Good Shows, Bad Networks, Part 3: Rebuilding the Beast

But wait, there's more... I could probably keep going like this for a week or so, but I want to pull back a bit and (at the risk of getting carried away) look at the bigger picture and, instead of just complaining, offer some ideas. If the broadcast networks hope to remain even slightly relevant in the future of TV, they need to examine how their competition is doing things, and how that compares to how they have been doing things for decades.

Many of the non-broadcast channels (i.e. anything that isn't ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, or CW) are producing top-quality programming, and not just pay channels like HBO and Showtime: FX, TNT, TBS, USA, SciFi, AMC, even ABC Family are following the path of the pay channels and are now in the original-programming game for real. They have reached a point where the quality, variety, and year-round scheduling of the shows they are producing represent a real threat to the hegemony of the old guard.

I don't feel any special allegiance to the traditional broadcast networks. It makes no difference to me what network a program airs on; if I like the show, I'm going to watch. In fact, NBNs (non-broadcast networks) understand that their audiences are inherently smaller due to their somewhat more limited availability, so they have lower expectations and are more likely to give promising shows the time needed to develop and flourish, in addition to having fewer restrictions on content. Many TV writers and producers now feel their ideas are better served by NBNs.

The "big four" networks are no longer quite as big as they used to be. (Merging the WB and UPN into the CW may have seemed like a good idea at the time, but it's never going to amount to more than an also-ran so I don't count it as one of them.) The majority of Americans have cable, satellite, or fiber coming into their homes, and many shows (though not all) can be watched online as well. In fact, if you really set your mind to it, and are willing to accept being a little behind on the watercooler talk, a Netflix subscription and a broadband internet connection can provide you with a happy, satisfying TV existence without watching TV on TV at all. That really scares the crap out of the networks.

The networks need to acknowledge that the television landscape has changed irrevocably over the past decade or so and, to appropriate a well-used phrase, ten million is the new 20 million (viewers). The days of a top-rated hit show consistently drawing 20, 22, 25 million viewers a week each week are long gone, simply because the television landscape is now far more fractured. The most popular scripted programs on broadcast TV are currently averaging around 18 mIllion viewers per week, and even that is more of the exception these days. (Even that singing show is down in the ratings this year.)

So, let's play armchair network exec: what to do? First of all, the notion of a season that is eight months long (roughly mid-September to mid-May) but only has 22 weeks of new, original programming is as dead as Chuckles the Clown and needs to be discarded. The corollary, that a season must be 22 episodes long, is also past retirement age.

Back in the 1970s, the three broadcast networks had what amounted to a captive audience, making it possible to sustain viewer interest over the course of an entire season, plus shows tended to produce more episodes in a given season, meaning fewer weeks when repeats were needed. Today there is plenty of programming available elsewhere, and NBNs offer fresh programming year-round, so broadcast networks dumping a stinking pile of juvenile, insulting reality shows on viewers each summer is not going remain tenable as any kind of long-term strategy.

For most of its seven-season run, The Shield aired its new episodes January through March or March through May. And when summer rolls around, I look forward to new seasons of The Closer, Burn Notice, Mad Men, and now Leverage, which just completed its first season on TNT and will begin its second season this summer. These are not deeply intellectual shows (well, you could make the argument that Mad Men is at least thought-provoking) but all of them have two things in common, besides being highly entertaining: they all air on NBNs, and their seasons range from 13 to 16 episodes, which tend to run uninterrupted.

But not always. USA started the "split season" a few years back with Monk, and now uses it on most of its original shows; Burn Notice (also on USA) and The Closer (on TNT) did the same thing this past season. Basically, the season starts in the summer and goes for X number of weeks, then picks up again in the winter for another batch of episodes that concludes the season. I'm not a fan of this approach, but it does have some merit. Even if the season is conceived to run this way, I think it breaks the momentum of the major story arcs. On the other hand, waiting nine months between the end of one season and the start of the next is worse, and this way TNT can remind viewers that "The Closer will be back in June," which is now less than three months away.