There's a great article over at The New York Times. It's about all the changes happening at the broadcast networks concerning the traditional upfront model -- the practice of presenting to advertisers around the month of May a new portfolio of programming to be commenced in the fall season and the subsequent booking of ad dollars for said programming. That's how the process has worked -- CBS (NYSE: CBS), General Electric's (NYSE: GE) NBC, Disney's (NYSE: DIS) ABC, News Corp.'s (NYSE: NWS) Fox, and Time Warner's (NYSE: TWX) and Viacom's (NYSE: VIA) CW show their wares now so that they can sell commercial inventory well ahead of the season premieres.

Well, according to the article, you can thank -- or blame -- the writer's strike for the dismantling of this quaint mechanism. I chose to thank the strike, because I think change is good in this case. You see, the broadcasters want to move to a 52-week season -- i.e., they want to debut new shows on a year-round basis instead of all at once, thus neutralizing the need for big upfront promotions. Actually, I should point out that there were probably other factors that helped this decision along -- most of them centering around costs and expenses. The expensive pilot-development process just isn't where it's at anymore. In fact, I wrote about this new paradigm back in April when NBC's co-chairman Ben Silverman was embracing it -- he's actually going for a 65-week season!

General Electric's (NYSE: GE) NBC is getting edgy, I'll give the network that. Of course, it's not because execs there are feeling particularly brave -- no, they're just feeling the pressure of rising programming costs and ratings challenges. The networks owned by News Corp. (NYSE: NWS), Disney (NYSE: DIS), and CBS (NYSE: CBS) are stiff competitors, so NBC is looking for a new paradigm.

According to AdAge.com, NBC wants to test out some interesting theories during the next television season. NBC would like to ensure that viewers are exposed to only a minimal amount of repeat programming; to do this, it will rest shows and program them during specific time periods. NBC also wants to resist the temptation to be traditional by having all of its series premiere in the beginning of the season -- why not spread that event throughout the entire season? Then there's the "family hour", the "blockbuster hour", and the "adult themes and high-end drama" hour -- otherwise known as 8 p.m. to 9 p.m., 9 p.m. to 10 p.m., and 10 p.m. to 11 p.m, respectively. As you can imagine, programming during these time slots will fit the theme. NBC wants to work more closely with its advertisers and encourage them to generate campaigns that are more organically integral to the shows as a way of keeping the attention of the eyeballs. And NBC seems to be wary of debuting a bunch of new shows -- only four new series were announced.

I read an interesting article at The Hollywood Reporter about General Electric (NYSE: GE)`s NBC network and its experiment with a series that originated from the web called "quarterlife." I didn't see the show, but it apparently didn't work out for NBC -- it received absolutely terrible ratings, and one of the show's creators, Marshall Herskovitz, was quoted as saying that "it never should have been a network show."