upfronts 2014

In the 2014-15 schedule announced Sunday before its New York presentation to advertisers, NBC said it will move its freshman series “The Blacklist” to Thursday starting in February — surrendering for now its effort to bring a “must-see TV” comedy block back to the night that once housed Friends and other hits.

After spending Friday crunching numbers and trying to work with the reduced tax incentives in Tennessee, ABC has renewed country music drama Nashville, from Lionsgate TV and ABC Studios, for a 22-episode third season.

ABC has made it official — Dancing With The Stars will return next fall for a 19th cycle, the first with Rob Wade at the helm as he is set to succeed departing Conrad Green who had been the showrunner since the launch.

American Idol, just renewed for a 14th cycle, will return with its original host. Ryan Seacrest has closed a new deal to continue on the Fox reality series, which launched his TV career.

Univision remains the No. 1 network among Hispanics by far and the No. 5 broadcast network overall, but ratings are down sharply this season, for the first time in years. In its upfront presentation to media buyers Tuesday, Univision plans to emphasize influence over ratings, pushing its broad platform including cable and digital and its radio stations.

The network unexpectedly renews Hart of Dixie and Beauty and the Beast but chops two new shows. It’s focusing on comics and slightly older-skewing dramas.

NBC is filling out its 2014-15 season lineup, giving series orders to dramas Constantine and The Mysteries of Laura and comedy A to Z. All three projects hail from Warner Bros. TV.

As part of its upfront presentation, Univision Communications is expected to preach about its ability to reach Hispanic consumers in the United States across a broad portfolio of 16 broadcast, cable and digital networks. Its upfront is set to take place Tuesday.

Marcia Gay Harden announced that the critical darling family comedy would not return for a second season, while Mixology co-star Frankie Shaw confirmed her high-concept entry is also canceled.

Just days before Fox’s upfront TV presentation — as well as other TV networks — 21st Century Fox executives continue to make a case for the Fox network to get C7-based upfront deals from TV advertisers.

A seven-part Ken Burns documentary on the Roosevelt political dynasty, The Roosevelts: An Intimate History, will air as two-hour episodes over seven nights, beginning Sept. 14. Each episode will be repeated nightly and the show will be widely available for post-air online viewing.

After lengthy negotiations, NBC has closed a deal with producer Dick Wolf for a 16th episode of veteran crime drama Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. Star Mariska Hargitay is expected to return.

Fox cleaned the comedy deck today, pulling the plug on freshman series Dads, Enlisted and Surviving Jack and passing on half-hour pilots Fatrick, Dead Boss and No Place Like Home.

The network is ordering lots of new fare to replace shows on the way out, such as The X Factor, Raising Hope and American Dad. To get back into contention for first, Fox needs to find scripted dramas capable of rebooting its Wednesday and Thursday lineups and a couple of  comedies for Tuesday.

The network has pockets of strength, including Fridays and Sundays, where it has improved. But a few troubled timeslots must be patched.

Lee Daniels, the director of Lee Daniels’ The Butler and Precious, is writing, directing and producing Empire, starring Terence Howard and Taraji P. Henson, Fox said. Steven Spielberg is among the producers of Red Band Society for Fox, with an ensemble cast starring Octavia Spencer. NBC orders sitcom Marry Me starring Casey Wilson and Ken Marino; Allegiance, with Hope Davis and Scott Cohen; State of Affairs with Alfre Woodard; and drama Odyssey with Anna Friel and Peter Facinelli.

For CBS to move back atop the ratings next season, it will need to shore up its ailing Monday sitcoms and start finding some new dramas to replace its aging older ones, preferably shows that are not spun off of existing hits.

NBC is poised to win its first season among adults 18-49 in a decade, holding a sizeable lead over No. 2 Fox. That’s impressive considering the network ranked No. 4 for much of the past 10 years. Its win is based largely on sports programming, with the Winter Olympics and Sunday Night Football ranking as the top programs on broadcast this year. But for NBC to remain on top, it will need to find more strong scripted series like its hit The Blacklist, to patch its ailing Thursday lineup and fill out Sunday nights once SNF goes off the air.

JP Morgan Equity Research believes, according to media buyers, that broadcast network upfront dollar volume will decrease around 2% to 3%, with cable network revenues up 5%. However, the best cable nets are expected to exceed that amount.

New forms of video are weakening the ad leverage of some of media’s biggest players during the annual upfront selling season.

Perhaps it’s fitting that, during the same week the Interactive Advertising Bureau declared that online ad spending had outpaced broadcast for the first time during a full year, one of the top media economy forecasters began pondering the impact that new media will have on the upfront. Pivotal Research Group’s Brian Wieser talks about why programmatic may not work for the networks, when digital video spending will come of age, and how likely it is that C7 will be used this year.

While advertisers aren’t getting away from the Nielsen age-and-gender demographic guarantees at the heart of TV deals anytime soon, data from the likes of Rentrak and Acxiom, as well as internal data, will be used to plan budgets and more efficiently determine which networks are truly reaching target audiences. In some cases, this data will also be used to set second-level guarantees.

The Wall Street Journal reports that upfront TV ad-sales season is under way, but competition from video outlets like YouTube and Yahoo is expected to erode the overall volume of commitments to broadcast networks. Spending commitments for broadcast networks are expected to drop by 2%-3%, projects Magna Global. The slightly larger volume of money flowing to cable channels could rise 4%-5%, Magna says. On a combined basis, the firm anticipates volumes will be up about 1%. WSJ subscribers can read the full story here.

Executives suggest they would seek healthy increases in advertising rates when the upfront market for the 2014-15 season begins.

For decades, the main rivals in the annual springtime haggle over commercial inventory in TV’s new fall season have been, well, other TV networks. In an earlier era, broadcasters wrestled among themselves for money from Procter & Gamble and Heinz. Then cable joined the mix. Now all sorts of digital video players are threatening to keep Big TV from wielding a club.

In an aggressive push, NBCUniversal will pitch advertisers on the bulk of its entertainment-focused cable networks in an “upfront” presentation held during a week at one time reserved solely for broadcast outlets. NBCU said Friday it would group cable outlets including Bravo, E!, Esquire Network, Oxygen, Sprout, Syfy, and USA Network into a single presentation to be held Thursday, May 15, at New York’s Javits Center.

Over the coming weeks dozens of cable networks will unveil their programming plans for the coming year, culminating in the second week of May, when the broadcast networks introduce their fall schedules. Things have changed over the past few years. A few of the bigger cable channels, eager to put themselves on par with broadcast, have moved their upfronts to the same week as the Big Five. Here’s a complete guide to dates for the broadcast, cable and digital upfronts.

The micro-blogging giant’s managing director of global brand and agency strategy predicts that growing social media usage will have a direct effect as soon as this spring.