The Conan Spin Machine On Triple Time
So, if you want to read what Conan’s reps want you to believe, you should skip this right now and read Nikki Finke and Josef Adalian at The Wrap because maybe you find it to be fun to watch grown people get ridden like donkeys at a Tijuana bar. (I hope Ari is wearing a condom.)
The pitch… Fox was gonna happen, it was just taking too long… and TBS wanted Conan so much more.
The reality… the Fox deal was in all kinds of not-gonna-happen… Team Coco had shoved the “everyone wants him!” spin down the throat of a willing media… and rather than have to explain the failure to launch at Fox when every last effort had been made by Peter Rice, TBS offered a chance to get ahead of the story.
It’s the kid who asked the head cheerleader to the prom, wasn’t getting an answer from her but saw her picking a dress that matched the football captain’s tuxedo lining, then got the smart, funny, not-so-popular girl to go with him and told everyone that he wasn’t really into blondes with 36D breasts and a reputation for having an oral fixation.
Uh-huh.
Conan’s gonna make more money with four nights at TBS than he would in 5 at Fox.
Uh-huh.
Conan might not have been able to own his show at Fox.
Uh-huh.
Of course, the single stupidest piece of spin I have read in all of this is, “Bottom line: TBS really, really wanted Conan. Fox wanted him, too, but only if it made sense — the same way CBS really wanted NFL football back almost 20 years.
But CBS didn’t want to pay too big a price back in 1993. It hesitated.
At the time, Rupert Murdoch said he didn’t give a damn about the cost. He wanted the NFL because he needed to build his network.
Now, TBS — and cable — is the upstart. Conan is its NFL.”
Oh fucking please.
The deal should work out fine for TBS and fine for Conan. But there is nothing in the world that suggests that this is anything close to a game changer for TBS. Moreover, Rupert Murdoch LOST MONEY on that first NFL deal… willingly… because it made Fox a must-carry network for the first time and opened the network’s affiliates to non-primetime programming. We have since seen similar deals for ESPN and, indeed, TNT and TBS. TNT did it with Law & Order reruns that became the network’s engine and moved them into the “TNT Knows Drama” mode. And TBS attempted to do it with Sex & The City reruns, overspending to brand themselves as THE comedy network… though that didn’t work out as well.
Of course, going back farther, it was Ted Turner who really broke the ground for this maneuver, taking an unaffiliated local Atlanta channel, WTBS, and making it into The Superstation, with Braves baseball, Hawks basketball, and professional wrestling at its core. And as of 1986, for a period, the MGM film and TV library. Then non-Braves MLB games, including part of the playoff package. WGN, in Chicago, followed suit with the Cubs and a parade of syndicated shows at the core. Cable providers, Major League Baseball, and the NBA wised up after that. No more superstations.
I mean, a guy like Adalian has to know that Steve Koonin runs both TNT and TBS, has successfully built TNT into the cable net with some of the highest rated cable shows in history… and that Tyler Perry’s two sitcoms for TBS – House of Payne and Meet The Browns – are the highest ranked original sitcoms on cable, with audiences of around 3 million for each new episode. And TBS already has MLB, including the American League Championship Series this year.
If the was an NFL for TBS, it was Tyler Perry and it happened a few years ago. And frankly, if I were him today, I would be seriously pissed. Dare I say it, but the lack of respect to him for what he has brought to TBS smells vaguely racist, given the color of his audience vs Conan’s. But as I wrote before, TBS didn’t need a NFL. It is already a well-established network and Conan is not going to bring a single cable or satellite provider on board.
Koonin is getting more serious about expanding TBS the same way he and his team really built up TNT with more original programming as of a few years ago..
And by the way, you know where Koonin came from? Coca-Cola. He’s all about the branding. Snd her’s really made things work for Turner Broadcasting.
Adalian has an interview with him that went up since I read the NFL absurdity. Calm. Smart. Koonin. None of the kinds of claims or hysterics of Adalian’s think piece.
Sorry that this has eaten the day, but I HATE the overhype… especially when it is mean spirited. I guess to make the sale that this is a win for Conan, Fox has to be positioned as the loser. But it’s not sports free agency. If it were, Conan would be the successful college QB who was black who most teams wanted to convert to a wide receiver… and instead of going to a Super Bowl contender that projected him as a #3 receiver, he went to an out-of-contention team where he knew he could actually compete to start at QB. Nothing wrong with that. It’s about not holding out, waiting to see if you fit into the plans of the superior team, potentially missing the more clear role with the lesser team. It’s about knowing what you can do, what you want, and which opportunity you want.
So why does it have to be so angry? Why does Leno have to be buried, in spite of delivering the ratings to NBC since his Tonight Show return? (Conan, normally, had about 3 million Tonight Show viewers… Leno about 4.4 million a night – about 20% down from his pre-imbroglio numbers – since his return, pushing The Tonight Show back ahead of Letterman and Nightline.) Why does Fox have to be positioned as missing the opportunity because they weren’t aggressive enough?
Team Coco and Team Leno is a notion for children, not adults.
I think I am done with this story now.
Good read but the racist angle is stretching it a bit. “Highest ranked original sitcom on cable” contains too many qualifiers to be a real statistic. I’m guessing the highest ranked…still doesn’t beat Seinfeld reruns. To your point, however, I do see a parallel to WB/UPN building its base on black sitcoms before abruptly changing direction. But the Tyler Perry sitcoms have been extended for several years already (right?).
Tyler Perry’s shows brought a very specific audience to TBS that wasn’t there before, and Conan will do the same thing (but who knows for how long). White people still doesn’t know who Tyler Perry is, in the same way minorities are unfamiliar with Dane Cook (or Conan O’Brien). Maybe everyone wins here.
“Conan would be the successful college QB who was black”
?!
A constant in the last 30 years of the NFL, J. It has subsided a little with emergence of more successful black QBs in the pro ranks, but most black QBs, especially from smaller schools, are still often thought of bu the pros as potential receivers.
Fair enough, Greg. I knew it was a stretch. Still, if I were Perry, I would not be happy.
And the Perry shows ratings kick the hell out of Seinfeld re-run ratings on TBS. They also outdraw Adult Swim.
White people know who Tyler Perry is. He’s that dude who played the admiral in STAR TREK.
Well, it happens to white college QBs, too… Just think the point could have been made without distracting with race, there. But okay.
I’m glad you posted on this story, David. The obvious BS coverage it’s gotten everywhere else has been annoying.
Dave, you do righteous anger well. A well thought out rant is rare and damn entertaining to read.
That being said, I feel the Tyler Perry thing is maybe better understood as just something that is outside the zeitgeist of popular culture. Its like NCIS. In their own fields (network and cable) they are very popular shows with large ratings, but just not in the hip demographics. Thus, the neglect. Maybe race is a bit of a factor. I’d prefer to think that its because his sitcoms are staggeringly unwatchable.
This reminds me of how surprised most folks were when Diary of a Mad Black Woman was a hit. These people had no idea who Tyler Perry was because they had no knowledge of the plays he had been touring across the country for years beforehand. Of course, I should talk: I thought Bernie Mac was this terrific character actor Ice Cube had discovered when Cube cast him in The Players Club. I knew nothing about Cube’s stand-up career.
Joe: I know that was probably a typo, but I would totally buy a ticket to see Ice Cube do stand-up comedy.
Er, yeah. I meant Mac’s career. But now that you mention it… Talk about “killing” the audience…
If Cube was a stand-up comedian I imagine his trademark line would be “Do we got a problem here”!”
Saw that comment and was -this close- to going to youtube looking for Ice Cube standup.
I have to say, Daniel Gross’s take on the TBS deal in Slate — while not dissimilar from yours, David — came across as much more reasoned (and he counts it as a huge win for both Conan and TBS):
http://www.slate.com/id/2250702/
I *hope* you’re done with the Conan story, David, because every time it comes up you seem to get really defensive, even angry, about the media coverage. Sure, I get it — I guess I just don’t see why it’s something to get worked up about. (Probably because the only late night shows I watch, Daily Show and Colbert, are not in the “ratings juggernaut” spin game…)