Yesterday, TV MoJoe offered up some New Year's resolutions for Leslie Moonves and four other famous folks (click here for that story). Today, our end-of-year meddling wraps up with more unsolicited suggestions for another batch of TV powers.
Happy New Year!
ABC network and studio boss Steve McPherson should resolve to make the nurturing of his three surviving
freshman comedy series his No. 1 priority in 2010. As successful as "Modern Family" has been, and as promising as "The Middle" and "Cougar Town" are, all three shows are extremely fragile right now and need to be treated as such in order to ensure their long-term viability.
So just how do you nurture a young comedy? For starters, give the creators plenty of time to map out the second half of this season and all of next -- even if it means the shows don't start season two until October. Don't push to produce 24 or 26 episodes right away, as attractive as that option might seem. And don't decide to get cheap when it comes time to staff up for next season and the studio asks for more money.
In addition, take every opportunity this summer to expose the world beyond ABC to these three comedy gems.
Getting "Cougar Town" repeats all over Lifetime between May and September should be easy given ABC's ownership stake in the network. But why not get innovative and see if Nick at Nite would take a summer run of "The Middle" or "Modern Family"? After all, that network has a stake in ensuring there's a new supply of family comedies in the pipeline, too.
Dawn Ostroff, the head of entertainment at the CW, must resolve now to stop developing any concept that's aremake or reimagining of an existing franchise. She should take that idea a step further and ban herself from even considering any concept that comes from the brain of any writer or producer who's already had a hit show, whether it's Ashton Kutcher or Amy Sherman - Palladino.
Such a pledge, of course, could get Ostroff fired, since it flies in the face of Hollywood development logic (tried and true= safe and sound). But to thrive, the CW needs to become a true alternative -- not just a younger, more female version of Fox.
Ostroff and her higher-ups probably already know all this. The network's biggest success stories -- "Gossip Girl," "The Vampire Diaries" and, fingers crossed, the upcoming "Life Unexpected" -- all felt fresh and new at birth. By contrast, while this year's "Melrose Place" revival was actually pretty well done, viewers just weren't buying it from the CW.
As for banning past hitmakers from the network, the thinking here is to make the CW a home for creatives who have yet to prove themselves -- folks who will soak their entire being into crafting the best possible TV show.
