10 Ways That Tv Networks Can Cut Costs
With TV network ratings down as low as 401(k) plan returns, advertising revenues as depressed as new car sales and viewers fleeing to cable and Internet video, networks need a roadmap to cut costs without affecting the quality of the shows they produce. To assist the networks, 10 recommendations – at no charge — for cutting costs are detailed below.
TV network execs keep reading tea leaves and straining their eyes to peer inside crystal balls that reveal only lower ratings, advertisers unwilling to pay exorbitant rates for the 30-second commercial in primetime and cable networks producing shows of equal or superior quality at much lower costs.
For the network suits at ABC. CBS, Fox and NBC, the future of primetime TV seems to be as appealing as owning stock in General Motors.
With advertisers holding on to ad dollars at the last upfront meeting in mid-May when marketers typically buy airtime for the fall season, the networks see cost cutting as one way to bridge the gap between falling ad revenues and salary demands from petulant TV stars.
For example, NBC has already blazed a trail of tawdry cost reductions by scheduling Jay Leno at 10 PM five nights a week because The Tonight Show format can be produced at a fraction of what it costs to produce a scripted one-hour drama like Grey’s Anatomy or Heroes.
Listed below are 10 meticulously thought out ideas for the networks to cut production costs without sacrificing programming quality. These concepts have been sketched on a cocktail napkin and then proofread while at the drive-thru lane at MacDonald’s.
First, can David Caruso’s character on CSI Miami – Horatio Caine – stop wasting so many pairs of sunglasses? As the self-righteous, self-absorbed, self-loving and self-aggrandizing disciple of the William Shatner School of Recklessly Overacting, Caruso’s character goes through at least five pairs of sunglasses each episode.
Typically Caruso as Caine is pontificating like Rush Limbaugh at Dick Cheney’s house when he pauses mid-sentence, removes the sunglasses, to reveal his bloodshot eyes and says right into the camera, “I’ll get your daughter back even if I have to take on the entire Columbian drug cartel.”
Horatio, buy a sunglass case and save CBS some money.
Total Savings: $150,000
Second, do we really need seven people to co-host 60 Minutes? “I’m Lesley Stahl, I’m Morley Safer, I’m Andy Rooney”…and so on.
The salaries of these long-in-the-tooth reporters could pay for health care reform with some coin left over to reduce the federal deficit. To replace these “highly-compensated” news professionals, we suggest a team with no journalistic experience, who would work for a salary only slighter higher than that of a Starbuck’s barista.
“Welcome to the new and improved 60 Minutes. I’m Tony Danza. I’m Lindsey Lohan, I think. I’m John Edwards and Elizabeth still loves me despite the fact that all the locks are changed at the house. And I’m Rush Limbaugh. Did you know that Obama is building maximum security prisons in Canada and plans to lock up every citizen who votes Republican in the next election.”
Total Savings: $ 4,000,000
Third, cut back on the unnecessary location costs on successful reality shows. Does Survivor really have to go to Samoa, Brazil or China? How about Survivor Flint, Michigan? Or Survivor Lincoln, Nebraska? Can’t The Amazing Race restrict its locations to closed coal mines in West Virginia and empty Circuit City stores.
Total Savings: $465,000
Fourth, can the women from Desperate Housewives begin wearing cheaper clothes? How about clothes from the Jaclyn Smith collection sold at Kmart? Can’t you just see Eva Longoria as Gabrielle in a print house dress and sneakers with Velcro straps? Could Terri Hatcher be comfortable wearing $8 Wal-Mart jeans with the spandex waist band?
Total Savings: $250,000
Fifth, keep making new episodes of According To Jim. After all, there’s no way that ABC actually paid Jim Belushi to act in a show that can lower IQs, increase your glucose level and promote morbid moronity. Belushi must have paid the network to broadcast these shows and then bribe Nielsen families, who have black boxes attached to their TVs to measure ratings, to watch the show. Otherwise, According To Jim would only be broadcast in POW camps, doctor’s waiting rooms and on small screens above gas pumps on Shell TV.
Total Savings: $650,000
Sixth, cut back on TV pilots and make every new show a spin off of either CSI or Law And Order to cut down on show development costs. For example, a new show called Law And Order SUV introduces government Department Of Energy regulators who hunt down owners of large, gas-guzzling SUVs and uses the government bureaucracy to force them to sell their land behemoths and buy gas tee totaling subcompacts like the Smart Car. How about CSI Detroit where forensics experts tackle a rash of auto exec deaths that seemed to be caused by advanced arrogance and financial nearsightedness.
Total Savings: $450,000
Seventh, have actors on one primetime soap opera show plays different characters on another show. Does anyone seriously know the difference between the actresses on Melrose Place, 90210 or One Tree Hill? Actresses from those shows Katie Cassidy, Bethany Joe Galeotti and Jessica Stroup have three things in common – strong beauty chromosomes, semi-gloss lipstick and that hungry look from subsisting on rice cakes and kale.
Total Savings: $350,000
Eighth, can Criminal Minds stop hunting serial killers with its accompanying high production costs and instead focus weekly on cereal killers? Every week, these intrepid FBI profilers can locate and arrest nutrition advocates who threaten to deprive kids of high sugar, nutritionally bankrupt breakfast cereals that prepare them for a life of Type 2 diabetes and love handles the size of Hummers. CBS could also make money by its product placement of a different breakfast cereal every episode. Guest stars could include Tony The Tiger, Captain Crunch and, of course, Count Chocula to capitalize on the current vampire craze.
Total Savings: $950,000
Ninth, develop Heroes characters with super powers that cost much less to film. Right now, flying, morphing and super strength cost too much in special effects. For example, how about a character who can open string cheese packaging without chewing on the plastic film in frustration. Or perhaps a teenage girl who gets sick to her stomach when she shops at a mall. How about a middle-aged man who can shrink prostates? Or a female Olympic diver who can cure swimmer ear infections?
Total Savings: $300,000
Finally, stop making new episodes of Two And A Half Men and splice together old episodes and market them as new. After all, in every episode of the show, Charlie ends up with a beautiful girl in his bed and a drink in his hand; nerdy brother Allan loses his dignity in his tidy whities and teenager Jake tells a fart joke.
Total Savings: $1, 650,000
By implementing all or some of these recommendations, network execs can reduce costs and keep the quality baked in to their wonderful shows so that the networks can ignore past flops and fill the pipeline with promising pilots like Baywatch: The Prepubescent Years, Cop Hip Hop, Chachi loves Steve, and Walker Laid-off Texas Ranger.
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