We’ll be back… maybe…
Don’t get me wrong, I like Charlie Rose.
I think he does a good job and puts on a good show.
He even had me as a guest once, so how can I say anything negative?
However….
Taking the Amtrak down to DC on Wednesday night, I read this months’ issue of FORTUNE, which did a big article on Charlie Rose. It was entitled “Why Business Loves Charlie Rose”. Â
Well, it is a business magazine, and in light of Lehmann Bros. and other debacles, maybe the title is appropriate.
The piece is a real puff piece, which again is fine, but the sentence that really hit me was the one that said:
With rent and technical support covered, Charlie Rose only had to pay for salaries, satellite support and occasional travel – a meager budget of $3.5 million a year..”
Woah…. Wait a minute! Â $3.5 million a year after all the studio and tech costs are covered!!!Â
And they call this meagre???
This is a studio show where two people sit around a wood table in front of a black curtain. And this costs $3.5 million a year! Â For what, exactly?
All the major costs are already covered.
Bloomberg gives them the studio, the set, the camera people, the sound people, the techs, the edits. Everything.Â
I don’t get it.
Where does the money go?
Let’s say that they produce original shows 40 weeks out of the year (which is pretty good for PBS), that comes to $87,500 a week. For what? Salaries? Travel? They shoot the whole thing in Bloomberg’s studios for free!
By way of comparison, we produce a daily half hour  except we send out cameras and make pieces in the field.  Our total cost is just south of $10,000 a week, and that includes salary, technical, travel – everything. No one gives us anything.
The more disturbing thing here is that Charlie Rose considers this to be a bargain price! Â Tavis Smiley’s talk show on PBS costs $6.8 million a year to produce!!!
It also consist of a bunch of people sitting around in a studio yakking for a half hour.
I don’t get it.
Again, where does the money go?
I mean, OK. You do get a TV show. You get a half hour of blather going out and evaporating into the atmosphere. It’s not like you are manufacturing cars or something. Â
And if you did manufacture an automobile with the same level of cost efficiency that Charlie Rose manufactures his shows, a chevy would cost you about $250,000.
Which could explain why TV networks are about to go the same way as GM and Chrysler. So don’t be surprised.
Now, the worse part is that Charlie Rose is in fact cheap by TV standards.
So if this is the cheap TV, I shudder to imagine what the Today Show costs.
Don’t be surprised when the next industry to go down is television.
10 Comments
Robert May 07, 2011
Well, What’s Charlie’s salary? I would assume it’s 7 figures. Is that included in the $3.5M? His show is an hour (actual time is probably about 50-52 minutes), not half an hour. And what is the connection to “Why Business Loves Charlie Rose” or to “How Charlie Rose Destroyed TV”. In terms of the quality of content and the money wasted, I vote for another Charlie as having “destroyed TV”. That would be Charlie Sheen.
Todd Mckenzie May 27, 2010
If only more people could hear about this!
Michael Rosenblum October 11, 2009
I would be more than happy to go through Charlie Rose’s budget and show management where they could cut out the fat and save a fortune. In the TV biz it’s easy easy easy.
$ October 11, 2009
Then you should take your own advice.
Produce a program better than Charlie Rose and do it for less money while still achieving the same success.
You can’t.
Maybe Charlie Rose should open a school.
At least he has a track record of his own work to point to justify the money.
Michael Rosenblum October 11, 2009
If you think I am charging too much for the courses, open your own and compete. That’s what a free market is all about.
Charlie is in a no-risk environment in PBS. There is no countervailing pressure to control his costs. Trust me, I spent 5 years working for WNET/13 in New York.
None.
And he isn’t spending money he has earned. He is spending member’s contributions.
He has a real duty (in my opinion and as a contributor to PBS) to control the costs. If he wants to make a profit let him put the show in first run syndication and compete in the real world. That’s where I live every day.
$ October 11, 2009
And yet…you garner enough extra cash with your efforts to have a big boat, New York apartment and months long vacations in Italy.
Seems to me those costs for the class are excessive if the profits provide you with those things.
You have your own capitalistic desires.
Just like Charlie Rose and any other business.
You shouldn’t be throwing stones at others for doing exactly what you do yourself.
Michael Rosenblum October 10, 2009
A great deal of what I do is bringing far more cost-effective methods to television and video production. I do for broadcasters what someone should have done for Lehmann Bros. Cut out the fat. And there is a whole lot of it. As far as teaching people to make video for cable channels, the channels are all behind it. They are, in fact, my partners, And they understand that if only 10% of the people we train can actually deliver airable material at a competitive price point, the whole exercise is far more than successful. As for charging people for receiving the skill set, I think that the folks at WSJ.com get the concept. I have no doubt that Rupert would not only understand what I do, but heartily approve. Don’t you agree?
$ October 10, 2009
I find someone who uses his own very best efforts to maximize his fortune on the backs of others, teaching them skills which for the majority lead nowhere, to be hollow.
How can you throw stones at someone else for making too much money for doing something you believe is overpriced and unnecessary, yet you do the very same thing.
Pot/kettle/black
Mark Moore October 09, 2009
YouTube Reaches One Billion Views Per Day
http://mashable.com/2009/10/09/youtube-billion-views/
***
Will there be anyone left to watch him?
Dave Martin October 09, 2009
Bravos, Michael. The money goes to support the accepted business practices associated with 20th century network television production. Successful capital campaigns for Rose (and others) work to perpetuate trade craft myth regarding the costs of things. My sense is major contributors would be well served in asking “What else could a contribution of this magnitude cause to happen?”