ROBERT SIEGEL, Host:
From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Robert Siegel.
MICHELE NORRIS, Host:
And I'm Michele Norris.
Hollywood is consumed with the writers' strike right now, but even when it's resolved, the television networks will still have their troubles. The audience is shrinking. And the traditional model for making money is breaking down.
And as NPR's Kim Masters reports, it's become very, very expensive to make one of the signature products of a big network - the hourlong primetime drama.
KIM MASTERS: On Sunday night, Fox is taking a big, action-packed roll of the dice, the new show, "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles."
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW "TERMINATOR: THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES")
Unidentified Man #1: Nothing matters anymore, only the boy. The future is ours and it begins now.
MASTERS: It's the familiar "Terminator" concept, mom struggles to save her child from grim, time-traveling cyborgs.
Unidentified Man #2: Twenty-nine Baker(ph), take one.
Unidentified Man #3: Guys, take the ledge (unintelligible) with your flashlights, that would be good. Thank you, guys. Here we go. (Unintelligible).
MASTERS: In a Los Angeles park on a Friday afternoon, 19-year-old Thomas Dekker, who plays young John Connor, waits to shoot a scene. The size of the crew would seem more worthy of a big film than a single television episode. The magnitude of the operation impresses even Dekker who's been acting since he was 5 and has credits ranging from "Seinfeld" to "Heroes."
THOMAS DEKKER: The budget on this show is definitely for everything. It's massive. I mean, it's huge. It's a very expensive show.
MASTERS: All the networks are caught up in pursuit of a costly effects-packed hit. That's because of the success of shows like "Lost" and "Heroes" says James Hibberd, a writer with "TV Week."
JAMES HIBBERD: They keep setting the bar higher for what viewers expect.
MASTERS: Bigger special effects are only part of the equation. There's the skyrocketing price of talent, actors, writers, producers. Marc Graboff is co- chairman of NBC Entertainment. He says it now costs about $4 million to make one episode of an hourlong drama. Sitcoms have gotten more expensive too. And that's transformed primetime. Ten years ago, Graboff says, NBC could pack its schedule with scripted programs.
MARC GRABOFF: Can't do that anymore. No network can do that. I don't care what anybody tells you. You just can't do it anymore.
MASTERS: Because as costs are rising, the audience is shrinking, lured away to the Internet. Hits are more elusive than ever. Already this season, the networks have failed with a number of new big-ticket programs. CBS cancelled "Viva Laughlin" after one airing. ABC has had only modest success with "Pushing Daisies," and NBC struck out with "Bionic Woman." Marc Graboff says something must change.
GRABOFF: We got to keep our programming costs under check or else, we're out of business.
MASTERS: Networks are looking for ways to save, on shooting pilots, for one thing. For many years, each one has made 20 to 30 each season. They keep getting more expensive, and still, most never even get on the air.
GRABOFF: Maybe you - instead of going to pilot, you order six scripts. And you read the show and you go, okay, they have a show here. You go right to series. You save yourselves a lot of money.
MASTERS: Of course, approving a show without ever seeing what it looks like is risky too, but NBC has done it with one upcoming series. "The Philanthropist" is from an established player, Tom Fontana, who produced "Homicide: Life on the Street." Another way to save, of course, is cheaper shows. NBC has ordered a block of programming modeled on shows like the History Channel's "Ice Road Truckers," people doing tough jobs in extreme conditions. That kind of program might not draw a big audience, but Graboff says the price is right.
GRABOFF: We can get shows for under half a million dollars an hour. The bar is much lower for what the ratings need to be. You can get closer to cable ratings.
MASTERS: Still, Graboff says, NBC can't swear off big, pricey dramas entirely.
GRABOFF: They're bigger bets, but you got to take them from time to time. To consider yourself a broadcast network, you still have to do things like that.
MASTERS: Graboff says the network will try to offer just enough of the high- priced stuff to hold on to some brand identity, to distinguish NBC from a cable channel.
GRABOFF: We care deeply about the image of NBC and the brand of NBC such as it is. But we also understand the economic realities are different now than they've ever been.
MASTERS: NBC is contemplating other cost-cutting changes, questioning, for example, whether it has to shell out millions at the upfronts, an annual event in New York during which the networks woo advertisers with lavish parties. It's not clear how far the networks will go in breaking with tradition. What is clear is that resolving the writers' strike doesn't mean the networks can go back to business as usual. NBC's Marc Graboff.
GRABOFF: In a world that's on demand, where people watch what they want, where they want, how they want and when they want, okay, then what is NBC? What is any network?
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW)
MASTERS: And to a network executive, that question is just about as scary as cyborgs from the future.
Kim Masters, NPR News.