8 MULTICHANNEL NEWS JANUARY 14, 2019 multichannel.com
COVER STORY
TBS HAD AN OFFBEAT, if belated, Christmas gift for fans of funky comedy Angie Tribeca. e Turner
network unveiled all of season four for the police procedural spoof, 10 episodes total, across two nights. Episodes
one through ve went live Saturday, Dec. 29, and six through 10 went up Sunday, Dec. 30.
TBS’s quirky ploy across that swan-song weekend of 2018 was but the latest display of how traditional
networks are rethinking the scheduling of their original series. Viewers are increasingly accustomed to the
binge-friendly process that the streamers, including Netix, Amazons Prime Video and Hulu, encourage, while
traditional TV, with its Tuesdays-at-9 p.m trappings, is at risk of looking archaic.
But those networks can change with the times. Brett Weitz, executive vice president of programming at TBS,
said the Angie Tribeca stunt was tting for a network that “took the standard TV playbook and threw it deep
into the trash a few years ago, evident in Angie Tribecas 2016 launch across a 25-hour marathon. “It was an
opportunity to do something kind of kitschy and fun,” he said.We keep people on their toes by doing things
that are slightly dierent.”
Net Gains
If streaming was once viewed as the platform of choice for millennials, the numbers show the subscription
video-on-demand concept has reached well beyond those younger viewers. Amazon Prime has more than 100
Jackson Lee Davis/AMC; Paramount Network; Jonathan Hession/Syfy; Michael Becker/Bravo
AMC Premiere subscribers got early access
to the complete first season of comedy-
drama Lodge 49.
Nets Rethink the
Weekly Standard
As streaming goes mainstream, traditional programmers are scrapping calendar for bingeing,
batch releases and other scheduling stunts
BY MICHAEL MALONE
@BCMikeMalone
million subscribers, Netix has close to 59 million
U.S. customers and Hulu recently shared that it hit
25 million. Slowly but surely, your parents are mak-
ing their way through House of Cards.
Deciding the pace at which one consumes a series
is inching toward the norm.As we see more and
more success with the streaming services, sooner or
later, networks are going to start to tinker with the
scheduling of shows, because they have to,” Mike
Bloxham, senior vice president of global media
and entertainment at consulting rm Magid, said.
ere’s a sense of inevitability to this, even though
its a big step.”
Indeed, a wide array of networks, primarily on ca-
ble, are shaking up the timeworn tradition of weekly
program releases. Syfy launched the space thriller
Nightyers, based on a novella by George R.R.
Martin, with a nightly episode Dec. 2 to Dec. 6, then
the nal ve episodes Dec. 9 to Dec. 13. Paramount
Network premiered original series Heathers on Oct.
25, with all nine episodes airing across ve days.
If fans of the franchise couldnt wait for the nale,
they could stream the series through the Paramount
Network app or website Oct. 22.
AMC also made full seasons of drama e Terror
and comedy-drama Lodge 49 available on SVOD
platform AMC Premiere before their linear launch.
e audience that wants to watch it linear is simply
a dierent audience than the one that wants to binge
it,” David Madden, AMC Networks president of
programming, told Broadcasting & Cable late in 2018.
ey dont really cannibalize each other.”
Age of ‘Aquarius’
Bingeing certainly isnt new, but the frequency
among cable networks is gaining momentum. Some
bold networks experimented with the strategy a few
years ago, as when Starz premiered limited series
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“I think that allows us to target younger viewers who might not already watch Bravo,” Jerry Leo,
executive vice president, program strategy, lifestyle networks, NBCUniversal Cable entertainment
and production, said.
More and more, di erent shows appear to deserve di erent release strategies. Linda Ong,
chief culture offi cer at marketing agency Civic Entertainment Group, speaks of a “bespoke
watch plan for every series. Ong thinks of a release schedule as a form of marketing. “ e
business of television has been driven by business priorities,” she said. Increasingly, “it is driven
by consumer priorities.”
Weekly, Not Weakly
To be sure, as much as network executives are studying revamped release strategies, weekly pro-
gram schedules have considerable merits. Traditional networks still enjoy the chatter, be it around
the water cooler or on social, about the current episode of a hot show, which takes on a di erent
shape when the whole season lands at once.
Showtime Networks executive vice president of research, program planning and scheduling
Kim Lemon said the network’s executives think constantly about sharing more episodes prior to
a premiere. As of today, though, theyre not convinced the game plan would work for top-shelf Sunday series
such as Billions, SMILF or Ray Donovan. Showtime often makes a premiere available to subscribers and non-
subscribers alike before the show debuts —’80s stock market drama Black Monday, which begins Jan. 20, had
episode one on YouTube, Facebook and SHO.com as of Dec. 28 — but isn’t yet ready to make more available.
e awareness of a show, which drives subscriber value, builds over the course of a season,” Lemon said,
pointing to e Chi and Ray Donovan as series that grow viewership week after week. “Its one of the reasons
we’re not abandoning our weekly strategy.
A cable network chief who asked to be unnamed also mentioned the notion of a network growing viewership
by smartly marketing a series throughout its season. e thinking goes that it may be better to amortize the cost
of a whole season across several months, instead of a lone day. He also mentioned the holes that would appear
on a schedule if an entire season was made live on opening day.
“If you do it all in one weekend, what do you do the next weekend?” the network head asked.
at executive noted the unique experiences on streaming and traditional TV. “People come to the di erent
platforms with di erent expectations,” the chief said. “Linear TV is a passive experience.”
Set schedules are such an established aspect of television that, even with viewing habits shifting rapidly, week-
ly releases are unlikely to disappear any time soon. “I dont think we’re ever going to move away completely from
a schedule,” Bloxham said. “But those could be famous last words.”
TBS’s weekend full of Angie Tribeca wasnt the networks  rst scheduling stunt and wont be its last. Weitz
said its too early to tell how the move worked out in terms of season four viewership for Angie, but noted that
its been a win for the TBS brand. “You cant get complacent anymore,” Weitz said. “ ere’s too much change
happening across the platforms of television.”
e Girlfriend Experience, and o ered all 13 episodes
on opening night — on-demand and online.In
2015, NBC released the whole  rst season of drama
Aquarius, starring David Duchovny as an LAPD
detective tracking down Charles Manson in ’60s
Los Angeles, on NBC.com, the network app and on
demand, following its linear premiere. Some affi liates
groused, but then-NBC Entertainment chairman
Bob Greenblatt said he was “fully aware how au-
diences want to consume multiple episodes of new
television series faster and at their own discretion.”
About 94% of viewers watched Aquarius on linear
television and 6% online, NBC said later. e series
limped through two seasons.
Scheduling experimentation is much more
commonplace today. at Net ix, Amazon and Hulu
will soon be joined by richly funded streaming plat-
forms from e Walt Disney Co. and Apple
will only put that many more on-demand series at
viewers’ ngertips, and make the weekly releases
appear antediluvian.
Audiences have been exposed to a di erent way of
viewing,” Amanda Lotz, media scholar and professor
at Queensland University of Technology (Australia),
said. “ e viewer gets used to the ability to watch at
their own pace. When theyre forced to wait a week
for a new episode, its a bit of a chore.”
While few traditional networks can match the
programming budgets of the streaming standouts, they
can at least borrow from the platforms’ playbooks. “It
inevitably forces your hand,” Bloxham said.Any net-
work is thinking, ‘How do we bene t from this change
in viewing behavior? Can we get a piece of that pie?
For its part, Bravo has tried what it calls a batch
release for unscripted “social experiment series such
as Unanchored, about nine friends on a life-changing
boat trip, and Welcome to Waverly, about a cadre of
urbanites who relocate to a conservative town in
Kansas. e whole of Waverly aired Oct. 22-25.
Bravo also made the  rst episode of Dirty John
available online prior to its linear premiere Nov. 25.
multichannel.com JANUARY 14, 2019 MULTICHANNEL NEWS 9
Syfy gave George R.R. Martin adaptation Nightfl yers (l.) a nightly run, while the fi rst episode of Bravo’s Dirty John was released online
ahead of its network debut.
Paramount Network in October made all episodes of Heathers available over fi ve
consecutive days and streamed them all over its app and website.
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