Post by George WK Newman on Mar 16, 2010 16:28:24 GMT -5
With rumors swirling that this could be the last season of "24" on Fox the question automatically became "will it be picked up by another network?".
One possible home for the show would be NBC, whose prime time lineup is struggling, and has the financial clout to back the show.
Another possibility is the new Liberty Television would pick it up. Now some critics automatically said this would never happen because the financial numbers just wouldn't justify the pick up.
Liberty Television says its way too early to determine if "24" will even be looking for a home next year, but if they are, don't count out Liberty.
"We would explore the possibilities and not just dismiss it out of hand", said Liberty C.E.O. George Newman. "We have even been proactive and floated out an email to our affiliates asking if this would be something that would interest them, because we would need their help financially".
While Newman would not talk specifics one could assume a licensing fee of around $6 million per show, with no right for encore presentations. Based on the show now doing around a 2.8 rating for 18-49 and drawing over 9 million viewers, one would have to think that if 24 on Liberty drew even half that, it would be the fledging network's biggest draw.
The most Liberty could expect to make on advertising revenue with those type of numbers (half of what FOX is drawing) would be $3 million. This would be without sharing any ad time or revenue with the affiliates. One source at an affiliate suggested the e-mail from Newman put forward a budget of $150 million for the show, with $75 million to come from ad revenue, and another $25 million in user fees to be paid by the affiliates, leaving the network with a big $50 million loss leader.
No one is sure that Liberty will have established enough of a reputation to land the show, or to convince their affiliates to pay for part of it.
Stay tuned.
One possible home for the show would be NBC, whose prime time lineup is struggling, and has the financial clout to back the show.
Another possibility is the new Liberty Television would pick it up. Now some critics automatically said this would never happen because the financial numbers just wouldn't justify the pick up.
Liberty Television says its way too early to determine if "24" will even be looking for a home next year, but if they are, don't count out Liberty.
"We would explore the possibilities and not just dismiss it out of hand", said Liberty C.E.O. George Newman. "We have even been proactive and floated out an email to our affiliates asking if this would be something that would interest them, because we would need their help financially".
While Newman would not talk specifics one could assume a licensing fee of around $6 million per show, with no right for encore presentations. Based on the show now doing around a 2.8 rating for 18-49 and drawing over 9 million viewers, one would have to think that if 24 on Liberty drew even half that, it would be the fledging network's biggest draw.
The most Liberty could expect to make on advertising revenue with those type of numbers (half of what FOX is drawing) would be $3 million. This would be without sharing any ad time or revenue with the affiliates. One source at an affiliate suggested the e-mail from Newman put forward a budget of $150 million for the show, with $75 million to come from ad revenue, and another $25 million in user fees to be paid by the affiliates, leaving the network with a big $50 million loss leader.
No one is sure that Liberty will have established enough of a reputation to land the show, or to convince their affiliates to pay for part of it.
Stay tuned.