Bonnie Hammer

President

NBC Universal Cable Entertainment and Universal Cable
Productions.

Under Bonnie Hammer’s leadership, USA Network, home to hit shows such as Monk, Psych and Burn Notice, has become the leading general-entertainment cable channel in the U.S. Its sister network SCI FI Channel is not too far behind, thanks to cult series like Battlestar Galactica. Hammer is now taking her expertise to the cable group’s emerging networks and lending her hand in the production of scripted programming.

WS: How have USA Network and SCI FI been models for change in the way shows are produced, scheduled and offered to viewers?
HAMMER: The key for both of those channels and to their success is the clarity of the brand and what we call a brand filter. Everything we do—whether it’s the pilots we greenlight, the tone of a marketing campaign or an on-air campaign, or our choices for content for digital or mobile—has to go through a very clear filter that specifies the qualities of each of the channels. If something doesn’t fit the brand, even if we love it, it doesn’t make the air, it doesn’t make a marketing campaign, it doesn’t get written about in a press release. We give everybody a lot of creative freedom, but they have parameters within which they have to work. At first people may think, “Oh my goodness, you’re locking us into some very specific guidelines,” but the truth is, it allows people tremendous clarity and freedom to run because they actually know what they’re looking for and what they’re supposed to do.
Our success is really tied to very clear, smart brands mixed with some savvy scheduling and an awful lot of competitive research.

WS: USA Network’s ratings have surpassed The CW’s on numerous occasions. What impact does that have on USA’s business model and its creativity? And if the ratings remain high, would that change USA’s ability to take risks?
HAMMER: No, because we take smart risks and we’ve been very, very lucky in terms of our choices. Yes, we have beaten The CW. Our originals have also beaten other networks in certain demos on particular nights. For example, Monk was the number one television program in its slot on Friday nights last summer, so we’re already going toe-to-toe with the networks on different nights of the week with different shows. What we cannot do is allow ourselves to be complacent within our success because that would be death. So we’re always challenging ourselves and coming up with the next goal.
When NBC Universal first bought us, our goal was to once again gain the mantle of the number one cable channel. We did that, and we’ve held it for three years. Our next goal was to beat The CW, and we did that. Now we’re trying to figure out what our next goal is. Compared with the broadcast networks, cable has finally arrived in terms of quality. The writing and production quality of Monk or Burn Notice are equal to any show that’s out there.
Our business model is extremely smart. Cable has always had to do more with less. We had to learn how to do great things with very little and, based on this economic climate, I don’t think that’s going to change. Part of the fun and challenge is to be able to do better, more cost-effectively, than other people.

WS: You mentioned the brand acting as a filter. Can the broadcast networks learn from the model of branded cable channels?
HAMMER: Cable channels have always grown up having to consider the brand before the actual programs. With Nickelodeon, Gerry Laybourne was probably the first one to create the spin around a whole channel for kids that reflected kids’ attitudes and personalities. Then, there was obviously MTV with music.
We’ve grown up in a world where brand is extremely important and the shows supported the brand. We live now in a really fragmented world that is no longer just about linear programming and appointment scheduling. We’re programming for regular television but also digitally, on the web and on mobile, and we have to be prepared for the world of DVRs and time-shifting.
When you see your shows all over the place, yes, you have to have good content and good shows, but it’s your brand which is going to hold it all together in a cohesive way. We as cablers developed a certain programming savvy and learned how to come up with a level of quality that the networks have had for all these years, and they’ve provided a super learning curve for us. Now, I think it’s time for the networks to turn around and learn a little bit more about promoting and marketing from a brand-centric point of view.

WS: Many of your viewers, especially on SCI FI, are young and tend not to watch linear television. Nowadays do you always think beyond your channel when you think of your programming?
HAMMER: We always think beyond the channel. We hope we have great shows that will create appointment viewing, but we’re not so naïve that we don’t know what’s going on in the industry. There’s a huge population on USA Network and SCI FI that also watches our programming on their own time. So we’ve been incredibly aggressive about driving viewers to our air when they watch online. Again, the brand links everything from scifi.com back to the channel, from the channel to the website. We have also been one of the front-runners in creating original content for online. SCI FI, in fact, was one of the first channels to do original content for the web. It produced webisodes  and podcasts connected with Battlestar Galactica, and they’re incredibly savvy. SCI FI now has defined sites: one geared to entertainment and news which is SCI FI Wire; DVICE, which is all about technology; and we have the gaming site Fidgit because our viewers like to play. We’re very creative in how we drive the audiences to and from all of our platforms—back to the mother ship and then from the mother ship to our sites.

WS: What are your plans for the channels Sleuth and Chiller, and how do you draw attention for new services in such a crowded environment?
HAMMER: We have two very distinctive brands in Sleuth and Chiller. Chiller is an absolute natural with connective tissue to SCI FI Channel, and it is a great place. Some of the movies we air on Saturday nights on SCI FI under what we call “The most dangerous night on television” (and we love that marketing) are perfect for Chiller. So we’re going to be economically smart and grow the channel as we grew SCI FI. It was connected to USA Networks in the very beginning when SCI FI was an emerging network, and now it’s a top-five cable channel. Chiller will be taken under the wing of Dave Howe over at SCI FI Channel, who will grow it as a piece of SCI FI, focusing on horror, kind of fun horror. Eventually, the channel will be rebranded but its development and its programming will be done cost-effectively under the wing of Dave’s creative abilities. The same thing for Sleuth. It lives within a piece of the USA Network plan and its procedural dramas. It’s so perfectly connected with what we do. So if we develop more procedurals, we will be developing Sleuth further, as well, both from a brand and a programming perspective. Obviously, in the beginning we will be using a bit more product from our libraries and eventually, just as we did with SCI FI, we will be developing original product specifically for these channels. We do own the programming, so we can play with it as long as we do it in a cost-effective way, and we’re masters at that.

WS: What are your priorities for the cable studio?
HAMMER: That’s really exciting because we’ve been very creative about how we’ve set up its structure. Oftentimes, studios are separate entities that execute product for channels, but the channels don’t have anything to do with the studio. Now, we have the head of original content on USA and the head of original content on SCI FI as co-heads of content for the studio. So the decisions that get made at the studio, and how they interface with the channels, have to make sense. The goal is to create a lot of quality content that has a long tail. Because now that we own the studio, when we make decisions for USA or for SCI FI, we’re not only thinking how will the programming succeed in terms of ratings. We will ask, Will this series be five, six, seven, eight seasons long? Can it sell as a DVD? Can we distribute it internationally and domestically? We look at the long tail of what we hope the profits will be of this show. So we might spend a little bit more money upfront, because we believe that ultimately we will make a lot of money down the road for the company at large. We look at the franchise as a whole, or what I call “ultimate profit by project,” as opposed to just looking at the license fee a program can generate.
We will also be able to develop content that we can sell to others, as well. Our first goal, clearly, is to service USA, SCI FI and the cable channels under our umbrella. But if we find product that doesn’t work for us or our sister networks, we will have the ability to sell it outside the company.

WS: Thanks to the strength of their brands, do advertisers know what they’re getting when they buy SCI FI and USA Network?
HAMMER: Absolutely. People know exactly what SCI FI is. It offers a very, very high level of engagement, and advertisers and the fan base know what it is. And in spite of the fact that USA Network is a broad entertainment entity, when you’re talking to Madison Avenue now, they know exactly the characters that are on it, the kind of shows we provide, the consistency of ratings and the consistency of quality. So we’re in an incredible position to reap whatever is out there because when we say we’re going to do something we actually deliver. It’s a combination of having a great team and a little luck or a lot of luck on our side. So, I just feel very fortunate that the creativity of the people who make up these channels, mixed with the wind in our sail, has done very well for us.