Sat 14 Mar 2015

21 Responses to “A Discussion: THE FUTURE OF TV WATCHING, by Michael Shonk and Randy Cox.”

1. michael Says:
   March 14th, 2015 at 1:46 pm

   Oh oh, Randy, Steve put us on the front page where everyone can see us. 🙂

   As I reread our discussion I noticed your comment about SHERLOCK and how the British don’t over-do a TV series. The British tend to get over praised for the use of the limited series. SHERLOCK would do eight plus if the stars were available (it would run more like DOCTOR WHO in episodes length). And limited numbers per year doesn’t stop shows for lasting too many years.

   The major networks have noticed more the success of their competition, cable networks, with the 8-13 episode split seasons. Look at this season’s schedule and you see more attempts by the networks at shorter seasons. The 39 episodes a year we saw in the black and white days and even the 22 episodes a year of today is changing. Syndication and getting to 100 episodes remains important but less so as many shows have found success do to the war for content by Netflix vs Amazon prime vs Hulu vs other streaming services.

   The 13 episode series will become more and more common as it makes it easier for the free networks to program 12 months a year. It is also has an appeal to major talent as it offers a chance to get the money and quality work while not interfering with work in other forms such as film and stage.

   Everything about TV faces change, from the structure of the story (commercials versus no commercials) to where we watch the shows. Digital has changed much of our lives including our TV.

2. Randy Cox Says:
   March 14th, 2015 at 2:24 pm

   I don’t know how much longer we can prolong this. Actually, the 13 episodes season has been the “try-out” length for some years with a series being given the green light for a full season of 26 episodes after proving itself. There’s an entire catalog of series that were canceled after 13 episodes. However, 13 episodes do fit nicely into the 52-week year of broadcasting. More and more shows today take a break rather than air reruns prompting the newspaper schedules to put (N) after a title to alert the would be viewer to what they can expect.

3. michael Says:
   March 14th, 2015 at 3:29 pm

   Randy, you are right about the 13 week season. There has been shows where the networks first order would be for 8 episodes and then decide to renew or cancel for the midseason schedule. Everything has been tried as far as scheduling TV programs.

   The problem the free networks have had with the shorter seasons is the audience of a hit short season series such as SLEEPY HOLLOW don’t always return when the series does.

   Another thing (Run out of things to say? Try and stop me:)), the arc series such as LOST, GAMES OF THRONES, etc have benefited from DVDs and streaming. The cost of Videotapes made the format more successful for movie rentals, but TV series success in the cheaper DVD and now streaming has effected TV. Before viewers avoided getting hooked on a story only to have the networks cancelled the show without an ending episodes (this has changed as per CHUCK and FRINGE). Viewers now wait to watch the shows on a streaming service or DVD instead of live TV.

   This change in how some viewers watch a TV show will continue, even the ratings now reflect it with the L+7 more important to the networks than the live numbers (the exception is with live shows – reality, news, sports).

   Someday I will find the right moment over at ADWEEK and rant about how the media coverage of ratings needs to leave the 1990s and accept the realities of the present.

   Rant 1: Why should anyone care which network wins the ratings? I care about the programs, not the network it is on.

   Rant 2: If the demo is all so important why does CBS which yearly finishes second in the demo sell its ads out faster and for more money than any other network including the one that won the demo?

   Rant 3: There is no demo that is one size fits all. Why would Dial For Men pay for all the women aged 18-49 when it is interested in the sex of the viewer? Why would an advertiser aiming at the youth market pay for the 30-49? If advertisers are looking for those with the most disposable income why would they pay based on age and not income.

   Rant 4: Nielsen rantings can pin point viewer to increasing details. Why wouldn’t advertisers use such details to reach its exact target audience and reduce the money it wastes on viewers with no interest in its product? If total viewers is too big so is 18-49.

   Nielsen has always faced competition and today that is growing, not only from other companies but from other methods as well.

   How a TV shows success is judged will change as the medium and its viewers change.

4. David Vineyard Says:
   March 14th, 2015 at 6:05 pm

   Network television is that tale told by an idiot Shakespeare spoke of and always will be. It is dominated by people selling soap and toilet tissue and everything is always going to be secondary to that. It is a miracle it is as popular and at times as good as it is.

   Look how it treats hit shows. It moves hit series all over the place so that no one knows where it is supposed to air or when and changes schedules so often there is no longer anyway to even suspect when an episode will be shown and won’t be a repeat.

   Not to mention the fortune it sinks into pure unadulterated forty year old dated crap like THE ODD COUPLE that any idiot could tell them can’t work no matter how comfy the spot you put it in. Can’t they see how piteously bad the performances on that show are?

   No wonder most of us have the set on as background noise and use Halo, Netflix and others to actually watch television. It’s cheaper to subscribe to Halo, Netflix, MGM VOD, FOX VOD, or WBVOD and watch when you want than to subscribe to cable or satellite. I can watch the network and local news on my smart phone.

   Virtually anything on the networks I can catch streaming 24 hours later on my laptop or phone and USB them to my big screen television.

   The networks have been throwing crap in our faces like the caged monkeys they are for years, I just don’t feel any loyalty to them as they feel none to us.

   Greed I can tolerate, stupidity and worse has reached a point I can’t. They not only don’t understand how the audience has changed, they are hostile to the very concept that no one cares what they do anymore. We have better offers.

5. michael Says:
   March 14th, 2015 at 6:26 pm

   David, while I am a little kinder, I agree. And because the networks have started to take over the production of TV series the suits are now making the creative decisions as well. It is one reason nearly every creative writer/producer have moved off to cable when they can.

   The sad part is the audience remains loyal to the crap. The reboot of THE ODD COUPLE is a ratings success with the ratings starting good and getting better week after week. It has an easy time slot, but it is doing better than others before who had that slot.

   I always think of P.T. Barnum when I think of any mass audience be it TV, film, books or even politics.

6. Randy Cox Says:
   March 14th, 2015 at 7:55 pm

   Wow! I don’t think I can add anything to that so I will bow out for the time being. I’ll be out of town for awhile to help my brother celebrate his birthday.

7. David Vineyard Says:
   March 14th, 2015 at 7:58 pm

   Michael,

   I know it’s a hit, but have you watched that moronic badly timed blank stare performance Matthew Perry is giving every week? Yes, it’s in a sweet spot between BIG BANG and MOM, but as soon as BANG ends I watch news for an hour until MOM comes on rather than that hour of idiocy between it. If I had a DVR right now I wouldn’t even turn the set on that night.

   Despite it all there are some really creative and entertaining shows on now. How something as subversive and clever as GOTHAM got on is anyone’s guess, but the audience for network fare is aging, and increasingly the interesting stuff is on cable like USA’s new DIG.

   I barely even watch NCIS anymore, because it has reached a point there is nothing to it bur old home week and the characters stopped growing about two years ago. I do, however, hope the CSI franchise lasts long enough to do CSI Mars. At this rate it may well.

8. michael Says:
   March 14th, 2015 at 8:24 pm

   Randy, I hope your brother has a happy birthday which I doubt involves watching television.

9. Randy Cox Says:
   March 14th, 2015 at 8:43 pm

   Actually, we may go out to the movies. For now I guess I’ll go watch an episode of MURDOCH!

10. Dan Says:
    March 14th, 2015 at 8:56 pm

    Damn, I have GOT to start watching more TV!

    Never seen THE APPRENTICE, DANCING W/THE STARS, HONEY BOO-BOO, DUCK DYNASTY… and I find I can’t carry on an intelligent conversation with anyone.

11. michael Says:
    March 14th, 2015 at 8:56 pm

    David, I long ago stopped wasting my time thinking about the success of bad entertainment. I will sample a show but rarely make it past the first commercial break.

    As a writer/critic I know how stories are structured. NCIS and most formula dramas bore me. I know where the show is going and when to pay attention (sorry, that’s not the killer they have two acts to fill so there will be another twist in fifteen minutes).

    Sitcoms suffer from the increases in commercials. Try to tell a story in less than 20 minutes with at least six characters. What is left is set up – punch line, and repeat until time is up. I loved sitcoms with a plot such as BOB NEWHART and the time to tell it.

    I have been reading and watching stories for nearly sixties years. I have seen the twists, I have heard all the plots. But shows can still surprise me. PERSON OF INTEREST has fallen into the predictable but I remain loyal after a couple of seasons that had a good arc mystery and went places I did not expect. Right now BLACKLIST is fun to watch good girl FBI agent whats her name descend into a personal Hell, but its shows signs of following POI’s path. JUSTIFIED was something different for TV with a bad guy as lovable as the good guy.

    Many viewers seek the same over and over each week, finding comfort in the static moment of time where the characters never grow or learn, the story is simple and G-rated, and the good guys always win.

    I want wit and humor. James Spader was the only reason to watch BOSTON LAW and is the main reason to watch BLACKLIST.

    I try to be happy that there is anything on I can like. I remember how my favorite TV shows were always failures in the four network only days when masses rule (bye HARRY O, hello STRIKE FORCE). Today with so many choices it has been awhile since I had a favorite show cancelled early (ABC’s ZERO HOUR) and it deserved to die.

    TV, as with everything in life, is rarely great. I’m just surprised when something good makes it through the process.

12. michael Says:
    March 14th, 2015 at 9:07 pm

    10. Dan, you don’t need to actually watch TV to be cool at the watercooler anymore. Just read “Entertainment Tonight.”

    Another thing the internet has changed, people watch TV for you. There are recaps after certain hot shows where the story is recapped minute by minute. Yahoo has the show runner of JUSTIFIED the day after the show discuss the episode and behind the scene.

    Of course you need to watch the “right” shows. BLUE BLOOD with Tom Seleck may be a top fifteen rated series, but old people watch it. Ewwwwww, so that series does not exist.

13. Randy Cox Says:
    March 14th, 2015 at 9:10 pm

    Or maybe an old episode of DUE SOUTH!

14. michael Says:
    March 14th, 2015 at 9:41 pm

    Hey Randy, a present for your brother!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1RjXUygS_c

    If the link works you can watch the pilot episode of DUE SOUTH (all episodes are available on YouTube).

15. David Vineyard Says:
    March 14th, 2015 at 10:22 pm

    Michael,

    I have much the same problem with television. As a writer and critic I know dramatic structure and I know the limits of the writers who are ‘creating’ series for the most part, but honestly things have gotten worse in regard to mystery since they discovered the ‘least likely suspect’ concept. 90% of the time its the first person they interview that they pay no attention to until ten minutes before the hour. They could arrest them at the top and skip the forty minutes of tap dancing.

    I always annoyed my father whenever a mystery was on because almost all television is by nature obvious about who dunnit about five minutes in and I knew who the bad guy was.

    At least when the biggest star guesting did it the acting was better.

    It’s not really about that even. At times a series can get a lot of good will from me for something small. PERSON OF INTEREST not only had quirky characters and writing (jumped the shark a bit this year for me), but the hero actually fought in a realistic manner. Violence was swift and short, in a tight situation a single trained man had greater chance against multiple opponents (anyone you hit is an enemy), and he actually fought the way your are taught and not all that Chuck Norris competition nonsense from kung fu movies. Not once, so far, have he and an opponent walked around each other doing Bruce Lee poses and jabbering at each other. That and he acts violently rather than politely waiting for the other guy to throw the first punch. That was enough to get me to turn back and watch again. In short, someone knew enough about trained operatives to at least get their behavior right.

    Television almost always gets one essential thing wrong on cop shows; police and other professionals who use guns are taught to empty their gun when they fire them, not one shot and stop if they hit someone. That’s another one POI gets right usually. Of course he also uses more ammo in an episode than most ops use in a lifetime off the range. He uses more ammo than many OSS agents used in WWII, at least handgun ammo.

    It’s little nonsense, but it isn’t that hard to know.

    But individual shows aside, and pet peeves aside, it is the approach of American television that too often is flawed.

    As for reality television, I watch MYTHBUSTERS and documentaries, not ‘faction’ like the staged crap on DUCK DUMASSTY, and its ilk. Don’t people understand how difficult it would be to get an hour of actual drama every week out of unplotted lives? The cat left a hairball in my shoe and I had to stop and put air in a tire in the rain? Have people become that stupid?

    Don’t answer that.

    Re British television there are some parameters we have to deal with about the limited number of episodes. Most British actors, producers, and writers don’t get paid very well. They can’t make it on what a series alone pays. They do theater, radio, and films as well. Series episode length is based on that as much as quality. They aren’t available for thirteen to sixteen episodes a year.

    Ian McClellan fairly recently took time out from his film career to play Goldfinger in a BBC radio adaptation of the book. I don’t see a lot of American actors taking time to do a low paying job like that in his place, but then he and Derek Jacobi also did a sitcom. You know the pay was relatively low. They were not getting $1 million an episode like the FRIENDS stars.

    Money has a great deal to do with how they do BBC even now when there is more invested and made.

    But there is also a real commitment to quality (obviously not everything) compared the suits and Madison Ave. types trying to sell American television. That makes a difference too. British series are seldom just a product (for the worst read an upcoming review I have of the current Father Brown series — they don’t do everything well) or a concept.

    And I know this is going to get me in trouble, but there is a reason so many Brit and Australian actors star on American television. Frankly American television doesn’t have the depth of trained actors with actual skills behind it to do some things done on British television. I see quite a few British, Canadian, and Australian actors increasingly in even smaller roles simply because I see no sign American actors can handle the parts if they call for much more than television 101 acting.

    It seems as if in some series half the actors with more than a single line have accents. American actors want to be stars, but fewer and fewer seem to want to be actors. Anyone good enough is either starring in a series or has a major role or is in movies.

16. michael Says:
    March 15th, 2015 at 12:32 am

    POI made an interesting choice when it added a second AI, one that represents the problems giving machines intelligence could cause. But they made the bad guy too powerful. The good girl AI seems weak when it should be the other’s equal.

    The series has turned to the epic form. This has the good guys lose and lose and lose until the final battle (end of story) where they will win. I have grown weary of the predictability of each episodes action.

    Killing the fan’s favorite character (Detective Carter played by Taraji P. Henson in Season 3) was the ballsy type of move that has made the series so much fun. It needs Jonathan Nolan to come back, but he is off doing two possible new series for HBO (one based on Asimov’s FOUNDATION trilogy and the other BEYOND WESTWORLD).

    My reality weakness is sports and MLB network. The TV plays a game or highlights while I play on the computer. My TV set is my radio. I could pay to watch my teams on MLB.com (or wherever) but not interested enough to spend the money.

    As for British actors, I remember one famous knighted actor who I have forgotten explain that he was an actor and actors acted and a job was a job.

    There is a more classic stage style to British actors but the stage is more popular in Britain than American.

    I have seen a great deal of modern TV from Australia, Canada and even stuff from New Zealand and I don’t see them coming even close to the talent of American actors.

    I find American actors have a different style than British but don’t see either as better. It all depends on the role.

17. David Vineyard Says:
    March 15th, 2015 at 3:55 am

    Michael

    On the acting I’m strictly talking about lesser parts where I don’t see a lot of convincing American actors anymore. There used to be a plethora of faces you knew from episode to episode whether you knew their name or not, but now there seems to be fewer of those scene stealers, and to have one they have to go back to actors from the seventies and eighties half the time.

    I could see one of them three times in the same night on three different series, and not recognize them as having been on the previous program.

    In some ways television has always been closer to theater than film in its requirements. That theatrical style that can be too broad for a film on the big screen suddenly becomes a virtue on the small screen.

    I’m not discussing actors who get their names in the credits, I’m talking bit players who blend into one anonymous blob.

    I recall when I watched the Lone Ranger as a child that John Doucette or Bob Cason seemed to be the bad guys in every third episode, but their faces weren’t a blur — I might not have known their name (well, I knew Cason’s name I went to school with his much younger brother)then, but I knew them later on.

    Most of the American actors on weekly series who do those roles today I don’t recognize if they are in different episodes on the same night. They have so little presence they don’t register, and that did not use to be true.

    Of course that may be the writing as much as anything else, but those faces from the past often had no lines to speak of, but you grew to know them over time.

18. michael Says:
    March 15th, 2015 at 1:03 pm

    I am not sure how being great extras make the British better than Americans in acting.

    If you are talking actors who rise above minor roles I can name two, J.K. Simmons and Milana Vayntrub. Simmons took a cliche Professor character in an insurance commercial and made it fresh and funny. Vayntrub is a Russian-American who arrived in America at three and started acting at five. She took a nondescript character in an AT&T commercial and made her own. Her performance was so strong in a minor role the character has become the company’s spokesperson and even rarer for commercials got a name, Lily Adams.

    When I was reading about Vayntrub I realized the major difference between American and British actors. The British are stage trained in the classics while Americans begin with training in improv. As a writer I prefer the British loyalty to the word. As a viewer I prefer the American loyalty to the character.

19. David Vineyard Says:
    March 15th, 2015 at 4:40 pm

    Michael,

    I’m not talking about actors like Simmons — even when you didn’t know his name you knew his face, the same for James Cromwell, and countless others.

    I’m talking about characters who play suspects in cop shows, other cops with a line or two, the patrolman who finds the body, that sort of thing, or semi recurring characters who don’t pop up in every episode and maybe only have a few lines if they do.

    And the reason bad entertainment bothers me is that if we take that attitude to it, if we don’t point it out, discuss (and cuss) it, then that is all we will ever get. Theodore Sturgeon was bitter when he made the comment 90% of everything is crap — fact or not it is no excuse for accepting crap when it is served to you.

    As for improv training yes most American actors get training there, which teaches them to ignore the words and rely on their often parched and drought stricken imaginations. At least theatrical acting gives even mediocre actors some stage presence some respect for the words that define the character.

    I frankly loathe method acting. I agree with Hitchcock who reportedly told method actor Gregory Peck in SPELLBOUND that his motivation for coming down a staircase was his paycheck. To Peck’s credit he caught on fast. Many highly praised method actors got much better in films when they finally relaxed (Paul Newman for one). Too many great method performances strike me as the actor behaving as if he is constipated.

    Even Dennis Hopper admitted he learned something about acting when he asked Henry Hathaway for a retake and Hathaway made him do over 200.

    British actors in general think the role is about the person they are playing, American actors too often think the movie is about them and not who they are playing. That’s fine for stars and character actors, not so good for spear carriers.

20. michael Says:
    March 15th, 2015 at 5:39 pm

    David, the problem with calling out bad TV is no one knows what it is. I find GOTHAM bad TV, you love it. Viewers watch the series like its an Easter egg hunt. They care more about what comic book character is the new character than if the character is interesting.

    One of the lessons I learned being customer host at the AMC Century City movie theaters was no matter how bad I thought a movie was it was someone else’s favorite movie of all time. The audience taste matters, even Shakespeare wrote for his audience.

    I still don’t see what you see with the current state of acting, but that doesn’t mean its not there.

    You need to check out the streaming service Acorn. Its leaving YouTube but it has its own website.

    My favorite method acting story involves one of my least favorite actors Dustin Hoffman. In MARATHON MAN, Hoffman is about to perform in a chase so he ran up and down some stairs until he was out of breath. Sir Laurence Olivier, observing this, recommended to Hoffman he might try acting instead.

    If you watch Hoffman he always has an acting crutch, a phrase or action, that keeps him in character.

    My dislike for method acting remains the same for films or mini-series. But for the weekly TV series it makes sense for the writer/producer to make the regular characters develop the habits of the actors. It is not method acting but takes advantage of the actors knowledge of the character and reduces the pressure of finding the character when you are shooting 16 hour days, six days a week.

    The best at this is JUSTIFIED. Show runner Graham Yost is very open about how much actor Timothy Olyphant plays in the series creative decisions. Each episode is filmed with a staff writer on the set to deal with any needed changes including cast improv. The Raylon and Boyd scenes remain the key to the series success and the dialog is often changed by the actors during filming. Much like improv, such freedom for the actor can add a freshness to the dialog that remembering words on paper can not match.

    REMINGTON STEELE was a show that forced all actors to say the dialog exactly word for word from the script. But the reason was the series was a mystery, a who-dun-it, and any one word could be a vital clue.

    The attitude from producers (many former actors) today seem to be if the actor is happy and the truth of the scene survives who cares if the actor changes some words or runs up some stairs before a take.

    Besides as a writer if you can survive the process that has everyone rewriting your script from the network VP to the series’ writing staff, an actor changing some dialog is not going to bother you. Your heart has long ago been ripped out and stomped on.

21. » Death Noted: J. RANDOLPH COX (1936-2021). Says:
    September 22nd, 2021 at 12:30 pm

    […] them (but hardly all!) pointing out various typos and other corrections, always to my dismay. His one actual post was entitled “A Discussion: THE FUTURE OF TV WATCHING, by Michael Shonk and Randy Cox.”  […]

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