People do have viewing patterns, and you disrupt those at your own peril. That's something that everybody learned after 1988. The numbers have gone down every year since that strike. Big time.

Dick Wolf

Categorized in : Years Numbers Time

The heart and soul of network programming is series programming, the weekly repetition of characters you like having in your house.

house heart character

The environment doesn't change that radically. You are still going to go home at night and NBC is going to be there, ABC and CBS will still be there.

change home night

I do love television. But the business is accelerating and people are not getting the chance to fail.

style business people

And the consumer doesn't care. They don't watch networks, they wa... by Dick Wolf

And the consumer doesn't care. They don't watch networks, they watch TV shows.

tv-shows care watches

It was like in Samoa when they'd put up a movie screen on the beach and show movies and the locals would run behind the sheet to see where the people went. It was pretty grim.

movie running beach

Drama or comedy programming is still the surest way for advertisers to reach a mass audience. Once that changes, all bets are off.

stars drama way

The story drove the book. That had a very seminal effect on the way I saw writing and storytelling. If you can set a character in a story that is compelling and has a backbone, you draw people in.

writing character book

Everybody knows things are not the same. The people running the TV end of a major vertically integrated company know how much money a successful show can make.

money successful running

The threat to free television. The reason television is free is because it is a life support system for commercials. That fundamental aspect is about to change.

support-systems change fundamentals

When it went on the air, the sales department hated it. It was the highest advertising pullout show in the history of NBC. At the early focus groups, people were saying, 'Who are these people? Why should we watch them?

advertising focus history people

You have this disturbing reality that there are a lot of people who would rather say, 'I'm on strike' than 'I'm unemployed.' And those are the people who vote for strikes.

you vote reality people

TIVO executives stand up and say, 'Well, we're not getting rid of commercials, but we are letting them fast forward, because people like commercials, and if they see one that they like they stop and watch it.' I mean, please.

stand-up stop stand people

The ad revenues still go up because nothing dependably delivers the eyeballs that successful series do.

nothing because go successful

I will not tolerate this conduct, especially during our hour of national grief, i am terminating Craig Gore immediately.