Memo to TV Networks: Try Something Daring

Like the academic year, the TV season begins in September. It has been this way since Dumont was the fourth network. This year, Fox is going to launch six new shows in June. NBC is threatening the world's remaining superpower with four new reality shows and a new sitcom. The Warner Brothers Network (the appalling WB) has a few new titles. Well, if they're going to tamper with tradition, try something really radical -- quality.

The conventional wisdom holds that people don't watch TV in the summer. Folks are outdoors, on vacation or otherwise occupied. Gazing at the gogglebox is not part of the program, so the programs are reruns. TV studied the economics of the situation and realized that there was no point in creating a new episode since the smaller audience for the summer means lower ad rates. At best, the nation got summer replacement shows that ran only a few weeks as tests.

The networks claim the new shows are not mere summer replacements -- and since they haven't aired, there's no evidence to the contrary. But it is fair to say that the preliminary media efforts reveal programs that are not very much different from what has gone on before now. Rappers Method Man and Redman in a fish-out-of-water sitcom is how Fox is flogging "Method and Red." It feels stale already.

Summer is an opportunity in TV. There are no sweeps weeks that force networks to aim for high ratings at all costs. And if the worry is cost, there are cable and other distribution platforms that will be glad to air "failed" network programs. Summer could be the time to take risks because the risks are so much small from June to August. And the rewards for finding the next "Simpsons" are the pot at the end of the cathode ray tube.

It is certainly too late for this summer, but in 2005, the networks need to prove that they can still innovate. Reality TV will be a spent force (one hopes), just as the game show craze came and went. A vacuum can just as easily be filled by something new and creative as by canned laughter. Then again, there's too much fun ahead to bother with TV until September.


© Copyright 2004 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.


Home