Basic Cable’s Boffo Brand Builder
Made-for-TV Movies Are More Than Just a Ratings Draw
By Mike Reynolds -- Multichannel News, 11/6/2005 7:00:00 PM
The debut of the Lucy Lawless suspense thriller Vampire Bats on the night before Halloween was notable for at least one thing: It appeared on CBS.
Once a staple of over-the-air broadcasting, made-for-TV films have largely become a calling card of cable networks.
As ratings eroded from the time the Brandon Tartikoff-era pic The Day After was watched by half the U.S. adult population, the number produced by broadcasters has tailed off. Now, CBS, ABC, NBC and Fox make fewer than a dozen original movies each year, according to Lifetime Television’s executive vice president of research and TV historian, Tim Brooks.
| Lifetime Leaders | ||
|---|---|---|
| The women’s-targeted service says it has presented ad-supported cable’s 11 highest-rated original movies in their premiere runs thus far in 2005. | ||
| Source: Lifetime analysis of Nielsen Media Research data. |
||
| Title | Date | Rating |
| Human Trafficking, Pt. 2 | 10/25 | 4.7 |
| Human Trafficking, Pt. 1 | 10/24 | 4.5 |
| Odd Girl Out | 04/04 | 4.4 |
| Murder in the Hamptons | 07/11 | 4.4 |
| Ambulance Girls | 09/12 | 4.1 |
| Dawn Anna | 01/10 | 3.9 |
| Widow on the Hill | 01/24 | 3.9 |
| Dive from Clausen’s Pier | 07/25 | 3.8 |
| Mom at Sixteen | 03/21 | 3.6 |
| Haunting Sarah | 10/03 | 3.5 |
| Lies My Mother Told Me | 03/07 | 3.3 |
Meanwhile, basic-cable programming services — reaching, together, about 90 million households — continue to make more and more movies. This year, the makers of original telepics are likely to cross a new threshold: 100 films made exclusively for presentation on cable.
“There were 87 a year ago, and with a flood of holiday films scheduled, I suspect the industry will easily pass the 100 mark this year,” Brooks said.
That may be a milestone in movie-making for the cable networks. But almost as noteworthy are the identities of the movie makers themselves.
USA Network, FX and Turner Network Television — three channels that once made strong marks with original movies (like the latter’s Emmy winner Door to Door, with William H. Macy) have scaled back their efforts, electing instead to focus creative efforts and fiscal resources on series and limited series.
In their place are channels like Lifetime, Hallmark Channel and Sci Fi Channel, which can get significant ratings boosts if their original movies reach 3 million or 4 million viewers.
“It’s a very different landscape … than it was a few years ago,” said A&E Network general manager Bob DeBitetto, a former TNT executive.
“It’s cyclical,” added Lifetime vice president of original movies Trevor Walton, about the changing players.
Today, much of the action is being created for Hallmark Channel, which will air 34 original films and miniseries this year; Sci Fi, which has come out with two dozen Saturday-night movies; and Lifetime, with 17 original films, including its first miniseries.
This trio is looking to establish regular scheduling routines for viewers, drive big ratings for premiere showings and provide compelling inventory for other dayparts or sister services.
For instance, Lifetime shows its new movies at 9 p.m., as part of its “New Movie Mondays” programming. Then, the original movies, such as Widow on the Hill, More Sex & the Single Mom or Lies My Mother Told Me, become fresh inventory for the Lifetime Movie Network.
For Disney Channel, original movies are just another part of its system for making kids the stars of their universe, whether on cable, disc or computer.
Other movie-makers, such as Court TV, Oxygen or ESPN, view films as tent-pole programming that generates media coverage, industry buzz and new interest in the substance of what they do — and cements their brands as ones that stand apart from the hundreds of other channels now vying for attention.
For instance, Oxygen hopes to break through clutter with a movie such as Romancing the Bride, about a mistaken marriage, which stars Laura Prepon of That ’70s Show and airs next month. Court TV took away a George Foster Peabody Award for an examination of the plight of children in the criminal justice system, The Interrogation of Michael Crowe.
TRAFFIC LEADER
But ratings are the name of the game. By that score, Lifetime leads the pack in this record-breaking year of made-by-cable-for-cable movies.
The second installment of the two-part Human Trafficking became the highest-rated original movie on ad-supported basic cable in 2005, when 4.7 million households tuned in on Oct. 25. All told, 5.8 million viewers watched the flesh-trade social drama, starring Mira Sorvino and Donald Sutherland.
In fact, the two parts of Human Trafficking are the highest-rated cable movies of the year — and Lifetime programs now claim the top 11 places in terms of household ratings in ad-supported cable for 2005 (see chart).
“Movies allow us to get to storytelling faster than with series. Viewers can get the complete meal, in terms of resolving the story and TV experience,’’ said Walton.
Lifetime’s movies such as Human Trafficking; Odd Girl Out, which dealt with the bullying of an adolescent girl; and Ambulance Girls, a true story about a celebrity food writer reclaiming her life and marriage via a new job, are designed to be provocative, to draw in bigger audiences and to differ from one another, so the total audience of the network expands.
“You want to entertain the people who come every week, but also [provide] enough diverse stories to expose new viewers to the brand,” said Walton.
Hallmark Channel’s devotion to original movies, such as a Melissa Gilbert search for her dad’s secret past, Thicker Than Water, has also provided a ratings boost. Films have helped Hallmark become one of the top 10 networks in overall household ratings during total day; and it broke into the primetime top 10 in July (see story, page 26). Strong Nielsen momentum has continued this fall.
It’s no surprise that executive vice president David Kenin would look to movies for more of the channel’s programming. Hallmark Channel, at least for now, belongs to Crown Media Holdings Inc. It’s the owner of not just the world’s biggest greeting card maker, but also Hallmark Entertainment, a major producer and distributor of made-for-television movies and miniseries, with about 30 projects a year.
Sci Fi rode the wings of Pteradactyl, which pulled in 3.1 million viewers to become the highest-rated original movie in its history, to its best-ever third quarter and October across a number of Nielsen measures. Viewership among adults 18 to 34 years old, for instance, was up 12% from last year.
Such “B” pictures as Pterodactyl or Alien Apocalypse are shown on Saturday nights as complements to high-profile miniseries, such as Steven Spielberg Presents Taken or Triangle, a Bermuda Triangle investigation that debuts Dec. 5. Like Lifetime’s “New Movie Mondays,’’ these “are weekly must-sees for our core fans,’’ said general manager Dave Howe.
RICHES IN REUSE
Movies also are instantly reusable. Sci Fi’s Saturday features perform well in repeats the following Thursday, generating as much as 70% of the audience as the first time around, Howe said. They also get new viewers once they become part of the channel’s film library.
Still, movie-making is not a sure path to ratings or riches.
Cable’s movie proponents say they spend as little as $1.8 million and as much as $8 million to make a picture. Toss in multimillion-dollar marketing budgets and some networks back off.
“Take $5 million, plus another $3 million for marketing. At $1 million per episode or so, that’s almost the cost of a full season of a drama, from which you can get more airings,” said one executive at a network that has largely retreated from the original movie business. “And you could easily do a full season of a reality show for that price.”
Still, the investment in a movie can be recouped quickly, if it is a hit.
So far this year, Lifetime’s original movies have been watched, on average, by 4.1 million viewers in their premieres, according to the network. For all its primetime movies, Lifetime was able to charge $18.32 for every thousand viewers to advertisers in August, according to Nielsen Monitor-Plus.
That works out to a charge of $75,112 per 30-second spot, or $3 million by the end of the movie. According to Kagan Research, a national network such as Lifetime takes in revenue from 20 national ad spots an hour; or 40 during a two-hour movie window.
That’s for just the first showing — and probably understates the potential.
If a show like Human Trafficking can command a premium because of its subject matter, or the projected demographics of viewers, then it’s possible to pull in even more over the course of the two hours. At $25, for instance, a movie maker could pull in $4.1 million in ad revenue from the first showing, alone.
Still, USA Network — sister service to Sci Fi — which used to promote what it called USA Pictures Originals, is backing off.
“Every time we relaunch Monk, there’s buzz and big numbers and it’s a workhorse with repeats. At this point, we’d rather invest in series and limited series,” said Bonnie Hammer, president of both USA and Sci Fi.
So does TNT. Senior vice president of programming Michael Wright said the network will still make three or four television movies next year, but is now focusing on dramatic series, such as The Closer, about high-profile murders; or, brand-name products like the Steven Spielberg “epic” series, Into the West, and next summer’s Stephen King’s Nightmares and Dreamscapes.
These are the “events that make for appointment viewing,” he said.
Being flexible with scheduling can also be key, said A&E’s DeBitetto. “We may look at four or five, and remain opportunistic if the right script comes along, or look to fill a need with advertisers,’’ he said.
In A&E’s movies, DeBitetto said, the channel is leaning away from historical or literary subjects toward more current and true-life stories. Next month’s Young Knights, for instance, stars Ted Danson as an English teacher trying to improve the lives of children in the South Bronx.
January’s Flight 93 is a nonfiction tribute to the passengers and crew who acted valiantly on a doomed United Airlines flight on Sept. 11, 2001.
Movies can be a channel’s signature — or a way to make a statement. Court TV wants projects that can make a difference in society, president Art Bell said.
Case in point: Chasing Freedom, a film about an Afghan woman’s escape from the Taliban regime in her home country and how hard it was to gain asylum in the United States. The show helped the Department of Homeland Security educate its managers, as it established its Office of Refugee Protection.
Similarly, Court TV won a Peabody Award for The Interrogation of Michael Crowe, which deconstructs the police questioning of a young man accused of murdering his sister.
“We want to be selective and examine subjects where we have the power to affect change,” Bell said.
BEYOND RATINGS
Most movie-making is about affecting ratings, however. ABC Family, which plans to make a dozen movies a year, sees its audience swell 60% in primetime among adults 18 to 49. Disney Channel, with spooky movies like Twitches, had its best-ever October, with an average of 1.3 million total-day viewers.
But Gary Marsh, president of worldwide entertainment at Disney Channel, is not just banking on cable showings, when ordering up movies. Now, original movies are also going to DVD, like their theatrical counterparts.
DVDs of Disney Channel original movies like The Cheetah Girls, starring Raven-Symone, and Cadet Kelly, with Hillary Duff, have sold well, he said. Also selling well have been DVDs of 3, ESPN’s biopic of race car driver Dale Earnhardt.
The Disney services’ movies are being extended into other areas, too. Disney Channel original films are also part of a subscription video-on-demand service offered to Cablevision Systems Corp. customers. ESPN films air on ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPN Classic. And content from future films is likely to start appearing online, at sites such as ESPN Motion.
Don’t be surprised if they’re also downloaded by computer users, or at least iPod owners. As part of its recent digital programming deal with Apple Computer Inc., The Walt Disney Co., for instance, is making episodes of Raven-Symone’s That’s So Raven available for download at $1.99 a pop.
“Kids are media snackers. It’s important that our product is available in whatever form they want to consume content,” Marsh said.
The movies themselves could morph into other forms. Hammer may try to create some action films featuring the stars of World Wrestling Entertainment’s Raw franchise, which returned to USA in October.
“That may be a test for a series,” she said. “We like to keep things open-ended.”
But that could be another case of made-for-TV history repeating itself. Battlestar Galactica first debuted as a three-hour film on the ABC Television Network in fall of 1978.
A repackaged version immediately went into theatrical release in movie theaters across Canada, Europe and Japan. And ABC began showing additional stories as episodes in a series.
This “wagon train in space” was canceled twice in two years by ABC — and then went on a quarter-century hiatus — before Hammer finally OK’d its return on Sci Fi as a miniseries.
Now it has become a series again, and has just finished its second season.
After that, who knows what keeping things “open-ended” might mean?
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