The ABC Upfront: Chicago-Style - Married to the Media

For those of us at Chicago agencies the Upfronts are hosted by our local network affiliates They pick up a satellite feed from the New York presentation so we39re seeing exactly what New York sees in real time The station will host one big presentation in some large local meeting place so that all invitees throughout the Chicago ad community can see the show and network with the sales reps and each other all at once The ABC upfront is hosted by our local ABC affiliate Channel 7 Our Channel 7 news team gained a bit of notoriety this winter when an attentionseeking disturbed motorist quite purposely I might add crashed through their onthestreet studio a few days before Xmas Many of the local anchors were in attendance at the event today and were willing to take pictures and chat with fans Channel 739s studios are directly across the street from the legendary Chicago Theatre and just a few doors down from the Gene Siskel Theatre a six screen theatre that primarily shows art movies In past years Channel 7 has hosted the Upfront there There were very nice snacks when you arrived Then just as the presentation was about to begin you selected your favorite movie candy and beverage took a seat in one of the theatres and watched the show It was comfy fun and close to my office but not very sociable This year Channel 7 hosted the event at the ESPN Zone a huge sports bar in the River North area And I imagine a quotone hand feeding the otherquot intercompany financially driven locale choice The Zone is a fun place with great burgers that I39ve gone to for many a March Madness lunch throughout the years The entire upstairs area is called quotThe Screening Roomquot Separated from the rest of the restaurant and with its own bar it is designed to look like the ESPN control room in Bristol CT and sports multiple screensamp8230 a Big screen flanked by six smaller ones on each side as well as screens over the bar and in smaller side rooms Every screen was tuned to the presentation this afternoon and the room was packed with folks from all over Chicago adland Drinks were available but most imbibed on water soda and iced tea Sports bar snacks were the order of the day things like ribs chicken fingers miniburgers chips and salsa spinach dip etc We all know that the New York shows are pared down this year None of the nets are hosting the big afterparties of years past and the presentations themselves are streamlined much to the better if you ask me The production numbers the singing and dancing the quotstar appearancesquot which always seemed so forced and uncomfortable it was clear the stars hated doing them are all gone Gone too are most of the clips of the new shows The strike decimated the pilot season so many of the shows making the fall schedule are just producing pilots now For this goround we are going to have to make our judgments about new shows via scripts and synopses The show still began in the traditional fashion with a montage of clips of shows old and new ABC39s tagline is still quotStart Herequot just as it was last year The execs still come out and do their little talks Anne Sweeney talked about how many newly launched shows from last year became successes She touted ABC39s content quotThe content audiences wantquot and talked of how they can leverage Disney and ESPN to bring popular content for all ages and demos to audiences on air on line or wherever they would like to consume it No ABC upfront is complete without Jimmy Kimmel They didn39t have Jimmy quotcracking wisequot about audience behavior in NY preshow something VERY funny that I must admit I missed this year But they still showed clips of Jimmy both from his show and from his VERY popular videos on YouTube If you haven39t seen them click to read Ed Martin39s commentary with the links to the YouTube videos VERY funny Jimmy then came out on stage and did a few minutes poking fun at his own net and the competitors Then it was on to Mike Shaw there to deliver the numbers and from there to Steve McPherson for the schedule Steve didn39t dance this year and was able to cruise through the schedule pretty quickly thanks to few clips and only two new shows added to the fall schedule Click Here to ABC39s Fall ScheduleABC39s only two new shows for the fall are Ashton Kutcher produced Opportunity Knocks which takes the game show to the family instead of making the family come to it Ashton knocks on some family39s door quotPublishers Clearing Housestylequot and announces that they are the family dujour A game show set is quickly built in their neighborhood and they are the contestants with their neighbors in attendance The family can win big prizes if they can answer questions and complete silly tasks one clip had little brother having to find big sis39s diary in 45 secondsamp8230 he did it easily New show 2 is Life on Mars which is Journeyman meets Hill Street Blues Present day cop is hit by a car which transports him magically to 1972 where he finds himself in a very quotFrankFurilloquot like squad He39ll have to quotbe careful out therequot solving crimes without the 2008 technology we39re used to today quotWhat39s DNAquot his new colleagues ask him in one scene Journeyman seemed better to me and it didn39t last longamp8230 The rest of the shows are very familiar to us all so I won39t go into them here The rumored timeperiod switch between Dirty Sexy Money and Brothers and Sisters did not happen at least not for Fall For MidSeason ABC tells us they have ordered 20 pilots more than any other net They are still committed to the pilot process saying that doing anything else would be like GM going into production on 700000 cars based on nothing but a sketch no prototype no testing Most pilots are not complete so we only were able to see three short clips of a few of the midseason showsFour Play is based on the real writers39 lives and relationship They are two men BFF39s since high school one gay one straight and their significant others They work in Venice in the entertainment biz The Goode Family is animated by the Beavis and Butthead team and covers a Vegan quotWhole Foodsquot Family trying to be PC in every way In the Motherhood is a popular online show making it to the airwaves telling real stories of the real trials and tribs of real moms Looked funny Summer looks to be filled with reality just like the other nets One show truly appalled me It39s called WipeOut From all appearances it features people willing to become human pinballs in a lifesize pinball machineobstacle course for the chance at 50000 If someone doesn39t get seriously injured I39ll be really surprised I Survived a Japanese GameShow had a similar quotYou39ve got to be kidding mequot vibe Personally I39m awfully darn glad Mad Men returns for a second season this summer This will probably be the only upfront I get to this year Fox downsized their Chicago presentation quite a bit and duty looks like it will call me away from the CBS one on Wednesday ABC sent me off with a fine treat however They ended the show with a little taste from the three hour LOST Finale It made me weep I can hardly wait PS The entire presentation as well as clips and synopses of all the shows in development are available on wwwabcstagepasscom

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The ABC Upfront: Chicago-Style - Married to the Media

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MAREN YESKA

"About That with Carl Mayer:" Alaina Donnellon (Episode 10: Political Spending) - By Carl Mayer

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The ABC Upfront: Chicago-Style - Married to the Media

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