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February 4, 2010
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Long live TV TV is dead, long live TV. Sure, we do not all watch one TV series any more and probably won’t again. And TV (like newspapers, radio, the record industry, the movie industry, book publishing, etc.) will have to do a little adjusting to make sure it can survive and thrive and afford to throw the occasional million-dollar salary bump at its superstars in this age of the Internet. But TV (just like all those aforementioned industries) isn’t going anywhere. In fact some (Amy Diaz) may argue that it’s the best it has ever been. In this moment between Conan O’Brien’s triumphant finale (complete with triumphant ratings) and the premiere of Lost (can I get a last-season “amen”?) and Sunday’s Super Bowl (one of the few things a bunch of us still gather together to watch) and the forthcoming Winter Olympics (hold on tight, NBC), let us pause to consider the TV — its national greatness and its local accessibility. Golden age of TV My name is Amy and I love TV. I read, I have hobbies, I occasionally go outside, I sometimes exercise but I love TV. I have been known to hug my sets and tell them it’s alright when I have to move them. (And yes, I know I stole the hugging-the-TV idea from The Simpsons because, as I said in the first sentence, I love TV.) Yes, TV has its problems: the occasional fight between cable companies and cable channels, questionable decision-making by the broadcast networks, the career of Mischa Barton (you need to go away and let us forget about you, Marissa Cooper). But let’s forget about all the business stuff for a minute and consider the images actually coming to our eyes from the TV set. As an art form (yeah, I said “art”), TV is in a period of extraordinary creativity. Great things are happening all over the dial (kids, get your grandpas to explain a “dial” to you) and our ability to see and support stuff we like is better than it has ever been. And yes, even you Hulu and iTunes devotees who haven’t touched a remote in years but frequently catch up on Community in your cubicles, even you are consuming TV. So here, in no particular order, are the eight reasons I think TV is currently in its golden age and why you should watch more of it. I won’t argue that it’s good for you (see Everything Bad Is Good For You if you need to convince your spouse that a Battlestar Galactica marathon is actually making you smarter), but I will vigorously defend to anyone my assertion that there is more than ever worth watching. At least, I’ll defend it for a good five minutes, because I have Burn Notice episodes to watch. 1. There is so much choice. As I write this, it is a freezing cold Saturday evening. I am not inclined to go outside. And that’s OK — even if I don’t turn to my stash of shows on the DVR, I have lots to choose from, entertainment-wise: movies, the Miss America pageant, college sports, 1990s sitcoms in syndication, warring celebrity “news” shows Access Hollywood and Entertainment Tonight. But there are also the competitive cooking shows on Food Network, HGTV’s slate of home sales and improvement shows that can actually be quite useful if you’re looking to snazzy up your own house, concerts on Palladia. Were it a weekday, I’d likely have a mix of comedy, drama and reality programming on the traditional broadcast networks, new episodes of Bravo’s competition or documentary-style reality shows, new episodes of USA’s hour-long procedural comedies with moments of drama and/or TNT’s procedural dramas with moments of comedy. Just about any time, I can find shows about how stuff is made, the history of stuff, the history of people and the history of various Hollywood scandals on a variety of cable networks (Animal Planet, Discovery, History Channel and more as well as their various offshoots). On Sunday at primetime, I could see whatever was currently on HBO. If it’s ever too quiet at my own house, I can tune into the primetime screamfests on the cable news channels. And this assumes I want to “tune in” to anything happening live on my TV. Because now let’s look at my DVR, packed with 24 (which recently started its eighth season); All My Children (old habits die hard); USA’s slate of shows; the comedies on ABC and NBC; quirky procedurals on Fox like House and Bones; Project Runway and a grab bag of syndicated geek shows like various Star Trek series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, various iterations of Law & Order as well as mix of new and old cooking shows featuring Alex Guarnaschelli, Nigella Lawson, Giada De Laurentiis and others. When a new show comes out that sounds interesting, DVR usually allows me to record it without changing familiar habits and then watch it after a few episodes are in the can, giving me a good sense of whether or not I want to stick with the show. (Which is a good argument for giving shows more than one or two broadcasts before pulling the plug. Unless they feature Mischa Barton.) My point here is not to wow you with my nerdy TV choices but to demonstrate how day or night there isn’t just OK stuff available but usually good stuff available, stuff that is worth not doing something else to watch. Or how, if you are a social butterfly during the week, your weekend can be jam-packed with the best of TV. 2. No, really, there is a lot of choice. And then there are your various On-Demand choices. I have Comcast, so a good chunk of the shows on NBC, CBS, USA, Food Network, Bravo, TNT, FX, TBS and more are available whenever. Some series have all of their current season’s episodes available, so you can give in to all of your friend’s hype about TLC’s Cake Boss by watching the last three episodes or all of the talk about HBO’s Big Love by catching up on the entire third season and the fourth season so far. (Assuming you have HBO; note to cable providers: give me a chance to get hooked on some Showtime shows by allowing me to buy them individually.) Then there are all the movies and music videos and just crazy stuff available down the OnDemand rabbit hole. And allow me to once again point out how cool it is to get a peek at very-limited-release indie movies via the “Same Day as Theaters” option in the movies section. 3. We are always at the beginning of a new season. HBO long ago freed itself from the fall-through-spring schedule and it’s not news that more cable networks are following suit. But it’s becoming common enough that you can in fact look forward to the spring season, early summer season, late summer, etc. The aforementioned Big Love is four episodes into its new season. USA’s fun series White Collar (Tuesdays at 10 p.m.), Psych (Wednesdays at 10 p.m.) and Burn Notice (Thursdays at 10 p.m.) have just started their winter seasons. A few weeks before Christmas, as the networks were airing their last episodes of the year, TNT aired a trio of The Closer. This summer, most of those series will air their shortened seasons again. There is always something new to watch. 4. The comedies are funny. Here are the three hilarious hours of television: The Middle (Wednesdays, 8:30 p.m., on ABC), Modern Family (Wednesdays, 9 p.m., on ABC), Community (Thursday, 8 p.m., on NBC), Parks & Recreation (Thursday, 8:30 p.m., on NBC), The Office (Thursday, 9 p.m., on NBC), 30 Rock (Thursday, 9:30 p.m., on NBC). All of those winter series I mentioned on USA all fall somewhere on the comedy scale but Psych is a particularly joyous hour of television — filled with the charm of bromantic duo Shawn (James Roday) and Gus (Dulé Hill), riffs on 1980s pop culture and brilliant use of Corbin Bernsen. Glee, a musical comedy-drama series from Fox, has me not just laughing but clapping and laughing — and desperate for its return on Tuesday, April 13, at 9 p.m. Last fall on HBO, Curb Your Enthusiasm ended one of its best seasons in a long time (and gave Seinfeld fans some long-awaited closure) and Bored to Death introduced a hazy, new, more literary brand of comedy and a funny new flavor of Ted Danson. Whether you like a laugh track and the occasional pratfall (CBS’s The New Adventures of Old Christine, The Big Bang Theory, How I Met Your Mother and Two and a Half Men), something weird and edgy (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia on FX) or a humorous interlude somewhere in between (don’t cancel Better Off Ted, ABC), there is a wide selection of comedy and there’s a really good chance it will actually get you laughing. 5. The Sopranos was not the alpha and omega of good drama. Since the end of The Sopranos, TV-watchers have wondered how HBO would keep up the momentum. Or, rather, some did — others of us just wondered why more people weren’t talking about The Wire. That Baltimore saga ended but its creators have a new HBO series, Treme, scheduled to appear this year. And, while I can’t decide whether True Blood is good TV or just a high-quality guilty pleasure, it, along with Big Love, has kept me from canceling my HBO subscription. AMC’s Mad Men proves that it isn’t just premium cable that can do great drama. NBC might have dumped Southland but TNT will give it a proper sendoff and possibly even a revival. TNT also airs The Closer, still one of the better cop shows out there that actually has a bit to say about two-career marriages. FX’s Rescue Me might star a comedian (Denis Leary) but it’s a searing drama about loss and addiction. The sun finally set on SyFy’s Battlestar Galactica, the best drama about the post-9/11 world, but its prequel series Caprica (now in its first season with new episodes Fridays at 10 p.m.) looks promising. There might not be one series as earth-shattering as The Sopranos, but its legacy seems to be that it raised the bar for multi-layered drama all over TV. 6. Look. Women. Of varying ages. And some of those dramas have women! And not just as wives or girlfriends. Tina Fey and Amy Poehler should shut up forever everybody who has ever said women can’t do comedy. The women of Big Love might be best known for their sister-wife status but Jeanne Tripplehorn, Chloe Sevigny and Gennifer Goodwin vastly overshadow Bill Paxton’s patriarch with their takes on wifehood at varying ages while Amanda Seyfried and Grace Zabriskie are brilliant in their supporting roles as a teenager (now young bride) and her grandmother (with murderous inclinations). Toni Collette had some success as a movie star but won a Golden Globe for her starring role on United States of Tara. Julianna Margulies has given a surprising portrait of women at midlife in The Good Wife (a show that appears to be another lawyer procedural but is really so much more). And other Globe TV nominees this year ranged in age from 62 (Glenn Close of Damages) to 27 (Anna Paquin of True Blood). Women don’t have to perpetually play 25 on TV the way they do in the movies and they don’t have to conform to a uniform blonde starlet appearance: the sex symbol of the last few years of TV has been Mad Men’s Joan, the old-school-style goddess Christina Hendricks. Women get stories and layers and faults and talents on TV in a way that they still don’t in the movies. Is watching TV a feminist act? 7. Reality TV can be good. Yeah, I said it. It’s easy to mock shows like MTV’s sleazey Jersey Shore or the drippy Extreme Makeover: Home Edition on ABC. But everything I know about fashion I’ve learned from Lifetime’s (formerly Bravo’s) Project Runway, a fascinating competition that prizes creativity and talent above onscreen drama. Likewise, Top Chef on Bravo has shown professional cooking for the art it is and made chefs people you want to hang with. When Tom Colicchio is off cooking, there’s plenty of foodie fun to be had on Food Network with Chopped and Next Food Network Star. Is Discovery’s MythBusters a reality show? Let’s say it is and praise this totally engaging let’s-blow-stuff-up romp for explaining how MacGyver’s stunts actually worked. If I can dress myself at all it’s because of TLC’s What Not To Wear. And, OK, those might be more quality than most reality shows, but I submit even guilty pleasures like NBC’s Biggest Loser, TLC’s Say Yes to the Dress; Food Network’s Iron Chef America and Ace of Cakes, and Bravo’s Chef Academy, Real Housewives of New York (I won’t stick up for those other cities), Millionaire Matchmaker and the giddily wonderful Tabitha’s Salon Makeover (it’s a reality show about the proper running of a small business!) to those who still think “reality” means Fear Factor and The Hills. 8. And speaking of guilty pleasures… Guilty-pleasure TV, that which maybe won’t stand the test of time and which you aren’t in a hurry to chat about with your highbrow-taste-having friends, has gotten so very good. See above for some top-notch guilty-pleasure reality. Lifetime’s Drop Dead Diva gives us big-girl-pride and a good example of girl friendship with its fantasy-drama about a model who dies but comes back to life in the body of a plus-size lawyer. Showtime takes guilty pleasure into history with the totally dishy and delightful Henry VIII-era drama The Tudors. NBC’s Chuck is a totally loveable spy drama that is a better romantic comedy than almost any on the big screen. Fox’s House keeps getting nominated for serious awards but I think it is secretly a really high-class guilty pleasure — Hugh Laurie is just too funny. And then there’s Fox’s Bones — another procedural (this time with scientists) that mixes nerdery with romantic comedy. CBS’s Medium and Numb3rs, ABC’s Cougar Town, Fox’s 24 … TV — high art, low art, serious or hilarious — is great right now. Just this once, I think you should put your newspaper down and check it out. Public say In cable television topics, the term PEG often refers to “public, education and government” access channels. In Manchester’s case, the cost of covering local government in action or allowing locals to have their say on public access (think Wayne’s World) is funded through cable franchise fees Comcast pays to the city. Currently, Manchester’s education and government channels 16 and 22 are run by MCTV under the school district. It has a separate home and identity from the “P” channel — the nonprofit public access station 23, MCAM. Both stations ran into trouble in February 2009 when then-Mayor Guinta proposed reducing cable revenue for MCAM and MCTV — which represented a 57-percent cut for MCTV according to Mike Roche, chair of its advisory board. The city receives 5 percent of cable revenue as a fee. MCAM has a contract with the city to receive a fifth of that, while MCTV had been receiving two fifths, Will Infantine, chair of the MCAM board said. Essentially, 1 percent of cable revenue was allotted for each of the three channels. As subscribers increase, so does that allocation, Infantine said. Under the MCAM contract, which is renewed each October, MCAM would have been given $300,500. Its operating budget is about $340,000, which would have left some costs to be covered through sponsorship and fundraising, Infantine said. MCTV’s operating budget is about $554,000, Roche said. Guinta’s proposal offered $400,000 for all three channels, and the aldermen approved a cut of 47 percent, or $500,000, Roche said. “So obviously, there was going to be some kind of a compromise,” Infantine said. As it stands, MCTV accepted a 15-percent reduction in their allocation, while MCAM is being paid $13,000 monthly by the city so they can keep their doors open as talks continue. “MCAM has always been willing to discuss anything that helps the city,” Infantine said. Their goal is to protect public access, he said. “We respect the concept of free speech,” Infantine said. For MCTV, the 15-percent compromise, a loss of about $87,000 to them, came Dec. 1. Some programming is affected and one staff member took a different job in the fall because of the uncertainty, Roche said. Infantine said such a deal was never officially offered to MCAM. The city has offered about $255,000 to MCAM, he said. Infantine has personally lent money to MCAM, he said. They have fundraising events coming up, and had a comedy night fundraiser planned for Jan. 29. What they do MCTV runs an after-school independent-study program for high school students — about 18 are enrolled this year, about average, Roche said. Concentration lately has been on funding issues and rebuilding the studio. Their mission isn’t being filled, he said. With one full-time and two part-time employees, MCAM probably produces more than 60 shows in-house. Its most popular evening live show, “Two Joes,” is volunteer-run, as are some others, Infantine said. MCAM has about 120 producers, 90 of them pretty active, taping remotely or in the studio, Infantine said. MCAM has hosted forums and debates, including a town hall meeting with Dennis Kucinich. “We have a fantastic facility,” Infantine said of their millyard space. After MyTV laid off Al Kaprielian, Infantine asked the longtime New Hampshire weather personality to do weather on MCAM until he takes another meteorology gig, Infantine said. According to their calculations, MCAM programs reach about 40,000 people, Infantine said. Some MCAM shows can also be seen at www.mcam.org. Of course, these days, people can skip the TV part and publish their own videos via Web. Infantine counters that not everyone has access to the equipment or expertise for that. To merge, or not to merge “That was a nonstarter from the get-go,” Roche said. There’s a history behind the concept, and a reason why MCAM and MCTV went separate ways four years ago, Roche said. “It’s tough to have both entities under one roof,” Roche said. The missions are different — people can do and say a lot of things on MCAM that can’t happen under MCTV’s jurisdiction, he said. MCAM’s need for more freedom of speech was one reason they separated, Roche said. “We’ve always been in favor of consolidating a facility,” Infantine said. What had been a $350,000 to $400,000 budget item is now approaching $900,000, Infantine said. “It’s time to put some fiscal responsibility back into how Manchester handles PEG access,” Infantine said. He pointed to Londonderry, where PEG stations are housed in the same building. However, Infantine said it’s not a bad idea to have some separation because you don’t want government to stifle free speech. He cited personality issues as a reason for the break-up. MCTV was run from the Manchester School of Technology from 1993 through March 2008, when the station moved to 1045 Elm St. That’s more centrally located for the city’s three high schools, Roche said. However, as of Jan. 27, 2010, MCTV was still within a day or two of finishing build-out for its fourth-floor studio — 64 percent of its square footage. “We pay $86.98 every day for that studio and it’s not even ready yet,” Roche said. Get your own network show PFG-TV began as an Internet-only show taping at a local Chinese restaurant. On Feb. 6, the show, which was created by Rock 101’s Scorch, will begin airing on MyTV New England. “I watched it grow from just an idea to network television,” said Scorch, who said he considered PFG-TV to be a “Letterman-esque, classy man show — we’re on the edge, but not to the point where it’s offensive to anybody.” Scorch wanted to do a TV show for years and ended up putting the pieces together in March 2008. By September 2008, Scorch began airing PFG-TV on public access. By the end of that year, the show was airing on about 25 public access stations in New England. By the end of last year, it was broadcasting in 89 cities coast to coast, along with London, he said. “We’ve blown up pretty well,” Scorch said, noting that the initial Internet version of the show used a shower curtain as a backdrop, complete with PFG-TV stickers. He’s hoping the show makes it to network television five days a week by this fall. Making a television show is costly. There’s production equipment to obtain, there’s trademark to secure, and it takes money to buy time on a station during the appropriate time slot. But it’s not impossible. And stations like MyTV are willing to work with prospective producers looking to take a show to the next level. “The smartest thing to do, if you’re really thinking about it seriously, is to have 13 weeks [of episodes] in the can,” said Kathy Schubert, senior account manager with MyTV. “From the television end, we can put it in the guides.... Then you can talk to the TV station about doing a 15-second promo.” MyTV, which runs reruns of big-name shows, like The Office and Law and Order: SVU, sells half-hour blocks of time for local and independent productions. Shows must stay within FCC guidelines. Schubert said the station will take a look at programs to make sure they are broadcast-ready. “As long as they are broadcast-ready, we’re good to go,” Schubert said. Buying the time can cost between $250 and $2,500, depending on the time slot. The money adds up. So the idea is to garner sponsorships to help cover the production costs and the cost of time slots. That’s why it’s important to have a few episodes complete — so you can show them to sponsors, Schubert said. “If you’re looking to put together a real TV show, you should look long-term and then go out and find sponsors to provide financing,” Schubert said. “Like anything you do, you really have to think your way through the process,” said George Jobel, who created Iron Brides, a reality television show airing on MyTV pitting brides-to-be against each other in a competition, while also serving as a primer for brides. “Make sure you’re well-financed and build with an end-game in mind. A TV show is just another kind of business with another type of product.” The vast majority of television shows are made by independent production companies that either have good connections and get it financed “right from the get go” or put together several episodes, obtain some bridge financing and shop their show to networks and sponsors. Jobel said he bought the airtime on MyTV. Iron Brides has already aired one season last year and is slated for a second season in April. In the case of most TV shows, the show is produced by an independent production company and then purchased by a network, he said. Jobel is hoping he can refine Iron Brides, demonstrate there is an audience for it and then shop it around. Some independent companies have been successful in creating a sort of bidding war over particular shows. He’s not looking at a bidding war at the moment but he’s looking to “have all [his] ducks in a row to shop season three to a national audience,” he said. “Unless you’re heavily connected, you have to pay your dues,” Jobel said. “And demonstrate it will work before you take it to a big network.” Jobel said buying the time on MyTV is about 30 percent of his production costs. “It’s significant,” he said. Scorch said he’s spent about $20,000 on his show from its days as an Internet-only show to now. MyTV has a full production team and studio that show creators can use if they need to. The production team will work with creators to make sure they have a quality product. Of course, that’s not free. But the key is getting a sponsor — somebody to pay for it. But there are other things aspiring show creators must keep in mind. “What market do you want to be in?” Schubert said. “...What demographics are you targeting? There are a lot of questions you want to ask. I could put you on at midnight, but who is going to be watching?” Schubert said the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department runs a half-hour show on Saturdays at 6 a.m., which is perfect for early-rising fishermen and hunters. It wouldn’t necessarily develop a following if it were on at a different time. “If you want a better time slot, you have to pay more money for it,” Jobel said. “Particularly with independent stations, there’s always opportunities to buy time, depending on their contractual commitments.” But if you’re trying to make it big, opting for the cheaper time slot over a pricier but better slot can be a waste of time, Schubert said. Jobel said some new shows, possibly including his, would be better-suited to a Web-based broadcasting model to begin with, which can reach potentially millions of viewers far more quickly than a television show could. But sponsors have yet to “understand the power of that,” Jobel said. Iron Brides, which is part contest and part primer for brides to be, includes beautiful women and flirts with the wedding industry itself, has a lot of ways to connect with potential audiences, Jobel said. “Others that are more conventional...you really have to tap into that idea well in order to make it work, so you really have to refine, refine, refine the dynamics of your program,” Jobel said, adding that just having a good idea doesn’t necessarily make something a good product. Getting into the industry is hard work, complete with long hours, setbacks and steadily lengthening timelines. “I think that everything was harder than we expected it to be,” Jobel said. “Everything costs more than you expect. Things take longer than you expect. Things just never quite fell into place in the time or at the cost that you expected.... This isn’t a business that you can step into and punch a clock in and out; it has to be a passion.” “There’s lots of interpersonal turmoil,” Scorch said, adding he’s gone through a few different staff members. “You’ve got to deal with that.” Scorch said public access is a great place to start. “If it’s a dream of yours, never ever let the dream die,” Scorch said. “I know it’s cliché, but it’s so true. Don’t let setbacks shut you off altogether.”
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Commercials! And some kind of sporting event Will that pro-life ad run? What about the relationship Web site for men seeking men? What nearly-porny thing will GoDaddy feature in their commercials? Will anybody get naked during the halftime show (it’s going to feature The Who, so let’s hope not)? Also, there’s a football game. Super Bowl XLIV will get under way after 6 p.m. on CBS. The New Orleans Saints will play the Indianapolis Colts — which will matter to plenty of people out there, I’m sure, but many of us (as annoying as this is to real football fans) do indeed tune in just for the spectacle of it all. For those looking to make a day of it, here are some of the programming highlights: • Get in the competitive mood or complain about America’s lack of support for professional soccer by watching Futbol Mexicano: Toluca vs. Monterry on Telemundo starting at 1 p.m. • Super Bowl Today, a four-hour pre-game show, begins at 2 p.m. on CBS. • Get some yuks in. Comedy Central re-airs Larry the Cable Guy: Tailgate Party at 4 p.m. • Super Bowl XLIV is officially set to start at 6:25 p.m. on CBS, according to TV Guide’s listings. Get the wings, chips and dip ready. • Need something to flip to during the game? Animal Planet is running episodes of Puppy Bowl throughout the evening, and you can watch cat fights over on Bravo where it’s episodes of Real Housewives of New York City. • At 10 p.m. (or whenever the Super Bowl ends), CBS will debut Undercover Boss, a reality show that puts corporate executives undercover in the operations of their businesses. See a trailer at www.cbs.com/primetime/undercover_boss/.
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