Author: Marisa Guthrie

NBCU Photo Bank

Robert Gallup

A version of this story first appeared in the May 9 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. 

History has resisted jumping on the live stunt bandwagon. But later this year, the network will mount its first live stunt with deadly escape artist and magician Robert Gallup – a Guinness World Record holder for a 1997 stunt during which he was manacled, handcuffed and chained then thrown from a C-123 transport place 18,000 feet above the Mojave Desert.

For History’s two-hour Houdini Live, which will air as a companion to its Adrien Brody Houdini miniseries (set to bow this fall), Gallup will attempt to free himself from a multilayered trap involving straitjackets, handcuffs and shackles at the bottom of a rock quarry lined with active explosives. History executive vp and general manager Dirk Hoogstra predicts it will be “jaw dropping.”

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Stunts have served as an opportunity for cable networks to break into the live genre, which has become more valuable in an increasingly on-demand and time-shifted television landscape. Discovery — and ABC — have pulled in impressive numbers for their live tightrope walks with Nik Wallenda. ABC’s broadcast of Wallenda’s Niagara Falls walk in June 2012 peaked at more than 10 million viewers, while last summer 13 million people watched Discovery’s coverage of his 23-minute walk over the Grand Canyon’s Little Colorado Gorge.

Of course, as the cancelation of Discovery’s Everest Jump Live demonstrates, mounting live stunts can be a precarious endeavor. And Hoogstra notes that History has been cautious about entering a space where production costs can run into the millions of dollars for a couple hours of television that the network has no hopes of monetizing via reruns. 

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But he notes that the two-hour Houdini Live is an organic fit with the scripted Houdini and does not require a significant additional marketing spend in order to promote it.

“I don’t see [live stunts] as a long-term strategy,” adds Hoogstra. “For us, it’s more opportunistic. I’d rather spend on what could potentially be a new long-running series franchise.” 

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David Gregory

NBC News is denying that it commissioned a psychological consult of Meet the Press host David Gregory that included talking to his friends and his wife, asserted in a Washington Post profile published on Monday. Rather, the examination was a brand assessment, a network spokesperson tells The Hollywood Reporter.

“Last year Meet the Press brought in a brand consultant — not, as reported, a psychological one — to better understand how its anchor connects,” the network said in a statement. “This is certainly not unusual for any television program, especially one that’s driven so heavily by one person.”

Networks routinely commission brand assessments of their programs. And an NBC News spokesperson says it is not unusual for brand consultants to talk to friends of the on-air talent.

NBC News previously ordered a market study of Today that resulted in a new mission statement emphasizing “substance,” “uplift” and “connection.”

And ABC commissioned an audience evaluation of The View that eventually resulted in the exits last year of Elisabeth Hasselbeck and Joy Behar.

Meet the Press has been mired in third place among Sunday morning competitors Face the Nation on CBS and This Week on ABC. And NBC News president Deborah Turness, who joined the division last August, is now focusing considerable attention on MTP after making Today her top priority upon entering the job.

Meet the Press is the longest-running program on television; it made its TV debut in 1947. But it still inextricably identified with Tim Russert, who hosted MTP until his sudden death in June 2008. The show had its lowest rated quarter ever among news’ target demographic of viewers 25-54 for the fourth quarter of 2013, while Bob Schieffer‘s Face the Nation is the top-rated Sunday program in the demo and among total viewers with a little more than 3.3 million each week so far this year. (MTP executives have long complained that CBS has an unfair advantage because Nielsen measures the first half hour of FTN against full hours of MTP and This Week. But that is because the second half hour of FTN, which was added in 2012, does not air contiguously in more than half of the country.)

The Sunday morning public affairs programs do not bring in significant ad revenue, less than $100 million a year according to some estimates. But they are important branding tools for the news divisions that stress serious political interviews and give Washington power players a still sought-after platform.

AP Photo/Peter Kramer

Jeff Zucker

NEW YORK — CNN Worldwide president Jeff Zucker introduced several new original unscripted series fronted by familiar faces including Mike Rowe and John Walsh that will air in the 9 p.m. slot occupied for years by Larry King and then Piers Morgan. In doing so, he is officially abandoning the interview show, a staple on CNN since King debuted in 1985. 

“We believe that genre is no longer viable. There are just too many outlets with not enough big gets for a pure talk show to thrive any longer,” Zucker told advertisers gathered at Chelsea’s Skylight Modern for the network’s first upfront presentation. “And just because CNN has always done a talk show at 9, it doesn’t mean that’s what we should be doing there going forward.”

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CNN Films projects also will fill the 9 p.m. hour. And the Tom Hanks–Gary Goetzman miniseries The Sixties is set to debut in the 9 p.m. slot this May. Zucker told THR that he had originally planned to switch to original series last month, but breaking news – notably the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 – dictated otherwise. And he said he does not believe that interrupting series for breaking news will create a flow problem for the network.

“We’ve been doing it for the last two months,” he said, adding that breaking news brings in a much bigger audience and the hope is some percentage of those viewers return for CNN’s original series.

But he stressed that the network’s paramount mission is news. “We will always give priority to our original breaking news coverage,” he said. Viewers can expect to see Jake Tapper, Bill Wier and Wolf Blitzer presiding over breaking news coverage at 9 p.m.

And with the 2014 mid-term elections looming, Zucker took the opportunity to underscore CNN’s non-partisan approach for advertisers, a notoriously controversy averse contingent, gathered at the upfront.

“In an increasingly polarized world, it’s hard to know who to trust,” said Zucker from the stage. “CNN will be the only news channel that doesn’t take a side.”