Fall is my favorite season. While it signifies the end of the summer, here in the Midwest, it is the most beautiful time of the year.
I’m in Chicago at the moment, as Morning Show Boot Camp gets underway tomorrow. And there’s already a nip in the air. If you’ve lived around these parts, you can feel it. So while much of the rest of the country is still sweltering, that sense that “Autumn is coming” is more than apparent.
It used to be that Fall signified the start of the unveiling of new products. Four hours down the road in Detroit where I live, Fall meant new cars. September was the biig month as “The Big 3” rolled out their spanking new vehicles, and the airwaves were filled with commercials, and the showrooms and dealer lots were crammed to capacity with shiny new cars and trucks.
This commercial for the Dodge line – once a major division of the Chrysler Corporation – was typical of the hoopla that surrounded the coming of new vehicles. It’s hosted by Joe Garagiola, former MLB player and sportscaster who went on to become a fixture on “The Today Show” reminding America, “You Belong in a Dodge.”
Not this year, and we know why – supply chain shortages continue to make it difficult on the car manufacturers. But long before COVID, the Fall rollout of new vehicles had diminished. Instead, most started debuting cars whenever they felt like it, independent of any calendar.
That sprinkling of new product at random times of the year may have worked for the industry, but it diminished that focused time when every automaker was showcasing new product. Consumers of all stripes waited for the September rollout, but not anymore.
Interestingly, Detroit is trying something very different this year, and COVID played an unwitting role in how it’s turned out.
The Detroit Auto Show was always in January, typically one of the most frigid months on the calendar. But in recent years, the event lost its mojo thanks to CES occurring the first week in January in Vegas, and Los Angeles backing up its glamorous car extravaganza to November. These shows clearly stole Detroit’s thunder, leaving its Cobo Hall event with fewer cars, but the same amount of snow.
But back in 1960, it was all about Detroit, a hot new season on four wheels, and the “all new Cobo Hall.”
But 60 years down the road, a lot has changed. And that’s why in 2020, the newly branded North American International Auto Show (OK, we’ve got to work on that name) was to be moved to the Summer – better weather, and some healthy distance away from CES and the L.A. show. But you know the rest of that story, and 2021 was a non-starter, too, thanks to the lingering pandemic.
But this year, the NAIAS is in September, and the plan is for a fair amount of it to be outside. Its planning committee is hoping that placement in the Fall will begin a new tradition for Detroit, still a car town more than a century down the road.
And broadcast television has gone a similar route. Once there was a Fall season that mattered. It was exciting. Each of television’s “Big 3” – ABC, CBS, and NBC – pulled out all the stops, often debuting more than 20 new shows each. Here’s a great example of one of their promos:
And that’s why a MediaPost story the other day caught my eye. It had me at the headline;
“Same Old, Same Old As Network TV Tiptoes Into Fall.”
(Spoiler Alert: It’s not a fun read.)
Adam Buckman attempts to highlight what sure sounds like a lousy rundown of new shows offered up this Fall by what he calls the four “legacy networks” – the three that have been around forever, plus Fox. Except Fox apparently has nothing new to offer.
As he points out, none of them has a whole lot to shout about when it comes to debut shows.
His source – the TV Blog – counted 10 new shows period, across all four networks. Not surprisingly, nearly a third of them – OK, three shows – are reboots, including “Celebrity Jeopardy” on ABC. (Maybe they’ll spend the season trying to choose a host.)
And (wait for it…) “The Real Love Boat,” a reality TV version of the old ensemble show on CBS-TV. Hopefully, there won’t be a COVID outbreak on this once venerable vessel, but if there is, you can bet it will be written in to the show’s “unscripted” plot line.
A look down Buckman’s list of other new entrants doesn’t look any more promising. But there’s ABC-TV’s “Alaska,” a drama starring Hillary Swank about a newspaper in Sarah Palin’s home state. (What has happened to Hillary Swank?)
As Buckman wonders, however many young viewers the network has left will be asking, “What’s a newspaper?”
Oh, and George Lopez gets his fourth sitcom this fall over on NBC-TV – one of its two new shows this fall. “Quantum Leap – Lopez Vs. Lopez” looks to be a generational sitcom featuring the comedian with his IRL daughter Mayan. Cue the laugh track.
You have to wonder what the over/under is on how many episodes these ten “new” shows will last before they face the inevitable network guillotine.
Buckman indicates Fox and CMT didn’t even bother. And it’s a wonder why any of them did. This new Fall season on network TV isn’t even a season. They’ll be lucky to dredge up a single hit from this pack.
Back here in Detroit, give those NAIAS planners some credit. They’ve gotten “Detroit” back in the name and they have a new slogan and color scheme to promote their first Fall show:
But what about radio?
I’ve worked with stations before that effectively ginned up interest in their September and October months with some planning, smart production, and creativity. The Fall has always been an odd time, ushering in the holidays.
And once stations start playing Burl, Brenda, and Mariah while we’re still taking down the Halloween decorations, the Fall Book is pretty much shot.
One thing I learned early on in my radio career, “If we don’t make it sound big, they (the audience) won’t think it’s big.”
In a season littered with political advertising – and we know how uplifting that will be – giving listeners something to look forward to may not be a bad idea after all.
At least we won’t be fighting the cacophony from network TV.
Jacobs Media has consistently walked the walk in the digital space, providing insights and guidance through its well-read national Techsurveys.
In 2008, jacapps was launched - a mobile apps company that has designed and built more than 1,300 apps for both the Apple and Android platforms. In 2013, the DASH Conference was created - a mashup of radio and automotive, designed to foster better understanding of the "connected car" and its impact.
Along with providing the creative and intellectual direction for the company, Fred consults many of Jacobs Media's commercial and public radio clients, in addition to media brands looking to thrive in the rapidly changing tech environment.
Fred was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 2018.
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Special Events are Wonderful. So is great, connected, local radio!
Here’s to the New Season and The Return of the Roaring ’20s! Thank you, Fred. 1220watx.com
That Dodge ad looks like the tail end of a full-length promotional film–not unlike what the TV networks in that era were doing for fall previews. (Also, Joe Garagiola at that time was branching out as a game-show host.) There are some examples floating around of elaborate specials that the networks did solely to promote their Saturday-morning lineups in the ’70s–like this one for ABC’s “Funshine Saturday” lineup of fall ’74…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6idpxhd7c4
Also, it’s ironic that the NBC promo is for fall ’78–when that network was really hurting in primetime. (“The Eddie Capra Mysteries” might’ve had a bigger cumulative audience during its ’80s reruns in the USA Network’s “Crimebusters” umbrella package than it did during its original run.) At least “N-B-See Us” was better than “Proud as a Peacock”–which started the following fall.
Finally, congratulations on the awards.
Fred, I remember riding my bike (yep—like Wonder Years Kevin’s Schwinn Sting-Ray) down to the Dodge dealer in my hometown to pick up the new car brochures “for my dad” and ogle the new performance cars unveiled in the showroom. It was a Fall celebration.
“Rock-tober”, anyone?? Do it right. Not just a bunch of imaging. Get the audience to play along. I can almost smell the unleaded gas!
Spot on, Jack. Still love that new car smell!
I remember getting excited about the fall TV season too.
I have to say that 1978 NBC lineup seemed to offer NOTHING that lasted a second year. (“Grandpa Goes to Washington”?) And I guess Disney was on NBC before it bought ABC huh?
It would be nice if radio, commercial and public, looked at some season to freshen a lineup. But calcification seems the rule. But if any public radio programmer is reading this and thinking of taking a chisel to that ingrained dance card of theirs, I, and a number of other independent program producers have shows and series that certainly will have a longer shelf life than “Sword of Justice” and “Who’s Watching The Kids”!
Pick a new season and pick up the phone to give us a call!
Forgive another bit of shameless self promotion Fred. We’re out here looking for programmers willing to take a risk besides “set it and forget it.”
Paul Ingles / Producer
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Promote away, Paul – you do great work. I was taught early on, that when we (in radio) make it sound big, they (the audience) perceive it as big – or at least noticing. I hate when stations actually put the time, effort, and money to produce something good – and then grossly underpromote it. Thanks!
The 1961 promo is a hoot but also ominous. It shows the ’61 DeSoto–the last year for that make. Let’s hope the DeSoto isn’t the analog for the radio industry.
I remember when I was a kid (1960s) looking forward to the new TV shows coming out in September.The goofy half hour sitcoms were always a target of mine as they were just fun.
The new cars also came out that month,so you knew that school would be starting up soon and you had to start dragging the school books around again.
Now with the streaming services,there is no big date or month to decide what to watch.The services just announce any old release date with no fanfare,so there is no excitement.HBO and Showtime still put out some buzz for their shows,always promoting some big date when a new season is to begin.
You are right that (aside from the start of school), we really looked forward to Fall. It’s an opportunity for radio.