Is network drama TV dead because of censorship rules?

[JirinPanthosa]

The only reason networks like HBO have that quantity of nudity and swearing is because networks aren't allowed to and it adds another dimension of psychological separation that makes their shows seem more different and special. If nobody was bothered by nudity and swearing, HBO would have less of it.

Swearing and sex are only one aspect of the real world, and choosing not to point the camera at it doesn't make a show less realistic, it just makes it less titillating.

For the record, Breaking Bad's final run had more around 10 million viewers.

 

[Out Of My Vulcan Mind]

For the record, Breaking Bad's final run had more around 10 million viewers.

The finale itself had 10 million viewers. The other episodes of the final season drew around 4.5 million to 6.5 million viewers on initial airing.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Breaking Bad doesn't count.

They spent 6 years building an massive audience with continued brilliance and positive word of mouth.

New shows on Cable don't get measured by the same yardstick.

 

[Squiggy]

People need to stop throwing "censorship" around as it has a very specific meaning. The state isn't regulating the content of network television outside of a very broad, generalized idea.

Brown-nosing nervous advertisers who are too scared to do anything outside the box that would offend potential customers ≠ Censorship

Doing what the network says because they don't want to look any sponsors who would gladly move on to any other network with their ad dollars ≠ Censorship

Those are both simply capitalism.

In fact, unless there's some nipplegate that floods their mailroom, the FCC doesn't investigate anything. They don't have the authority. The "family viewing hour" was overturned just two years after it was implemented because it was unconstitutional. Networks just voluntarily keep it clean.

If anything, it's the prudes at the Parents Television Council or similar organizations that keep insisting that television keep everything on a Leave It to Beaver-level of wholesomeness.

 

[DevilEyes]

Hannibal is definitely edgy. Though it's actually produced by AXN, I'm still finding it amazing that it's on NBC. I guess, as far as US is concerned, as long as there is no nudity, sex or swearing, anything goes.

 

[Star Wolf]

It's strange but network TV in the early 90s was more liberated than it is now. NYPD Blue did some controversial content, language and nudity. You don't see that anymore. Again, that vocal minority...

End of the day, the shackles concerning content is only one reason network TV is dying. But it is one part of it, for sure.

Curiously when you watch a NYPD Blue, Law & Order or New York Undercover in their syndicated packages today on basic cable networks stuff that was perfectly acceptable on broadcast TV in the 90s is censored out 20 years later on cable.

 

[Squiggy]

That's because the edits of 20 year old shows for syndication were made 20 years ago to air in the middle of the day if need be.

 

[urbandefault]

...

Any challenges network drama faces aren't due to censorship, they're due to the need to sell advertising. HBO and Showtime and Cinemax don't need to give a shit about that, because they make their money from subscribers. Channels like AMC do need to worry about ad sales, but they still make the bulk of their money from their per-subscriber carriage fee from providers. But because they're getting that carriage fee on top of any advertising, they can be more selective and take a few more risks on the programs they decide to run. That has nothing to do with "censorship." Breaking Bad's fourth season finale had maybe two million viewers at most -- those are numbers that would barely beat cancellation on The CW, to say nothing of the other broadcast networks.

This, in a nutshell.

But good drama doesn't need nudity or swearing to be good drama. If a group of viewers won't watch a show because it doesn't have nudity and/or swearing, in my opinion they aren't watching for the "drama" anyway.

There's an old joke about girlie magazine subscribers: "I only buy it for the articles."

 

[Out Of My Vulcan Mind]

Good drama doesn't need swearing and nudity. There are good dramas with and without those elements. But as the entertainment marketplace becomes more cluttered and fragmented it's become increasingly difficult to produce shows that break through that clutter. Cancellation rates for freshman shows have always been high on the broadcast networks, but this season is shaping up to be really brutal in that regard, and some of the new network shows have premiered to eye-poppingly low numbers.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Nudity and swearing can't be impossible for adult programming.

I don't have to have it, but I don't like being predenied.

 

[urbandefault]

Nudity and swearing can't be impossible for adult programming.

I don't have to have it, but I don't like being predenied.

That's great, for you. I don't have to watch that stuff if I choose not to, but I don't want to get up in the middle of the night and find my grandkids watching it. And don't deny it, you know kids will get up and look for that stuff if they know it's there to be found.

My objection to having this stuff on broadcast tv is all about the kids.

 

[Guy Gardener]

It's a kids job to find your porn and steal your booze.

It's your job to stop them.

The real game of life.

 

[urbandefault]

It's a kids job to find your porn and steal your booze.

It's your job to stop them.

The real game of life.

It's our responsibility to protect our kids from the world while they're young and teach them how to deal with it when they're on their own.

Thanks for showing me that you don't seem to really quite get that.

 

[Guy Gardener]

It's a kids job to find your porn and steal your booze.

It's your job to stop them.

The real game of life.

It's our responsibility to protect our kids from the world while they're young and teach them how to deal with it when they're on their own.

Thanks for showing me that you don't seem to really quite get that.

Your horse is too high.

Read what I said again because we are in agreement.

Consider these models...

A. If your (grand)children are not trying to do bad things, you do not have to do anything.

B. If your (grand)children are trying to do bad things, you have to protect them from themselves.

C. If your (grand)children are not trying to do bad things, and you are protecting them from things they have no interest in, and no proximity to, then you are creating busy work.

Kids have lots of jobs.

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZMWgW6QNuw[/yt]

 

[Professor Zoom]

Nudity and swearing can't be impossible for adult programming.

I don't have to have it, but I don't like being predenied.

That's great, for you. I don't have to watch that stuff if I choose not to, but I don't want to get up in the middle of the night and find my grandkids watching it. And don't deny it, you know kids will get up and look for that stuff if they know it's there to be found.

My objection to having this stuff on broadcast tv is all about the kids.

Kids don't find nudity on TV anymore. That's to hard. Much easier on the internet.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

My feeling about the 'Protection of children' argument is, get a box with parental controls and utilize the rating system. Don't get busybody on what everybody else is watching.

And I think that protecting children from knowledge of sexuality is not only futile, it's not productive. The more we shield children from sexuality the more we mysticize it, and the result is a bunch of children who associate having lots of sex with being an adult but don't have the tools to practice it responsibly and safely.

I'm not saying we should put a bunch of nudity in children's shows. But we shouldn't flip out when they happen to encounter it. And if children were more knowledgable about the biology of sex we'd have a lot fewer teenage pregnancies.

 

[Guy Gardener]

I'm not saying we should put a bunch of nudity in children's shows. But we shouldn't flip out when they happen to encounter it.

Show me one example of Donald Duck in trousers.

(I already found the dirty cartoon.)

 

[sidious618]

It's definitely true that the network model is suffering as ratings are much lower and new shows are not premiering particularly well. This is very much to do with cable and while cable shows have a different model there are also many more of them so naturally the ratings are more fractured.

 

[C.E. Evans]

It's not just cable, it's also home video (DVD, blu-ray, & on demand) and online as well. There are more people watching television shows than ever before (especially when you consider how much the planet's population has grown in just the last 30 years), but with so many options people can choose from now, people no longer have to tune in at a specific time to watch their favorite shows and networks still haven't quite figured out a way to count them all (although they're making some progress on that front).

 

[RandyS]

You don't get ratings worthy of broadcast TV by showing nipples and dropping f-bombs, dude.

No but it adds an level of realism absent in other shows. For example, take the decent but sometimes anti-climatic NBC drama, Revolution.

Would the story had worked better if they were able to add in more realism in terms of profanity, violence, and even nudity into the show?

No. If you want realism, then turn off the TV and go outside. TV should offer a respite from "realism", which, sadly, it no longer does, which is why I never watch anything being made anymore.