Jason Katims Quotes

If you're on Thursday night at 8:30, because the history of that time slot has been so disastrous, there's a hell of a lot of numbers pressure.

Many people dismiss morning television as fluff, but the morning hours are where the money is.

I think its going to be continually tougher on the big networks as more cable channels do really interesting television. The big networks have a choice to make: Do we try to be all things to all people and get the shows that will deliver 20 million viewers a week? Are we the McDonald's of television? Or are we going to try to be more specific?

Television is more of a business. You can't take as many risks, because there's so many channels now, and the advertising's dropping.

Unlike productions in the other arts, all television shows are born to destroy two other shows.

NBC programs great shows; it just doesn't have the eyeballs CBS does.

They don't have a lot of appointment viewing. What television depends on, one thing 'Larry King Live' was - whether you liked it, didn't like it - it was appointment viewing.

It is a fact of broadcasting that you've got to get the big audiences for the channel that you're on.

Succeeding in network prime time has gotten tougher. Every day, several thousand homes are wired for cable, and more people are buying videodisks and video cassettes. That all represents competition.

I knew on the day that I accepted my job at CNN that a ratings victory at 8 P.M. was going to be a formidable challenge. As I have been told over and over, this is the toughest time slot in cable news.

The truth is, we have this idea that late night is about creativity and being cool, but that's not our job. Our job is to get as many people watching the commercials in between our show. That's the reality of it.

I really like the way Fox handles their shows.

The entire season, the show had never been aired for more than three weeks. You can't get an audience that way. They would never promo the show for the next week.

There used to be three networks, and now there are 40 million networks. There's a lot more competition out there, too. We would bring in 27 million people. Now, they're lucky if they have 17. I looked at the ratings, for the first time in 25 years, just to see, and there were 130 shows on. There used to be maybe 30.

There are a lot more TV sets in use on Monday night than on Sunday afternoon.

We'll never see national shows with 45 shares again.

The good news is people are watching more video than ever before; they're just watching in places that often aren't rated and aren't monetized.

When it moved to Friday night it disappeared, when they find another show that can do what The Simpsons does, they will be delighted to do cancel The Simpsons.

The financing of all TV shows is dictated by finding an audience between 18 and 49. I have now passed beyond 49, so probably, I am no longer a desirable commodity for TV. And I am at peace with that; that's fine.

The problem with TV now is that there's so much competition, that you're always on the chopping block.

You can make a feature that makes millions but only so many people see it. With a hit TV show, every week you'll have 16 million - 20 million people watching you.

I think it's really good that you have great competition among news networks, and for that matter all the networks in general. It's bringing more and more people in to watching the news.

Good television people have a sense of what television people relate to.

The thing that interests me least about the radio business is the radio business. But I've had to learn a little bit about it. It's not rocket science: You get ratings, that's good.

Television has a real problem. They have no page two.