In the Trades Today

Hat in Hand

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The most interesting thing about Ken Follett's THE PILLARS OF EARTH mini-series isn't the international cast (Ian McShane, Donald Sutherland, Rufus Sewell etc) or it's location shoot in Hungary and Austria — it's the complex financing that had to be put together to get the German/Canadian coproduction made. As the press release notes:

TANDEM COMMUNICATIONS and Muse Entertainment's broadcast and home video partners on The Pillars of the Earth are ProSiebenSat1's German FreeTV Group, Canada's Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, The Movie Network and Movie Central, Spain's Socable, Austria's ORF, Germany's Universum Film Home Entertainment, Hungary's TV2 and Sony Pictures Home Entertainment – to name a few. In addition, the financial entities involved were gap financier FIDEC, Germany's DZ Bank and The National Bank of Canada. Legal counsel for the project was Mathias Schwarz in Germany, Cari Davine in Canada, Randolph M. Paul in the USA and Monika Horvath in Hungary.

Did you notice that it says that those are just a few of the financial partners? And did you see that the deal-making itself is  such a big part of the production, that the producers feel obligated to thank their lawyers in the press release? Incredible. 

The folks at Tandem obviously had to go, hat in hand, all over the world to get the money for this. Even more surprising is that the mini-series doesn't even have a U.S. or U.K. broadcast yet. This illustrates just how difficult it is to raise financing for TV productions these days…and how global the business has become. Tandem's managing director Rola Bauer says in the press release:

"The fact that we have been able to raise the production financing in these economically challenging times is testimony to the enduring strength of fictional television Event programming […] and could not have been achieved without our international networks as well as our financial and production partners."

Scott Free TV president David Zucker told the Hollywood Reporter that putting together such a complex deal and going into production without a U.S. broadcaster is  "the new world order."

"Yes, there is more risk at the top, but there's more latitude on the creative side. It's not dissimilar to the indie film biz in this respect. Given how difficult the economy became here, we decided to plow ahead and get funding and casting done before trying to do a licensing deal in the States."

Zucker said there was "a lot of interest" among yank broadcasters, cablers and pay cablers but did not specify how close to a deal the producers were.

For what it's worth, the last big mini-series that Munich-based Tandem put together, LOST CITY RAIDERS, ended up on SciFi. 

UK Actors Flocking to US

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It's no secret that UK actors are swarming to Los Angeles to become leads in TV series (HOUSE, LIE TO ME, LIFE, LAW & ORDER, JOURNEYMAN, GREY'S ANATOMY, SARAH CONNOR, THE WIRE, etc.). Now Broadcast magazine reports in an interview with actor James Nesbitt that it's the  lack of jobs on UK television that's sending them overseas.

The Cold Feet and Murphy’s Law actor, who also stars in BBC1’s Occupation next week, told the Radio Times that the UK TV industry was in a “desperate state”, and that he was having to look to the US for work.

He said Hollywood did not naturally appeal to him – “the notion of waiting six months to play a baddie in a bad film just wasn’t my idea of career utopia” – but that he had now employed a US agent.

“I was challenged here, I enjoyed what I was doing. But the British TV industry is in a desperate state – not creatively but financially,” he said. “There’s so little work happening here, it [Hollywood] is not a door that I’d slam shut,” he said.

The Plan is Coming Together

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Variety reports that the cast is shaping up for the big screen version of my buddy Steve Cannell’s hit series THE A-TEAM. Liam Neeson is taken with the part of Hannibal (George Peppard’s role) and Bradley Cooper is being wooed to play Faceman (Dirk Benedict’s part). No word yet on who is being sought for the roles of Murdock (Dwight Schultz in the original) and “B.A.” Baracus, played by Mr. T. Joe Carnahan is directing, and Ridley Scott is producing with Jules Daly and Cannell from a screenplay by Carnahan, Brian Bloom and Skip Woods.

 

Deep Dudu

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Let's hope frustrated U.S. writers, producers and actors don't follow Israeli TV star Dudu Topaz's example when it comes to dealing with rejection and bad reviews. The LA Times reports that the once top-rated TV host hired thugs to beat up two network execs who rejected his pitches for new shows and an agent who gave up on his comeback bid.

Topaz is accused of hiring three former security guards involved in the beatings over the last seven months of Shira Margalit, a vice president at Israel's Channel 2 TV; Avi Nir, a Channel 2 director; and talent agent Boaz Ben-Zion in Tel Aviv. Margalit, the most recent victim, was hospitalized a few days last month with a broken nose and fractured bones in her face.

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the four suspects, all in custody, were identified through telephone wiretaps, witness testimony and surveillance video.

At least two other media executives were on the entertainer's hit list, police said: a newspaper editor who had turned down his offer to write a regular column and a Channel 2 producer who once worked with Topaz and now produces the unscripted show "Big Brother.[…]He once attacked a TV critic for a scathing review and broke his glasses, famously declaring, "He doesn't understand what he sees anyway."

Listen But Don’t Watch?

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The NBC series THE LISTENER, the latest Canadian-produced import on a major American network, isn't getting a warm critical reception so far. Variety savaged it, saying…

There's nothing wrong with U.S. networks picking up the occasional Canadian import, but to have a chance at working, such a show can't be as bland and colorless as "The Listener," which NBC is throwing onto Thursdays with a back-to-back episode launch. Built around a young paramedic with the telepathic ability to hear thoughts, the show looks chintzy, isn't particularly well acted and feels plucked from the 1970s. […]Canada remains a favorite destination for U.S. filming, but in terms of programs flowing in this direction, they ought to have more going for them than simply being in English, eh? "

The Chicago Sun Times was equally unkind.

Craig Olejnik, the Canadian who plays Toby, is down to earth and likably mumbly. His light blue eyes are so piercing you may forget that his special skill isn't X-ray vision. But he's supported by writing and characters that may induce eye-rolling. Take this line, delivered by Colm Feore as Toby's mentor: "You don't have to read my mind to know that I'm worried about you."

Newsday called it "listless" while taking a jab at Canadian TV as a whole:

One does not come to summer TV on a major network to have one's world rocked, and one most certainly does not come to Canadian TV for the same. The Canadians make nice TV – pleasant, intelligent TV, where people, even the bad guys, are civil and fundamentally decent. In a word, "The Listener" is boring.

Despite all the negative reviews here, the show has reportedly been a big hit overseas, so whether or not THE LISTENER does well for NBC this summer, it's likely to continue into a second season.

UPDATE 6-3-07: Even the Canadians are lukewarm on the show. For example, The Globe & Mail says it's "unbelievably bland."

This is a pity, because it's the second Canadian-made series in recent times to make the breakthrough and land on a U.S. network in prime time. Like Flashpoint before it, The Listener is set in Toronto, and Toronto features prominently, like an extra character. But The Listener is no Flashpoint . It lacks anything approaching gripping drama, for a start.

Tom Shales at the Washington Post says:

Near the hour's end, Toby laments of his gift that "all my life I told myself . . . 'Make it go away,' " and many a viewer will be wishing the same thing for the series.

The Boston Globe was even more brutal:

NBC gives us another excuse to close our borders: the Canadian import “The Listener."

UPDATE 6-5-07: The Listener did great in the ratings in its Canadian premiere but according to MediaWeek, it didn't fare too well in the U.S. in its NBC, double-episode debut:

There weren’t many viewers watching, or hearing, the debut of NBC’s “The Listener” last night, which aired against tough competition from the NBA finals on ABC and the night’s top-rated non-sports show, Fox’s “So You Think You Can Dance.”
“Listener” averaged a 1.4 adults 18-49 rating from 9 to 11 p.m., according to Nielsen overnights, finishing last in its timeslot among the Big Four networks.
The show sank slightly, from a 1.5 to a 1.4, from its first to its second hour, and it lost a good chunk of its 8 p.m. lead-in, “I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here!,” which averaged a 1.9 rating.

Beeb Cuts U.S. Fare

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A few days ago, I pointed out that U.S. shows aren't being embraced as warmly as they once were over-seas, mostly because foreign nets don't have the cash to spend. Now the BBC is saying they are cutting back on U.S. fare…but for creative and cultural reasons.

Jay Hunt, who took over as controller of BBC1 around a year ago, will instead continue to invest the bulk of her drama budget in locally produced fare such as "Doctor Who" and high concept hits like "Life on Mars."

 "Part of what the Charter (the BBC's constitution) commits us to is to find the best of world television and showcase it…but my main job in drama is to spearhead real innovation and creativity in original British production. This is something we do day in and day out. We have an incredible drama story on BBC1, with high-concept pieces and period drama."

Cool Desperation

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I read two interesting takes on the new fall TV season. TV Writer Kay Rendl sees more vertical integration on the business side and the continued pursuit of cool on the creative side. 

Think about it — what drama do you watch on network TeeVee that features uncool lead characters? Even my favorite network shows featured cool people. The Gilmore girls were cool. The politicians on the West Wing were cool, even when they were policy wonks because they would still sleep with prostitutes. And even Buffy, with her outcast-ness, slayed vampires. Willow became a cool lesbian witch. Xander married an ex-demon and lived in a weird 80s condo.

There are two ways to be an outcast: You either hide your weird qualities (Buffy), or you showcase them (Glee). It wasn't until I watched the Glee pilot that I realized what had been bothering me about the pilots, and it's that cool factor. Even when a pilot tries to make a character less cool, they invariably balance that quality out with a cool element: Mary Sue's a mousy librarian, but she's also a witch who looks GREAT with her hair down and her boobs pushed up. Cool is the safe zone for networks.

Emily Nussbaum of New York Magazines sat through the network upfront presentations and saw something else — fear and desperation.

With buyers still shaken by the economy, this is the first upfront season in which it’s become impossible to ignore the troubles that riddle the television industry—financial, technological, creative. Automobile ads have dissolved. Cable is ascendant. And none of the default settings are holding: NBC—which skipped the upfronts, giving “infronts” two weeks earlier—has gone rogue, scheduling an hour of Leno every weeknight at ten, touting an “all-year” schedule.

[…]CBS’s “we’re No. 1!” sell is compelling, if in a depressing way: People love our dullest shows! They cheer their purchase of Medium, which NBC dumped. The reality pilot Undercover Boss strikes a chord with this audience of people terrified of being fired.

The after-party—at Terminal 5 instead of CBS’s old venue, Tavern on the Green—is sweaty and miserable, with chocolate fortune cookies containing the unsettlingly fascist message “Only CBS.” It occurs to me that all this branding is itself oddly dated, to viewers if not to marketers—how many television viewers are loyal to one network anymore, now that the very concept of a time slot has nearly dissolved?

The sad truth behind the hype, the booze, and the chilled shrimp fed to the advertising reps who attend these things is that 90% or more of the new fall shows will fail. Miserably. And everybody knows that…but deny it to themselves, something Jimmy Kimmel's comedy schtick at the ABC upfront presentation made perfectly clear. 

"Everything you’ve heard today, everything you’re going to hear this week, is bullshit. […] Every year we lie to you, and every year you come back for more … You don’t need an upfront, you need therapy. We lied to you, and then you passed those lies along to your clients! Everyone in this room is completely full of shit.” 

Everybody laughed. They should have cried.

Always Change the Names

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All writers take some inspiration from their own lives for the stories they tell in their books and screenplays. But it looks like CSI writer/producer Sarah Goldfinger may have gone too far (or, at the very least, was sloppy about it). The Los Angeles Times reports:

When married real estate agents Scott and Melinda Tamkin read about an episode of the hit crime drama "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" that featured dirty-dealing, S&M-loving real estate agents named Scott and Melinda Tamkin, they didn't need to consult a forensic expert for an explanation.
A house sale involving the Tamkins and a "CSI" producer had fallen apart four years before, and the producer was listed, in the same online description, as the co-writer of the episode. On Friday the Tamkins filed a $6-million defamation and invasion of privacy suit against the producer, Sarah Goldfinger, saying she humiliated them and cost them potential business…

I don't fault Goldfinger for using the couple as a jumping-off point for her story. There's nothing wrong with that. Series often use real-life events and people as inspiration (that's why they run a legal disclaimer on certain episodes of LAW & ORDER that are obviously "ripped from the headlines"). Goldfinger's mistake was actually using their real names in the script. Although the names of the characters were changed before the script was shot (undoubtedly after the standard legal script clearance process uncovered that there were actually real estate agents with the same name as those in the teleplay), the damage was done. The early draft was used for casting and initial network publicity. 

It's a surprising mistake for someone of Goldfinger's experience to make.  Every TV writer knows better…and probably cringed when they read about this. Look for this lawsuit to be quietly settled before it goes to court.

International TV Buyers Want WalMart Prices

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This week is the LA Screenings, when buyers from networks worldwide come to Los Angeles to see pilots and buy the broadcast rights to new series for their countries. These sales are important to the U.S. studios. They help the studios recoup the difference between the network license fees (what CBS, ABC, etc. pay to air the shows) and the actual production costs (which are considerably more). The problem is, networks worldwide are in deep financial trouble. Although it's usually cheaper for foreign networks to buy U.S. stuff rather than produce their own, home-grown fare, they still don't have the cash to spend on a shopping spree. Variety reports:

Twentieth global TV head Marion Edwards said she's concerned that the U.K. market, after years of high spending and bidding wars, is scaling back in a big way, especially after a weak 2008 Screenings.

"Sky buys a lot of shows, as do Channel 4 and Five, but not last year. ITV is the wildcard," she explained. "They've all announced they'll slash programming budgets and won't buy U.S. programming. We'll have to take the temperatures. The market has gotten very tough."

The Los Angeles Times reports that 1400 buyers came this year…one hundred less than last year. And those who've shown up have a lot less money to spend.

Asked where the most challenging markets will be, Jeffrey R. Schlesinger, who oversees international television for the studio, didn't even need a pause. "Unfortunately, the answer is everywhere." The Canadian buyers had already passed through the lot Sunday with much smaller wallets than usual. "Prices were not at the level of the past two years," Schlesinger observed. The United Kingdom and Australia are also challenged. While lots of new buyers have emerged recently most don't have the deep pockets of the entrenched networks.

This is My Life

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Getting fired, in the form of a series cancellation, is a fact of life for people working in the TV industry. As an example, The Los Angeles Times reported yesterday on what it's like for the crew of the CBS series THE UNIT to be waiting, and wondering, whether their show is coming back.

If drama is life heightened, then Hollywood's bubble shows mirror much of America right now, where the specter of pay reductions, freezes and immediate unemployment is writ large. In the television industry, the phenomenon is an annual rite as network executives decide which series will be ditched to make room for new projects.

"What the country in general is going through, if you choose to work in Hollywood, you've accepted a life that is constantly like that," said executive producerShawn Ryan, who runs "The Unit" and created the FX cable channel's cop drama "The Shield." 

[…]Executive producer Vahan Moosekian is as familiar with these employment ups and downs as anyone. His four years on "The Unit" is his longest stint on any show during his 33 years in the industry, stability he knows could easily be followed by years of unemployment. With the rise of reality TV and NBC's new 10 p.m. Jay Leno comedy show, there are fewer jobs in scripted television.

I know how Moosekian feels. For years, I used to dream about what it would be like to actually be on a show that came back for a second season. It seems like every show I was on would be canceled during it's first season, or if it came back, I would leave for one reason or another before it happened. It wasn't until DIAGNOSIS MURDER that I discovered what it felt like to be on a show for several years…though we were on the bubble for renewal, not just every season, but every mid-season as well.  

I have never seen things as tough for TV writers as they are now. There are fewer scripted dramas and fewer writer/producer slots on them. Even if you are lucky enough to be on a show that gets renewed, you might not come back with it — every show is trimming expenses and writers are the first to go when networks and studios look to cut costs. 

Then again, it's tough for everybody in every industry right now.