Exclusives
In a unique social TV partnership, TVGuide.com has replicated USA Network’s second-screen experience, Character Chatter, onto its site. Viewers who visit TVGuide’s summer preview section can participate in real-time social conversations around USA shows like Burn Notice and Covert Affairs, just like they can on USANetwork.com.
USA Network is working to shake up its image as the “blue-skies drama” channel with a new push into reality programming this summer and half-hour comedies further down the road.
President Barack Obama will provide a special introduction to USA Network’s 50th anniversary airing of the 1962 film adaptation of Harper Lee’s novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, airing Saturday at 8 p.m.
When it comes to shows gaining the most from time-shifting, cable TV series programs see the biggest hikes — with the top shows gaining almost the same number of live viewers. Most engaging? Some lower-rated shows score well in this area.
The No. 1 cable network will join its broadcast rivals with a Mid-May presentation at Lincoln Center.
Compared with the summer of 2009, its highest-rated so far, the channel lost 4% of its primetime viewers in 2010 and, more troublingly, nearly 10% of the 18-49 viewers that advertisers pay a premium to reach. So this summer, the channel spread the new seasons of its sunny and optimistic dramas across more nights than before and added two shows, Suits and Necessary Roughness, that were slightly more provocative than past shows.
In an interview Tuesday at the NAB Show, CBS CEO Leslie Moonves took issue with the value of USA Network, warned the government to stay out of his business, and said he is worried about technology cannibalizing his core business.
Jeff Wachtel, the longtime president of original programming, and Chris McCumber, the head of marketing and digital strategy, have been promoted to co-presidents of the USA Network, the most profitable network in the NBCU constellation.
