Kudos to NBC for finally breaking tradition and moving into the digital arena and past the old antiquated system. NBC is not participating in the dog and pony show called the upfronts this year where they show all their shows and advertisers bet on which shows they believe will make it. This was necessary back in the day. Now it is another huge waste of money on the part of the entertainment community. With streaming video and DVDs there is no reason they cannot target the advertisers without having to spend 100,000's of dollars, wait, sometimes millions to feed the people, drag the stars out, and otherwise throw money down the drain.
After what recently happened with the writer's strike, why not invest that money in the shows themselves, in the people behind those shows. Pay the writers, pay the directors, producers, and everyone else and stop throwing money away. I only hope the other networks can see the benefits of using modern technology to schlep their product. By taking the time to utilize these outlets they can not only better promote their product they can have better product to sell.
Also, in saving on this process, they can take the time to better develop other shows. Whether launching on the web to try to get an audience first, or ordering a few more scripts from which to choose quality product. They can also take advantage of saving that money to give shows a little more time to gather a following. Much better than canceling them uncerimoniously after just a few episodes!
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What exactly are the upfrounts, and what makes them so expensive? And why would advertisers prefer them to the method that you mention? Sorry, that just wasn't clear to me.
It isn't that the advertisers prefer it...it's just it's "how it's always been done". It a week long shindig in NY totally sponsored and paid for by the networks with huge parties and expensive food. They have a show day and they showcase their new shows, they drag out the stars to introduce the shows (yet another thing they foot the bill for) and the give out a bunch of schwag. It's all just a really big, expensive party. They used to have to do it that way because there was no other way to preview their shows. As you can see with new media, it's not really hard to give them a way to look at the shows without having to do all the money spending....