First off, apologies for the lack of posts for the past few weeks. Anatomy finals and tropical vacations have a way of cutting into your free computer time.
Now to the real business, which I have been planning to address for some time now. Over the past few years there have been two consistent trends in television. These are 1) Soaring cable ratings, and 2) Withering network ratings. Paired with the
screen writer's strike last television season the net outcome has been devastating to network television as we all know and love it. For the most part, cable networks, with their repeat (
CSI or Law and Order Marathons anybody?) and reality (Real Housewives of [name your city], The
Laguna Hills City or whatever MTV airs, etc)
weathered the storm well with ratings soaring and ad revenues continuing to flow in, many even showing record growth this past year. This is juxtaposed, however, by the catastrophic effects on the creative engines of network television. Not only did the writer's strike halt new episodes of already popular shows, but it prevented new series from ever being able to develop a fan base, and, quite noticeably this season, prevented new pilots and creative outlets to be developed.
The net result of these combined factors have been mixed. Okay, besides enabling
Scrubs to be picked up for another season due to the fact that ABC cannot come up with a single halfway decent comedy show on its own, they're actually all bad. The most telling of all these signs, however, is
Jay Leno's reassignment by NBC to the 10PM time slot, 5 days a week, in prime-time. What this means, in short, is that NBC has conceded the fact that it is unable to afford to develop or fund original programming for fully 1/3 of its weekly
primetime schedule. The 10PM time slot has not yielded a
bonafide hit since
ER 14 years ago now and it's worth it to them to just pay Leno a fraction of the money it costs to otherwise operate that time (but still, $30M isn't too shabby for Leno) and to just rake in the ad revenue from whatever audience happens to tune in. No more "Must See TV", no more programming blocks, no more relying on a lead-in or lead-out show to anchor an entire night's worth of programming. NBC is acknowledging that the old model of network television simply does not work anymore. With the advent of
DVR, internet, Hulu, torrents, and DVDs people watch shows because they are
good, not because they're on after
Friends.
This is one reason that explains precisely why cable networks have been so successful in capturing new audiences and
develop ping shows. First, they invest intelligently in well-written, well budgeted dramas or comedies, such as
Mad Men in the case of
AMC or
Monk in the case of USA. Second, they rerun them like it's their job to keep you watching and abreast of what is happening in the
shows story lines so that new viewers can actually pick up mid-season. Third, they can focus on specific niches, for example TBS as the center for comedy and TNT for drama. It is this type of specialization that initially allowed cable channels to compete with network programming and now, thanks to the rapid proliferation of original programming on cable, has finally begun to cannibalize the audience of the big network channels. By trying to play
a little bit to all audiences but completely to none, network television has effectively completed
itself out of the business that it created. Leno at 10PM means network television finally can read the writing on the wall.
Of course we'll still have
Lost and
American Idol and all of the other shows people currently love on the big channels. But the hits will likely become fewer and far between as less money is available to finance expensive pilots and as networks begin to
re-brand themselves within the context of their mini-cable empires (for example the NBC-Bravo-USA family or CBS-Viacom or ABC-ESPN-Disney), more equally sharing original programming between the existing channels. This does not mean the end of quality television. Only the end of television as we knew it growing up.
A long time ago, while I attended a high school not so far away, there was once an existence without The OC. Then I remember being in the mall (yes, remember when that's all we had to do with ourselves?) and seeing a gigantic billboard with nothing but a beach sunset, a surfer, and a tag line emblazoned across the wall opposite the movie theater. Little did I know that that show would ultimately redefine the prime time-soap genre and make being a smart, nerdy, indy-music loving, pop-culture laden Jew cool again (or maybe for the first time, either way I'm all for it). And I'll even go so far as to say that season 1 of The OC was genius; I dare you to defy me (Annabiotics? Genius!). The fact of the matter is that, for at least one season, The OC had some of the wittiest banter on television and a semi-believable premise with well-written characters.
