November 2009 / vol. 6 issue 3
| That's what you get for always breaking character on SNL. Photoillustration by mac hird |
No Middle Ground
New programming either trash or treasure
Among the many outcomes of the economic crisis, one has not come to light until recently: Average TV is coming to an end. The money-earning orientation of the networks’ parent companies and sponsors, along with increased production costs, have set the stage for a media environment in which medium-quality TV shows cannot survive, for they do not guarantee enough earnings cover their costs — they are a high-stakes gamble that troubled companies’ will not take.
In other words, if time equals money, TV airtime equals diamonds these days, and that mindset has paralyzed TV so that every show falls into one of two extremes: masterpiece or plain trash (or at least, a cheap, low-quality show). The danger now lies with the parent corporations’ greed and their willingness to sacrifice anything for the sake of quick profit instead of shooting for bigger earnings in the future. As the season progresses, unwise executive choices seem to be dooming quality television — precisely what TV professionals have dreaded and are fighting.
Here are the five major network decision errors that are driving decent TV out of existence.
Killing primetime programming diversity
The CW, which was once a family-oriented channel, started the trend when it shut down its comedy department last spring in order to focus on teen shows such as Gossip Girl, Melrose Place, and Supernatural. After The CW’s move, all of the networks started specializing: ABC cancelled Pushing Daisies and other worthy shows to open up airtime for more reality shows; CBS confirmed its position as a bastion for crime-procedurals and sitcoms (a new NCIS spinoff, CSI: wherever, The Big Bang Theory, How I Met Your Mother, and more); FOX retouched its tendency toward the action genre while revamping its animation department, basically handing everything over for Seth McFarland to run; and NBC decided to surrender and become (for the most part) the Tina Fey, The Office Spoofs, and talk show channel. Such corporate decisions mean the downfall of fall programming.
Extreme risk avoidance
Since corporations are not willing to take risks with new series, they allow (or force) the existing good shows to run for too long — causing those series to flounder. How many recent series that were a hit in their first season have continued to air while getting nowhere (*cough* Lost *cough* Heroes *cough*) or having a repetitive premise that got boring after three or four seasons? How many times have the Prison Break guys gotten in and out of jail, or how many sociopaths have lived in Desperate Housewives’ Wysteria Lane? Plainly speaking, the networks have fallen into the practice of milking their cash-cow shows, even those that were designed to work only for a single season.
Reality-show abuse
Sure, reality shows easily tap into people’s desire to pry into other people’s lives and mishaps — such shows are cheap to produce, garner huge audiences, and attract sponsors. However, most reality shows nowadays shouldn’t exist, and those few with production or social value require revision. For instance, Dancing with the Stars should have actual stars participating in it again (Tom Delay — really?); The Biggest Loser should be less demeaning if its purpose is to deliver a “healthy” message; Big Brother, America’s Next Top Model, and American Idol should be suspended for a while (to allow a generation to forget about them) or cancelled entirely; and the ridiculous shows Wipeout and Wife-Swap never should have been conceived. It’s tiresome to engage in so much people-watching.
The plague of talk-shows
An American TV tradition since the times of Johnny Carson, talk shows have reemerged as one of the network’s big money-makers. They are the cheapest and fastest shows to produce, requiring only a few writers, minimal crew, a host, guest celebrities, and a live audience. But how can talk-shows be a mistake? They take up airtime that could be invested in something better and more creative. The new Jay Leno Show epitomizes the problem: Running five days a week in the 9/10 PM slot, it occupies the spot that used to belong to award-winning dramas such as The West Wing, E.R., and Law & Order, pushing said shows either to earlier spots or off the air (as was the case with Southland, created by John Well’s Production, the studio behind E.R. and The West Wing). Both talk-shows and reality shows simply replace dramas and comedies unrightfully.
Business short-sightedness
This is the worst of the network’s errors. Reality shows and talk-shows are inexpensive and rake in millions of dollars really fast when they air — but so does a good (though expensive) series. A series, however, can be sold to several ancillary markets, including DVD, syndication, and foreign markets (to give you an idea, a 10-season series like Friends is worth around 1 billion dollars), whereas nobody buys Jay Leno or Survivor after they’ve aired — those are one-time hits.
Ultimately, it’s up to the TV industry people to make sure that the natural selection imposed by the recession doesn’t wipe out or hurt all good shows, but rather that the lower end of programming will expire. Even if worse comes to worst, and the broadcast networks produce crap only, at least cable networks (with Dexter, True Blood, and the like) can still creatively entertain those audiences who refuse to watch the programming of the “idiot box.” 
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