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 we're 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 attention-seeking, disturbed motorist, quite purposely I might add, crashed through their on-the-street 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 7's 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 "one hand feeding the other" intercompany financially driven locale choice.) The Zone is a fun place with great burgers that I've gone to for many a March Madness lunch throughout the years. The entire upstairs area is called "The Screening Room". 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 screens… 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 ad-land. 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, mini-burgers, 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 after-parties 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 "star appearances" (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 go-round, 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. ABC's tagline is still "Start Here", 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 ABC's content - "The content audiences want", 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 didn't have Jimmy "cracking wise" about audience behavior in NY pre-show, 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 haven't seen them, click to read Ed Martin's 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 didn't 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 ABC's Fall Schedule

ABC's 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 family's door, "Publishers Clearing House-style" and announces that they are the family du-jour. 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 sis's diary in 45 seconds… 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 "FrankFurillo" like squad. He'll have to "be careful out there" solving crimes without the 2008 technology we're used to today. "What's DNA", his new colleagues ask him in one scene. Journeyman seemed better to me, and it didn't last long…

The rest of the shows are very familiar to us all, so I won't go into them here. The rumored time-period switch between Dirty, Sexy Money and Brothers and Sisters did not happen, at least not for Fall.

For Mid-Season, 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 700,000 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 mid-season shows.

Four Play is based on the real writers' lives and relationship. They are two men, BFF's 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 "Whole Foods" 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. It's called WipeOut. From all appearances, it features people willing to become human pinballs in a life-size pinball machine/obstacle course for the chance at $50,000. If someone doesn't get seriously injured, I'll be really surprised. I Survived a Japanese GameShow had a similar "You've got to be kidding me!" vibe. Personally, I'm 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.

P.S. The entire presentation, as well as clips and synopses of all the shows in development are available on www.abcstagepass.com.