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| Reilly demonstrates how to eat an In ‘n Out burger |
PASADENA, CA–Kevin Reilly had so much to announce at Monday’s Fox executive session he actually brought out an egg timer to try and get it all in.
He set it for five minutes. When it went off he set it again.
“TV is 2014 is pretty cool,” the Fox Chairman told us. Viewers watch more TV than ever, across many platforms, but “linear channels are still the driver of it all.”
Reilly’s linear channel so far is flat for the season, he admitted. The problem: “mature shows are down a little deeper than I hoped.”
The X Factor, for one, is way down and may not be back no matter what Simon Cowell says.Raising Hope has also slipped.
New shows, like Sleepy Hollow, were taking up some of the slack.
Fox does have the Super Bowl, which will lift the network in February. Bruno Mars and the Red Hot Chilli Peppers were announced as Super Bowl halftime headliners.
Yikes! Won’t that lead to another wardrobe malfunction? The folks at Fox Sports say no, that seven second delay will be in place and besides, the NFL now takes full charge of half time shows. “It
switches to another truck,” we were told.
Reilly also was buoyed by Masterchef Junior, renewed for next season.
He went after those outdated Nielsen numbers again, suggesting they reflect “a mere fraction of the universe.”
If you just looked at overnight numbers, Fox looks like it’s getting hammered. Reilly tried to deflect attention to the bigger picture, pointing out the big lift some of his shows get in Live+3, Live+7, streaming and beyond.
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| THAT’S Rainn Wilson?? |
Sleepy Hollow, for example, goes from being a nine or ten million over night draw to 19 million when delayed viewing is factored in. Brooklyn-Nine-Nine also doubles in delay, says Reilly.
It frustrates Reilly the programmer, who points out there’s less of a “flow through” schedule lift for his Tuesday night comedies, to use one example.
Still, he’ll take the delayed bump, even though it is not as valuable as the live look more coveted by advertisers.
TV anywhere, anytime may be hard to track, but Reilly says his network values every eyeball. VOD use is up 44% year-to year, he says. Streaming of Fox shows on Hulu is up 55%. “We’d be up 8% season to date on all platforms,” he suggested.
And forget Live+3–Reilly would like Neilsen to track Live+30. He says viewing beyond the first three days is up 17%.
The programmer’s big announcement was that pilots are dead at his network. “Yeah, that’s what they said about Brian on Family Guy” tweeted Minneapolis Star Ledger critic Neal Justin.
Also from Reilly:
- Fox is in negotiations with Bones and he anticipates it will be back.
- Reilly is “bullish” on The Mindy Project coming back, says low numbers are “highly upscale.”
- Fox’s 10-episode, first season of Broadchurch will have a different ending than the Brit version
- Production on Season Two of Sleepy Hollow begins in March, quite a jump on the season.
- Reilly says Dads makes him laugh, wants to see it all the way through the first 13 order.
- If X-Factor comes back it will not be in current form.
- There are ten shows in development at Fox, including Hart Hanson’s Backstrom starring Rainn Wilson (bearded beyond recognition at the Fox press tour party). Reilly scooped this series after it was passed over at CBS.
