• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

Network Primetime Video--Not at Network-Owned Studios

R

retrothoughts

Fox's biggest hit is American Idol, while ABC's biggest is Dancing with the Stars.

Yet the companies that produce both shows -- each of which is shot live and based on successful TV formats in Britain -- decided, probably for ease-of-use reasons, to use CBS Television City in Hollywood as their origination facility [with the exception of Idol's championship round, which is shot live from the Kodak Theater, where the Academy Awards are held.

NBC's biggest hit, Deal or No Deal, has shifted studios three times in its year on the air, starting at CBS Television City for its first few episodes last December, then moving to Ren-Mar Studios for its early 2006 run before shifting to Culver Studios in Culver City for this season.

Time was, if I recall, when networks would let their videotaped primetime entertainment shows be shot only at network-owned facilities, but that's no longer consistent anymore. For example, in the mid-1970's, Norman Lear's company moved production of its shows, such as All in the Family and The Jeffersons, from network facilities like CBS Television City to the old Metromedia-11 [forerunner of Fox11] lot on Sunset Blvd. in Los Angeles [since demolished].

Anyone have any idea why, in this case, Fox and ABC don't mind their biggest shows being shot live from a competing network's studios, or why Deal or No Deal isn't shot at NBC Burbank? Do they give the show's producers that much discretion on where to tape?
 
I can't really understand either, other than probably some of these facilities aren't properly equipped to handle the production needs or costs of these shows. However, a show like Deal or No Deal could be produced at Universal Studios in Hollywood (just over the hill from NBC in Burbank), since it is a NBC show. As far as some of Fox's shows being produced somewhere, they don't really have a production center like CBS or NBC have, except a soundstage for the live sports productions at the 20th Century Fox studios (where the Fox network is headquartered).
 
Since most of the shows are produced by an independent production company and sold to the network, I don't think it really matters where they stage the shows. Idol or Dancing could have just as easily ended up on one of the other networks. For example, NBC's The Apprentice was first offered to ABC, which turned it down. Not quite the same thing, but its an example of how it might have been different.

Aside from that, CBS' broadcast facilities are pretty top notch. In 2001, when I visited a friend in LA the week after 9/11, my friend and I watched The Price Is Right and the Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn at TV City. As we were coming out of the TPiR taping, there were some audience coordinators (for other shows) approaching the Price audience with offers to sit in on other tapings (the audience turn-out the week after 9/11 was - for obvious reasons - pretty light. We arrived at TV City for the 2:00pm Price taping at 10:00am - and got in without problems, which is unheard of).

We were offered the chance to see The Weakest Link (Ann Robinson NBC version) and Politically Incorrect (then airing on ABC. An aside: the taping of PI we watched was the one where Bill Maher explained his controversial comments from the day before about how the 9/11 hijackers weren't cowards. It didn't help, the show was cancelled only a couple months later), both were taping at TV City. We opted for Politically Incorrect as we were not dressed to the specs of the Weakest Link producers (dark attire was the requirement) and we had no way to go home and change before the taping began.

Later on, I asked a page why Politically Incorrect taped at TV City, while airing on ABC, and was told that when the show relocated from New York to LA, during its run on Comedy Central, it began producing at TV City. When the show jumped to ABC, they liked the facilities and didn't want to move the studio again.

I imagine its the same for some of the productions you mentioned. However, I was suprised to hear that American Idol is produced at TV City. When I visited again in the summer of 2002, some nut tried to break into the taping of Idol, with a gun, during production. Of course, all the stations ran "Breaking News" as it happened during their 5:00 newscasts. The chopper shots revealed the scene to be taking place at TV City.
 
I guess it's because Television City has all their facilities in-house, including post-production, transmission (satellite and fiber-optic, especially for live production), and duplication.

By the way...I think Weakest Link was always taped at NBC Burbank in Studio 1 (former Johnny Carson stage).

Jonathan Allen
 
By the way...I think Weakest Link was always taped at NBC Burbank in Studio 1 (former Johnny Carson stage).
Click to expand...

Dunno. All I know is they hit us up as we were coming out of the Price taping for TWL and PI. I can't imagine CBS allowing production people on the lot who were trying to get audience participants to take the ride over to NBC-Burbank for a taping. <edited to add> Especially since the day before, during a taping of the Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn, CBS producers brought in some Price participants about half-way through the show to fill out the audience for that taping.
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.
Back
Top Bottom