Lifetime talks about Blood Ties

JUST BEFORE my cold - so cold - CBC Newsworld interview this afternoon, I attended an "In Conversation With..." session with Susanne Daniels, the President of Lifetime Networks.

In a relaxed interview with Bill Carter from The New York Times, Daniels was refreshingly upfront, and pretty confident, about the challenge she's facing.

Daniels came to Lifetime from the WB, where, as an exec she managed to shepherd everything from Smallville to Buffy to Dawson's Creek. She worked with Kevin Williamson before Scream, J.J. Abrahms before he was a juggernaut, and Joss Whedon when his most reliable credit was one season on Roseanne.

So she knows talent.

She also knows talent close to home, since her husband, Greg Daniels, is the Exec Producer of The Office. Now that's one creative household.

She also said something that I've never heard a network exec say ever:

Don't always listen to the networks when they say what they want. You have to develop the thing you're passionate about. She admitted, in fact, that things change so quickly in the network game that you're better off going with your vision, and that networks often don't know what they want.

Wow. Would that there were 100 more network execs who thought just like her.

Daniels has no small task trying to bring Lifetime back. Her impression when she joined the network was that it seemed to be dated, and a little stuck in the past. She related stories about being on a plane and telling her seatmate what she did for a living and getting a funny look back as she said, "yeah, I used to watch your movies." "Give me a little while," Daniels said, "I'm going to try to get you back."

How that's going to translate into a new movie strategy? Daniels was a little unclear on that point. Seems like she's still working through it herself. But she was bullish on the upcoming slate of original dramas they're launching this summer, including Army Wives, which was (according to Daniels) Lifetime's most successful original program premiere in the channel's history. There are two more series going up this summer, which is a big slate for a cable channel. Daniels says, "that's the thing about cable. Look at USA with Monk. F/X and The Shield... You need one breakout series and you can build your whole channel around it."

So the three dramas this summer, as well as a couple of interesting sounding reality series (a Psychic Challenge?) is Daniels' way of rolling the dice to try and bring the viewers back.

But still, it's going to be a bear. Because as Carter pointed out, 55% of the TV viewing audience is female. That's not exactly a niche. How do you program for a niche that's that large and diverse? Especially when ABC is basically doing the same thing?

Now, Blood Ties fans, you've been very patient up til now, so here's what she said about Blood Ties. Late in the session she mentioned the acquisition of the show and used it as an example of how other considerations come into play. "The show did well for us - not spectacular, not a breakout...but it was one of the most downloaded shows consistently on Itunes."

In chitchat after the session, Daniels was even more enthusiastic about the show. Part of the reason for holding back those last ten episodes for October was that they are going to try a real push to build a whole night around Blood Ties. Daniels thinks that the show hasn't reached its full ratings potential, and they can get it there with better attention and positioning in the fall.

It's hard sometimes for fans to understand that the business realities do sometimes get in the way of the need for instant gratification...but to me, it sounds like a very smart and savvy programmer is thinking that she's got a great property that can do better with a little more help.

So loyal Blood Ties fans -- your efforts have paid off. The downloads are noticed, as is the enthusiasm out there. And yeah, waiting sucks, but sounds to me like you've got someone in the Executive Suite who's looking to try and do on her end, everything you're already doing on yours. This is a great thing.

But...

Before you ask....no -- she didn't say anything about that.