For decades now, the networks and production studios have held a creative stranglehold over the industry. If you were a writer with a brilliant idea for a new show, you had to go through "the system" if you held any hope for your idea to see the light of day and come to fruition as an actual television show. "The system" meaning everything so frustrating and wrong and cliched with modern day Hollywood—-An endless clusterfuck of pitch meetings to tone-deaf underlings, countless script re-writes birthed from asinine notes from dunderhead executives ("I see on page 16 you have Sally eating a peanut...shouldn't she be eating a cashew instead?!") who'd never written a thing in their lives but love handing out business cards to aspiring starlets with the word "Producer" under their names, a dizzying array of focus groups and trend research studies so the higher-ups can get their fingers on the "pulse" of the modern viewer and force the creator to change accordingly, and everybody and their wife and cousin has got a fucking opinion to the point where the whole thing gets utterly mutilated. Someone could have the most brilliant idea and these people will more often than not find new and innovative ways to destroy it, all in the hopes of making it more appealing to Harriet and Clarence McAverage in Des Moines, Iowa.

From the creative end, developing a television show these days is sort of like giving birth to a daughter, your work, a daughter that you raise and nurture with tremendous care, and then one day you bring her, beautiful, statuesque, perfect in your eyes, to the church to walk her down the aisle, where a dashing groom, the American television viewership, is waiting to embrace her on the other end of the aisle. But just before the organist plays that "Here Comes the Bride" song so she can begin her walk down the aisle, out pops a herd of groomsmen, television executives, who proceed to throw your daughter down and violently gang-bang her in the back of the church, and by the time they're done with her she's bloody, beaten, and battered, almost completely unrecognizable to you, the person who raised her. Both of her eyes are swollen completely shut, one of her legs is broken, she can barely function at all, and then the very groomsmen, the television executives, who just finished violently raping her turn to you and say, "Okay, now make her walk down the aisle," and you, the person who conceived her, nurtured her and cared for her for all those years, has to walk with her as she hopelessly flounders her way down, and all the while you're hoping beyond hope that she a) makes it all the way down before completely collapsing and b) that her groom, the American television viewer, isn't so freaked out by her when he sees how hideous she now looks that he turns and bolts out of the church.

But all of that is changing.

You see, with the internet, yes the internet, creators of serialized content can circumvent "the system" and produce their shows independently, in much the same way that filmmakers began began circumventing the studio system to develop films a few years back—-They raise money on their own, shoot the film they want to shoot, and then turn around and showcase at film festivals where, if the moon and the stars align just right, they're able to sell their film and it goes on to become a huge success. This model birthed some of the more smart, intelligent and important films of the modern era, shot from scripts that may have never seen the light of day otherwise in the traditional system, because they were "too edgy" or some horseshit like that. The problem, for years, with doing this with television was that content creators didn't have a way to showcase their product, they couldn't take it into a screening room and expect prospective buyers of content to sit there and spend hours watching a full season of television to see if it was worth a shit or not, but with the internet they now do. More and more Americans are watching more and more video online for longer and longer periods of time, so it stands to reason that sooner or later, someone is going to raise their own money, shoot their own full length show (half hour to an hour long) without network interference, put it on the internet, and it will become a cultural phenomenon, something that people, average people and not just early adopters, talk about around the proverbial water cooler at work. In fact, it's probably on the verge of happening right now. And then a network will swoop in and buy the show to bring it to those still not watching television on the internet, and other shows will be developed online and other networks will swoop in and buy them too, but eventually everyone will watch episodic shows online and there won't be a need for the traditional networks any longer. Hell, right now, Microsoft and Apple are both developing programs that will capture all of the video you want to watch by recording it live as it goes up onto the web and saving it for the user to view later, just like a DVR or TiVo, except for your computer and handheld electronic devices. These sort of software programs currently being developed aggregate video content from all over the web so the user can watch everything in one place instead of surfing around from site to site to watch the things they want to watch.

In other words, the need for television networks to develop and air shows will evaporate. They'll still be there, it's a stretch to say they'll die off altogether, but they will never be the same. And we'll all be better off for that.

Well Nikki Finke would argue that there shouldn't be any fuss at all, because winking network bashing is a hallmark tradition at upfronts. Which, absolutely, this is true. But what stuck (and stung for some) about this particular account is how, here in the glaring neon white light of TV's economic apocalypse, grim and trenchantly true all of Kimmel's jokes were. Especially when non-industry people heard them.

Yes, the whole thing is built on a pack of lies! And yes! A throw-millions-at-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks because, as Kimmel put it, "who cares? It's not your money" sort of attitude does seem wrong and a part of why the entire television industry and media at large and, hell, all of America is in the shitter. And that the factory workers of this creaky, arrogant system just sat and laughed and hooted to themselves "Ohhh, it's all so true!" seems a bit obtuse and, I'd imagine if I'd just lost my job at ABC in the past eight months, a bit callous.

In the past these upfront presentations were put on for the clubby group of television and ad execs and the reporters that cozily cover them, and everyone could have a laugh, go get drunk and then the next day everyone would continue to tell everyone how fabulous business is. Now, the dreaded Internet — which has basically demolished the old advertising business model — guarantees that all the inside jokes will get out.

So the people in the audience are sorta jerks and so is Kimmel and so are we for sticking our noses in other people's industries. Everyone's a jerk! This is TV after all.

[via AllThingsD]

In case you're unfamiliar with the "upfronts," they're an annual television industry event held in New York where all of the bigshots and stars from all the networks present their show lineups for the upcoming season to advertisers in the hopes of removing them from their money. Usually, these events are one enormous act of autofellatio, an endless stream of workers sucking the cocks of the companies they work for in order to hold on to their jobs and continue to cash ridiculously large paychecks, and really, who can blame them? Apart from the time in 1991 when Johnny Carson announced out of the blue that he was retiring during an NBC upfront presentation, these things are usually painfully benign, and are rarely, if ever, truly newsworthy. Typically it's an endless parade of people like Charlie Sheen stepping up to a podium to tell the fine folks at Procter and Gamble and General Motors how if they thought last year's season of Two and Half Men was funny, well, they haven't seen anything yet, because this upcoming season is going to be a fucking riot, and then they politely ask them for $1.5 million for a thirty second spot and the advertisers usually pay it and everyone goes home fat and happy. The end.

Now, with all of that established, back to Kimmel, who completely shattered this usual sort of monotony with his performance yesterday. Here's a sampling of what he said as advertising executives just sat there squirming in their seats, laughing nervously, exchanging "WTF?!" glances, not quite sure of what to make of what what happening in front of them as he fired rhetorical scuds at ABC, its competitors, and the advertising industry in general.

"Let's get real here. Let's get Dr. Phil-real here. These new fall shows? We're going to cancel about 90 percent of them. Maybe more."

"Every year we lie to you and every year you come back for more. You don't need an upfront. You need therapy. We completely lie to you, and then you pass those lies onto your clients."

"Next year on ‘Grey's Anatomy,' your product could kill Dr. Izzie. It just depends on how much you want to pay."

"I think all our shows are going to work this year. I really do. I don't, really."

"The important thing to remember is: who cares, it's not your money."

Kimmel also took a shot at NBC and Jay Leno, whom ABC once courted to possibly replace him when his contract with NBC expired, saying that they're "giving Jay's viewers exactly what they want. An early-bird special."

It's hard not to love and respect Jimmy Kimmel more than ever after all of this, but one can't help suspecting that ABC will soon be announcing his show's cancellation so that it can extend Nightline back to a full hour.

Jimmy Kimmel Demolishes ABC's Upfronts [New York Times]

CBS is returning to Carnegie Hall as usual, where it will court advertisers with a presentation likely to benefit from clips from actual series — a luxurious stride from 2008, when the writers-strike hangover kept LA staffers home in bed and preempted virtually anything new from an audience with potential buyers. It didn't hurt at the time, reports THR, and the revived dog-and-pony shows by that network and others — the CW at Madison Square Garden, ABC at Lincoln Center — hope to surpass last year's $9.2 billion upfront yield. Fox changed its date but is still working out a venue; Turner will land somewhere posh, but sorry, folks: No Sting performances this year!

And NBC? After opting against last year's laughably hubristic "NBC Experience" potato-sack race down memory lane, it's anyone's guess. Maybe a reservation at the Rainbow Room, maybe they'll book a floor at the big Sixth Avenue McDonald's just a few blocks from Rockefeller Center. Or maybe all those Super Bowl tickets they're handing out while taking meetings this week in Tampa — call it the Way-the-Hell-Upfronts — may yet pay off. We think they're on to something: Anyone who watched the NFL season opener last year on NBC knows Jeff Zucker does have a special way with football fans. Take note, frontrunners.

• Economy won't deflate Upfront Week [THR]

· Rob Estes gets work—on 90210, no less!—which should keep the paychecks rolling in until his network gets canceled. [THR]
· Pitch Perfect, comedy based upon the book of the same name about the competitive world of college a cappella groups, will be An Elizabeth Banks Production for Universal. Go Whiffenpoofs! (The only one we can name off hand.) [THR]

· Jason Reitman's next movie will be an adaptation of Walter Kirn's Up in the Air, about a frequent-flyer-mile-accrual-addicted HR worker. [Variety]
· Michael Fassbender, whom you might recall as the guy with a bunch of arrows sticking out of his kickin' abs in 300, will play the role of Heathcliff in John Maybury's Wuthering Heights adaptation. Bet you're sorry for dropping out of the project now, Natalie Portman! What's that? You're perfectly happy with your penis-nosed musician boyfriend? OK, never mind. [THR]
· In an attempt at beefing up their interactive arm, CBS paid $1.8 billion in cash for CNET Networks. Explained Les Moonves, "As we've made the case so many times before, there's no profit to be made online, so we thought we'd dump two billion cash into this doomed, money-losing venture just for shits and giggles." [Variety]

Greatest TV show in history Gossip Girl returns (whose conceit of being narrated by a simpering, faceless gossip blogger never gets the least bit annoying) and One Tree Hill (cut it down and count its rings: 100 and counting!) live on, joined by two new dramas: 90210, and The One That Isn't 90210. The spinoff's official cast photo (above) features the sublime Jessica Walter, called upon to put yet another spin on the boozy family matriach. It instantly reminded us of another family portrait, that of the capsized Bluths on the cover of Arrested Development's first season DVD. We can only hope 90210's Gypsy Lohan winds up with a hook for a hand by the end of the first season.

• A wealth of CW debuts: From '90210' to 'Surviving the Filthy Rich' [NY Daily News]

Procedural goodness after the jump!

As for dramas, Tassler explained, "We do very well with our procedurals, but we've added more character to them." Translation: Expect an oblique reference to an affair between two CSI cast members over the break that will be all but forgotten about by episode three. With Drac Steele, Vampire P.I. (OK, fine, it's called Moonlight) thrown a fistful of holy water in the face by Moonves moments before the future galactic despot plunged a CBS-branded letter-opener through its heart, The Ex List—aka CGI: Clingy Girlfriend Investigators—swoops in to take its place. Also on the schedule, Jerry Bruckheimer's Eleventh Hour, "about a science professor who helps solve crimes," and The Mentalist, starring Simon Baker as "deceptive celebrity psychic" who "puts his observational skills to better use working for law enforcement." That's totally mental! All your CSI friends (minus Gary Dourdan) will be back, and, somewhat miraculously, you won't be seeing Without A Trace on the side of any milk cartons, for it has survived another season.

The full CBS Fall 2008/09 Lineup:

Monday
8-8:30 p.m. The Big Bang Theory
8:30-9 p.m. How I Met Your Mother
9:-9:30 p.m. Two and a Half Men
9:30-10 p.m. Worst Week (new)
10-11 p.m. CSI: Miami

Tuesday
8-9:00 p.m. NCIS
9-10 p.m. The Mentalist (new)
10-11 p.m. Without a Trace

Wednesday
8-8:30 p.m. The New Adventures of Old Christine
8:30-9 p.m. Project Gary (new)
9-10 p.m. Criminal Minds
10-11 p.m. CSI: NY

Thursday
8-9 p.m. Survivor
9-10 p.m. CSI
10-11 p.m. Eleventh Hour (new)

Friday
8-9 p.m. Ghost Whisperer
9-10 p.m. The Ex-List (new)
10-11 p.m. Numbers

Saturday
8-9 p.m. Crimetime Saturday
9-10 p.m. Crimetime Saturday
10-11 p.m. 48 Hours: Mystery

Sunday
7-8 p.m. 60 Minutes
8-9 p.m. The Amazing Race
9-10 p.m. Cold Case
10-11 p.m. The Unit

• CBS returns to crime, comedy roots [THR]

· As for NBC, Saffron Burrows has been cast opposite Christian Slater in My Own Worst Enemy, and Battlestar Galactica EP David Eick is in talks to take over showrunner duties on The Philanthropist, about "a renegade billionaire who uses his wealth, connections and power to help people in need no matter what the risks or costs," a sort of gender-reversed, serialized-drama take on Paris Hilton's life story. [THR]
· CBS ordered the Jerry Bruckheimer-produced Eleventh Hour, The Mentalist (starring Simon Baker) and The Ex-List (about a woman who tries to figure out which or her exes is the one a psychic told her she was meant to marry), as well as sitcoms Worst Week and Project Gary, and John Turteltaub's Harper's Island, a "horror drama." [THR]
· And in movie news, The Hills background player and self-leaked nudie-photo-scandal-victim Audrina Patridge will make her feature straight-to-DVD debut with Into the Blue 2: Even More Into The Blue for MGM Home Entertainment. [THR]

As such, we start this morning with a moment of silence mourning both the garish, glorious decadence of upfronts past and the new cashews-and-punch tradition effective immediately:

"It's a shame, because the end of year thing is important for people as a release, to mark the end of development season," [an] insider said. "But this year, there really wasn't a normal development season, so it wouldn't really be the end of anything." ...

Nets may announce fall lineups but forgo midseason announcements. With fewer cutdowns to show than usual, the network presentations are expected to be short and sweet this year. What's more, most nets have canceled their post-presentation parties (with the exception of Fox).

[ABC] plans on offering advertisers a "no B.S." presentation, laying out its strategy sans stunts and gimmicks. Net has just a handful of scripted pilots that will be done prior to its upfront, which means there won't be as many lengthy clip presentations as in years past.

The no-frills showcase is reportedly an ideal branding opportunity for ABC brass, whose extension of the "No B.S" tagline extends to a 45-minute overhead-projector presentation in the lunch room of its Columbus Avenue headquarters in New York, followed by a meet-and-greet with Sam Champion and tickets to The View. Not to be out- (or under-) done, Moonves will convene his own pitch under an oak tree in Union Square, with Letterman T-shirts and free Mister Softee ice cream for the first 50 advertisers in attendance. Truly, this is the new golden age.

• Days of lavish TV upfronts are gone [Variety]

· Enchanted star and America's Current Sweetheart Amy Adams is in talks to join the cast of Night at the Museum 2 as the "undetermined historical figure" (Ann Boleyn? Catherine The Great?) love-interest of Ben Stiller. [Variety]
· Resisting the impulse to join in the upfront-canceling fad sweeping some of its network competitors, Fox pledges that it's committed to putting on the wasteful, inefficient dog-and-pony show media buyers in search of open bars so cherish. [THR]
· Cautious OptimismWatch, Part II: The WGA announces a general membership meeting for Saturday, during which writers will get the details of the proposed contract with the studios. [Variety]

We recommend that you immediately drop what you're doing for the next 38 seconds and have a look yourself, for keeping the company of these bickering Neanderthals for even that brief a time will certainly make you realize just how hurtful the casual use of racial epithets can be. If you don't actually laugh at the ugly reflection you're casting in that mirror the cavemen are holding up to Society, well, then perhaps you're just not ready for this kind of next-level social satire.

Bonus funtime: Letting the clip run to its end seamlessly transitions into the preview for Carpoolers, creating the unsettling illusion that the Cro-Magnons have suddenly evolved (or devolved, depending on your perspective) into their equally unfunny sitcom descendants.

• Fall 2007 Pilot Preview: Cavemen [TV Week]

They did, however, go heavy on reality for the Fall, hoping that series like Idol-spin off The Search for the Next Great American Band, Hell's Kitchen spin-off Kitchen Nightmares, and Nashville (hot people trying to make it in country music, we think) can help stave off ratings Armageddon (especially if those pesky writers wind up going on strike) until the Nielsen Death Star arrives in January to eradicate their primetime competition. Also: There will be more Are You Dumber Than A Fifth Grader, Tough Guy? Thank you, Peter Liguori. Our lives would feel empty without watching allegedly college-educated people squinting their eyes so tightly in concentration that blood trickles down their faces while they try to call to mind the number of sides on an isosceles triangle.

The full schedules, spanning the Fall, January, and Spring seasons (remember, they're redefining the programming paradigm! Or something.) follows, presented in ALL CAPS [via ">THR]

FALL
MONDAY
8:00-9:00 PM PRISON BREAK
9:00-10:00 PM K-VILLE

TUESDAY
8:00-9:00 PM NEW AMSTERDAM
9:00-10:00 PM HOUSE

WEDNESDAY
8:00-8:30 PM BACK TO YOU
8:30-9:00 PM 'TIL DEATH
9:00-10:00 PM BONES

THURSDAY
8:00-9:00 PM ARE YOU SMARTER THAN A 5th GRADER?
9:00-10:00 PM KITCHEN NIGHTMARES

FRIDAY
8:00-9:00 PM THE SEARCH FOR THE NEXT GREAT AMERICAN BAND (working title)
9:00-10:00 PM NASHVILLE (working title)

SATURDAY
8:00-8:30 PM COPS
8:30-9:00 PM COPS
9:00-10:00 PM AMERICA'S MOST WANTED: AMERICA FIGHTS BACK

SUNDAY
7:00-8:00 PM THE OT (NFL post-game)
8:00-8:30 PM THE SIMPSONS
8:30-9:00 PM KING OF THE HILL
9:00-9:30 PM FAMILY GUY
9:30-10:00 PM AMERICAN DAD

JANUARY 2008
MONDAY
8:00-9:00 PM K-VILLE (January)/PRISON BREAK (Spring)
9:00-10:00 PM 24

TUESDAY
8:00-9:00 PM AMERICAN IDOL
9:00-10:00 PM HOUSE

WEDNESDAY (January)
8:00-8:30 PM BACK TO YOU
8:30-9:00 PM 'TIL DEATH
9:00-10:00 PM AMERICAN IDOL

WEDNESDAY (Spring)
8:00-8:30 PM BACK TO YOU
8:30-9:00 PM THE RETURN OF JEZEBEL JAMES (working title)
9:00-9:30 PM AMERICAN IDOL Results Show
9:30-10:00 PM 'TIL DEATH

THURSDAY
8:00-9:00 PM ARE YOU SMARTER THAN A 5th GRADER?
9:00-10:00 PM CANTERBURY'S LAW

FRIDAY (Spring)
8:00-9:00 PM BONES
9:00-10:00 PM NEW AMSTERDAM

SATURDAY
8:00-8:30 PM COPS
8:30-9:00 PM COPS
9:00-10:00 PM AMERICA'S MOST WANTED: AMERICA FIGHTS BACK

SUNDAY (Spring)
7:00-7:30 PM KING OF THE HILL
7:30-8:00 PM AMERICAN DAD
8:00-8:30 PM THE SIMPSONS
8:30-9:00 PM FAMILY GUY
9:00-10:00 PM THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES

• Fox gets real this fall, 'Chronicles' due midseason [THR]

At their upfront presentation today, the network took pains to avoid the inevitably dark Lord of the Flies comparisons ("It's an unbelievable community of respect, and you watch them build society," said president Nina Tassler), but after watching the extended trailer posted on the CBS website, we know they're just trying not to scare off an overly sensitive public before the show airs. Above, we've taken a screenshot of the preview's most harrowing moment, where the child clearly cast in the Piggy role admits homesickness and shows a sign of weakness by crying at a "town meeting," then is immediately beset by a pack of stronger boys, who strip him of his clothes, smash his glasses, and drive him out into the desert, all the while chanting, "Sucks to your ass-mar!" in response to his wheezy pleas for mercy.

CBS has a huge hit on its hands, we can feel it.

• Kid Nation [CBS.com]
• Previously: CBS Puts Vampires, Swingers, Exciting Social Experiments Involving Schoolchildren On The Fall Schedule [Defamer]

· Cane: Jimmy Smits! Playing Cuban!
· Moonlight: Vampires!
· Swingtown: Wife-swapping in the 70s! (Read: sex!)
· Viva Laughlin: A casino! Hugh Jackman cameos! The occasional musical number!

As pulse-quickening as we find both swingers and Hugh Jackman, the highlight of the new Fall slate is clearly Wednesday night's Kid Nation (from the producers of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition), a supersecret project that CBS will unleash on the world later today, in which (according to TV Week) 40 "overachieving kids" of ages 8 to 15 are thrown together in a New Mexico ghost town and tasked with creating a functioning society with an economy, laws, and elected leaders. Finally: Lord of the Flies comes to primetime! We can't wait to hear about advertisers' reactions to this afternoon's upfront clip of the inevitable breakout hit, spotlighting the emotionally devastating moment when Piggy is "accidentally" crushed by a boulder. Never let it be said that Les Moonves doesn't know how to create appointment TV.

The entire Fall schedule follows: [via THR]

Mondays
8 pm - "How I Met Your Mother"
8:30 p.m. - "The Big Bang Theory" (new)
9 p.m. - "Two and a Half Men"
9:30 p.m. - "Rules of Engagement"
10 p.m. - "CSI: Miami"

Tuesdays
8 p.m. - "NCIS"
9 p.m. - "The Unit"
10 p.m. - "Cane" (new)

Wednesdays
8 p.m. - "Kid Nation" (new)
9 p.m. - "Criminal Minds"
10 p.m. - "CSI: NY"

Thursdays
8 p.m. - "Survivor: China"
9 p.m. - "CSI"
10 p.m. - "Without a Trace"

Fridays
8 p.m. - "Ghost Whisperer"
9 p.m. - "Moonlight" (new)
10 p.m. - "Numb3rs"

Saturdays
8 p.m. - "Crimetime Saturday"
9 p.m. - "Crimetime Saturday"
10 p.m. - "48 Hours Mystery"

Sundays
7 p.m. - "60 Minutes"
8 p.m. - "Viva Laughlin" (new)
9 p.m. - "Cold Case"
10 p.m. - "Shark"

• CBS fall sked includes five series freshmen [THR]
• CBS Picks Up 'Kid Nation' Reality Show [TV Week]

In between super-sizing, over-ordering, and spinning off every decently rated property on its current programming roster, NBC managed to slip a couple of semi-original shows onto its Fall schedule. To whet your appetite for their upcoming September offerings, the network has posted a number of teasers to its YouTube page, including the above clip from its Bionic Woman update. Network president Kevin Reilly did proudly disclose his "choke on our classy hits" strategy yesterday, so we're not too surprised to discover that the show feels a little like Heroes in atmosphere (why not just go all the way and have the one with the pissed-off reflection turn up to bust Jamie out of the hospital?). If you're still feeling nostalgic for the original even after watching the rebuilt heroine nearly kill her physician because she's less than thrilled with her new legs, a clip of its classic opening credits follows after the jump:

• Bionic Woman — Coming to NBC [YouTube]
• Bionic Woman Tv Show Intro [YouTube]
• Previously: NBC Hoping Your Appetite For Its High-Quality Hits Is Insatiable [Defamer]

Thank You, Your Oprah Majesty Stephen McPherson, the boss here, just thanked Oprah in the humble kiss-the-ring way for her first prime-time reality show, "The Big Give."

The ABC reality slate is just unspeakable. One gag has a guy's head pop up in a portapotty toilet. O.K.? Had enough?

Heffernan refrains from describing the portapotty bit in more detail, but we hope it was Ty Pennington's head rising up, Whac-a-Mole-style, from that commode in an attempt to remind everyone that he's still the fun-loving free spirit he was before that whole DUI mess. Still, it's nice to know that Oprah's around to class up the otherwise "unspeakable" reality offerings; handing over a $100,000 check to a predator-catching informant (she'll save that for the Give, no?) should help break up the lowbrow monotony of watching yet another group of washed-up celebrities learning how to dance.

• TV Upfronts: Thank You, Your Oprah Majesty [NY Times]