultural montage of clips to prove it.
In these days of global strife, it was inspiring to see that people of all races and nations thrill to the same kind of trash. I want a copy of that montage, the elements of which included the clinking of champagne flutes, the loading of semiautomatic weapons, and, over and over, women in bikini tops emerging from swimming pools like so many PG-13 versions of Phoebe Cates in Fast Times at Ridgemont High. This is what MyNetwork wants to bring into your living room (and—rather more convincingly than the big boys—onto your desktop):
Fashion House, seemingly adapted from the Victoria's Secret catalog, stars the very well preserved Bo Derek as a woman who is jealous of her son's girlfriend and is also raiding his trust fund. It co-stars one Donna Feldman, who I heard some guy refer to, not incorrectly, as "real exotic."
A Dangerous Love, with Maria Conchita Alonzo and a former Miss Universe, will be the subject of many subpar Romeo and Juliet term papers next spring.
Art of Betrayal looks like an instant classic. They've done up Sean Young in full Dynasty drag—big hair, big earrings, malicious eyeliner. She reminded me a little of a middle-aged Joan Crawford. She reminded me a lot of Faye Dunaway as a middle-aged Joan Crawford. First quarter 2007.
On Thursday morning, I went to the Theater at Madison Square Garden for the CW's 11 a.m. presentation, where Tyra Banks, whose America's Next Top Model is pretty much the cornerstone of this operation, approved of the new channel's logo and art direction: "You know I'm all about fierceness." Chris Rock, whose semiautobiographical Everybody Hates Chris is part of the CW's "urban comedy block" on Sundays, did an excellent bit about how his show would be more popular than ever with advertisers its second season: "Little Chris is gonna be played by a white girl." Veronica Mars and Gilmore Girls made the cut; Everwood didn't. The only new fall shows are a Girlfriends spinoff called The Game (Girlfriends meets Footballers' Wive$) and Runaway (The Fugitive meets Growing Pains meets A History of Violence).
Laying out the state of network television at the top of her presentation, CW chief Dawn Ostroff referred to the existence of five networks—ABC, CBS, NBC, Seth MacFarlane's employer, and the CW. "Ms. Ostroff?" I asked at the subsequent press conference, "why don't you consider MyNetwork a network?" It got a couple laughs from the press corps, and I didn't bother writing down the answer.
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