Latest in HRTS Luncheon

We are at the tail end of a TV selling season that saw more bidding wars and production and put pilot commitments than I can remember, and that isn’t lost on the broadcast entertainment presidents. Survivor‘s Jeff Probst opened the discussion at the annual Hollywood Radio & Television Society network chiefs luncheon…

No big headlines from today’s HRTS luncheon featuring several cable chiefs: FX’s John Landgraf, Showtime’s David Nevins, USA Network’s Jeff Wachtel and BET’s Loretha Jones. Landgraf spoke candidly about the difficulty of making serialized dramas work on basic cable. He noted that viewers seem to watch only reality…

An old tradition is coming back – HRTS said today that it will hold its first luncheon with the heads of the broadcast networks in 3 years. HRTS president Kevin Beggs said that he has an agreement in principle with the 5 broadcast nets for the October event. Once a staple of the TV media scene, the luncheon was…

Peter Tolan’s 2005 line about Steve McPherson, “Steve, if you can hear me, fuck you,” has gone down in HRTS luncheon history as one of the most memorable panel moments ever. But five years later, Tolan was pretty subdued in his reaction to McPherson’s ouster at ABC. “Don’t speak ill of the dead,” is pretty much all he…