Right, what do I know about rights?
With you, the viewer, in mind executives from the main TV channels have been watching a lot of new American programming in darkened rooms recently, as the big US studios including Fox, Warner Bros and the like have brought sample episodes of their new autumn programming to London to show off.
British TV execs traditionally get a preview in late May and early June of the new programmes that start on American TV in autumn (or Fall, as they like to call it over there). A posse of acquisitive heads from the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Five and so on fly to Los Angeles for a week or 10 days to sit in steamy, dark studios watching a load of old rubbish (which, let’s face it, most American TV is) hoping to spot the next Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Ugly Betty. When someone or several people spot such a thing, a bidding war can break out as the the various British broadcasters try to out-do each other and land the show for their channel or family of channels.
But this year, there wasn’t much to see in late May and early June because the writers of American drama and comedy had been on strike over the winter and hadn’t finished enough shows to preview. The annual TV jaunt to the City of Angels was necessarily a bit short and, by all accounts, not a whole lot of fun. Poor old TV types. No 10-day stretch of sitting by a pool, dining in fine LA eateries and being feted with goody bags that cost more to ship home than they do to produce.
Instead, this week and last, the good people of Fox, Warners, Universal and so on have been over here in our very own London town showing that they have, finally, got some new scripted comedy and drama for British broadcasters to look at.
So what can I tell you about who might be buying what and what will be hot or not when the autumn season of new US programming really gets going in a week or so’s time?
Not a lot, really. All I’ve gathered so far is that the Fox screening was a bit shit. Sorry, Fox executives, but even the hyped Dollhouse from Buffy creator Joss Whedon hasn’t gone down too well with at least one buyer of American TV programmes. That said, it’ll probably be on one of our channels within a few months. The people who make these decisions just need to see how it does in the US first.
I can’t tell you anything more about any of the other screenings or about the programmes they may or may not have featured. It’s not like I’m being paid to do this (yet), so my research is necessarily limited to a kind of ‘if-I-can-be-arsed’ or ‘if-I-happen-to-find-out-over-lunch’ nature.
I did, however, learn something new yesterday, which is always nice when you’re starting to measure periods of your life in two-decade lengths.
I learnt that there are such things as AVOD rights to programmes. For the completely uninitiated, VOD stands for video on demand and relates to the sort of (usually online) TV service like the BBC iPlayer, ITV.com’s catch-up service or Channel 4’s 4oD. In order to show anything at all on those services, the relevant broadcaster must have done a deal with the producer of a programme to get the right to show that programme in a video on demand service. Does that make any sense?
Now it seems there are such things as AVOD rights or advertiser video on demand rights to cover programming where viewers don’t pay to watch but the whole thing is supported by advertisers. So 4oD now shows a lot of programming for free but viewers have to watch ads alongside the programming, just like on TV. ITV.com’s catch-up service is also supported by advertisers and free to viewers. BBC programming, which of course is funded through the compulsory licence fee, is free to view anyway and comes without ads attached. Unless it’s BBC programming on a UKTV channel like UKTV History which is a joint venture and is commercially funded so does carry advertising.
But I digress. The point is, according to those who know, it is now fiendishly complicated to negotiate for all the different rights to show programming in all the myriad ways there now are to show programming - on terrestrial TV, on digital TV, online, online as a streamed service (a bit like broadcast TV), online as a download to watch later (video on demand). Etc etc. I’m no expert so can’t expand the list.
And we all thought buying TV programmes just involved watching lots of programmes and trying not to pick anything that’s too rubbish. Like Dollhouse.