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 A member profile by Chris Davison, davison@intellcap.com
Jeffrey Bader is Executive Vice President, ABC Entertainment. Jeff began as an intern and his career has since spanned research, planning and scheduling. I recently had a chance to speak with Jeff to discuss strikes and counter-strikes, pilots and psychology.
Q: Can you tell us about your background? what made you want to work in entertainment?
-as an undergraduate at Williams College, I was in the process of applying to graduate school for Clinical Psychology when I started having second thoughts about what I wanted to do after graduation. My uncle is in the entertainment industry, and it always seemed like an exciting field. After working as an intern for the syndicated program "Hour Magazine," I switched gears and applied to graduate school at USC to see if I could get my foot in the door in entertainment. While still in graduate school, I was hired in the Research Department at NBC, moved from there to MTM doing syndication research, and finally to ABC, where I have spent the last 20 years. I started in the Research Department, moved into Program Planning and Scheduling, became head of Current Series Programming, and then for the past 12 years have been head of scheduling for ABC.
Q: What are your thoughts on a truly year-round schedule for new shows?
-if we had unlimited budgets, all the networks would have scripted programming year round. Since that is not the case, the majority of scripted programs will always air September through May, where television viewing and advertising demand is at its highest. However, we are all increasing our summer slate of original programming thanks primarily to the continued popularity of alternative series. This summer, between Entertainment, News and Sports, ABC will have over 190 hours of original primetime programming - including 7 alternative series.
Q: What effect has the writers’ strike had on planning? a possible actors’ strike?
-in a normal year, we work off of one tentative schedule - which is constantly changing. This season, we had to be prepared for the possibility of both strikes. This meant having multiple tentative schedules planned for strikes that could begin any time after certain dates, and go for an unspecified amount of time. So planning has been much more complicated this year. It has also changed the fall scheduling process. Normally, we would be screening pilots for next year in preparation for our fall scheduling meetings. This year we will be screening pilots in July and August, so most new programs will be
joining our schedule mid-season, rather than fall.
Q: How do you schedule top programs and their lead-ins/outs with respect to shows on other networks?
-one of the biggest changes in scheduling in my tenure at ABC has been the notion of counter-scheduling. It used to be that if one network had a strong young skewing show in a time period, you would counter with an older-skewing show. Or if there was a broad adult appeal show as competition, go for kids and teens. The game was to always go for the least-served group in the time period. A show's success was measured primarily by its household ratings. Now, no advertising sales are done on a Household basis. It is all demographics, and very specifically, Adults 18-49, and secondarily, Adults 25-54. What this means is that all the networks are going after the same audience in every time period.
Q: In an age of time-shifting DVRs and 24/7 web video, how important is Thursday 9pm?
-the majority of viewers still watch the top shows live. And Thursday continues to be the most important night to many advertisers because of weekend business. So Thursday at 9pm is still very important.
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