Zitat des Tages von Fred Silverman:
Succeeding in network prime time has gotten tougher. Every day, several thousand homes are wired for cable, and more people are buying videodisks and video cassettes. That all represents competition.
The first sales meeting I made was for the television movie 'Farrell for the People.' I walked into a conference room at NBC that I had built. It was my memorial conference room. There were 10 people at the meeting, and by habit, I sat at the head of the table.
You find a personality whom you think the TV audience will embrace and find a format that is tailor-made for the personality. In the case of Andy Griffith, we moved the personality of a wily country shark - a funny and shrewd guy - into another arena. In this case, he is a lawyer, and it is a dramatic series.
I was the King of Twinkie-Vision one day, the King of Jiggle TV the next, thanks to Farrah Fawcett and 'Three's Company.'
You acquire certain tastes. And if your taste happens to coincide with the majority of people, then you're in pretty good shape. But you're not always right. There were times when I stubbed my toe, and some will end up being on my tombstone - like 'Supertrain.'
I didn't even think demographics until I got to ABC. They were the first to go for 18-to-49. But, at CBS, it was just, 'Let's get 'em in the tent.'
The only way to stop the erosion in network television is to come up with shows that are very popular.
