The TV thread

I'm more intrigued by The Michael J. Fox Show (which will anchor NBC's Thursday fall schedule) and the aforementioned Family Tree (the pilot of which is now on my DVR player) than I have been by any new sitcoms since Community.

If you haven't seen, here's NBC's fall schedule: http://avc.lu/11x8nan

Welcome to the Family has Mike O'Malley, so that's in its favor. I'll probably skip Sean Saves the World, but the Thursday slate otherwise has me gripped. I stand by Parenthood as one of the most underrated shows on now, though it doesn't make a lot of sense on Thursdays.

 

Television at its finest.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=aGJ1y_Qsa3g#!

 

Several?

I know of a few, who were right in the 80-90 show range that went into syndication anyway... Rules of Engagement did, I think My Name is Earl did...

The thing is, when a show gets past the syndication number, it becomes incredibly profitable for the network, especially if the show doesn't have a super expensive cast. It's the reason why a few pretty bad/mediocre shows like According to Jim and Yes, Dear lasted as long as they did on the network.

I think Community and Parks and Rec will do really well in syndication, especially since there are a lot of people who didn't watch during the first couple seasons and both have cult-like followings...

 

I was bummed Body of Proof was canceled, not that I was surprised...

I'm glad I never got into Vegas or Golden Boy since both of those were gone too...

I was a little surprised Whitney was canceled, although I'm probably the only person on here who felt that way... Chris D'Elia's pilot got picked up by NBC, so I wonder if that factored in.

 

The New Normal could have actually been a decent show, but it never looked like they did the work necessary to figure out what they were trying to be.

 

I adored every single second of that show.

 

Cannot wait:

 

I'm going through the first three seasons on Netflix, just to catch back up. I keep forgetting how much I loved Buster.

 

I saw the first six shows or so and thought it was very funny. I have the rest on my DVR.

 

It's been quite a while since I've watched season 3 so I'll probably do that before the new one comes out. I'm going to a wedding the day it comes out so I'll unfortunately have to wait a couple days before I can watch.

 

It's nice to see a lot of comedies coming... I'll be happy if even one of them is great.

 

Just to clarify a bit, the networks don't own the shows they air and therefore don't make anything when those shows are syndicated (i.e. the "back end" profits). It's the TV studios that make and own the shows. Networks pay a per-episode licensing fee to the studios to air the shows, essentially leasing them. The networks generally make their money by selling ads on the shows for more than they pay to license them. That's it.

It can sometimes work out as you surmise, though, because each of the networks -- or more specifically their parent companies -- have their own TV studio. Those studios' first job is to ideally create content that can run on their sister network. However those network-affiliated studios can also sell their shows to a different network, generally after giving the in-house network a right of first refusal. CBS TV Studios is the only one of the four (also ABC TV Studios, Universal (NBC) Television, and 20th Century Fox TV) which won't sell its shows anywhere but its home network.

There are also two main studios which are owned by other conglomerates -- Warner Brothers and Sony. They are not affiliated with a major network, though Time Warner (Warner Brothers) owns half of the CW. That makes six major studios in all. There are also a number of production companies that partner with the studios, generally associated with prominent writers or stars.

"Community" and "Parks & Rec" are indeed made/owned by Universal Television, the TV studio of NBC/Universal, so there could well be corporate reasons encouraging them to stay on the air because another corporate sibling would be getting the syndication money. But I'd say that this arrangement, i.e. a network airing a show made/owned by the studio that is its direct affiliate, happens roughly 60% of the time. It is definitely not universal. (Not to be confused with Universal.)

Just for a few quick examples, "Modern Family" is made by Sony. So ABC/Disney doesn't get any of that syndication money. The new cop comedy "Brooklyn Nine-Nine" that Fox just picked up, which stars Andy Samberg and is written by Michael Schur and Dan Goor from "Parks & Rec," is actually from Universal Television. So if it's a big hit, the syndication $$ will go to an NBC-affiliated company, not to Fox/NewsCorp.

Re: syndication, you can sell "second runs," third runs, fourth runs, etc., for differing amounts of money. And you don't need to wait until you have 100 episodes. Modern Family actually made its first syndication deal in Nov. 2010, early in its second season. That deal is to show second-run episodes on USA starting this fall, which will be after the show has completed four seasons. That would be about 85-90 shows. Glee also made its first syndication deal when it was just starting its second season, to air on Oxygen. I'm not sure when that will start if it hasn't already.

Modern Family will probably air on USA for a few seasons, then start coming to a local broadcast station near you, and/or another cable channel. All for varying amounts of cash. None of which will go to ABC.