Stupid Questions for Networks: Taking A Chance At 10 p.m.
There was a big article in the Los Angeles Times today about how networks are sucking wind at the moment after 10 p.m. EST.
Sez the LAT:
Broadcasters have had trouble coaxing audiences back to all of their shows since the three-month writers strike ended last season, but nowhere have the troubles been more acute this fall than at 10 p.m., with disappointing ratings for such dramas as ABC’s “Dirty Sexy Money” and “Life on Mars,” CBS’ “Without a Trace” and NBC’s “Lipstick Jungle” and the new Christian Slater caper, “My Own Worst Enemy.”
I think it’s early to call “Life On Mars” and “My Own Worst Enemy” ratings disappointments yet. Both feature convoluted plotlines (blame it on “Lost“) and the fact they got reworked weeks before they premiered. I’m sure that ABC and NBC are glad to even have a show to run there, because it looked bad for both of them (Joss Whedon’s “Dollhouse” needs the same luck.) But both are improving. It takes awhile for reworked shows, because you have to forgive lapses of the plot early.
But instead of the shows themselves so much, a lot of blame was placed on a third party disruption: the DVR.
Research shows that viewers with DVRs tend to watch more TV than people without the devices and also that they use them more as the evening progresses. So, the thinking goes, by the time 10 p.m. rolls around, many DVR users are catching up on shows they recorded earlier in the evening and skipping altogether the dramas that are scheduled by the networks for that hour.
I can see that to some extent in households who hold their kids to a strict bedtime, where they rush through the story so they can go check out the “Californication” that’s been burning on their TiVo since it recorded early in the morning. The families who bring their kids up with PBS Kids during the day (to many, “Hannah Montana” is considered boy-crazy and materialistic, trust me.) probably won’t be letting them get any life lessons from “Dirty Sexy Money’.
But really, we’re in a new TV age now, where there’s a generation of kids growing up at more of their own devices. The reasoning and the ethics of that can be fought in another place — I don’t want to pass judgment. However, for every parent who puts Net Nanny on their computer and learns how to work the remote enough to put parental guidance secret codes on the TiVo, there’s another who learns on their own. So they’re at liberty to get into shows that some cringe at for age-appropriateness (I don’t care how old Miley Cyrus feels at 15, I can’t imagine watching it and understanding half of the edited version of “Sex and the City” on PBS at her age, but I had a family who had me watching CNN instead of cartoons as a kid and look how I turned out! Guffaw over that later.)
And at 10, when they either have the choice of watching a network show or doing other things, like watching a DVD (often times a classic teen film like “Dazed and Confused” or “Clueless” instead of almost any teen movie made after “Bad Girls“, since John Hughes and Amy Heckering apparently have forgotten this X-Gen) or playing something on the X-Box. Or, if we want to admit it) go and hang out with their friend and possibly indulge in doing things most parents would flip out about and that’s likely to show up on a MySpace page in the future.
So here’s an idea that the young-demo people would laugh at and the others, well, they’d mumble about things not being right in the world since “Murder, She Wrote” was canceled. How about trying a show that appeals to teens and adults in very visceral, fun ways. Like maybe a sci-fi show that has adults being adults (i.e. just a little sex appeal) but also with a plotline that makes hearts of all ages soar?
The best two examples I can say immediately are shows who were sometimes misunderstood by net execs (please don’t let them do that to you, “Life On Mars“) but ended up with large vocal fan bases who gave the shows a reason to be around — “Battlestar Galactia” and “Firefly“. My third is my special favorite, but has been a consistant highest-rated show for Sci-Fi — “Doctor Who”. That show has had its own backlash from fans when they tried to move the show earlier in the evening. And in a way, DW’s spinoff show “Torchwood” has always fought for life with the BBC because, due to the British “watershed”, its full version can only run after primetime. But in America it became BBC America’s biggest hit, airs on HDNet during all hours of the day, and surely could find a home on any net with only a few things causing a net censor’s heartburn.
The point is, if the current lineup of crime dramas, pretty people dramas, old dramas and confused dramas isn’t winning it for you, why not try something that’s not so much drama. There are things that people like after 10 p.m. EST that don’t feature blood and guts and lovelorn angst between adults. Maybe it would take something on the lighter side of drama, like “Melrose Place“, or something quirky like “Pushing Daisies” with a racier storyline (which would be pretty similar to “Twin Peaks“. Or heck, just take a great dramedy like “Grey’s Anatomy” was before it got pushed earlier and was forced to take less chances (although the recent lesbian storyline is proof that America’s not so freaked out by gays, or at least the female ones, alas.)
The formula that NBC relied through for years with their “Must See TV” Thursday schedule has been two hours of hit comedies, then an hour of drama. It seemed to work well, but with “ER” coming to its overdue, horrendous end, it’s time to consider options. Obviously they can’t continue doing the “SNL Election Specials” thing after the election, unless Sarah Palin wins, in which case Tina Fey might go into the Witness Protection Program just to get some peace.
So if “My Own Worst Enemy” or “Lipstick Jungle” neither show enough life to take its place, how about “Crusoe“? It’s got hot actors, lots of “Pirates of the Caribbean ” action, and might develop more realistic snark and have more adult relationships in a later time slot?
Time will tell what direction NBC will go (and frankly “My Own Worst Enemy” might grow some organic market enough for NBC to take a chance) but ABC and CBS really have no option but to hope crime drama addicts will be unfailingly loyal, that someone might decide that “Dirty Sexy Money” is actually as good as “Dynasty” or figure out that part of the plot is losing viewers in droves in “Life On Mars”.
In any case, is it time for the new season of “Big Love” yet? For some reason I find watching people interacting in clean and perfect Utah to be the strangest thing I’ve seen in a few seasons.
(NBC Photo: Paul Chedlow)
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