- Detroit Free Press Article -
- Detroit Free Press Article -
UPN SEARCHING FOR A HIT FORMULA - Jan 25
Detroit Free Press Online articleBY MIKE DUFFY
Free Press TV Critic
TV critic Mike Duffy can be reached at 1-313-222-6520 or send E-mail to duffy@freepress.comIt's simple, says Dean Valentine, chief executive officer and president of UPN, television's most beleaguered little network.
Hit shows are good, flops are bad.
"We will get the people as long as we put on something they want to watch," he says. There's only one problem: UPN hasn't put on any shows that very many people want to watch.
Especially the signature fiasco of last fall.
The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer, a ludicrous sitcom farce about a black British butler in Abraham Lincoln's White House, was an instant failure. Even the controversy surrounding the series, which was attacked as racially insensitive by some civil rights activists, didn't draw inquisitive viewers to see what all the hubbub was about.
"We may have managed to actually find a show that people weren't even curious about," Valentine notes wryly. "I guess it just bombed."
So did the buddy sitcom Guys Like Us and Mercy Point, a sci-fi ER in outer space.
"I'd be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed in our fall performance," says Valentine, who deploys a thick-skinned sense of humor to cope with the doom-and-gloom atmosphere surrounding his network.
NUMBERS TELL THE STORY
Prime-time ratings for WKBD-TV (Channel 50)
The ratings of Detroit UPN affiliate WKBD-TV (Channel 50) have generally declined since it lost its Fox affiliation in December 1994 and joined UPN in January 1995. For instance, here are its prime-time ratings in November for the last five years. November is a sweeps month, when ratings are used to set advertising rates.
Nov. 1994 7.2 Nov. 1995 5.1 Nov. 1996 6.8 Nov. 1997 6.1 Nov. 1998 4.5 Each local rating points represents 17,100 to 18,500 TV households, gradually increasing as the years progress.
UPN versus WB nationally
UPN got off to a strong start, leading WB in the opening years of their rivalry. But as WB has come on strong with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dawson's Creek and other teen-friendly shows, UPN has spiraled downward.
UPN WB Nov. 1995 3.2 2.4 Nov. 1996 3.5 2.8 Nov. 1997 3.3 3.0 Nov. 1998 2.0 3.4 Each rating point represents approximately 959,000 to 994,000 TV households, gradually increasing as the years progress.
There was almost a death-watch ambience when Valentine met with TV critics at the semiannual press tour in Pasadena, Calif., this month. The first question pitched to Valentine was the obligatory obituary curveball: "How much time does UPN have left?"
Now hold on just a darn minute, Valentine cautioned.
"Rumors of any imminent demise -- to quote Mark Twain -- would be greatly exaggerated," he said.
But he didn't deny the harsh reality of surviving in an intensely competitive TV universe of major networks, baby networks, dozens of cable channels and the digitalized potential for hundreds more. All of which is causing an almost ceaseless fragmentation of the viewing audience.
"I think ultimately for us to survive we have to put together enough audiences to be attractive to advertisers," said Valentine. "And if we don't do that, we'll disappear."
That'll happen sooner rather than later, says Jamie Kellner, president of the WB Television Network, the Warner Bros. toddler network that has become a constant thorn in UPN's side.
"They can spend their money any way they want to," Kellner says of UPN (United Paramount Network), which reportedly lost $150 million last year. "But there's a point at which you go, 'Is there room for six networks? Are there enough stations? Is there enough advertising money? Are there enough good writers ...to fill six (network) schedules?' And the answer is no."
Easy for Kellner to gloat and boast. The WB, as it jauntily bills itself -- home to such contemporary youth appeal shows as Dawson's Creek, Felicity and Buffy the Vampire Slayer -- is red-hot. And UPN is not.
The bottom 10 shows in the weekly Nielsen ratings are often dominated by UPN programs from DiResta to America's Greatest Pets.
"We'd certainly like to see UPN further along than it is," says Paul Prange, longtime program director at WKBD-TV (Channel 50), which is owned by Paramount and has been the local home to UPN since the network was launched in early 1995.
While WB -- seen in Detroit on rising WDWB-TV (Channel 20) -- has diligently carved out a brand-name identity, UPN flounders despite a few solidly modest successes such as Star Trek: Voyager, Moesha and Malcolm & Eddie.
"I think what they tried to be was something for everybody," says Mike Dunlop, vice president and general manager of WKBD, citing UPN's mix of black comedies such as Moesha, male-attracting sci-fi shows like Voyager and Seven Days, and such formulaic middle American series as Love Boat: The Next Wave and Legacy.
"Did we get behind Warner Bros.? Yes. Is that our fault? Yes," says Dunlop.
Counting on Dilbert
So how does UPN find a viewer-friendly identity and reverse its fortunes?
Hit shows, of course. And by being more like Fox and WB.
"We need to be a little bit more scrappy and outrageous with our programming. We need to make more noise," says Tom Nunan, president of UPN Entertainment and the network's chief program executive.
That's why everyone at UPN is holding their breath for Dilbert, the heavily hyped animated series based on the popular workplace comic strip. The network is jiggling its Monday lineup to make room for its debut tonight.
"Are we counting on Dilbert to make a difference? Yeah. We'd be very disappointed if it doesn't," says Dunlop.
How important is Dilbert for the future of the network?
"It's important, certainly from a perception standpoint of the press, it's important because we've paid a lot of attention to it and you guys have watched it, and we've spent a lot of time and money marketing it," Valentine told TV critics.
Ultimately, however, it's the viewers who will decide on Dilbert. And on the fate of UPN.
And when it comes to the battle between Paramount and Warner Bros. for winning America's heart, WB is the solid choice as the baby network favorite.
OK, so they're only chanting "We're No. 5! We're No. 5!", but WB expects to turn a profit by the 2000-2001 season.
There are no such happy financial predictions for UPN, which continues to bail staggering oceans of red ink.
The competition
When the two networks were launched in the opening months of 1995, with two evenings of programming before expanding to the current five-night schedules, UPN was seen as the better bet. It owned the most recognizable show, Star Trek: Voyager, and initially had broader distribution than WB.
But WB, guided by cagey executives like Kellner and former programming ace Garth Ancier, who helped steer the Fox network when it was born in 1987, didn't try to be an eye-candy department store with something for everyone.
Like Fox, which built its bodacious identity on attitude shows like Married ...With Children, WB obsessively went after younger viewers. And the strategy paid off big time when Buffy the Vampire Slayer took off two years ago.
"The growth of the WB and the popularity of WB shows like Felicity has had a real impact in Detroit," says Mark Guleff, senior vice president and media director for the W.B. Doner & Co. advertising agency in Southfield.
That helped boost WDWB-TV from its previous status as "a second-tier operation" into an attractive stop for viewers and advertisers, says Guleff. Channel 20's WB-fueled prime time has made the station "a much more viable option," he adds.
Conversely, UPN's motley schedule put a damper on Channel 50's prime-time ratings.
"It is what it is," says Prange, who remembers the good old days when WKBD-TV was a hot Fox outlet. "I still get mail for the Fox affiliate."
The Channel 50 change from Fox to UPN was part of a seismic shift in the Detroit TV market five years ago, when former longtime CBS affiliate WJBK-TV, Channel 2, became the city's Fox station. That bumped CBS into semi-oblivion, with the network finally buying the low-echelon UHF station WGPR-TV, Channel 62, and renaming it WWJ-TV.
Often, as CBS well knows with Channel 62, perception is reality.
And moving from Fox to UPN didn't help the perception of Channel 50. "I think it has hurt them from an image standpoint," Guleff says.
That image isn't improved by UPN series that fail to meet expectations.
"The Star Trek franchise is much weaker than they anticipated," says Howard Konig, director of media research at W.B. Doner, referring to the declining national ratings for Voyager.
But even as local ad people criticize UPN's shows, they still point to WKBD's many programming assets outside of the dreary, 8-10 p.m. UPN prime-time lineup.
Channel 50 is a longtime destination for local sports fans who watch the station's Red Wings, Tigers and Pistons telecasts. And WKBD also boasts an excellent lineup of such off-network reruns as Frasier, Friends and The Simpsons.
Plus, even WB has its downside for advertisers.
"If you're targeting 35-to-45-year-old men, you're not going to buy Felicity, " says Konig about the teen female-intensive audience for WB's lineup. But you'll find plenty of men watching Star Trek: Voyager or the Red Wings on Channel 50.
Waiting game
Now, searching for that elusive breakout hit, UPN's Valentine is thankful that the network's affiliates and Paramount-owned stations like WKBD have been patient. Not that they aren't a little exasperated.
"I've been yelling at them to fix it," says Channel 50 boss Dunlop, specifically citing UPN's low-flying Friday night tandem of Legacy and Love Boat: The Next Wave.
But despite defections of some key UPN affiliates to WB last year, most UPN stations have persevered as Valentine and Nunan slowly attempt to develop a network identity with edgier, smarter shows.
Besides Dilbert, UPN has high hopes for Home Movies, another mid-season animated series, from the makers of Comedy Central's hip Dr. Katz: Professional Therapist. For fall, Tom Fontana and Barry Levinson, the award-winning producers of Homicide: Life on the Street, are creating a new UPN drama series.
Previously, Valentine says, UPN was most frequently identified as a narrowly focused black, comedy-oriented network, with shows such as the infamous Homeboys from Outer Space.
"We knew we couldn't survive like that," says Valentine, who is thankful that UPN stations aren't yet in mutiny mode. "They've been remarkably supportive. I don't know why that is.
"Having to undo that (urban comedy) strategy, everybody knew that would be a painful experience. It was like starting from scratch again."
Valentine, the former president of Walt Disney Television and Walt Disney Television Animation who took over UPN in fall 1997, maintains his humor amid the doom-mongering. But he was incensed by WB's Kellner, who recently predicted that UPN would double its losses to a mind-boggling $300 million in 1999 and would soon be out of business.
"I think Jamie hasn't met a ...half-truth that he didn't like," Valentine responded, indicating that the $300-million estimate was sheer poppycock. "I guess what I would say is, we will not get off the stage until our hour has come. And I think that hour will be a long, long way away."
Like Yogi Berra -- or was it Yogi Bear? -- once said: "It ain't over till it's over." And one big hit show can wipe away a lot of mistakes. But is that hit an office cubicle nebbish named Dilbert? Maybe, maybe not.
"Television is still the ultimate democracy," says Channel 50's Paul Prange. "If it doesn't work, it goes away."
(Thanks Lori)