How was television profitable when there wasn't merch?

  • 🇵🇦 Nuestro primer dominio localizado está en español en kiwifarms.pa. Our first localized domain is on Spanish on kiwifarms.pa.
  • Want to keep track of this thread?
    Accounts can bookmark posts, watch threads for updates, and jump back to where you stopped reading.
    Create account
Destacado
skykiii

skykiii

kiwifarms.net
Registrado
17 de Jun, 2018
So I often hear that in things like children's media, the real money isn't in making the show, its in selling tie-in products. Spongebob's real money comes from Spongebob toys, etc.

But this makes me wonder, then, how shows for adults, like In The Heat of the Night or Law & Order, managed to turn a profit? Those didn't have merch (well, Law & Order did, but In The Heat of the Night didn't, and Law and Order's merch only happened after it had been on air for almost a decade) and even if they did, the 80s and 90s were well before the age of adults who collect pop culture stuff. So where did their money come from?

The only thing I've been able to guess is that somehow advertiser money makes it back to the production studio, but I felt like double-checking.

Does anyone know for sure?
 
skykiii dijo:
The only thing I've been able to guess is that somehow advertiser money makes it back to the production studio, but I felt like double-checking.
Presiona para expandir...
Syndication.

Producers would sell syndication rights to a network, and the network and or its affiliates would sell advertising to pay for the syndication, usually making a profit in the process. Back in the day, TV advertising during especially popular shows screening in major markets was very lucrative for networks and producers alike.

When a show eventually finishes up, the producers / rights holders can continue to sell syndication rights, albeit for a lot less money.

There are TV series out there dating back to the '60s and '70s that still produce a trickle of money for the rightsholders, (as by this time most of the the original production companies are well out of the picture and ownership of the rights were sold off by said production companies years ago. This is why a lot of actors push for residuals in their contracts (and a lot more are pissed off that they never got residuals as part of their contract).
 
Bro of course it was advertising, at least indirectly. The TV station (or at least its parent company) would use various means to measure how many people were tuning into a given show/how popular it was, then they'd pay the people making the show, and advertisers would pay big bucks in order to advertise during time slots when tons of people were watching.

The better received a show is, the more people tune in when it's running. The more people tune in, the more people are there to see ads. The more people are there to see ads, the more advertisers are willing to pay to put their ad there. The more advertisers are willing to pay, the more the station makes. The more the station makes, the more they pay the people making the show.

Edit: Oh and obviously they'd sell things like season box sets of the show.
 
Yeah. Pretty much syndication (Which would include things like box sets.), advertising slots, and the odd donation since that was more of a thing back then with some shows.

There was also a bit of, "The show doesn't make money, the network does." I know this with the history of cartoon blocks on different network sets and things like sports broadcasting, part of the goal is to get nice extras so people are in your network environment, which impacts things such as local sports broadcasting availability. If we're talking 70's and 80's, that was a bit more multi-tiered than it is now, so your local broadcaster is not FOX per se, it might be an affiliate or something, and thus there's mutual profit to be made depending on who picks up your coverage. FOX wants family programming to attract affiliate locals, while the locals want to sell to FOX because FOX cuts the checks with their advertising network.
 
Ultrapenguin dijo:
obviously they'd sell things like season box sets of the show.
Presiona para expandir...
I forgot that part. That started off with individual tapes (often "best ofs") back in the early home video era, dating as far back as when the Format War was still raging. Box sets started popping up when VHS won that war, but it wasn't really until the DVD era when box sets really took off and viewers started binge watching TV shows.
 
skykiii dijo:
So I often hear that in things like children's media, the real money isn't in making the show, its in selling tie-in products. Spongebob's real money comes from Spongebob toys, etc.

But this makes me wonder, then, how shows for adults, like In The Heat of the Night or Law & Order, managed to turn a profit? Those didn't have merch (well, Law & Order did, but In The Heat of the Night didn't, and Law and Order's merch only happened after it had been on air for almost a decade) and even if they did, the 80s and 90s were well before the age of adults who collect pop culture stuff. So where did their money come from?

The only thing I've been able to guess is that somehow advertiser money makes it back to the production studio, but I felt like double-checking.

Does anyone know for sure?
Presiona para expandir...
back in the pre internet times, TV was the absolute uncontested king of advertising.
advertisers pay the studios based on how many viewers they get, studios pay production companies for content to get as many viewers as possible. that was the business model.
 
DumbDude43 dijo:
advertisers pay the studios based on how many viewers they get, studios pay production companies for content to get as many viewers as possible. that was the business model.
Presiona para expandir...
Don't forget product placement spots as well. Studios technically got paid and had to pay off things like a prominent display of a Coke can or eating out at McDonalds and stuff.
 
It wasn't real, everything from the pre internet era is a psyop, that's why all the old footage is all weird and grainy/fuzzy. No one pre internet is real either they're just AI to reinforce your delusions, you're in a pod hooked up to tubes right now.

Sorry I meant product placement and syndication rights when it came to stuff that wasn't clearly easily exploitable like fast food franchise toy options for any kid centric/kid adjacent property. Do fast food joints even DO toy tie ins anymore?
 
Some older TV shows did have merch. The earliest I can think of is the Little Ricky doll from I Love Lucy. Good Times made some money off of JJ's "Dynamite" catch phrase. Lunch boxes, t-shirts ect... And there was an anatomically correct Joey Stivic baby doll from All in the Family. I won't post it obviously. But if you want to google you will see that the doll actually resembles Archie Bunker quite a bit. That's likely not a coincidence. It looks like a baby Archie. :lol:

As others mentioned, syndication made money. But early TV had a lot of cigarette ads. If you've ever watched an old show like I Love Lucy or the 1950s version of The Betty White show with commercials intact, the stars shilled cancer sticks hard. Early television was a big cig market.
 
The most popular scripted network television shows back when I was a kid in the 1980s got literally at least ten times the amount of live viewers compared to the most popular scripted network television shows today so the networks easily got their money back on most shows via advertising.
 
Destacado
Debes iniciar sesión o registrarte para responder aquí.
Atrás
Top Abajo