Network TV Upfronts

The Upfronts are a big event held in NYC, where each US television network presents their upcoming fall season to advertisers and the press. Each network holds its own presentation, usually with a lot of splash - there's the presentation first, then a mingling-type event with food, drink, and a chance to meet the stars of their upcoming shows.

I was lucky to be able to attend the presentation from ABC, which was a good one, because they've had a great year, ratings-wise. They talked about their upcoming season (fall, plus planned mid-season replacements) in Avery Fischer Hall, in Lincoln Center. We heard from the heads of various departments and saw long traillers for their new reality, comedy and drama shows. They are really proud of their Extreme Makeover - Home Edition, obviously, as well as Lost, and have additional reality and sci-fi/spooky shows planned for the fall.

As they presented their hits from last year, they had the casts of those shows come out on stage: Lost, Desperate Housewives, Extreme Makeover - Home. The funnest of these was Desperate Housewives, where the writer, who can really sing, came out on stage and did a HUGE, traditional musical number about the show, including chorus boys and the ladies from the show. It was a hoot (when discussing such an over the top spectacle, there is no better word for it than "hoot".)

After the presentations, we went to a tent outdoors at Lincoln Center and got to drink, eat and meet the stars. Thus the photos, below. And yummy apple martinis done in the ABC tv colors.

Out of all the "stars" that I met, the ones that were most memorable for me were Shaun Cassidy, Martin Landau, Fred Savage, Daniel Dae Kim and Dominic Monaghan. Shaun because he was just so nice, despite the fact that I was probably the 4000th fan girl to approach him that evening. He and I actually had a conversation, and he took special care to make sure I was able to get my photo with him. What a sweetheart. Martin because, goodness, he's an actor of such huge stature, yet was so very kind to me. Fred was surprising down-to-earth for someone who'd been such a successful child star. Daniel - I remember him from Enterprise, and we had a nice conversation. Dominic and I played a joke on my friend, H, while H was getting his photo with the cast of Lost. Dominic stole H's camera and hid it, and we had a bit of fun with H.

I also met Rosanna Arquette, William Shatner, James Spader, Candice Burgen, the president of ESPN, some of the cast of Desperate Housewives, the folks from According to Jim, Kyle MacLaughlin, gosh, who else? Um, there was a lot of star power in that room.

It was a lot of fun. After all, I did "Broadcast and Media Management" in my MBA as one of my areas of focus, and my husband is an actor, so this evening, with its combo of the cult of celebrity plus the inner workings of network tv advertising, was a blast.