in the continued theme of the fragmented television universe, in this weekend's New York Times (at least the web site) is running a virtual debate of sorts under the heading of Do We Need [broadcast] Network Television?
There is commentary from four different writers, my favorite perhaps was from Ed Roberts who ironically hosts a radio show about television. He's also written a book about The Rockford Files so him throwing in some Jim Rockford references into his commentary wasn't a particular surprise, but I agree with him anyway and it was a nice stroll down memory lane:
“The Rockford Files,” for example, remains timeless and well loved because it melded actor and character. You had a personality in James Garner, who was one of the best “reactors” in the business, coupled with writers (Roy Huggins, Stephen J. Cannell, David Chase, Juanita Bartlett) who showcased his skill to great, often humorous, effect by forcing Rockford to react to all sorts of odd people or situations.
That kind of writing elevated “Rockford” from a standard private detective series to a show that crossed genres (blending humor and, in many cases, social commentary within an episodic whodunit) and remains fresh even now.
From someone outside the US, i am quite puzzled by people saying that cable TV will be the death of network TV. As far as i’m aware, cable doesn’t have that many quality shows relative to that of network tv. Also, cable has ads right? So i doubt it would be people fed up with ad content.
Where i live, the greatest threat to the networks are downloaded TV shows. As an example, Lost is rating about 1/4 of its premiere audience, and i doubt that many people stopped watching.
Ben, it’s simple: last Thursday night in the US only about 40% of the adults 18-49 who were actually watching TV were watching any of the big broadcast networks we track. While not many cable shows draw huge numbers, there are MANY shows to pick from at any given time. Of the 60% who were not watching big broadcast nets, but were watching TV, almost all of it was watching cable (versus PBS, local channels, smaller broadcast networks).
My question was really in the form of why an increasing number of people are opting for cable channels, which the majority of the time have reruns of shows. I know it’s not something which has one answer.
Ben, over the past few years U.S. cable outlets have made a real push for original programming in prime-time. Several cable nets offer original series in our prime viewing hours. Most of my favorite series are original cable programming – “Burn Notice,” “South Park,” “Paranormal State,” and “Dirty Jobs” are all cable series. And that’s just a tiny fraction of what is offered on cable as new programming.
Ben I think Ed Robertson has the right idea.
His general argument is that network television has essentially forgotten/lost what made its shows special, characters whilst cable television offers that in spades with both their original content and reruns of the old network shows. A Law & Order fan is for example more likely to watch a rerun with characters and stories they care about on USA rather than a new raft of network shows that have no real hook for them and that’s an example you can make for just about every major network show from the past twenty-thirty years.
Its worth pointing out that arguably the most successful scripted drama on network television right now is House, a show built entirely around the brilliance of its central character with Hugh Laurie’s performance being perfectly matched with excellent writing that plays to his strengths. Meanwhile The Mentalist the agreed upon big new hit for this season has gotten press for having a quirky central character brought to life by its leading man. Of course on the flip side of that for every House or Mentalist there’s a Life, which has the characters but no audience.
I think perhaps over the next few years we might see the networks taking a closer look at what’s performing well on cable and for lack of a better term ‘stealing’ their audience and then try and copy it. Monk, Burn Notice, The Closer and Pysch are all popular cable shows that work primarily on the strength of the central character being unique and original with a performance complimented by the writing – something Robertson singles out as the strength of The Rockford Files years ago.
What’s interesting is that cable channels like USA are becoming major players within television by taking the basic formula that networks were using years ago and have since abandoned. My guess is that networks should start adopting a similar ‘characters welcome’ stance that USA has because ultimately that’s how you win audiences back, showing them that network television can be as good as it ever was.
@Alex but doesn’t the numbers tells us that most of these ‘character’ shows while quite successful on cable would have been quick cancellations on any broadcast network ?
The question might be is it easier for the broadcast networks to turn themselves into cable channels or to focus the networks on the lowest common denominator shows that still can attract a larger audience and let the cable channels expand to fill the niches ?
If you look at the majority of the major network hits from the past decade they’ve been character led. Even monster reality hits like American Idol, Survivor and The Bachelor are all about the characters involved more than any faux drama or tension the producers attempt to create. If you don’t cast the right contestants (and in Idol’s case take away a certain British judge) then viewers aren’t going to stick around. Its incredibly rare that any show becomes a big hit without that big central character(s) to latch onto – Dancing With The Stars would be one of the few examples I can think of off the top of my head.
Heroes is in fact a pretty good example of the importance of characters to the success of a show. If you rewind to the first season of Heroes people on the whole loved Hiro found him engaging, funny and interesting and then in season two they completely screwed up and Hiro became a tedious and dull character no one cared about and the ratings started to slide. You can apply that basic character blueprint to the majority of the Heroes cast, the characters were interesting in season one and then became tedious and self obsessed in season two and people stopped caring and stopped watching.
And if you look back at the history of something like ER you can trace its history by the primary characters more so than any of the storylines, gimmicks or specific episodes and that’s why the ‘return of…’ gimmick has worked well for this final season. People are coming back to see the character(s) they remember and loved.
A character driven show doesn’t mean you have to make something like Pushing Daises filled with ‘quirky’ larger than life characters, visuals and stories it just means you have to make something that actually has characters. The CSI formula (and the CBS procedurals in general) works less because of the CSI gimmick and more because they all basically have the same blue print of the flawed genius central character – the original CSI worked because of Peterson as Grissom not because of the murders.