Bonnie Hammer

April 2008

Under Bonnie Hammer’s leadership, USA Network has become the number one cable channel in the U.S. with hits such as Monk and Psych. SCI FI entered cable’s top ten thanks to the Stargate franchise and Battlestar Galactica. And both channels’ websites boast some of the best online offerings available to TV fans.

WS: What has driven USA Network’s success?

HAMMER: It’s a combination of things. USA never used to have a brand. We re-branded the channel a few years ago and created what we call our brand filter, which is a series of criteria that everything that we do has to go through. The tagline “Characters Welcome” relates to real people out there. The concept is that we have characters on our air and everybody at home sitting on their couch watching our channel are all characters too. The relationship is a much stronger bond between our viewing audience and the actual channel. We have very strong original programming. We’ve had the top new cable hits for two years in a row. Last year it was Psych, and this past summer it was Burn Notice and The Starter Wife. We have a very interesting, clean, fresh, hipper look, and we just turned it into a channel that can be recognized for its brand strengths and the quality of its programming.

WS: How did you come up with the tagline “Characters Welcome” for USA Network?

HAMMER: We did a lot of qualitative research, not just looking at demos and looking at numbers, but talking to people in the nonconventional research ways and we listened. We heard a lot of things that we didn’t like: “Feels like a nice worn-in shoe.” “It’s meat-and-potatoes television.” We heard a lot of stuff that made us feel like it was a very comfortable but stodgy channel. We said, Let’s be honest enough to hear what’s wrong but also hear what’s right. It was comfortable. It was relatable. The programming was of quality, but it was being taken for granted. We also realized that when people saw the old logo with the flag, it reminded them of a place as opposed to the people living within the U.S.A. We changed it from a place to a channel about people, which is why we went to “character.”

WS: What do you think broadcast television can learn from cable when it comes to developing and producing shows?

HAMMER: In cable we’ve all grown up as scrappers. We never had the kind of budgets the networks had. We’ve always been jealous about how much opportunity they have to come up with ideas, embellish scripts, make a lot of pilots, and throw a lot of stuff on the air. What we’ve now learned, because we have relatively little money in relation to what the networks grew up with, is how to create parameters. We have to be much more stringent in any early development process because we can’t develop as many scripts. When we see the script, if it doesn’t fit the brand and it isn’t so brilliant that we want to break all the rules, we have to say no. And as we develop, we will do three pilots for two slots, so two of those shows have to air, which means we have to make sure it is a pilot that is viable from the get-go, really fits the brand, is cast [correctly], and that we believe can be a hit, because we don’t have that many chances. So our batting average has to be a lot higher, because we can’t make a couple just to sit on the bench.

WS: USA is the top-rated cable channel right behind the four major broadcast networks. Will you be overtaking The CW?

HAMMER: Last summer, there were several times when we were ahead of The CW. We’re looking towards the networks as our competition as opposed to looking over our shoulder to see who is catching up to us. It’s no fun looking backwards just to see who’s nipping at your heels. The fun, and the challenge, is looking ahead to see where you can go and grow. The goal for USA is not necessarily to be the fifth network. It’s really to be the most respected TV brand out there. Lose the word “cable.” Lose the word “broadcast.” When you look at the kids growing up, they don’t know the difference between a broadcast network and a cable channel. Our goal is to be the most respected television brand or, frankly, media brand. We have such great online sites as well.

WS: Steven Spielberg chose SCI FI for Taken. What kind of environment do you want to provide directors, writers and actors?

HAMMER: We give our producers, writers and directors a bit more freedom. For example, when we did Taken, back in 2002, the concept of a mini-series that aired over ten nights hadn’t been done since the ’80s. Steven felt that a story of alien abduction could not be told in a two-hour movie or a four-hour mini-series. So we sat down with him and talked about it and he said, “I think it needs 20 hours.” And we said, “If you really believe in this and it will really be Steven Spielberg’s Taken, then it’s yours.” It wasn’t quite as simple as that. I was working for Barry Diller at the time, nothing was that easy, but not so far from that, either. Where else is Steven going to get 20 hours of programming? We took over the channel’s prime time for two weeks straight and then we marathoned all of the hours on both weekends. We were the number-one cable channel for two weeks. It’s about being open-minded, being flexible, letting somebody in if you believe in them. Even with The Starter Wife. It was a six-hour limited series with Debra Messing and very theatrical in style. Again, some people said, “Why don’t you just do it as a two-hour movie based on the book?” And I said, “No. Let’s play with it.” We gave it the air to breathe.

WS: How have your websites supported and enhanced your channels?

HAMMER: First of all, scifi.com, visually, graphically, and for the information it provides, has always been ahead of its time. It’s a destination unto itself. It’s the largest and most successful science-fiction dot-com out there. We were among the first to do blogs and podcasts. It’s launched smaller services like DVICE. It had a wikipedia before people knew what the word wikipedia meant. Science-fiction lovers are really early adopters. They were the first to want an active online site. SCI FI has always been out there, and now it’s trying to figure out how to get deeper into gaming and other aspects that true SCI FI lovers also like to engage with.

On the USA side, as we re-branded we also took the opportunity to make usanetwork.com more than just a marketing site. It has the first successful online games. It has become the first television connective social-networking site out there. We’re trying to build a talent agency online because we’re all about characters. We have a site called, “Show Us Your Character,” and real people in the U.S. make tapes of themselves and [upload] their personalities. We actually made on-air spots based on real-life characters that have come from our online “Show Us Your Character” [community].

WS: Tell us about the public-service campaign Erase the Hate.

HAMMER: I have always felt a need to give back. As somebody who’s lived a very good life both in terms of the job I do and my personal life, along with being able to make great, fun, crazy entertainment programming, I also think there’s a responsibility to give back. For me, it started when I worked at Lifetime a gazillion years ago and I developed the Signature Series, which was a group of documentaries about issues all having to do with women. When I came to USA, we looked at what was going on in the world that we would like to banish and we came up with two shows. One was called Erase the Hate, and the other one was called Healing the Hate. [They dealt] with kids and communities and how they were trying to, if you will, un-teach hate. My mantra is kids aren’t born [with] hate, they are taught to hate. That was really the premise of the series, and the [accompanying] campaign was how do you work with institutions, communities, people who are in power to try to avoid teaching hate? How do you undo it? How do you create boundaries and how do you teach acceptance rather than difference and hatred? We are starting a similar prosocial campaign this year. We’re really excited about it. It’s going to be a great political year, things are changing, the U.S. seems to be ready to embrace change, and we think it’s the perfect time to do something.

WS: You’re known as a risk-taker. Where did that trait come from?

HAMMER: I’m not sure myself, but I don’t like complacency. To me if you’re not moving forward, you’re moving backwards, and I think I’d rather fail [moving] forward than be so afraid of taking a risk that I go nowhere. My father taught me something when I was really little, which was basically, if you make a decision you have a fifty-fifty chance of winning. If you don’t make a decision you are going to lose. When you take a risk, there’s a challenge in it. When you set up a high bar for your team and everybody knows you’re taking a risk, they put in more energy to get a win out of it. It gets everyone else excited with you because you’re going against the odds.