TV execs fret over rerun tumble

Television executives are concerned about the near collapse of ratings for television reruns this summer, which have been overtaken by game and reality shows. As Monday’s New York Times observed, the executives are worried that viewers’ rejection of reruns may affect the economic model for network television, that is, getting at least two runs out of every series episode each year. “We have to address it,” NBC Entertainment president Jeff Zucker told the newspaper. “We may have to go to an economic model where second runs of some of these programs, particularly dramas, are on cable or elsewhere and not on network television in the summer. I think this is going to force a lot of thinking like that.” Lloyd Braun, co-chairman of ABC Entertainment, which clobbered reruns with Who Wants to Be a Millionaire last year and thereby helped give rise to the plethora of nighttime game and reality shows this season, remarked: “We’ve created an expectation that didn’t exist before, and it has made the job of getting the audience to watch reruns much more difficult.”