Fox Makes Every Minute of the TCA Experience Count

Ed Martin Live at the Television Critics Association Tour

Beverly Hills, CA - At a time when the broadcast networks are looking for ways to scale back their presentations at the twice-yearly Television Critics Association tours, Fox seems to be taking the opposite approach.

Don't get me wrong. The publicity and promotion staffs at all the broadcast networks work tirelessly to pull together their presentations at this mammoth event. This is not a contest to see who can best promote their shows or most pamper the press. It's about making talent and information available to hundreds of journalists (many of them also bloggers), and at this they all succeed.

But year after year Fox always manages to make an extra effort and stand out from the rest, with special attention paid to a host of simple details that really make a difference. Under the direction of its very well liked executive vice president of publicity, corporate communications and creative services, Joseph Earley, Fox doesn't just showcase its programming and deliver its talent. It literally immerses TCA members into the network's mindset and keeps them there for two full days. Its shows and their stars are everywhere.

This network doesn't waste one inch of space or one minute of time. To begin with, on Fox' TCA days breakfasts and lunches are always tied to its programming. During the last two days, for example, critics didn't simply grab a plate of eggs or a muffin in the mornings. On Sunday breakfast was set up to promote the network's two food-driven summer reality franchises, Hell's Kitchen and Kitchen Nightmares. On Monday Fox marked the 20th anniversary of Cops by serving fresh donuts at the start of its day. (Healthier fare was also provided, but you get the point.)

Lunch on Sunday was all about the game show Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? Host Jeff Foxworthy was in attendance and food was served on cafeteria trays featuring the title treatment of the program. Monday's lunch marked the 100th episode of the scrappy animated hit Family Guy. Boxed lunches were offered in thermal Family Guy lunch bags, tables were decorated with Family Guy notebooks and pens and giant martini glasses with olives the size of baseballs, and while the critics ate, series creator Seth MacFarlane and the voice actors on the show performed a live, uncensored table read (the full contents of which could not be printed in a general circulation newspaper).

On both days, Fox turned over the hour after the last press conference of the afternoon to cable siblings Fox Reality (on Sunday) and FX (on Monday) for themed cocktail parties. The Monday cocktail hour showcased the FX comedy It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Danny DeVito and the rest of the cast mixed and mingled with the critics.

While Fox schedules cocktail parties as breathers between its afternoon press conferences and the larger evening parties to come, the other broadcast networks now offer one smallish cocktail party on their first night at TCA (usually attended by a few executives and/or publicists). The other nets throw big star-filled bashes on their second nights, but Fox doesn't follow that routine, either. This week it threw major events on both nights. Its Sunday party was at the hot Hollywood nightspot Les Deux and was devoted to its upcoming New Orleans-based crime drama K-Ville. Night two featured a four-hour extravaganza on the famed Santa Monica Pier, featuring stars and producers from every Fox series except American Idol. Hundreds of interviews were conducted while critics, actors and executives played arcade games and rode the roller coaster and Ferris wheel.

One might argue that it isn't necessary to go to such extremes to familiarize the television press with the people and programs it will collectively cover in the months ahead. In theory, a network could simply load critics and talent alike into a barren room and let them mix together as they saw fit, sans any sexy extras. To the best of my knowledge, however, no area of the entertainment industry in this country has ever been well-served by removing the entertainment value from its publicity and promotion efforts.

I'm not saying the other networks don't do a good job. NBC, CBS and The CW hosted very useful and informative days at the current TCA. (ABC's days are scheduled for later this week.) After long days of press conferences, these three networks threw parties at which their talent truly seemed to bond with the critics. (This was especially true of NBC. Long after its party ended last Tuesday night, Masi Oka of Heroes, Zachary Levi of Chuck and Joel McHale of the midseason sitcom The IT Crowd hung out at the pool here at the Beverly Hilton with a couple dozen critics. And as had already been reported on MediaVillage, cast members from Criminal Minds, especially Shemar Moore, went out of their way to talk to everyone at the CBS party last Thursday.)

I'm just making the point that Fox seems to go farther than any of its competitors in maximizing the invaluable opportunities that the TCA tour provides. And that's of critical importance to TCA members who are increasingly called upon to deliver more and more content to their budget-conscious publications, in the form of extra columns, special features and, of course, endless entries in their bottomless blogs.

Effective network promotion isn't always about meals or cocktails or big parties. For example, during the press conference for the new comedy Back to You in which Kelsey Grammer and Patricia Heaton play bickering anchorpersons at a Pittsburgh television station, Fox served coffee in mugs emblazoned with the logo for WURG-9, the fictional station on the series. During the session for Fox' midseason action-adventure The Sarah Connor Chronicles, which is a continuation of the ultra-violent feature film franchise, bloodied props from the show were displayed in the outer lobby.

In a promotional flourish so simple and obvious it's amazing nobody had thought to do it before, the young men and women who dash about the ballroom bringing microphones to journalists when they are ready to ask questions changed clothing for each press conference. During the K-Ville session they wore uniforms from the New Orleans Police Department. They wore lab coats for Bones and doctors' scrubs for House. They were in military garb for Sarah Connor and suits for the sophisticated legal drama Canterbury's Law. They wore dancers' clothes for So You Think You Can Dance and country-western outfits for the new reality series Nashville, about aspiring young country artists in the title city.

Will all of this lavish attention to detail prompt the press to write good reviews for bad shows? Not a chance, though it might beef up their blogs in ways the networks will appreciate. As it happens, the buzz for most of Fox' new fall series (K-Ville, New Amsterdam, Back to You) isn't nearly as strong as it is for its midseason fare (Sarah Connor, Canterbury's Law, The Return of Jezebel James). It now falls to the show-runners and network executives to deliver the goods. Some of them will fail. But the one thing they will not be able to fault is awareness in the media of the work that they are doing. And that's what TCA is all about.