“For years, the idea was you had to have ‘Seinfeld,’” to compete with late-night shows on rival stations, says Frank Cicha, senior vice president of programming for Fox TV Stations, in an interview. “Those days are done.”
Fox Stations’ decision is likely to jolt companies that have gotten rich off the fees regularly paid for syndicated series. In several large markets, Fox controls two stations – including in New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Houston, Minneapolis, Phoenix, Orlando and Charlotte. Syndicators have been under pressure for several years, says Michael Nathanson, an independent media-industry analyst. “This has been a major long running theme for us, as both cable and station groups drop acquired programming to add originals,” he says. “The industry pipeline is rather weak and the focus on serialized content has hurt, too.”
As contracts to run certain syndicated programs come due, says Cicha, Fox Stations intends to replace the comedies with programming that is more of the moment. “The only way these stations exist in the future is to be live day and date, to be immediate,” he says. There could be another reason for jettisoning the funny stuff. Stations typically share advertising revenue from such shows with the syndicators. Running another news program would allow the Fox stations to keep all the advertising they sell.
Snaring the rights to favorite TV comedies used to sway audiences, but with so many programs available on Hulu, Netflix, Apple iTunes and other on-demand venues, “that makes it less immediate,” Cicha adds. “People can watch it whenever they want.” The stations might follow the late-night news with other shows that feature content that is fresh only once. Examples of such programming might include an episode of “TMZ” or “Page Six,” a new effort from Fox that plays off the famous gossip pages of The New York Post, a newspaper controlled by sister company News Corp.
