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Mark Burnett is shaking up TV financing
« on: May 22nd, 2004, 2:30pm » |
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Economic Reality: Mark Burnett is shaking up TV financing
Thursday, May 20, 2004
By Maria Elena Fernandez and Scott Collins
LOS ANGELES TIMES
This week, Mark Burnett has been dashing through Manhattan streets like a crazed Survivor contestant in the Outback dividing his crammed schedule among various TV networks.
On Monday, the British-born adventurer turned reality-TV producer was scheduled to spend 90 minutes in a downtown gym, scouting boxers for The Contender, the unscripted series he's producing with Sylvester Stallone for NBC Universal. Then, in the afternoon, he zipped up to Radio City Music Hall to tout that show, along with the second season of his smash hit The Apprentice, to advertisers at NBC's glitzy rollout of fall shows. And don't forget The Casino, his summer reality series for Fox; Survivor, his CBS hit entering its ninth cycle; and Commando Nanny, his first sitcom, for the WB Network.
And although tonight a charity group will heap praise on Burnett's philanthropic efforts, he's getting even more attention for his success in shaking up how TV shows are financed.
Clearly, Burnett, a self-styled Hollywood outsider whose resume includes a much-discussed stint as a British paratrooper in the Falklands War - is the TV producer of the moment- an Aaron Spelling for the early 21st century, even if he professes to be greatly annoyed by such talk.
He bristled last week when asked about his empowered status in Hollywood: "I'm just moving forward with my work.... I only care about what's on the screen."
That may be so, but Burnett's runaway success has, in less than four years, made him the undisputed king of "reality" TV - and flushed envy into the hearts of numerous rivals. His specialty consists of cleverly structured, competition-oriented shows beloved by audiences, especially the young adults prized by advertisers. Among their crowd-pleasing characteristics: the reality "villain" that viewers love to hate (think Richard in the first Survivor and Omarosa in The Apprentice). And now Burnett is moving into scripted TV, which is to many reality producers what directing is to screenwriters, a longed-for but often unattainable goal.
"He's passionate, he (has) a clear vision and he's a great salesman," said Jeff Zucker, NBC Universal's TV boss. "But more importantly, he's one of the best storytellers in all of television. He brings more passion to any pitch than any other producer I've seen."
Equally important, Burnett plays a leading role in changing the economics of the TV industry. He's the best-known producer specializing in product and marketing "integration" - the buzzword for persuading advertisers to pay extra money for product placements and other promotional goodies as well as the traditional 30-second ad spot. Thus Survivor host Jeff Probst has invited bedraggled contestants to refresh themselves on-air with a bag of Doritos and a can of Mountain Dew.
The stakes for such deals could not be higher, because the traditional economic model of network TV is strained to the breaking point, according to industry executives and ad buyers. Series costs keep growing even as networks continue to bleed audience share to cable. And advertisers are increasingly skeptical of arguments that broadcast TV deserves the highest ad rates because it still delivers relatively big audiences.
Although network, cable and syndicated series are projected to fetch about $20 billion in advance ad sales this year, that figure is flat compared with last year's - and many buyers expect cable to get a larger share of the pie than in previous seasons. The paucity of network hits this season certainly hasn't helped the broadcasters' case.
"It does feel like there's a little bit more pressure on the TV industry to develop hits" than in the past, said Tim Spengler, the executive vice president and director of national broadcast at New York ad firm Initiative. "It's only getting more intense."
That's why Burnett is so important: With Survivor and now Apprentice, he has developed reality series that advertisers like almost as much as viewers do. And with his usual ferocity, he has taken to selling the ad packages that support them.
"The kind of shows Burnett does lend themselves to creative integration," says Ben Silverman, the chief executive of Reveille LLC and one of the executive producers of The Restaurant, another Burnett show. Reveille, which is partners with the ad firm Magna Global, hired Burnett to produce the series that looks at kitchen life in an upscale New York eatery. Silverman said that products can be inserted into reality series in relatively unobtrusive ways, but in scripted shows such a placement "just feels false."
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