[opendtv] (no subject)
- From: Albert Manfredi <albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 9 Sep 2009 20:35:04 -0400
http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1920038-2,00.html
Some of you may have read this. It talks about how Jay Leno during prime time
will be "the future of TV."
As Craig would say, "rubbish."
One interesting insight: just as I thought, Hulu and other online TV, which it
claims is "mostly free," i.e. ad supported, "does not deliver close to TV ad
money." Their words. No matter the irrelevant hype about per-minute ad revenues
being higher online.
The reason I say "rubbish," of course, is that you don't gain audience share by
airing stuff on every night that even fewer people want to see. People flock to
interesting drama shows, not just here, but all over the world. If the shows
cost too much, then they need to cut THOSE costs. Not cut out the type of
material that works.
What costs too much? The actors? The writers? Get no-name actors. Produce the
shows elsewhere. Shows like The Outer Limits and Twighlight Zone had unknown
actors, no? And they were good. Canadian series are good too, at least the few
we've seen here. European series are good too. I'm sure the world doesn't lack
for creative writing talent either. Plenty of options. And exercicing these
options will automatically throttle back the cost of hiring US actors. It's
called competition.
Luckily, the other networks are poo-pooing this NBC rationalization for
surrender.
Then they list all the successful shows of the past several years. Funny. No
1950s era variety shows in that list.
CBS and Fox seem capable of coming up with good shows consistently. ABC seems
to have found the "personal relationships" niche for the ladies. (Gosh, even
Defying Gravity, with so much potential, turns out to be soap-ish.) Maybe
networks do have to find more of a niche than in decades past, so what? Contain
costs, figure out a niche that isn't too narrow. And with all the multicast
channels available now, they can even create lower-cost more niche channels
than they could before.
Bert
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