Stephen Brown - David Higham Associates

Daytime TV faces a steep audience drop off, but Fox’s Stephen Brown says creative, multiplatform thinking can help reconnect in this preview of TVNewsCheck’s Programming Everywhere conference at the NAB Show. Register here.

Stephen Brown doesn’t mince words when it comes to the crisis daytime TV is facing. “Quite frankly, the audience has kind of fled. You see the rise of YouTube and you know how many people are watching that and streaming services and Instagram, so everything is kind of ticking away at traditional media,” says Brown, the EVP of programming and development at Fox First Run and Fox Television Stations.

“Our challenge is to find that audience on the different platforms,” he notes.

As one of the industry’s biggest producers and buyers of daytime TV programming, Brown says it has become necessary to leverage multiple platforms to build viewership for shows.

“Every day that we’re in the studio for Divorce Court, we’re doing a live episode on YouTube,” he says. “When we do 25 Words or Less, every day we’re in the studio, we do a live show for Zumo. It’s a bifurcation of efforts. We still have to service linear television, but we have to start programming for and developing the audience on the channels where they are now.”

The art of audience reconnection also requires out-of-the-box thinking for both show formats and the people presenting them, Brown says. “We’re looking at new talent and new ideas, including the creator economy,” he says. “We have to look everywhere.”

Brown will be among numerous programming leaders from linear TV, streaming and cable at Programming Everywhere sharing strategies for successful content evolution in a heavily fragmented media landscape.

Set for Sunday, April 6, at the Encore Las Vegas on the opening day of NAB Show, Programming Everywhere is home to the year’s most important conversation about the new business of video content.

Speakers focus on new development; reinventing production, distribution and monetization models; programming for a multimedia audience; and the role of technology in facilitating a vibrant programming ecosystem. Programming Everywhere is the only conference to convene leaders from across the media and entertainment world to share their unique strategies to evolve and thrive amid tectonic industry changes.