About the Alliance
In 1998 two of the most-respected, powerful marketers in the U.S. met to talk about a serious threat to their family businesses. Procter & Gamble and Johnson & Johnson were concerned that network television was losing its effectiveness as they could not find enough family programming to advertise their family brands. They knew that edgy programs might be good for ratings, but were not good for family brands. Customers overwhelmingly stated they wanted primetime programs they could comfortably watch with their children.
Research studies confirmed that family brands needed to reach every family member for maximum impact. But due to the changes in programming, most viewers were increasingly unlikely to be watching TV with anyone else. Adult viewers found that there weren't many quality programs that an entire family could watch together, without at least one family member being bored or shocked, even at 8:00 PM.
The forum believed the solution was to find, nurture, develop, and support stories with multigenerational appeal regardless of genre or format. Content that didn't pander, provoked healthy discussion about what families go through, individually and collectively, and most of all that entertained. The Alliance has lived by that mission for the past twelve years.
The Association of
National Advertisers (ANA) reached out to advertising and marketing executives
at national advertisers with family brand portfolios and invited them
to join ANA members to create the Family Friendly Programming Forum. The groups objective was to activate an economical and strategic solution to the eroding
efficacy of TV.
The Forum helped fund pilots, gave scholarships to talented young students,
and worked with networks and content creators to develop programming. Since its founding, the group helped bring to air more than 20 award-winning TV programs, beginning with Gilmore Girls
in the 2000-2001 season and including such hits as Everybody Hates Chris and
Friday Night Lights.
The group expanded to over 40 members, marketers who collectively control one out of every three advertising dollars spent on
network TV. It won the support of the
entertainment heads at every broadcast network and achieved its mission of providing consumers with one family programming option between 8 and 10 PM, seven nights a week.
However, the media marketplace evolved into a digital ecosystem. In 2008 the organization changed its name to the ANA Alliance for Family Entertainment and broadened its efforts to include traditional, new, and emerging family entertainment choices.
In October 2011, the Alliance introduced a new family content development strategy - the Search for America's Newest Comedy Writer, the first annual contest for new writers to submit their original, half-hour comedy format script about modern family life. The contest winner (to be announced in December 2011) will be awarded a $5000 cash prize, and personal mentoring on the winning script from acclaimed film and TV producer/writer/director John Wells.
The Alliance recognizes that today's family is very different than the "Leave it to Beaver" family of the late 1950s/early 1960s. The group supports offering consumers programming options and hopes to celebrate its existence by being an incubator for new family programming.
