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Byron Allen gets the Colbert timeslot

gag about byron allen being something big in the future because of messing with the time-line.
the bit was a line on "The Good Place."
  • Stuff that happened because Michael and Janet went to earth: Brexit, The Greatest Showman’s success, the Jacksonville Jaguars are good now, Byron Allen owns The Weather Channel.
thing is, it went over my head. it wasn't an alternate time-line joke. i didn't realize that Byron Allen's "Entertainment Studios" had actually bought the weather channel. so it was actually an in-joke that i didn't get.
 
Local television gets very little revenue late at night, except, and some markets, for the late local news. Even then, local news is often sold in a package covering morning news afternoon and evening
We're all overlooking the simplest and potentially most revenue-optimal solution: infomercials.

Horrible and unthinkable, but right now in St. Louis NBC affiliate KSDK runs infomercials at 12:30 p.m. Monday-Friday. If that's the most lucrative revenue a network affiliate can come up with in midday, I'm sure advertisers will line up to purchase 30 or 60 minute infomercials after the late news.
 
We're all overlooking the simplest and potentially most revenue-optimal solution: infomercials.

Horrible and unthinkable, but right now in St. Louis NBC affiliate KSDK runs infomercials at 12:30 p.m. Monday-Friday. If that's the most lucrative revenue a network affiliate can come up with in midday, I'm sure advertisers will line up to purchase 30 or 60 minute infomercials after the late news.

Here's the trouble with infomercials, from a guy who worked at a station that lived on them for a few years:

Most are what are known as "per inquiry" spots. The sponsor figures out how many calls and orders it needs from a given station for its product to be profitable, and it prices its offer for the time accordingly.

Every month, the infomercial folks look to see if your station is making the phone ring enough times (the infomercials usually have a unique promo code to identify which stations' airing is responsible for the purchase).

If you're not making their magic number, one of two things happens: They leave, which means you have no money coming in for that half-hour, or they grind you on what they pay for the time to reduce the cost and make that level of inquiry profitable.

That's the first two months, if you're lucky.

Then---even if you're making the phones ring and the infos are profitable (which they won’t tell you) they grind you anyway because what's better than a profit? A bigger profit.

It becomes a race to the bottom.

Yeah, you can replace them (maybe), but that's expensive (someone has to hustle the business), and it also just starts the cycle all over again.
 
We're all overlooking the simplest and potentially most revenue-optimal solution: infomercials.

Horrible and unthinkable, but right now in St. Louis NBC affiliate KSDK runs infomercials at 12:30 p.m. Monday-Friday. If that's the most lucrative revenue a network affiliate can come up with in midday, I'm sure advertisers will line up to purchase 30 or 60 minute infomercials after the late news.
They would get better ratings with 2 hours of Big bang theory or 2 and a half men.
 
Here's the problem:

The language allowing pre-emptions or timeslot shifts is in the affiliation contracts---it's not a show-by-show thing. So the affiliates are as obligated to carry Byron at 11:35 as they are Colbert currently.

Contesting that would open up their affiliation agreement for renegotiation, which would also give the network the opportunity to shop itself to less picky, starving stations in the market.
So Nexstar and Sinclair won't be able to remove Byron Allen?
 
I don't know what it is, but, somehow, I have a harder time warming up to Kimmel than to Colbert. Perhaps it's remembering Kimmel's earlier work, which did not resonate with me at all. But some of Colbert's earlier work also left me cold. I never cared for "Strangers with Candy", for example, and still don't understand why he thinks so highly of Robert Smigel, whom I can't stand. But the majority of Colbert's more recent work really hits the mark. Maybe I just need to give Kimmel a chance.
Comedy Central put The Man Show between South Park and the Daily Show
 
It would depend on their affiliation contracts with CBS.

I would think that if they had that ability they would have used it on Colbert, given both companies’ political leanings.
They thought they had that ability with Kimmel? Do they have it with NBC? although Jimmy Fallon plays it safe and Seth Meyers appears to be less on Trump's radar being on later
 
So they days of some stations delaying the network's late night offerings for things like reruns of Cheers, The Cosby Show, Roseanne or a repeat of the day's Jerry Springer aren't coming back?
 
Here's the problem:

The language allowing pre-emptions or timeslot shifts is in the affiliation contracts---it's not a show-by-show thing. So the affiliates are as obligated to carry Byron at 11:35 as they are Colbert currently.

Contesting that would open up their affiliation agreement for renegotiation, which would also give the network the opportunity to shop itself to less picky, starving stations in the market.
how much are they allowed to pre-empt programming for local sports like NFL pre season games or local simulcasts of NFL games that air nationally on cable and streaming outlets? a few are airing MLB and even minor league baseball games this season
 
Several of those shows have 24/7 feeds on Roku streaming (and are available on Peacock or other sources). There are only so many sitcoms in syndication nowadays. In this day and age, Seinfeld and Friends in syndication are the new "I Love Lucy" and "Honeymooners" (that stations were rerunning in the '70s and '80s). The longest-lasting sitcoms in OTA syndication currently.
 
Several of those shows have 24/7 feeds on Roku streaming (and are available on Peacock or other sources). There are only so many sitcoms in syndication nowadays. In this day and age, Seinfeld and Friends in syndication are the new "I Love Lucy" and "Honeymooners" (that stations were rerunning in the '70s and '80s). The longest-lasting sitcoms in OTA syndication currently.
if die hard fans don't already have the DVD sets, they don't have the schedule their days around the daily heavily chopped up Simpsons and Seinfeld reruns whenever a station feels like putting them
 
They thought they had that ability with Kimmel?

No. They were trying to kill Kimmel’s show outright.

Do they have it with NBC? although Jimmy Fallon plays it safe and Seth Meyers appears to be less on Trump's radar being on later

We don’t know what the affiliation contracts say, but the networks have been more restrictive over the years.

Trump hates Seth. When Colbert got cancelled, he did a social media post calling on NBC to fire Seth.
 
how much are they allowed to pre-empt programming for local sports like NFL pre season games or local simulcasts of NFL games that air nationally on cable and streaming outlets? a few are airing MLB and even minor league baseball games this season

A given number of pre-emptions for sports and breaking news are usually in the agreements. It’s not a lot.

Most of your questions were addressed during the Kimmel controversy last year:

 
I gotta ask the question again. Is CBS doing all these things because they're necessary? Or due to the owners' own agenda?

Yes, I understand, Colbert cost a lot of money. The ES Theater, the crew of 200, it's big bucks, costs that were reasonable when CBS wanted to entice David Letterman to come over and challenge the Tonight Show on NBC. Now, those costs are too high. But couldn't CBS and Colbert come up with a plan? Move to a cheaper rental theater in Brooklyn. Do fewer shows. Pare down other expenses. If NBC and ABC aren't cancelling their late night shows and Colbert's ratings are better than Kimmel and Fallon, "Late Night" could have been saved for a while longer.

Same with the CBS Radio Network. ABC has a radio network that doesn't have anywhere near as good a line-up of affiliates as CBS Radio has, all those former CBS All-News and News-Talk stations. There are nine remaining radio networks with hourly newscasts. Shouldn't some of them fold before CBS?

Yes, someday the Grim Reaper will come for all network radio and television. But that's still many years off. CBS is running out to meet the Grim Reaper well before he and his sickle have even gotten close to Black Rock.
 
Won’t this lower the rates of whatever local spots the affiliates can run during these 2 hours!
Yes, but it's extremely minimal spot revenue in late night in most markets anyway. A 30" spot on Colbert's Late Show goes for about $40 on my local CBS station in market #108. I think the local station gets about 6 minutes in the show, so their max revenue, if every position is sold, is about $500, or about $400 after agency commissions. And when I watch, the local positions are largely unsold and filled by promos for their news app or weather team, so even that figure is largely theoretical.

For comparison, the same station sells ads during The Price is Right for $300, and spots during the NCAA tournament went for up to $5000 (when Kentucky was playing).
 


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