Upfronts upended

The writers strike has already lightened my burden by scrapping January’s TV Press Tour; now, it threatens to make the month of May a far more placid and less social occasion for me.

The networks have long been trolling for ways to save money in the same way my dog, while I’m walking him, trolls for leftover scraps as if the entire neighborhood is the buffet at the Sizzler. And though these particular savings have long been mulled, next year the enduring effects of the strike may finally put an end to the annual glitzy dog-and-pony show known as the upfronts.

Held in New York City, the upfronts generally come the second or third week in May. Each network throws something of an extravaganza/party for advertisers and industry media. It’s a costly affair – the networks fly out all the stars of their new (and often returning) shows just so they can saunter across a stage and tell the audience just how excited and proud they are to be working for [insert network here] and get buttonholed by an inebriated advertising underling at the after-party. Usually, a splashy production number or two is thrown in – The Who, the casts of “The Jersey Boys” and “Avenue Q” have performed for sundry networks; in recent years, ABC has had its sundry stars and showrunners and executives perform elaborate Broadway-style numbers. (Occasionally, these things go on for way too long and actually bore and even hack off advertisers.) Then, after introducing clips from upcoming shows and beholding how generally unpromising most of them look, everyone hits the bar and drinks themselves silly.

The thing is, though hundreds of people attend the events (with many more, also being if not wined then at least dined, watching on satellite feeds across the country), upfronts are actually only aimed by the handful of powerful advertising executives who actually make the decision to open their purse strings to the networks and buy ad time. So, a lot of money is plunged – rather unnecessarily, the networks are increasingly deciding – down a deep hole, with not nearly enough to show for it.

And, consider that, depending on how long the writers strike persists, the networks may not have a whole lot of concrete entertainment to present to the world come May – a few more exploitative reality shows, maybe; a political newsmagazine show that’ll ignore the issues in the upcoming Presidential election in favor of overanalyzing the horse race – and there’s zero reason to flush that kind of money away.

At NBC’s press lunch this Monday, co-chairmen Ben Silverman and Marc Graboff spoke of how they were seriously considering simply dispatching sales reps and executives on personal visits to ad agencies to unveil their wares. (Though that lunch was off the record, I’m guessing I can reveal this since Jeff Zucker is quoted on the record saying the same sort of thing in the above-linked New York Times story.)

For people such as myself who serve The People Who Watch Television, the upfronts, bloated leviathans that they may be, have a purpose: They give us an early glimpse at the new shows and allow us to make a kneejerk response as to what news shows will and won’t be any good. (Truth be told, those kneejerk reactions are correct far more often than not.) But the networks should be able to post clips online for us to manage the same quick-trigger judgments.

So even though I’ll miss having to file stories on the networks’ new fall schedules on excruciatingly insanely tight deadlines, I imagine upfronts are something I, like the rest of the industry, will be able to live without.