The Brains Behind The National Dog Show

Every Thanksgiving Day since 2002, 20 million Americans have tuned in to watch the National Dog Show on NBC, and the man they have to thank for it is Jon Miller, executive vice president of NBC Sports. It was his idea to air the Kennel Club of Philadelphia's annual Best in Show -- right after the Macy's Day Parade and right before football. He spoke with Paw Nation about how the show came to be.

How did you know that Americans wanted to watch a dog show on Thanksgiving day? When did the light-bulb go off?
On a Saturday night in January -- it was a nasty night. My wife rented [the movie] "Best in Show." We watched it with some friends, then I stayed up watching it a second time and just loved it. I thought it was so much fun.

How did that one spark lead to the show?
I came to work on Monday and grabbed one of our interns and said, "Find out what the second oldest dog show in America is," thinking that the Westminster was the oldest dog show in America. He came back about an hour later and said, "Well, the second oldest dog show in America is Westminster." I said, "Well, what's the oldest dog show?" and he said, "Philadelphia." He then got me in touch with [KCP president] Wayne Ferguson, and we had a great conversation. I asked, "Have you ever been on television?" He said no, but he'd be very interested. Then I went to Michael Crawford, who is a friend at Purina, to see if he had any interest. I said, "Michael, if we could get a dog show on NBC --" He said, "In a heartbeat, we'd support it."

Did you have high hopes for ratings that first year?
Our research folks thought it would do a one-and-a-half rating, which is what "It's A Wonderful Life" had done when it had been in that time period. But in that first year, the dog show did a seven rating. Now we've got about 20 million people that watch it. This is our eighth year. We just extended the for five more years with Purina, so now we're looking at all the way up to 2016.

What do you think is the appeal?
This is one of the few programs that multiple generations will sit down and watch together: grandparents, parents and grandchildren. And John O'Hurley and David Frei are a tremendous team for us. They bring humor into it, but they also educate and have fun with it.

What are the unique challenges of broadcasting a dog show?
That first year, we didn't know what to expect. But actually, it's a pretty simple formula: Try to show as many dogs as you can. People will watch this show to see their own dog, or they'll watch this show because they love dogs, or they'll watch this show because they're thinking of getting a dog.

This is a benching show, so when we bring down sponsors or guests, they all want to walk around the area and pet the dogs. But you need to ask permission before you pet a dog. You just can't reach out and start touching somebody's Shetland Sheepdog or somebody's Border Collie. It's like any other sport, like football or golf or basketball. They have their rules and organizers and you have to work with and respect the governing body.

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