This week, the TV networks held their “upfronts,” the dog-and-pony shows they put on in New York for advertisers as a way to introduce them to the series that will air this fall — in the hopes of getting the agencies to buy commercial time to support them. This is the first chance TV critics have to see them, too, so I invited Eric Deggans of the Tampa Bay Times to join me on America Weekend to find out what he thinks of what the networks will try to get onto our screens later this year. We discussed:
- whether any show made him say, “I gotta watch that!”;
- the return-to-TV of Robin Williams, Sarah Michelle Gellar, and Michael J. Fox;
- how competition has increased with Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon all creating content; and
- which network is most desperate and thus the most new series.
You earn bonus points if you can tell me the significance of the music I used to open this segment.
Listen to our conversation here.
Deggans is the author of “Race Baiter: How The Media Wields Dangerous Words To Divide A Nation.”