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ANOTHER MEDIA TOUR REPORT - Jan 13
From a San Francisco Examiner article by columnist Tim Goodman
But being trapped in a hotel isn't always safe haven. Dean Valentine, head of the troubled UPN network, had a doozy of a day here. He had to poke a little fun at himself for green-lighting The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfieffer, an abysmal show that was protested by minority groups and reviled by critics.
On the way to a party celebrating Dilbert, he was told that Kate Mulgrew, star of Star Trek: Voyager, had just announced to the press that she wanted to quit and talked about having her character killed off. If that wasn't a big enough fire, the star of DiResta, who was invited to the Dilbert party, came rushing in saying he just had a phone message saying his show had been canceled. (He wasn't happy.) But those were both false alarms. The Dilbert party had a game for critics that was, to be polite, a complete disaster. (Never try to entertain critics with anything other than a buffet and a good bartender - the risk-reward ratio isn't good.)
And yet the beauty of this dance is that the industry is always in flux. UPN has two good new shows in Dilbert and Home Movies. By July, Valentine could be king, mocking his competitors off the record (or on), his good mood helping to keep the salmon down.
(Thanks Ann)
SMALL NETWORKS TOSSING BIG BARBS AT ONE ANOTHER - Jan 11
From: New York Now - Television
By Eric Mink
Daily News TV Critic
PASADENA - The sniping between aspiring networks UPN and WB is starting to sound like the House Judiciary Committee.
"I've never believed there was room for more than five networks at this time," said WB chief executive Jamie Kellner, suggesting rival UPN might be losing up to $300 million this year.
"I think Jamie hasn't met a nasty remark or a half-truth that he didn't like," said Kellner's rival, the outspoken UPN chief executive Dean Valentine. "Those numbers are about as real as 'The Hobbit'."
For the moment, though, with WB's ratings and revenues rising and UPN headed in the other direction on the heels of a disastrous fall-season launch, Valentine is the first to admit UPN still has a lot to prove. Nothing illustrated that better than the Monday-night schedule built around the quickly canceled Desmond Pfeiffer.
"We got our butts kicked," Valentine readily admitted. "The audience told us in no uncertain terms that they weren't interested in the kinds of shows they could get just as easily on other networks.
"We have to try harder to be better, and we think we've succeeded with Dilbert and Home Movies," two animated sitcoms premiering this spring. (Dilbert, from cartoonist Scott Adams and Seinfeld writer Larry Charles, launches Jan. 25 and Home Movies, from the producers of cable's Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist, on April 26.)
UPN Entertainment President Tom Nunan said one of the things his network needs to do is "possess the personality of an emerging network more. We need to be a little bit more scrappy and outrageous with our programming. We need to make more noise."
Yet it's hard to imagine anything louder than the combination of ill-informed protests and richly deserved bad reviews provoked by Desmond Pfeiffer ‹ and nobody bothered to tune in.
"Well," said Valentine wryly, "we may have managed to actually find a show that people weren't even curious about. I guess it just bombed."
UPN: DESPITE LOW RATING, "WE'RE NOT IN TROUBLE" - Jan 12
From CNN
From Correspondent Paul Vercammen
Star Trek: Voyager notwithstanding, UPN's ratings are being sucked into a black hole
PASADENA, California (CNN) -- What if someone started started up a network and nobody watched?
At times, that's how they must feel at the United Paramount Network, which has some of the lowest-rated shows on television.
"I think UPN has some real problems," says David Zurawik, TV critic for the Baltimore Sun. "Couple that with the distribution problems in cities like Baltimore, where they lost their affiliation to a WB network in 1998. This is a network in trouble."
"The fact that they are so small and have lost viewership does not bode well for them," says Jonathan Storm, the Philadelphia Enquirer's TV critic.
So what's wrong with UPN?
Desmond Pfeiffer, a new show on UPN's fall lineup, turned out to be a bomb
Wanting for affiliates
The sixth network -- behind CBS, NBC, ABC, Fox and WB -- is lacking affiliates in key markets, notably St. Louis. And it's hemorrhaging the viewers that once tuned in: Overall ratings hit an all-time low last fall.
UPN's stumblings have been embarrassing, too. The network cancelled The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer, about a black man working for President Abraham Lincoln, in October amid charges it was racist and stupid.
Lincolnesque stovepipe hat in hand, UPN's leader spoke on the show's cancellation at a recent press tour.
"Four score and 15 days ago, UPN brought forth on this nation a new sitcom, conceived in silliness, and dedicated to the proposition that a television show about the Lincoln White House was created equal. We were wrong and you guys were right," joked Dean Valentine, president and CEO of UPN.
In an attempt to lure more young male viewers, UPN is bringing Dilbert to the small screen
But UPN isn't giving up the ship. It's currently striving for an identity, and young male viewers, pinning future hopes on Dilbert and Home Movies, while giving total support to reliable shows like Star Trek: Voyager.
"No, we're not in trouble," says Valentine. "We're in the business of trying stuff, putting it in front of an audience and seeing if it works. Some of it will and some of it won't."
But the other fledgling network -- WB -- is flourishing with hits such as Dawson's Creek.
UPN suffers from comparison.
"The real difficulty here is (that) the ad community may not support a sixth network right now," says Mike Duffy of the Detroit Free Press.
Still, the network's management stresses that any predictions of the death of UPN are greatly exaggerated.
(Thanks Lori)
VALENTINE: UPN IS HERE TO STAY - Jan 11
From Hollywood Reporter
By Lynette Rice
PASADENA -- On this occasion, UPN CEO Dean Valentine wanted to show that the joke was on his emerging network.
Donning a black top hat, Valentine warded off questions about UPN's failed, controversial The Secret Lives of Desmond Pfeiffer by opening his winter press tour session with some offbeat comedy of his own.
"Four score and 15 days ago, UPN brought forth upon this nation a new sitcom conceived in silliness and dedicated to the proposition that a television show about the Lincoln White House was created funny," Valentine said Friday. "We were wrong, and you guys were right."
But Valentine took a more serious tone when answering the morning's first inquiry: If UPN proceeds in the same way it did this past fall, how much longer can it go on? So far, UPN is in sixth place among broadcast networks and suffering across-the-board, double- digit ratings declines.
"UPN will be here way past the time that these conferences are here, and you have to come to Pasadena to have them," Valentine said. "I've made the point repeatedly this year and last year: UPN exists -- apart from whatever the ratings do and apart from whether Tom Nunan and I are sitting here -- UPN exists because of the strategic self interests of the two parties that started it, Chris-Craft and Viacom."
A frank Nunan, the network's entertainment president, admitted that UPN's "big broadcast philosophy" of singling out middle America as its target audience came off not only as "big and high- falutin' " but too difficult to explain to the creative community. He said it has been easier to approach creative execs with specific programming goals for each night rather than offer a broad stroke like targeting the nation's midsection.
"When I can say to them, 'I'd love it if our Monday night could look like Fox's old Sunday night in terms of comedy,' it's easy for them to understand," Nunan said. "If we're going to go Tuesday with all sitcoms that may have slightly more of an ethnic flavor to them, they can understand that. But to get really big and high-falutin' with, like, big broadcast philosophy, without giving the night-by-night comparisons, I think was a bit more challenging than we expected."
UPN did not come empty-handed to the press tour. Nunan announced that midseason show Family Rules starring Greg Evigan will replace Clueless for a six-week run beginning March 9, while Home Movies will debut after Dilbert on Mondays beginning April 26.
The 20th anniversary special of Scared Straight! will pre-empt UPN's movie franchise April 15, and a sequel to this year's telefilm Chameleon will air in May and possibly become a drama pilot for fall consideration.
In development, UPN has tapped Aaron Spelling to create The Strip, described as a younger version of Hotel. Carol Mendelsohn (Melrose Place) will team with Spelling on the Las Vegas drama.
UPN has also made a deal with former New York cop/novelist Angela Amato to create a buddy cop show for the emerging network and has ordered a pilot from Jon Favreau (Swingers), who will create a single-camera comedy Nunan describes as a male version of Sex in the City. Favreau will direct and possibly appear in the pilot.
UPN's afternoon animated block from the Walt Disney Co., debuting in the fall, will feature an animated version of Sabrina, the Teenage Witch as well as reruns of Recess, Hercules and Doug.
UPN TRIES TO HANG ON WITH DILBERT, RETURN OF THE SENTINEL - Jan 11
From
The Seattle Times - Entertainment News
by Kay McFadden
Seattle Times television critic
PASADENA - It's probably psychological and absolutely ungrateful, but even the coffee UPN was serving had no personality.
Still seeking an identity, the baby network came here with another bad case of vagueness following a fall highlighted by The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer and a crop of shows consistently in the Nielsen bottom 10.
Time for the alarms to sound, right? Apparently not. This time, the problem wasn't necessarily with the shows, but with a launch strategy that is so scattered you begin to suspect UPN couldn't whip up excitement with a hotel room, Marion Barry and Bill Clinton.
The much-hyped Dilbert makes its debut on Jan. 25, closely followed - in archaeological terms - by a mediocre sitcom called Family Rules March 9. Another animated series titled Home Movies doesn't appear until April 26. That's it.
Perhaps UPN's parent company has cast doubt on the broadcaster's survival if Dilbert isn't a flat-out hit. And while UPN's potential demise may be welcome to TV critics, it's bad tidings for a group near and dear to home: Seattle's all-important geek demographic.
Where will these folks turn if the network of Star Trek: Voyager goes belly up? Anyone who thinks computers are a viable substitute gets a slap in the face from Jeri Ryan. Say what one may about UPN, it provides an important outlet for viewers who otherwise spend all their time in cubicles pounding code.
In fact, the UPN-geek relationship is likely to get tighter. The decision to keep Sentinel on the air for the rest of this season had to warm the hearts of fans who campaigned long and hard on the Internet against cancellation. The show's original pilot will air next Monday at 9 p.m.; last season's cliffhanger repeats Jan. 25 and the first new episode is Feb. 1.
UPN's highest hopes for synergy with work-place drones, however, are pinned on Dilbert, which will air Mondays at 8 p.m. Having seen a preview, I can tell you it is utterly consistent with the comic strip and viewers can set their levels of interest accordingly.
Or as creator and co-executive producer Scott Adams said at his press conference, "The nudity? No, I think we're all in favor of the nudity. Aren't we?"
That's about as specific as Adams got with Dilbert after critics were warned that the new series is still very much a work in progress. The pilot episode isn't expected to be finished until a couple of days before airing.
But the voices are set: Daniel Stern, best known as the adult Kevin Arnold on The Wonder Years, is Dilbert. He is joined by comedian Chris Elliott (Get A Life, There's Something About Mary) as Dogbert; manic redhead Kathy Griffin (Suddenly Susan) as Alice; Hanna-Barbera man of a thousand voices Gordan Hunt as Wally; and comedian Larry Miller as The Pointy-Haired Boss.
Catbert will be introduced later.
Dilbert is probably the classiest project UPN has attempted in recent memory. Still, the timing may be off; the comic strip has passed its crest of popularity and moved from edginess to predictability, putting it in the comfortable zone of a Flintstones rather than a Simpsons. Ratingswise, network executives would probably be thrilled if Dilbert rivaled either one.
Of course, "edginess" isn't a word one generally associates with UPN. But looking ahead - OK, waaaay ahead to April - Home Movies appears to have potential. (I'm being cautious because Fox watered down The PJs between the time critics saw it and its debut last night.)
Home Movies is, as our press handouts read, the story of the Small family one year after The Divorce. Gifted comic Paula Poundstone is the voice of Paula Small, the single mother of a young boy and a baby girl. Brendon Small plays the high-strung, precocious 8-year-old son, intent on fending off accusations of nerdiness by making movies with his video camera. (Geeks take note.)
The show is from Loren Bouchard, who already has gifted viewers with Dr. Katz: Professional Therapist. Like Dr. Katz, Home Movies assumes the audience is smart. It also manages to combine the speed of The Simpsons with the humanity of King of The Hill; Poundstone is a particular howl as the mom planning her new life ("I'm on the verge is the way I look at it, really").
Clearly, both Dilbert and Home Movies are intended to reach a bigger group than the one that's made UPN a sort of Sci-Fi Channel. UPN, like its more successful fellow weblet The WB, does have other audiences: a night of ethnic programming that includes Moesha, Malcolm & Eddie and the former Fox show Between Brothers, and a night that is part-camp, part-older audience served by Legacy and Love Boat: The Next Wave.
But it's unlikely UPN will abandon its geek core anytime soon. As President Dean Valentine said, "One of the things we've learned is that shows that are a little bit younger and that tend to have a little more male appeal, tend to get us more of an audience."
There's another reason for Valentine to tread cautiously into other areas. Family Rules, the new sitcom debuting in March, is yet another UPN comedy of the brainless, throw-it-at-the-wall variety. Valentine and his entertainment chief Tom Nunan have defended such shows in the past by saying they are trying to appeal to a broad American audience, which is an insult to just about everybody.
Since Family Rules was done on money-saving videotape, though, perhaps Valentine and Nunan are learning to save their dough for more skillful stuff.
Another sign may be future series. Among the projects slated for fall are an action-adventure from the creators of Mask of Zorro; a one-hour spy series from Barry Sonnenfeld and Barry Josephson (Men In Black); The Strip, an Aaron Spelling production set in a Las Vegas hotel; and Quints, an animated series described as a female version of South Park.
Now if only UPN lasts that long.
Kay McFadden can be reached at 206-382-8888, or at kmcfadden@seattletimes.com
(Thanks Sherry)
UPN SAYS IT'S STILL IN THE RUNNING - Jan 11
From Yahoo News By Josef Adalian
HOLLYWOOD (Variety) - While conceding the failure of large parts of his first fall lineup, UPN chief executive Dean Valentine Friday nonetheless insisted that his sixth-place network will survive well into the future.
Rumors of UPN's "imminent demise ... would be greatly exaggerated," he told reporters at the Television Critics Assn.'s semiannual press tour.
"UPN exists because of the strategic self-interests of the parties that started it, Chris-Craft and Viacom," he added. "Viacom and Chris-Craft ... have been unwavering and incredibly supportive even through the difficulties that we've had this year."
Still, Valentine admitted that much of his vision of appealing to the mass audience in between the two coasts didn't quite work. "We got our butts kicked," he said, referring specifically to UPN's short-lived Monday comedy lineup.
Staying in maximum mea culpa mode, Valentine went on to say he'd "be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed in our fall performance."
Valentine said he now understands that "as an emerging network, we have a responsibility to be more innovative and interesting than the other guys."
As for future strategy, Valentine confirmed UPN will now target young male viewers more aggressively, but refused to be pinned to any one label.
Valentine and entertainment president Tom Nunan also used their press tour session to announce several new shows in development for next fall. Among them:
- A one-hour action drama a la The Man from U.N.C.L.E. that will be produced by Barry Sonnenfeld and Barry Josephson.
- A Hotel-style, Las Vegas-set drama dubbed The Strip from Aaron Spelling and Carol Mendelsohn.
- A female cop/buddy hour from novelist Angela Amato and producer Tammy Ader (Party of Five).
- A half-hour sitcom about men and sex from actor/writer Jon Favreau (Swingers).
Nunan also unveiled plans for a new animated version of the hit ABC sitcom Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, one of four shows that will launch the inaugural season of the new Disney-produced children's lineup slated to bow on UPN stations in the fall. Recess, Hercules and Doug will round out the rest of the kiddie schedule.
As for midseason schedule changes, Tuesday night teen comedy Clueless will be rested for several weeks starting March 9 to make room for the Greg Evigan sitcom Family Rules, while DiResta will wrap up its first season April 26, replaced Mondays at 8:30 with Home Rules, a cartoon from Tom Snyder's production company.
(Thanks Jean)
UPN GIVES A GLIMPSE OF MIDSEASON SCHEDULE - Jan 8
Ultimate TV News
UPN announced some of its midseason schedule, which includes a few new series, specials and original films. Also announced were tentative plans for the fall season.
Valentine Disowns "Pfeiffer"
"We were wrong. You guys were right."
Dean Valentine, President & CEO of UPN, started off his comments to television critics with this statement at Friday's TCA Press Tour, responding to the backlash the network received about the failed sitcom The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer.
Valentine donned a black top hat, similar to that worn by series star Chi McBride in the series, while reading a statement written like the Gettysburg Address. He immediately addressed Pfeiffer, admitting that he had made a poor choice in championing the sitcom, and that their Monday night line-up has been less-than-successful.
"We got our butts kicked," Valentine said of UPN's Monday night programming. "The audience told us, in no uncertain terms, that they weren't interested in the kinds of shows they could get, just as easily, on other networks."
Beginning January 25, UPN reformats its Monday nights line-up, beginning with the new animated series Dilbert, followed by DiResta and the returning drama The Sentinel at 9 p.m..
(Thanks Angie)
UPN DECLARES IT WILL SURVIVE PFEIFFER - Jan 9
From: Boston Globe
Donald A Aucoin
Television Critic
PASADENA, Calif. - Dean Valentine, president of the UPN network, donned a stovepipe hat yesterday and intoned a parody of the Gettysburg Address in an attempt to find the humor that was missing in the widely reviled sitcom that has come to symbolize his network's struggles. The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer, a Lincoln-era comedy that ignited charges of racial insensitivity by African-American groups, was swiftly canceled last fall when it cratered in the ratings. It was far from the only UPN show to do so, which is why most of the questions Valentine faced yesterday from TV critics boiled down to: How long can UPN survive?
"Rumors of any imminent demise, to quote Mark Twain, would be greatly exaggerated," Valentine said. "We will not get off the stage till our hour has come, and I think that hour is far, far away."
The embattled executive acknowledged, however, that "we have to build this network piece by piece."
Among the key pieces of UPN's turnaround strategy are a pair of promising new animated shows: Dilbert, which is based on the popular comic strip about the corporate Everyman and premieres on Jan. 25, and Home Movies, the latest effort by Watertown-based Tom Snyder Productions.
Home Movies, whose premiere has not been set, features the same animation style and quirky wit as Snyder's Dr. Katz: Professional Therapist and Squigglevision. Revolving around the adventures of a single mother, her fourth-grade son (a wannabe filmmaker), and a bumptious soccer coach, Home Movies is largely unscripted. Instead, it relies on improvisation by the voice cast, which includes Paula Poundstone (the judge in Squigglevision), H. Jon Benjamin (the voice of Ben in Dr. Katz), and Boston stand-up comic Brendan Small. The lengthy clip of Home Movies screened for critics yesterday was enthusiastically received.
But the weak standing and unclear identity of UPN (seen in Boston on WSBK-Ch. 38) was the subtext of even the most upbeat events during a day designed to promote the network's midseason shows.
Poundstone, in a press conference with Benjamin, Small, and executive producer Loren Bouchard, said that when she got involved in Home Movies, she had to ask: "What does UPN stand for?" Robert Urich, star of UPN's Love Boat: The Next Wave, said he is "glad to be on UPN" but admitted the fact that UPN "can't compete with the [other] networks" in terms of audience size is "a bit of a bruise to the ego." Markus Redmond, a cast member of a new midseason sitcom called Family Rules, joked that he is "waiting for this thing to fall" so he can return to working with producer Steven Bochco of ABC's NYPD Blue.
So for UPN chief Valentine and UPN's entertainment president Tom Nunan, yesterday was spent largely on the defensive. Four years after UPN was launched as the sixth broadcast network, it continues to lose money for its corporate parents, Chris-Craft Industries and Viacom Inc.'s Paramount Television Group.
Valentine bridled at a claim made Thursday by Jamie Kellner, head of the rival WB network, that UPN will lose $300 million this year. "Jamie hasn't met a nasty remark or a half-truth he didn't like," Valentine said. In a later interview, Valentine rejected the $300 million estimate as "way, way wrong," but declined to say how much money UPN is losing.
Part of the problem is that UPN's image has grown murky since it moved away from its early emphasis on shows that appealed to urban, African-American audiences. (By contrast, the WB network, formed around the same time as UPN, has developed a strong, clear identity with a consistent slate of youth-oriented programs.) Some black viewers and activist groups were outraged by Desmond Pfeiffer, saying the show, which depicted a black British nobleman acting as President Lincoln's servant and confidant, made light of slavery. Valentine yesterday acknowledged that scheduling Desmond Pfeiffer was an error. "We were wrong. You guys were right," he told TV critics.
Valentine, who said he wants to attract more young male viewers to UPN, contended it is just one or two hit shows away from becoming a healthy network. Nunan, the chief programmer, said that producers are not shying away from UPN because of its ratings woes. He said the network has production deals lined up with Meg Ryan, for an animated show that has been called "a female version of South Park," and with Homicide executive producer Tom Fontana.
"We need to be a little bit more scrappy and more outrageous with our programming," said Nunan. "We need to make more noise."
Not, presumably, the sort of "splat!" noise Desmond Pfeiffer made.
(Thanks Noon)
UPN GIVES A GLIMPSE OF MIDSEASON SCHEDULE - Jan 8
Ultimate TV News
UPN announced some of its midseason schedule, which includes a few new series, specials and original films. Also announced were tentative plans for the fall season.
UPN: We're Not Going Anywhere
According to Dean Valentine, President and CEO of UPN, the reports of the inevitable demise of the netlet are greatly exaggerated. Valentine said that the two parties that started the network, Chris-Craft and Viacom, have been "incredibly supportive," and that the network "will continue to exist in the foreseeable future."
Valentine and Tom Nunan, President, Entertainment, spoke to critics at the TCA Winter Press Tour in Pasadena, Friday, and the main topic remained UPN's viability as a network. In fact, Valentine responded to a comment made by WB CEO Jamie Kellner on Thursday, when Kellner repeated his belief that there wasn't room for six networks, and that the math seemed to suggest that UPN's days we numbered.
"We will not get off the stage until our hour has come, and I think that hour will be a long, long way away." Valentine said. "There's room, as I've said before, for hundreds of different networks."
UPN presented three new series to critics, including two animated series. The highly-anticipated Dilbert premieres January 25, and the Paula Poundstone-voiced Home Movies debuts April 26. Family Rules, a comedy about a single father (played by Greg Evigan) hits the schedule on March 9, following UPN's hit Moesha.
UPN Gives a Glimpse of Midseason Schedule
By Dennis Mahoney
UltimateTV News
UPN announced some of its midseason schedule, which includes a few new series, specials and original films. Also announced were tentative plans for the fall season.
Dilbert, a half-hour animated comedy based on the tremendously popular comic strip, premieres Monday, January 25 at 8 p.m. A comic look at the horrors of being middle management, the series takes a look at the workday life of its title character (voiced by Daniel Stern), stuck in a no-future job in a deadening office environment. Also featuring the voices of Kathy Griffin, Chris Elliot, Gordon Hunt and Larry Miller. Family Rules stars Greg Evigan as a recently widowed basketball coach struggling with the task of raising four teenage daughters on his own. The comedy premieres Tuesday, March 9 at 8:30 p.m. Home Movies, an animated comedy from the team behind Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist, debuts Monday, April 26 at 8:30 p.m. Featuring the voices of Paula Poundstone, Brendan Small and H. Jon Benjamin (Dr. Katz's Ben), the series is done using a combination of recorded improvisation and Squigglevision, the producer's trademark.
Scared Straight: 20 Years Later is a two-hour update of the classic television documentary. The original one-hour special documented a group of at-risk teenagers on a trip to New Jersey's Rahway State Prison, where they heard horror stories straight from the prisoner's mouths detailing where a life of crime can lead. The update takes a look at the kids and the convicts today. Hosted by Danny Glover, Scared Straight: 20 Years Later premieres Thursday, April 15 at 8 p.m.
Currently filming for the network are special episodes for two of its most durable series. Moesha will feature an I Love Lucy parody, shot in black and white. Later in the season Brandy's fellow teen singing sensation LeeAnn Rimes will drop by for a visit. Star Trek: Voyager will feature the return of Jason Alexander to series television for the first time since the final episode of Seinfeld. Alexander will guest star as an alien. Also in the works is a two-hour Voyager movie in which Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan) may reassimilate with the Borg.
Chameleon, the original sci-fi movie from earlier this season has a sequel coming this May. Starring Bobbie Phillips, the film may act as a pilot for a possible Fall series.
A previously announced series from the makers of Homicide and Oz, Tom Fontana and Barry Levinson, has been pushed back to Fall. Other series in the works for Fall include Quints, described as sort of a female South Park, is the animated story of quintuplets, only one of whom is not identical. Created by Meg Ryan and Heather Thomas; a slick, one-hour action-comedy in the tradition of The Man From Uncle from producer Barry Sonnenfeld (Men in Black); and a single camera comedy from creator Jon Favreau, the writer and star of Swingers.
UPN CHIEF ADMITS DISAPPOINTMENT WITH TV SHOWS - Jan 8
From Excite News
PASADENA, Calif. (Reuters) - After a disastrous fall television season, the chief executive of the UPN network Friday took the unusual step of declaring his disappointment with its shows and promised more "innovative" programs ahead. At the same time, feisty UPN chief Dean Valentine defended the five-year-old network's long-term viability as he was grilled by critics at the Television Critics Association's winter gathering.
Valentine said the network's corporate parents and founders -- entertainment giant Viacom Inc. and TV station owner Chris-Craft Industries Inc. -- had been "unwavering" in their support of UPN, even through this past year.
(Thanks Noon and Ann)
UPN VOWS TO DO BETTER - Jan 8
From: Reuters/CNN Network chief admits some shows missed their mark this year
PASADENA, Calif. (Reuters) - After a disastrous fall television season, the chief executive of the UPN network on Friday took the unusual step of declaring his disappointment with its shows and promised more "innovative" programs ahead.
At the same time, feisty UPN chief Dean Valentine defended the five-year-old network's long-term viability as he was grilled by critics in Pasadena, Calif., at the Television Critics Association's winter gathering.
Valentine said the network's corporate parents and founders -- entertainment giant Viacom Inc. (VIA) and TV station owner Chris-Craft Industries Inc. (CCN) -- had been "unwavering" in their support of UPN, even through this past year.
"Rumors of any imminent demise -- to quote Mark Twain -- would be greatly exaggerated," Valentine said.
UPN is a key strategic piece of business because it offers a possible distribution outlet for Viacom's Paramount film studios and TV production unit.
For Viacom and Chris-Craft , too, UPN provides original programs for their local TV stations, which in turn, boost advertising revenues.
Offsetting those revenues at the local level, however, is UPN's lack of a profit. Valentine deftly sidestepped questions on exactly when UPN may become profitable.
Still, he seemed humble about the network's worst flop of the fall, The Secret Life of Desmond Pfeiffer.
Donning a black stove-pipe hat like the kind that President Abraham Lincoln wore, Valentine began: "Four score and 16 days ago, UPN brought forth upon this nation, a new sit-com ...dedicated to the proposition that a show about the Lincoln White House was created funny. We were wrong," Valentine said.
The Secret Life of Desmond Pfeiffer, about a black butler in Lincoln's White House, met with a storm of criticism from black groups who complained that it made fun of slavery.
The network yanked Pfeiffer from its schedule after only four airings. It never scored above a dismal 2 rating, which translates into less than 2 million viewers, according to TV audience tracker Nielsen Media Research.
The show's performance turned out to be a harbinger of worse things this fall as the network saw its ratings tumble more than 50 percent in the key category of adults 18 to 34 years old and 40 percent among adults 18 to 49 -- more than twice as much as any other major broadcast network, by some estimates.
"If there is any lesson I've learned from this year it is that as an emerging network, we have a responsibility to be more innovative and interesting," Valentine said.
He then highlighted two mid-season replacements he hopes will give the network a fresh, cutting-edge identity that will capture younger, male viewers.
Dilbert makes debut on Monday, Jan. 25, as a half-hour animated series based on the popular comic strip read by more than 150 million people in 57 countries every day.
The cartoon lampoons the humdrum office life of a computer nerd, and the TV show promises that same brand of comedy with Daniel Stern of TV's The Wonder Years as the voice of Dilbert and Chris Elliott (Late Night with David Letterman) as Dogbert.
"We're putting an enormous amount of resources into Dilbert," UPN's programming president, Tom Nunan, said.
The second show, also a half-hour animated series, is called Home Movies, and it is tentatively scheduled to begin airing April 26, just in time for the key May sweeps period when advertisers judge a network's viewership level.
The unique aspect of Home Movies, about a single mother and her two adventurous kids, is that the four comedics voicing the characters improvise the show's story from an outline.
Then, the animated characters are drawn to match the dialogue.
"I've been looking for a project which I can still be on medication and do," joked comedienne Paula Poundstone, who voices the mother character, Paula Small.
Besides the two animated shows, UPN also plans a half-hour sitcom about a basketball coach raising four teenage daughters, Family Rules, as a mid-season replacement.
While Valentine said the UPN's business strategy includes targeting young, male viewers, he also stressed that the network was aiming simply at creating a hit show that would help it carve out a brand identity.
"Audiences don't care about strategies," Valentine said. "Audiences care about good shows."
And UPN could use a few.
(Thanks Noon and Jean)