Family friendly TV group growing at its 5th anniversary (COMPANY FRIENDLY)

[Khephra]

By DAVID BAUDER
AP Television Writer

June 27, 2004, 12:03 PM EDT


NEW YORK -- Frustrated by a paucity of family-oriented TV programs where she felt comfortable placing her company's commercials, Pfizer's Kaki Hinton met for lunch five years ago with executives at nine other corporations who had similar complaints.

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Instead, it was the birth of a group, the Family Friendly Programming Forum, that can claim a real impact on the kind of shows that the major broadcast networks are airing.

The forum provided seed money to help develop seven programs on the networks' fall schedule (four holdovers and three new series).

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The advertisers who founded the forum _ including Johnson & Johnson, Kellogg, IBM, Sears and Coca-Cola _ had no idea how to promote alternatives until hearing an idea from Jamie Kellner, then chief executive of the WB network.

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The WB submitted nine scripts that first year, the only network to participate.

This year, the forum reviewed 51 scripts sent in by ABC, CBS, NBC and the WB, Hinton said. Thirty-seven scripts received money, generally $45,000 to $75,000. If one of those scripts becomes a show that makes it to air, as happened three times this year, the advertisers are reimbursed. A pilot episode for a scripted series often costs about $1 million to produce.

more...................

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/ny-bc-ny--familyfriendly0627jun27,0,1612236.story?coll=ny-ap-regional-wire

There are so many reasons why this is dangerous that it's silly! Who needs censors when companies start having a say in what gets made and what doesn't get made? Oh, and don't think that giving the studios money doesn't compare to censorship--think again. Because the studios will get money for making Corporate/Family TV, guess what else won't be getting made?

If you don't believe me, look at how many "reality tv" shows are on right now. The key word here is CHEAP. If you can make a show on the cheap and turn a profit then fuck artistic merit.

[Khephra]

1. kick

[BiggJawn]

2. Pfizer???? "Family Friendly"?????

This is the same Pfizer who assaults my eyeballs daily with images of insanely gleeful old fat white men and their newly-reborn BONERS?????

" Frustrated by a paucity of family-oriented TV programs where she felt comfortable placing her company's commercials"

Well, I guess you could argue that you can't have "family friendly" programming without a family, and that it takes a boner to make a family.....