Risk management

Last year was a landmark one for US station group Tribune Broadcasting but 2012 could be bigger and better, Sean Compton tells Ed Waller.

Launching a new ad-supported channel and making a high-risk move into original programming in the same recession-hit year could be seen by some as somewhat ambitious.

But not for Tribune Broadcasting’s president of programming Sean Compton, who switched on digital sub-channel Antenna TV last January and then launched original talkshow format The Bill Cunningham Show on weekdays across Tribune’s stations in September.

“2011 was a good year for Tribune but it had its challenges,” he says. “But now Antenna airs in 57% of the country and has lots of affiliates outside the Tribune Company, such as Cox and Local TV, and it’s in eight of the top 10 markets. By creating an emotional connection with people who love those nostalgic comedies, it’s had a positive halo effect on our broadcast stations, as it’s making more people want to watch traditional over-the-air television.”

Offering a diet of classic comedies like Three’s Company, Leave It to Beaver and soon its latest acquisition WKRP in Cincinnati, Antenna is filling a gap in the market left by cable networks like TV Land and TBS moving into more contemporary programming, says Compton.

More importantly – thanks to the digitisation of the broadcast spectrum – the channel has given Tribune a new platform to monetise and Compton is looking to clear Antenna in 65% of the country by the end of this year.

Tribune’s digital channel plans don’t stop at Antenna, however. “We have the bandwidth for other sub-channels and we’re now assessing what opportunities are out there, perhaps in local news or something like high school sports.”

As for Tribune’s other big gamble of last year, The Bill Cunningham Show “had a good start and it has only improved since then,” Compton says. The ITV Studios America production secured a 0.8 household rating in its first month on air; this had grown to 0.9 by November and it now reaches 1.0 in certain weeks. “We’re happy to be back in original programming, as it’s something Tribune hasn’t done in a long time,” says Compton.

This move into more original programming is something that Tribune is set to continue this year, with a new version of the classic Bloopers format due to debut this fall. The show, from Dick Clark Productions, has been cleared as back-to-back half-hours on weekends on Tribune stations in a number of markets including New York, LA and Chicago. At Natpe last month, Tribune and syndication newcomer Bellum Entertainment also teamed with celebrity chef Rocco DiSpirito to launch a new half-hour series this fall. The deal with Tribune also includes existing series Animal Atlas and On the Spot.

Compton has also commissioned Unsealed: The Alien Files and Unsealed: The Conspiracy Files from Bellum-owned 1525 Entertainment for this fall. “It’s very important for Tribune to get more into original programming, whether producing it ourselves or taking it from third-parties. There are a lot of distributors kicking scripted ideas around, and we have been talking a lot about original sitcoms. But it’s hard for broadcasters to unite on something like that as we all have different needs and comedy’s a gigantic gamble.

“Aside from daytime talk, probably the safest bet for our original programming is to air it on weekends, as it’s all upside and very little downside for us. So this year we’ll probably dip our toes into scripted and unscripted waters on weekends with the hope of building up to something that’s strippable in later years.”

The problem with this, as Compton acknowledges, is there are only 48 hours in a weekend, it’s full of live sports all year round and Sundays have emerged as a very competitive night for the big networks. Nevertheless, “I’d prefer us to be trying to bring more eyeballs to weekends because we – and a lot of other stations – tend to throw away a lot of viewers on Saturdays and Sundays.”

Things are also changing at Tribune’s national cable network, WGN America. “It used to be inexpensively programmed, with lots of shows that were shared with our stations,” explains Compton. “Now there’s much less of that, as the last thing we want is our cable network to compete with our stations.”

The WGN schedule is now a mix of Chicago sports in HD, off-net procedural dramas like Law & Order: Criminal Investigations in daytime and off-net sitcoms like How I Met Your Mother and Scrubs in primetime. These comedies, plus 30 Rock and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, are “reducing competition with our own stations and bringing down what was once an older demographic,” says Compton.

As for whether the same thirst for original production that is being felt on Tribune’s over-the-air stations (not to mention all over cable) will soon be felt at WGN, Compton says: “At some point it’ll morph into that but there’s no immediate rush.”