Programming Strategy Quotes

We're not programming to conservatives. We're just not eliminating their point of view.

I don't have any focus groups on talent and programming. If I need five people in a mall to be paid $40 to tell me how to do my job, I shouldn't do my job.

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?

I wouldn't necessarily say that 'Alpha House' or 'Betas' embodied a particular vision of Amazon of the kind of brand or programming they were gonna do. I think those were the first lucky creators who hit it right for them.

I think - no, I'm sure - 'Coast to Coast' wouldn't work with a daytime audience.

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.

There's nothing worse than putting two similar shows back-to-back. Viewers don't want to watch one show and then sit through another half-hour of almost the same thing.

A show needs time to find an audience, and they're very quick to pull them off the air now.

BBC TV gets hold of an idea and beats it to death until we're all heartily sick of it. They buy people without thinking what they're going to do with them. It's the wrong way around. What they should be doing is employing really good ideas people to come up with good ideas.

Our mandate at Nerdist is that we only get involved with nice people around things that we love. We have the luxury of being in the demographic that we're programming for.

Composing a concert is like composing a menu.... If you start with light pieces and play a 45-minute sonata after the interlude, it's like starting dinner with hors d'oeuvres and dessert and finishing with a Châteaubriand and vegetables.

All those things you hear about networks trying to stifle creativity - CW lets creators create and gives us freedom.

Since Chris Albrecht took over the network, I think more and more people are finding Starz. He made HBO what HBO became, and now he's doing the same thing at Starz.

We're going to try to create some programs that are going to generate viewer interest and appointment viewing. We still will have news on Headline News.

I think being a partner with the studios and networks and, more importantly, being a great source for consumers to watch that programming is always going to be a part of our programming mix.

TV is all about schedule and budget, and you're always fighting that.

Networks are reluctant to take a chance. They put on shows that they know will work on some level, but to get the innovative show, it's very difficult.

Even the 'Today' programme involves a balance between the worthy-but-heavy items with the worthless-but-entertainingly-light ones.

I think there are a lot of good pieces that can be covered in 20 minutes that don't need an hour, but by the same token, there are things that need an hour or more.

Honestly, I don't know enough about what's a good timeslot and what isn't. Either you have a timeslot where nobody is really tuning in, which isn't good, or you're in a good hour, and then you've got a lot of competition.

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.

Trying to outsmart a compiler defeats much of the purpose of using one.

And ultimately, it's good for all of us to have more original programming on the air. Business doesn't drive the creative. So, in identifying a project like Dovekeepers, looking at something like Extant and looking at Under the Dome, it was about falling in love with a piece of material, getting excited by the creative direction, hearing a vision, and getting excited about the potential for those projects and building the business model around it. And they're not all modeled the same way. Every one is different.

The beauty of cable is you could program for 18-year-old twins and get a hit show on cable.