The intrepid Nellie Andreeva of DEADLINE struck yet another nerve yesterday when she dropped an intriguing observation about how an unsung entity has–eponymously–used some old fashioned 20th century strategy and tenacity to produce atypically strong results in an otherwise downturning 21st century:
In 2008, a comedy about the behind-the-scenes of the TV industry, Back To You, co-created/executive produced by Steve Levitan, was canceled by Fox, the broadcast network then-aligned with Levitan’s longtime studio home, 20th Television. In 2023, a comedy about the behind-the-scenes of the TV industry, Reboot, created by Levitan, was canceled by Hulu, the streamer aligned with his studio 20th TV. Shortly thereafter, another comedy executive produced by Levitan, Erin Foster’s Nobody Wants This, sold to a rival streamer, Netflix, where it went to series and became an instant hit.
The parallels are not lost on industry observers as Nobody Wants This, in which Levitan doesn’t have a hands-on creative involvement, shot to No. 1 on Netflix’s weekly Top 10 for English series last week in a strong start that has earned the comedy a quick Season 2 renewal.
Meanwhile, another 20th Television series, CBS’ Tracker, came back strong Sunday with 8.3 million Live+Same Day linear viewers for its Season 2 premiere, ranking as the No. 1 entertainment program of the week across broadcast and cable in total viewers.
Given Netflix’s reach, this means that 20th TV likely had the most watched streaming and linear original series in the U.S. over two consecutive weeks — and neither of them is on a Disney network or platform.
Kudos to Andreeva for pointing this out to those who seem to have forgotten that one man (or woman’s) trash is another one’s treasure, and that placing bets on different parts of the gaming table isn’t necessarily an anethema.
While at Sony, the one major studio of scale that does not have a broad distribution outlet, I saw first-hand the value of this strategy. At various points in the last decade, Sony had original shows on each of the four major broadcast networks as well as at least two SVOD services. One didn’t even have to go back as far as Andreeva chose to when she harkened back to a slightly earlier time:
It harkens to the time when 20th TV’s predecessor, 20th Century Fox Television, had a top series on every network: The Practice on ABC, This Is Us on NBC, How I Met Your Mother on CBS and a slew of hits on sibling Fox including 24, Glee, Empire and The Simpsons.
But since Andreeva decided to bring up what some in command might consider irrelevant ancient history, it brought me back to an even earlier era of 20th Century Fox TV where some of the first insurgents were just as dismissive, and it took a few sets of actual facts to set them straight.
While I was by association working aggressively toward the greater good of helping to build the success story of FOX as a network, there was still a very much thriving production business in TCFTV that I was directly responsible for servicing. That division at the time was headed by a veteran producer named Harris Katleman, whose slick-backed silver mane and wardrobe directly from the Bob Evans style catalogue were a throwback to a more simplistic and arguably oilier era of Hollywood management. The FOX network team that was being built by Jamie Kellner, with Rupert Murdoch’s blessing, were younger, aggressive and single-minded, knowing full well how daunting the task was to build something out of practically nothing with audiences under 50 and how high the internal expectations were. I was one of the few who was tasked with pleasing both of these worlds, and let’s just say I was far more embraced by those in my age bracket than I was by Katleman.
But I also knew that unlike the FOX network at the time, TCF was making money. And even shows that FOX executives believed were beneath them in perceived quality were attracting significant audiences and, more importantly, turning a profit thanks to their ability to be sold globally as well as to well-heeled established networks.
One such example was a long forgotten detective procedural called LEG WORK which featured the stunning Margaret Colin as a private investigator. In an era where such roles were typically occupied by hunky males in shows like MAGNUM, P.I., HUNTER and MIAMI VICE, LEG WORK was both compliment and counterprogramming. And besides, CBS executives were infatuated with Colin, having supreme confidence in her even though she failed miserably in a sitcom called FOLEY SQUARE just a couple of years earlier. Katleman would openly brag about when he would bring Colin to pitch meetings his cronies would go out of their way to have a heads-on view of her and yes, she was inevitably always wearing a skirt.
LEG WORK aired on Saturday nights and was up against not only the formidable comedy competition of NBC’s GOLDEN GIRLS and AMEN, which were regularly commanding 20-plus ratings, but FOX’s own ill-fated and hastily launched comedy block. In the teeth of all of this a corporate retreat was held by Murdoch where all of the divisions worked on updates. Despite weak competitive ratings against NBC, Katleman asked me to paint as positive a picture as possible for LEG WORK, as he was convinced there was still an opportunity for additional episodes to be sold given the positive international response.
Amidst the various charts I was able to cobble together showing slight upticks over lead-in and prior week, I included a chart that showed LEG WORK delivering more than double the ratings of FOX’s comedies. Murdoch took note of that and in his divisibly quizzical manner rhetorically asked “If LEG WORK can do that well, why aren’t we airing it on our network?”. Kellner and his team attempted to remind him of the demographic target and content tone FOX was attempting to go for, which at the time was an argument that wasn’t being backed up by data. Katleman was staring down at the floor trying to hold back his contempt for the moment. I saw an opportunity, and I somehow got up the nerve to seize it.
“Look, the fact is that if you combine what LEG WORK and our comedies delivered in adults 18-49 we came within a couple of share points of what GOLDEN GIRLS was doing. It’s not a zero-sum game, and collectively we’re more impactful that if we tried to fit a square peg like LEG WORK into the round hole of FBC comedy.”
Murdoch bought it, Katleman seemed relieved and for the duration of our working relationship I somehow earned enough street cred with him to be considered an ally.
I think about this when I think about the challenges that the division’s current head, Karey Burke, faces. She was a somewhat unsuccessful head of ABC during an era where Sony was selling her shows that were even less successful than LEG WORK both in appeal and longevity. She was given stewardship of 20th during a tumultuous era early in the Bob Chapek era where Hulu’s Craig Erwich was also given stewardship of ABC. It would be Erwich in particular that caught the most recent ire of Levitan, in addition to his version of the second-guessing I saw among his predecessors, as Andreeva noted:
In both cases, Levitan had been vocal in his displeasure over the cancellations, directing it at the network/platform: More bluntly about Back To You, “I have sworn off the Fox network. I’m done,” and more subtle about Reboot, “Haven’t seen it? Check us out on Hulu if you can find it.”
Burke did her job artfully in a manner that echoed the tenacity of folks like Katleman in far less walled-garden-focused times. And the fact is she’s championing shows that work for customers that actually are motivated to want to support and pay for them, at a time when Erwich’s divisions aren’t contributing much to the bottom line. As Andreeva reminds:
20th TV has branched out, allowing top talent to take projects out if they don’t sell within Disney, much like Universal Television let Dick Wolf take FBI to CBS having already filled two nights on NBC with the Chicago and Law & Order series.
That is what happened with both Nobody Wants This and Tracker. While Modern Family was not taken to Fox in 2008, Nobody Wants This was pitched to Hulu and got a pass, I hear. It went to Netflix which has carved out a rom-com niche with series like Emily In Paris and evolved the project, originally titled Shiksa, into the show that has been #1 or #2 for three straight weeks. That also was the case with Tracker, which was shopped to ABC before being taken in by CBS, ordered to pilot, then series and given a post-Super Bowl launch pad.
In this era, the concept of a broad-appeal destination having a tonality or brand is more immaterial than ever. In a world where accurate association of a program with a platform is weaker than ever, there is likely no good reason why a show like NOBODY WANTS THIS couldn’t have worked on Hulu. There’s no good reason why TRACKER couldn’t work on ABC.
In hindsight, perhaps some FOX people may have paid more attention to the LEG WORK example than I had realized. When AMERICAN IDOL was building into a monolith, FOX was initially hell-bent on building out of it with like-minded competition series and younger-appeal comedies, many of which were homegrown. A procedural that NBC passed on from its sister production company called HOUSE wound up in play, and the astute strategists at FOX recognized that it had enough truly broad appeal to take full advantage of IDOL’s massive reach.
HOUSE ran for eight seasons and 177 episodes. LEG WORK? One aborted ten-episode season where four of them never aired on CBS.
I guess somebody learned something over time?
So maybe there’s still hope for the likes of Erwich to follow suit.
Until next time…