Who hasn't seen well-written and well- produced, but short-lived, prime-time network shows? And who hasn't thought: "Too bad they weren't on cable"?
Two current
network entertainment chiefs -- NBC's Robert Greenblatt and Fox's Kevin Reilly -- would
agree.
Plenty of critics' favorite shows hang on for dear life, maybe in part because of the critics' pleading, fans' letters and network executives' hopeful backing. Take a look at
"Fringe" on Fox and "Community" and "Chuck" on NBC, as three recent examples.
In the space of a couple of days at the Television Critics Association meeting in Pasadena, Greenblatt and Reilly
said basically the same thing, respectively, about this season's cancelled "Prime Suspect" on NBC and last season's big misfire, Fox's "Lone Star."
Both used a similar
formula: On a cable network, after three or four episodes -- (with I'm guessing a cable-solid 2-4 million viewers or so, depending on the network, basic or pay cable), these shows would
have been given year-long orders and then gone on for four or five seasons. And they would have been declared not just critical but financial successes.
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Not only that, but
these shows running on say Showtime, FX, HBO or AMC, would have made some fans very happy -- just as they are with "The Walking Dead," "Shameless," "Rescue Me" or "True Blood."
But
here's a business question: Would TV advertisers have been happy?
Absolutely. Media agency and marketing executives could smile about being in "quality" TV shows. Sure, these shows would
have rough subject matter and tough language, but they would have given the cable industry a few more feathers in their cap for TV marketers.
But let's flip things around. What would
have happened if "Mad Men" tried to make a go of it on say ABC or NBC? Maybe it would have been given the same treatment as "Pan Am" or "The Playboy Club" by broadcast network viewers. A show
like "Breaking Bad" on Fox? We might have been talking of how the audience was too narrow or how the show had a bad time period -- like what Fox's "Dollhouse" went through.
Then we would
have had many complaints by broadcast advertisers about poor prime-time execution and ever-weakening broadcast erosion.
Network programmers still need to explain failure -- to other
executives, to critics, to business advertising partners, and to viewers. But the explanations are now less about wide-scale “rejection'” by a large number of viewers, and more
about somewhat smaller, modest TV platforms that would have saved the day.