Excerpted from MediaPost’s TV Watch, by Wayne Friedman:
With fewer creative minds left to develop TV shows, television programmers have finally given up – they are now entertaining the thought of using advertising agencies as TV producers.
Fox Television Stations has signed a first-look programming deal with the hot Miami, Fla. agency, Crispin Porter + Bogusky, the agency that is the brains behind some of the best advertising campaigns, for clients such as Burger King, Google, Earthlink, Gateway, Virgin Atlantic Airways, and Victoria’s Secret…
Everyone has ideas for TV shows… Why not go to the people who are already producing 30-second and 60-second TV shows? Sure, they are schilling products. But isn’t everyone? Of course, everyone will leap to the natural thought that CP+B, with this deal, is really looking to create branded entertainment for their clients – the faux new wave of TV programming, where consumer products are woven into the story line of programs…
In reality, there isn’t much money to be made in branded entertainment… CP+B realizes it can make more as a producer of a TV show, which can have back-end and merchandising rights, and if successful can be a big profit center for any company, including an advertising agency.
For Fox, this is a no-lose situation – it gets a first-look for anything CP+B comes up with… History has already shown advertising writers can become successful TV programming writers, so there is precedent this can work.
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Whoa, whoa, whoa.
Wasn’t it the advertising agencies who used to produce the TV shows in the first place? Back in the 40s and 50s, I think that Procter & Gamble’s ad agency was producing all the daytime soap operas (hence the moniker). And General Electric’s agency was producing General Electric Theater. They came up with the ideas and produced the kind of shows that would reach the audience they wanted for their client’s products.
A few generations have passed since then in the ad world. But I don’t think this idea is quite out of left field, or even new.