• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, March 12, 2010

Is everything on TV beginning to look the same? In any genre, it's now kind of hard to tell shows apart: dramatic medical shows, crime procedurals, reality shows, singing and dancing competition shows.

At least this is what Writers Guild West President and veteran television producer John Wells ("ER," "The West Wing," "Southland") believes has happened, all due to media consolidation, which has led to "homogenized content." Wells was speaking  during the Senate Commerce Committee hearing Thursday on the Comcast/NBCU merger.

I'll give Wells this: When "ER" debuted, it wasn't like anything we'd seen before. Lots of dialogue in the midst of busy scenes,  lots of stories in every episode, had NBC executives wondering if viewers could follow the show.

Television producing is played by the margins these days, as much as it is on the creative drawing board. Still, critics have been calling this the "golden age" of television drama, with the likes of "24," "CSI,"  "Grey's Anatomy," and "House," as well as cable's "Mad Men," "The Closer," "Damages," and "Burn Notice." Though it's no longer on the air, we should still include "The Sopranos"  -- one critic called it the best piece of entertainment in the 20^th century.

Wells wasn't only alluding to broadcast TV.  He says the result of the consolidation is that decisions about shows are based more often on money than quality.

We don't like to believe this, but there are fleeting examples. "Desperate Housewives" executives, for example, were pretty much public with the fact that one of the main characters had to be let go last season because of monetary -- not creative  -- issues.

Other shows get cutbacks on their yearly original episode allotments.  And, of course, they are plenty of cheap-looking reality shows on schedules.

No doubt overall storylines get affected as well -- perhaps, as Wells says, in a homogenized way. For example, you haven't seen many headlines over the last several years about TV advertisers pulling out of shows over content issues, except for a few FX dramas. Is that because some stuff is just plain vanilla, leaving us entertained but not really intellectually challenged?

TV producers haven't always pushed many risky boundaries.  Network executives would rather producers cozy up to advertisers for possible branded entertainment deals. Even cable may not be an exception here, as it too wants to attract big-name advertisers.

But Wells may have a hard time convincing anyone when looking at the overall bigger picture: overall TV viewership and usage has never been higher.

The problem then isn't merger-ization, but instead fractional-ization.