At The End Of The Day

Now In The Center Ring!

Fall Premieres start today! Hurray, hurray for the end of terrible network summer programming.

I am especially looking forward to the return of Modern Family on Wednesday and Grey's Anatomy on Thursday. And, with all the buzz around NBC's The Event, I might just have to check out the series premiere tonight.

A couple of new shows I won't be watching - S#*! My Dad Says on Thursday or No Ordinary Family on Tuesday. And I expect ratings will show us that not many people will.

A complete fall schedule is available here

It's Come To This

Congratulations, Food Network host Guy Fieri, on making it to the major network big time. Unfortunately, it's as a game show host. If you happen to catch even a minute or two (all I could stand) of last night's Minute To Win It on NBC, you caught what could be the lowest of the low in network shows.

A fine food host, Guy has to play up to NFL stars who clearly would rather be elsewhere, doing stupid things like hiking toilet paper rolls through a donut (subliminal?), while cheerleaders shake their..."pom poms."

Media controversies these days cover whether ad targeting is an invasion of privacy, or whether news media should cover extreme publicity stunts that may give more credence to extremists. No one complains about utter crap on TV. However, thankfully, expect this show to be short lived. Yeah, it's that bad. I couldn't take another minute.

The Most Fantastic TV Show

Mad Men, of course. It's fantastic. Is it the best ever? I don't think so or I would give this post a different title. Still, 9 months since season 3, and worth the wait.

I could go on about the characters, the story line, the historical references, the advertising. But, another great thing about the series is the commentary. On that, my favorite is the Dorothy Parker column on Mediapost. But there are dozens of bloggers, columnists, and me, going on about the series, from one side or the other. Even the NY Times had three columns in the past week about the show.

On the business side, I'm thrilled to see how the new Sterling, Cooper, Draper, Pryce struggle with the "small" agency label and position, especially in the wake of the Ad Age small agency conference. Don, while a creative visionary, is having a hard time integrating other marketing elements, such as PR, in the entire marketing process, or even admitting that it works!

Finally, I love the new office, and what SCDP does to try to make it work. I'm proud to say I too worked at an ad agency in the Time Life building. Even at one floor, I thought it was good-sized. We never made up a story about a second floor.

We Came, We Saw, We Kicked It's...

On the subject of new TV shows, Jack Myers media reports has a column today about which shows are breaking out of the pack.  The answer: none. On broadcast anyway. On cable, Jack cites Mad Men and Damages as shows that broke out of the pack.  Interestingly, Myers doesn't cite cable ratings.  There is also a lower threshold of success for cable shows compared to broadcast networks.

My favorite part of the Myers column, though, is the Mad Men picture he has.  I love the expressions on those guys.  "Are you kidding?  Of course we kicked your ass."

Bonus points again if you can name the movie the title of this post comes from.

It's About Time

Want to hear something funny?  Cavemen.

Not funny?  Neither is the show.  I think the writers and ABC didn't get that just because a caveman does something, doesn't make it funny.  It took about 10 minutes to realize it was torture to watch.  You know how they put all of the best lines in the show promos to get you to watch?  You know you're in trouble when they run all of those best lines and the credits aren't over yet.

Here's another one:  What do Cavemen and Total Recall have in common?  Two weeks.

That's how long the show will last.

Bonus points if you can guess why this post has this title.

NBC's not-so Rosie future

This just in: NBC will supposedly "do anything" to get Rosie O'Donnell on the network, including potentially hosting a prime time game show.

And I thought Joost had a problem with no quality content.

Prime time TV is lost

I haven't watched TV in prime time since the season finale of "Lost" (which actually I watched on DVR the following day).

I don't see the point. Not just because it's nice out and I have other things to do, but because after May sweeps, prime time TV is terrible.

I'm nearly a million months pregnant and by the end of the day, I could certainly stand to plop down on the couch and watch some good TV. Unfortunately for me, it seems that just doesn't exist after May sweeps. I'd rather watch re-runs of the good regular season stuff than this garbage.

Is ABC serious with "National BINGO Night"?

And who has even heard of "The Next Best Thing" or "Pirate Master"? I'm glad to see "On the Lot" is tanking. These shows almost makes the NHL playoffs sound appealing.

I subscribe to the Programming Insider newsletter. It's written by Mark Berman of MediaWeek and features highlights and low lights of the previous night's prime time shows.

I used to look forward to seeing ratings and what shows won their time slot or what network was leading in the coveted 18-49 demo. He also lists each network's line-ups for the coming night, occasionally some syndication or cable ratings and some TV trivia.

It has been one of my favorite newsletters since I discovered it, and I almost religiously scan it at the very least. Every day so far this week, I've deleted it, because I just don't have any interest in these terrible shows.

Is it too much to ask for a nice re-run? It seems I'm going to have to turn to Seasons 1 & 2 of "Lost" on DVD yet again.

I can make TV relevant

I'm not sure if this should be in the blog or not, because it unlocks the future of TV.

Everyone bemoans clutter (if you read this space, you know what I think about clutter). TV's struggle to stay relevant could have put the medium under if it were not still the best place to deliver mass audience. However, its content doesn't sing the way it used to, evidenced by "American Idol."

TV is too diluted, and the quality is highly inconsistent. Great television is still great and there is still "must-see" viewing. The mediocrity can be sickening.

So, note this document and the publication date, because you heard it here first. If anyone markets these ideas henceforth, I will be coming for my cut.

5 ways to make TV relevant:

1. Deliver ads on the remote control. The TV is in front of me and I may be looking--or may not be. That remote never leaves my hand. I love how it feels there. I look at it more than the big screen, and that's where the connection is.

2. Make the remote so portable and useful, you keep it with you at all times. Either that, or make a BlackBerry or cell phone a universal remote as well.

3. Make it easy to blog comments or e-mail for immediate feedback. MTV kind of moved this way with "TRL." But it needs to be more mainstream and easier. Think about "MST3K" for the masses, without weird characters. Want to hold an audience? Promise them their comments will be on screen soon.

4. Make gambling, or some kind of pools, legal on TV. Part of what makes the NCAA basketball tournament so fun is the bracket action. What if you could set up friendly wagers on any game you see on TV, and other people watching could take you up on the action?

5. Make the remote voice-activated. They are getting complicated, for me anyway. My kids know all about those funny-colored buttons. I don't.

The change and demise of a brand

I read that Bob Vila's show, now just named "Bob Vila," has been cancelled by CBS Syndication.

Do you realize he has been on TV since 1979? The original "This Old House" started then and had Bob as host for 10 years. He was only 32 at the time.

I remember back to the first shows, when the premise was renovating an old house using primarily "sweat equity," the owner's labor, to save cost and get an old house livable at a bargain. Bob helped out as best he could, but wasn't really a genius about such things, leaving decisions to the homeowner.

Man, how he--and the show--changed.

Most of us remember Bob more as a tool hound, trying out all the latest gadgets, working the heavy equipment, convincing homeowners to go for the highest level improvements. In some ways he was more like his caricature, Tim Taylor, than himself. But audiences loved it enough to keep him on air for 28 years.

The interesting thing is how much Bob has changed over that time. Imagine if he stayed the humble fixer-upper guy? How fast would that have gotten boring?

You know where I'm going.

Imagine if brands all stayed the same? Even the retro brands, the ones that ask you to go back in time to remember how great they are, update themselves.

Bob seems to have fallen victim to the proliferation of home improvement shows and channels. CBS I guess couldn't find a way to differentiate him, so they took him out.

I really didn't want to see Bob Vila as a commodity anyway.

Caveman plot needs to evolve

More on the Geico caveman show.

According to this bit in Ad Age, the story line for this show is how three cavemen are always pissed off about Geico's use of the tagline, "so easy a caveman can do it."

I hope that's not true. It's just...lame.

They've done so well with the "Caveman's Crib" and all of the extra story lines coming out of the campaign. Are they going to blow it here?

One piece of advice, if it doesn't work, don't do it. I hereby take back my earlier recommendation to buy advertising on the premiere.

At least wait to see the pilot.