Network Programming Quotes

You know, dramas are much more expensive to do than say a comedy, so any kind of deficit like that is picked up on when it comes time for them to pick up new shows.

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

'Fight Master' is a show that Spike came up with. Obviously, Spike has a vested interest in Bellator, which is filling a void that was created when the UFC and 'The Ultimate Fighter' left and went to Fox. I think this fills a huge piece of the puzzle for the folks at Spike, in terms of demographics and what programming they like to do.

It's really difficult to have a challenging male-driven show, and certain networks take off because they have their own mandate about what they want to do.

I couldn't imagine what Fox thought they were doing, contemplating such a jagged protagonist for a prime-time drama. I only knew that I wanted the role very much.

Shows don't reunite because television doesn't work that way. There's no profit model and people go off to do other work.

To understand this whole area, you have to stop thinking like a viewer and start thinking like a network programming exec.

Trump was a Fox News viewer before he was a Fox News star. He learned a lot about the Republican party's base by watching the network and calling into the morning show 'Fox & Friends' while still starring on NBC's 'Celebrity Apprentice.'

After the success of 'Empire' and 'How to Get Away with Murder' and 'Scandal' and 'Power' and 'Black-ish', which all had characters that were genuine, authentic, and had the language of real people, I found myself coming into pilot season and every network just wanted to have their version of one of those shows.

I talk to Oprah several times a week, and I see the side of Oprah that's having the time of her life. What she's getting to do with OWN is build a team to create a brand from nothing.

It's incredibly hard to program a network from scratch for 24 hours.

What's great about cable is that the ceiling of expectation is lowered because fewer people have to tune in for it to be a success. You don't need 23 million people a week like you do in broadcast.

Federal law, implemented by the Federal Communications Commission, helped kill network broadcasts of Scooby-Doo, Bugs Bunny and their modern equivalents, while effectively issuing do-not-resuscitate orders for classics like 'In the News.'

I've been fortunate to work with partners like Weinstein and John and Art Linson in developing 'Yellowstone' and am grateful that it has found a home in the Paramount Network. The show is both timely and timeless.

Upfronts are all about ad sales.

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

Rebuilding a network is a slow, brick-by-brick process. It's not just creating a hit show - it's building shows to back up that hit show; it's creating an identity of success so that people want their shows on your network.

Fox does the NFL a lot like they program the rest of the network. There's sort of a locker room sense of humor that prevails. With ESPN, it's more like a pat-you-on-the-back kind of comedy. I mean, they'll all get on each other a little bit, but it's never mean-spirited.

Anybody who has spent time with the networks - in fact, you don't even have to spend time with the networks, all you have to do is just watch primetime TV - and you think, 'What the hell are they doing? I could run the network better.' And I think everybody feels that way.

In terms of CBS, I think that the consistency for them, it feels like they have a really clear sense of who they are and what they want, and they're able to keep delivering very consistently on their brand, which is really terrific, and I think NBC has taken some really smart and interesting routes in the things that they've done.

I've never been on a show that's run for more than a season.

The last thing I would ever do is try to become a network programmer.

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

If you've got a big star like O'Reilly, it does overshadow what the hard-news guys do during the day. That's the nature of television.

I remember when I did the pilot, and I though no network is going to want to do this. How could that happen? A half Chinese guy walking the old west that doesn't fire one gun and never gets on a horse?