NBC's Ben Silverman and Marc Graboff at TCA: It's All About Cars and Stars - Ed Martin Live at TCA

The broadcast network portion of the Summer 2008 Television Critics Association tour has run surprisingly smooth these last eight days given that three of the five networks ABC The CW and NBC had no pilots to show the press prior to sessions with the producers and casts of their new shows The critics have been good sports about it conducting interviews and filing stories with far less information than usual to go onCome to think of it that39s how advertisers did business with NBC last spring or so one journalist realized during an appearance here yesterday by NBC Entertainment and Universal Media Studio39s CoChairmen Ben Silverman and Marc GraboffNBC has been very forwardthinking and boundary pushing these last few months partnering up with advertisers and finding new ways to involve them with program development and execution The reporter wanted to know What was the reaction from advertisers to making commitments to pilots that NBC had not yet cast or shotquotIt ended up working out really well because they were able to get involved in the profound way they wanted toquot Silverman replied Taking immediate note of the mumbling in the room over his unusual use of the word quotprofoundquot Silverman continued quotIn terms of profound way I mean the advertisers39 interest in utilizing those shows as marketing platforms One of the best examples would be the upcoming Christian Slater drama My Own Worst Enemy We brought in General Motors based on their response to what we presented them in April The first things we actually shot were for General Motors with Christian Slater They are going to air during the Olympics GM is also an Olympics sponsorquotGM got involved Silverman noted quotBecause they could see it and read it as opposed to just getting a pilot of it and talking about what we were doingquot GM was also involved in the decision to hold the premiere of Worst Enemy until October 13 at 10 pm because quotthey39re launching a line in midOctober that they wanted the show kind of launching right around In that case without us being locked into something they were able to influence the process and be part of the processquot he explainedApparently the marketing executives at GM are more perceptive than critics at TCA many of whom had trouble grasping with absolute clarity the ambitious concept of Worst Enemy a complex tale about a man with a chip in his brain that turns him into a super government agent by day then provides him with false memories before he returns home at night to his wife and kids His life is further complicated when the inoperable chip begins to malfunction blending his two personas or something like that The producers and stars of the show had a devil of a time clarifying its narrative during their session which came several hours after Silverman and Graboff39s on the second to last day of this crazy busy tourContinuing with the whole cars and stars thing one TCA member brought up last winter39s critically lambasted TVmovie Knight Rider which will become a series on NBC this fall quotIs there a point at which this kind of deal can go too farquot the critic wanted to knowSilverman was direct quotAbsolutelyquot he repliedquotIt doesn39t do anybody any good amp8211 the advertisers the network or the viewers amp8211 if there39s too much product integrationquot Graboff added quotWe don39t even like calling it product integration What we39re trying to do here is integrated marketing in this new day and age where the 30second spot isn39t as effective anymore We39re trying to integrate it more organically with the show amp8230 something that the advertisers are comfortable with and the showrunners more importantly are comfortable with and then hopefully the viewers will be comfortable with as wellquotquotDid Knight Rider go too far in that respectquot the critic continuedquotIt39s about a carquot Silverman explained quotYou could easily see if it was about a romance and it looked like that I may have an issue But the star of the show is a car so that was a case where it felt like lowhanging fruit to bring in an automotive partner on a certain level because you know they39re going to be part of that show no matter how you look at itquotI think when the movie was telecast we may have activated too muchquot Silverman continued quotWe ran a sweepstakes in every single commercial We made sure you knew that there was an automotive partner in that show Ford39s Shelby GT500KR Mustang was featured as KITT the talking car We may have hammered it too much actually It39s all about degrees There39s no question that the reason we39re building these platforms and engaging the advertisers is just so we can fund and finance the highest level of content that we canquotSilverman returned to the topic a while later quotIt39s absolutely not tied to how many images of a car or a tube of toothpaste are inside a showquot he said quotThat39s something we39re trying to limit because that was kind of the old clunky way to do it It39s much more how does this entertainment vehicle match up to this brand39s initiative How do they leverage the access to this entertainment brand and the distribution and exposure we can give it across our channels and where we push it quotIs it really about how many people have been exposed to that brand messagequot he continued quotIt39s much more how many of those toothpaste tubes did we sell and how many of those cars did we sell As technology is driving transformation and how content is consumed it is also going to drive transformation and research and how we quantify success Is it more valuable for an automotive brand to be exposed to 100 million people or is it more valuable that they sold 100 carsquotDespite innovations and the implementation of new concepts quotthe flatline this Upfront for all the broadcast networks still had elements of guaranteesquot Silverman said quotWe39re still negotiating based on CPM at the core still have a scatter market built in for the spring It still follows the pattern It39s just slowly evolving as new elements of those deals require additional work by us on the content and broadcast sidequot

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NBC's Ben Silverman and Marc Graboff at TCA: It's All About Cars and Stars - Ed Martin Live at TCA

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