PAX becomes i

[chris319]

Don't look now Mr. Pax, but there's already an "i" network, only it's spelled "eye" and has been around since the dawn of television.

Truth be known, the entire UPN Thursday night schedule is a time buy a la PAX. WWE buys two hours on UPN from 8:00 pm to 10:00 pm on Thursday night and runs Smackdown. I don't know the exact compensation structure but WWE sells ad time and keeps the revenue.

Excuse me for being dense, but while that's interesting in theory, isn't that basically how infomercials work?

An infomercial is a program-length commercial. The client (time buyer) uses the entire time to advertise his product. What PAX will be doing is not unlike barter syndication in the sense that the program supplier sells spots to a third party and keeps the revenue. The programs will be regular entertainment programs (sitcoms, game shows, etc.) rather than program-length commercials.

It strikes me that the last guy named "Bud" who wasn't wholly full of what makes the grass grow green was Collyer.

Not to mention Bud Austin.

[Matt Ottinger]

[quote name=\'chris319\' date=\'Jun 30 2005, 03:29 AM\']

Excuse me for being dense, but while that's interesting in theory, isn't that basically how infomercials work?

An infomercial is a program-length commercial. The client (time buyer) uses the entire time to advertise his product. What PAX will be doing is not unlike barter syndication in the sense that the program supplier sells spots to a third party and keeps the revenue. The programs will be regular entertainment programs (sitcoms, game shows, etc.) rather than program-length commercials.[/quote]
But again, that's the theory.  In reality, are there going to be sitcom and game show producers willing to do that?  WWE is certainly a unique case, and of course they're cross-marketing up the wazoo.  It seems to me that the only people willing to buy time on "the i" are going to be people pushing a product.

[chris319]

The announcement said PAX would offer "a mix of original series, movies, specials, sports, and news". That doesn't sound like all infomercials all the time. It sounds like shows done on the cheap, quite possibly with sponsors and liberal product placement. On broadcast TV there is a home-improvement show sponsored by Home Depot. The below-the-line costs appear to consist of not much more than a daily-hire EFP crew and some post time. Who knows, some of the show could be edited at the EP's home on a PC.

I haven't done a comparison but I imagine the ratings of PAX are on the level of a niche cable channel. If the economics can work on cable it's conceivable they could work on PAX.

[BrandonFG]

[quote name=\'chris319\' date=\'Jun 30 2005, 04:09 PM\']I haven't done a comparison but I imagine the ratings of PAX are on the level of a niche cable channel. If the economics can work on cable it's conceivable they could work on PAX.

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[/quote]

Last time I saw Broadcasting and Cable, I don't think a single show hit above 100, and this is out of like 115 shows, give or take 2 or 3. I think they may average between 0.5 and 1.0 for ratings (maybe even 1.5 or 2), which prolly means "On the Cover" and "Balderdash" would've prolly been modest hits on GSN. ;-)

[GS Warehouse]

[quote name=\'fostergray82\' date=\'Jun 30 2005, 04:55 PM\']Last time I saw Broadcasting and Cable, I don't think a single show hit above 100, and this is out of like 115 shows, give or take 2 or 3. ...

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[/quote]
I get weekly averages for all the broadcast networks from Yahoo!, and this week's article had Pax's viewership last week at 520,000.  By comparison, around 2 million people watched Fox News's On the Record with Greta Van Susteran that same week.  The fact that more people are concerned about the whereabouts of Natali Holloway than family entertainment means that there is no market for Pax.

My apologies in advance if I butchered anybody's name.

[cmjb13]

[quote name=\'chris319\' date=\'Jun 30 2005, 03:29 AM\']Truth be known, the entire UPN Thursday night schedule is a time buy a la PAX. WWE buys two hours on UPN from 8:00 pm to 10:00 pm on Thursday night and runs Smackdown. I don't know the exact compensation structure but WWE sells ad time and keeps the revenue.[/quote]
That is no longer the case. UPN pays a flat fee for the show and keeps the ad revenue.

[Jimmy Owen]

I wonder how much i would charge for the "distribution services."  This is sorta like the idea behind United Artists when Chaplin, Fairbanks and Pickford, et. al., started that company.  Independent producers doing their own thing with UA providing the means of distribution.  I hope this works out, maybe some of the game show concepts bandied about in the past (Rubik's Cube, etc) could finally make it to air.

[sshuffield70]

[quote name=\'johnnya2k3\' date=\'Jun 30 2005, 02:13 AM\'][quote name=\'sshuffield70\' date=\'Jun 28 2005, 01:45 PM\']Alex, you mention, almost in passing, that PAX will continue in some markets on a digital channel.  Currently, TBN is utilizing those extra digital channels that they own to air their two other networks that few have ever heard of.  So, PAX could conceivably do the same thing TBN has done.

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[/quote]
Actually, TBN has four networks: TBN, The Church Channel, JC-TV (which is targeted at young adults), and TBN Enlace (the Spanish language TBN). They also have an Arabic language channel (seen in Arabic-speaking countries), and a children's channel may be coming soon.

Jonathan Allen

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True, I had forgotten about Enlace.  That channel is on cable systems by itself, unlike Church Channel and JC-TV.