Thanks to DoulaMommy for sending this in!<\/p>\n
WB Network Still Seeing Red, President Says<\/strong><\/p>\n
Reuters
\nJul 25 2000 12:56AM ET
\nBy Michael Schneider
\nHOLLYWOOD (Variety) – Recovering from last season’s disappointing ratings,
\nthe WB will take a little longer than expected to show a profit, network
\nchairman Jamie Kellner said Monday.<\/p>\nSpeaking at the WB’s portion of the summer Television Critics Assn. press
\ntour, Kellner said the loss of cable carriage from WGN Chicago — which
\ndeleted a substantial portion of the WB’s distribution — pushed the
\nnetwork’s economic goals “backwards one year.”<\/p>\nBut Kellner predicts the network will still break even sometime within the
\n2001-2002 TV season, just seven years after the netlet launched. UPN, which
\ndebuted at the same time, lags far behind.
\n“When I look at the business plan, in some cases I can just slide the
\nnumbers over one column,” Kellner said.<\/p>\nOn top of it all, Kellner also expects ratings gains for the WB this year,
\nwhich could help the network catch up to its timetable.
\n“We absolutely expect that we’ll see a return to the growth pattern that
\nwe’ve seen,” he said.<\/p>\nThe WB lost around $93 million in 1999, but Kellner expects this year’s
\nnumber to be around $20 million lower than that.<\/p>\nThe exec notes that the WB has now regained a good portion of the
\ndistribution lost last year, and now reaches about 87% of the country.
\n(Before losing WGN, the WB reached about 90% of TV homes.)
\nMeanwhile, Kellner — who admits the network should not have expanded to a
\nsixth night last season — said the WB won’t move into a seventh night,
\nSaturday, any time soon.<\/p>\n“Saturday night is probably the least exciting place to invest in
\nprogramming,” he said. “It may be a place we stay away from just a while.”
\nHe noted that many WB affiliates are committed to carry sports on Saturday
\nnights and that only CBS is airing scripted series on the night next season.
\n“The night is already being bypassed by the Big Four nets next fall,” he
\nsaid.<\/p>\nAnd Kellner predicted that the WB will probably be able to renew 20th
\nCentury Fox TV’s “Buffy, the Vampire Slayer” at a ”fair price” later this
\nfall.<\/p>\n“There’s a reality in this business about how much revenue a TV show as
\nnarrow as that can generate,” he said. “One of the advantages we have by
\nbeing a niche-oriented service is that programming won’t work on a broad
\nappeal network. So you don’t get into that bidding situation that you might
\nget into with ‘ER.”’<\/p>\nOn the reality programming front — the topic du jour at this summer’s
\npress tour — the WB has lagged behind most of its competitors in
\ndeveloping series. But WB execs say there’s a good reason: most reality
\nseries don’t attract young women (the WB’s core audience).
\nStill, WB Entertainment president Susanne Daniels said the network isn’t
\nruling out the possibility of developing more reality series beyond the
\npreviously announced series “Pop Stars” and Henry Winkler pilot “Reality
\nCheck.”<\/p>\n“Our department has heard over 50 reality pitches at this point,” Daniels
\nsaid. “We’re really picking and choosing very carefully.” <\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thanks to DoulaMommy for sending this in! WB Network Still Seeing Red, President Says Reuters Jul 25 2000 12:56AM ET<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-roswell"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=816"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/816\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=816"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}