Cable Back in a Big Way at TCA

Ed Martin Live from TCA - "Special from Jack Myers Media Business Report"

The cable portion of the twice-annual Television Critics Association tour hasn’t been the same since NBC Universal, Disney and CBS decided to squeeze sessions for new series on their respective basic and pay cable networks into the days of their broadcast presentations. This corporate crunching has done little to maximize the impact of anything that USA Network, Syfy, Bravo, Oxygen, ABC Family or Showtime has brought to TCA. Only Fox has seen fit to give its cable cousins room to breathe. For example, FX deservedly gets a half day or more of its own; hence all those great headlines and all that big blog support for Justified, Louie and Archer last January and Terriers and Lights Out last August.

Not surprisingly, the cable days at TCA were also compromised by the economic crash of late 2008 and the deepening financial hardships that continue in its aftermath. So it is a pleasure to report that, even without the networks named above (all of whom will present panels this week) cable largely returned to form during this tour, offering three days so crowded with newsworthy presentations, appearances by fascinating celebrities and other personalities and the kinds of parties that generate hundreds of interviews and tweets that it may be time for TCA to once again expand the cable portion of its tours from three days to four.

As already reported in this column, the cable portion of the 2011 Winter TCA tour last week began with appearances by Betty White, Ed Asner, Valerie Bertinelli, George Segal and Jessica Walter on behalf of their various TV Land and CMT series. The parade of welcome veterans continued on Thursday with Henry Winkler and Megan Mullally (among many others) from the Web-to-TV comedy Children’s Hospital on Adult Swim; Mark-Paul Gosselaar and Malcolm McDowell from the upcoming light legal drama Franklin & Bash on TNT; Noah Wyle from Steven Spielberg’s upcoming science-fiction adventure Fallen Skies on TNT; Ray Romano and Scott Bakula from Men of a Certain Age on TNT; and former Beverly Hills, 90210 superstars Jason Priestly and Luke Perry from the Hallmark Movie Channel production of Goodnight for Justice. (I’ve been covering TCA tours for so long that I remember when an appearance by those two would generate the same media frenzy that the Jonas Brothers ignite today.)

Hallmark Channel hadn’t participated in a tour since 2009, but it made up for lost time with one of the most star-studded evening events in recent TCA memory. It was the kind of outsize party that the broadcast and pay-cable networks used to throw with some regularity. What made it truly special was the participation of approximately two dozen television stars representing more than five decades of primetime and daytime series, all of whom are involved in upcoming movies on one of the Hallmark networks. They included Doris Roberts, Marion Ross, Richard Thomas, Roma Downey, Jane Seymour, Joe Lando, Markie Post, Luke Perry, Sherry Stringfield, Jennie Garth, Jack Coleman, Kellie Martin, Frances Fisher, James Keach and Marilu Henner, as well Kelly Monaco of General Hospital (who is also known as the winner of the Mirror Ball on the first season of Dancing with the Stars) and Thad Luckinbill of Young and the Restless. Significantly, almost all of these actors are veterans of hugely successful broadcast shows.

As already reported in this space and almost everywhere else, the cable portion of this particular tour will forever be remembered for a number of press conferences and a plush party to promote the launch of OWN. Oprah Winfrey rarely appears at TCA tours, even though she is the most powerful woman in television, so even a few minutes with her generates news. Yes, some of her answers to questions went on too long. (The instantly infamous Oprah Filibuster has been widely documented, especially on Twitter.) But there isn’t a reporter in TCA who wouldn’t be happy to have her back next year.

The Hallmark and OWN parties were preceded by one on Wednesday night thrown by Comcast Entertainment, featuring Ryan Seacrest, Kris and Bruce Jenner, Kendra Wilkinson, Holly Madison and other currently fashionable stars from E! and Style. It was Comcast’s third consecutive TCA party and has become an eagerly anticipated staple of the tour.

Among the other memorable moments from cable’s days at TCA were appearances by new CNN talk show host Piers Morgan; Queen Latifah, on hand to promote the new comedy drama Let’s Stay Together on BET, for which she is an executive producer; boxing legend Mike Tyson on behalf of his upcoming six-part Animal Planet docudrama Taking on Tyson (which chronicles his entry into the world of pigeon racing); Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant and Karl Pilkington (via satellite) generating interest for their upcoming Science Channel special An Idiot Abroad (in which Gervais and Merchant force Pilkington to visit the Seven Wonders of the World); Paul Reubens in character as Pee-wee Herman (also via satellite) to talk about his HBO special The Pee-wee Herman Show on Broadway; James Gandolfini and co-stars Diane Lane and Tim Robbins taking questions about their upcoming HBO movie Cinema Verite (about the making of and response to the landmark 1973 observational reality series An American Family); and two by the indefatigable Joan Rivers and her daughter Melissa, the first for their E! series Fashion Police, the second for their upcoming observational reality series Joan Knows Best? on WE.