Is CBSs Harpers Island a New Broadcast Model?
By Brian Steinberg, AdAge The central premise of “Harper’s Island” is that each week, a character on the CBS show—which will launch April 9 and run through early July—will be killed. The twist: It’s likely the show will be killed too. CBS has ordered only 13 episodes and asked writers for a finite story arc. From death, however, new life might spring: If the show’s a hit, it could give marketers a model for how to program the dreary summer-reruns season. Broadcast networks have long boasted they run original programs year round, but—let’s face it—the offerings typically consist of low-budget reality shows and “burn-offs” of old pilots that weren’t good enough for a second episode. Meanwhile, cable outlets are gaining share by blasting out dramas just as the broadcast schedule winds down. Increasingly, audiences are voting for cable—which means broadcast outlets need to up the ante. “Harper’s Island” might provide a solution. While the networks have tried in the past to goose their fall
