25th Annual TV Preview: A Year Like No Other & Connecting During COVID-19
Please note the schedule for the 2020-21 TV season is ever-changing due to the pandemic. The information provided below is as of 8/17/20.
A YEAR LIKE NO OTHER: THE 2020-21 TV SEASON | Cheryl Klear, Senior Vice President
Welcome to the 25th edition of Harmelin Media’s annual TV preview. This year we are experiencing a year like no other and it carries over into all aspects of our lives. Since many of us are working from home and not in our offices, Harmelin will not be mailing a hard copy of this edition.
In mid-March, when the NBA shut down due to COVID-19 and all other sports followed, it changed our TV viewing experiences by eliminating live sports. Shortly after, television production was halted. Many of the season finales that were scheduled for May were never filmed, which caused shows’ seasons to end in April. Several series had anticipated finales that were filmed earlier in the year and were able to air, including CBS’s Hawaii Five-0, ABC’s Modern Family and NBC’s Will & Grace.
Networks quickly needed to embrace creativity to deliver their finales and live shows. CBS’s legal drama All Rise became the first scripted series to air a virtual episode which included an online trial – using reality as a muse, where the city of Los Angeles was under a mandatory shelter-in-place order. For NBC’s The Blacklist, their season finale used a combination of previously shot footage interspersed with animated characters and scenes to create an episode that shifted back and forth from live action to a graphic novel. Reality shows such as NBC’s The Voice and ABC’s American Idol went virtual for their finales. Late night talk shows, morning news programming and daytime talk shows shifted from traditional in-studio broadcasts to virtual and at-home versions.
There were a potential 44 pilots for the upcoming season on the broadcast networks. That amount would not come to fruition as only nine new shows will air in the fall. Two of those were delayed 2020 midseason replacements and one is a Law & Order spin-off. The highly anticipated Thirtysomething (Else) reboot starring much of the original cast, including Ken Olin, Mel Harris, Timothy Busfield and Patricia Wettig, has been put on hold for now. Many of the pilots will air later in the season including shows starring Ted Danson (The Good Place), Dwayne Johnson (Ballers) and Mayim Bialik (The Big Bang Theory). This will ultimately depend on production, which partially resumed in Hollywood in mid-June and in New York at the end of July. Many of the cast and crew of these shows will need to isolate prior to filming and adhere to health officials’ safety guidelines if they are to continue without interruption.
In addition to the network offerings, you will find our write-ups on cable television programs, CBS All Access, Hulu and Peacock, as well as non-ad supported streaming services including Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, HBO Max and Netflix.
We hope you enjoy this issue with our previews of the upcoming television season.
CONNECTING DURING COVID-19: UPFRONTS | Caity Lamb, Media Director
Upfront week – usually a time for glamour, gluttony, schmoozing and a lot of TV talk – came and went this past May without the traditional presentations and parties. Since stay-at-home orders kept many of the industry’s professionals sheltering in place, party dresses were traded in for quarantine comfies and traditional presentations were swapped for Zoom meetings.
Many of the questions that hung over the advertising industry in May remain. What will happen with live sports? Will there be any new programs? What happens if COVID-19 resurges in the fall?
Networks did their best to address these questions over the summer months with virtual upfronts, but information and conversation were lacking. Networks tried to be creative and captivating by peppering in videos of talent to help move the presentations along. But, with production still largely halted at the time of the presentations and major questions remaining surrounding several sports seasons, the content pieces of the upfront presentations were noticeably missing.
The production hurdles currently facing the television industry are unprecedented. Networks are in an alarming position when it comes to content for the upcoming broadcast season. They are doing away with traditional premiere week and will be using fully shot seasons of game and reality shows to fill out their schedules this fall. In what would be an industry first, networks may also look to pull exclusive content from owned streaming services to help amplify linear viewership.
The other major factor when looking around the corner to 4Q 2020 is live sports. Those sports that can easily implement physical distancing saw the earliest return. Golf, horse racing, auto racing, and soccer were among the first wave of sports to return to air in the US, appeasing networks, consumers, and advertisers alike. NHL, NBA and MLB were part of the second wave of sports returning mid-summer with adjustments including modified schedules, no fans in the stadiums, and several leagues agreeing to hub cities to create a bubble-like quarantine zone.
Football remains a question mark. At the college level, Big Ten, Pac-12 and Ivy League teams have canceled their full seasons. Other conferences have canceled any non-conference games and non-conference teams, like Notre Dame, are seeking one-year adoption into a conference for a chance to play. But the reality for most college athletes is that they will not have access to the same resources in terms of COVID-19 prevention and protection as do professional athletes.
At the professional level, however, it’s anticipated that the football season will occur in full, given financial implications to the NFL. There is A LOT of money on the line, with $4.48 billion spent on television ads in the 2019 NFL regular season alone! At this time, details of what the season will look like are still being worked out.
While the advertising industry has felt the impact of the pandemic, we have adapted. We are a unique community – an aggregate of a multitude of professions. From automotive to tourism to healthcare and beyond, the pulse of our nation is palpable through our clients’ business. At Harmelin, we feel the pressure and the loss, as well as the drive and optimism propelling us onward. We are an industry of creators, thought leaders, developers, and negotiators – and there is no doubt that a new way forward will be established. While Upfront week may never again be the same, we can be certain that Harmelin’s support of its clients and our dedication to helping move our piece of the recovery effort forward will remain unwavering.
COVID-19 may have changed nearly everything, but it won’t change that.