TV- a new model

[Hermiod]

Hermiod, why do you keep emphasizing shows for "males"?

I happen to be a guy, but I've never noticed any gender distinction in terms of who enjoys quality, scripted TV... or, for that matter, who spends their time watching disposable crap. (There are other distinctions -- "intelligence" springs to mind -- but not gender.)

I emphasize TV for males because the "free" TV in my country is not doing enough to serve that audience and is losing out as a result. When the head of drama for the BBC, who have a considerably larger drama budget than any other broadcaster in the UK, can only name two or three series over the course of the year - Spooks, Hustle and Torchwood - which he considered male interest (and the latter two are debatable), we have a problem, especially when you consider that we only get six or seven episodes of said series which adds up to less than a day's drama for men on BBC1 a year.

Much of the discussion here has been around whether or not people will be willing to pay for television. I have countered that with the fact that men in the UK already have to pay whether they like it or not.

I pay a licence fee for a BBC that doesn't serve me beyond 18 episodes of Top Gear a year and Match of the Day - an increasingly redundant show. That money gets spent on soap operas and period dramas that don't attract any kind of significant male audience instead.

So, on top of my licence fee, I pay for a Sky satellite subscription so I can watch Premier League football and, should I choose to, imported US dramas such as 24, Lost and Caprica.

The "free" commercial channels have gone where the money is. Men are far more likely to use their Sky+ boxes to record their shows, or get them via the Internet or do any of the many things that leads to them not watching the advertising that supports their channels. As a result, they offer no alternative to the BBC's female orientated output.

That is not to suggest that women do not enjoy intelligent, scripted drama, that would be a ridiculous and indefensible position - but they do enjoy different intelligent scripted drama. The quality of the BBC's drama output is indisputably excellent, but it generally does not cover genres or subjects that are of interest to a sufficient number of male viewers.

Television also has to deal with competition from other media now. I would wager that more men were "watching" Mass Effect 2 the day it came out than any television drama that aired that night.

My general point is this - it is not a question of whether or not people will be willing to pay for something they previously got for free but how many people will have to in order to watch anything they enjoy at all.

It is ridiculous, but I have money I want to spend on entertainment that it seems a large section of the television industry doesn't want. Their loss is the video games' and film industry's gain.

 

[lawman]

I emphasize TV for males because the "free" TV in my country is not doing enough to serve that audience and is losing out as a result. When the head of drama for the BBC, who have a considerably larger drama budget than any other broadcaster in the UK, can only name two or three series over the course of the year - Spooks, Hustle and Torchwood - which he considered male interest (and the latter two are debatable), we have a problem...

That is not to suggest that women do not enjoy intelligent, scripted drama, that would be a ridiculous and indefensible position - but they do enjoy different intelligent scripted drama. The quality of the BBC's drama output is indisputably excellent, but it generally does not cover genres or subjects that are of interest to a sufficient number of male viewers.

Well, the demographers and programmers will of course try to segment things that way. I'm just saying I don't find it persuasive... the fandom for all of the U.S. shows I just mentioned, both the big hits and the cult favorites, seems to me fairly gender-neutral. (Except for Good Wife, which is indisputably a "chick show"... and by far the most "mainstream" of the lot.)

(Oh, BTW, I should add a ninth to my earlier list -- the recently debuted Human Target. It's what a programmer would indisputably ghettoize as a "guy show." And my girlfriend loves it even more than I do.)

I would wager that more men were "watching" Mass Effect 2 the day it came out than any television drama that aired that night.

I assume that's a video game of some sort? Sorry, perhaps this is a generational divide thing. I'm aware the industry is big, but I don't actually know anyone above 25 who's into video games, and I personally haven't really played them since high school.

 

[Hermiod]

Well, the demographers and programmers will of course try to segment things that way. I'm just saying I don't find it persuasive... the fandom for all of the U.S. shows I just mentioned, both the big hits and the cult favorites, seems to me fairly gender-neutral. (Except for Good Wife, which is indisputably a "chick show"... and by far the most "mainstream" of the lot.)

With US shows, maybe, but I think you will see the more exclusively male interest dramas (*) migrating away from network television to in the next decade or so.

(* - you'll never have a show that only men or only women watch, just a large majority)

I assume that's a video game of some sort? Sorry, perhaps this is a generational divide thing. I'm aware the industry is big, but I don't actually know anyone above 25 who's into video games, and I personally haven't really played them since high school.

Mass Effect 2 is indeed a video game, one that has already sold several million copies and is considered to be a very early contender for game of the year.

Video gaming has overtaken film and music to become the number two entertainment form, only behind television. Thanks to the Wii, DS and mobile phone gaming opening the industry up to more women and older players the market has grown considerably.

In addition, the more traditional young male audience has grown significantly.

In terms of storytelling, many games are not simply "the Princess has been kidnapped, go rescue her" but have epic plotlines that the best TV drams would be jealous of, especially the aforementioned Mass Effect 2.

 

[RoJoHen]

I'm not really sure what a "male interest show" even is. All of my favorite shows are liked equally by guys and girls.

 

[Hermiod]

I'm not really sure what a "male interest show" even is. All of my favorite shows are liked equally by guys and girls.

US television isn't so badly off in this department. I'm talking about shows like 24, Battlestar Galactica, Stargate Universe etc.

Of course they have female fans, just as I'm sure some guys watch Desperate Housewives, but the audiences tend to skew male and attract advertising for male interest products.

 

[FordSVT]

In terms of storytelling, many games are not simply "the Princess has been kidnapped, go rescue her" but have epic plotlines that the best TV drams would be jealous of, especially the aforementioned Mass Effect 2.

To be fair, the number of video games that have legitimately interesting, compelling stories and characters each year can be counted on one hand. There's a reason people still talk about Half Life Ep. 1&2 and BioShock many years after they came out. Most of it is clichéd schlock or has little to no story of consequence. Even a game like Uncharted, widely praised for it's storytelling and "move like" quality is essentially a string of predictable Indiana Jones and James Bond cliches strung along through various cut scenes. It's good for a video game, but if it was a movie it would be decidedly average.

Let's be honest, young people aren't turning away from TV and to video games to get their fix of fictional drama, most of the time they're just blowing shit up while playing superficial attention to the plot.

 

[Hermiod]

^It's still taking a growing number of eyeballs away from television.

 

[lawman]

Would that the producers of television and movies would just leave the "blowing shit up" audience segment to the game manufacturers, then, and actually produce more material that's different from that, rather than trying so hard to emulate it...

 

[FordSVT]

^Video games have been trying to emulate the movie experience for 30 years, not the other way around. TV and movies don't need to get away from "blowing shit up", it's a proven money-making formula that people enjoy. It should not, however, be at the expense of a good story.

^It's still taking a growing number of eyeballs away from television.

Did I disagree with that? The only thing I disagreed with is that the "best" TV and movie dramas would be "jealous of" the plot lines coming out of the video game industry, because that's just not true in a general sense. The film industry isn't dead, the best TV and movies are very good.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

(Why American commercial networks don't just license and broadcast more of these has always puzzled me. Has to be cheaper than producing brand-new content... seems like a win-win for both sides. So why on earth has Doctor Who always wound up on PBS? But I digress...)

My guesses, in order of what I presume is their importance:

Professional pride. It wouldn't say anything good about a network exec's creative prowess to have to buy content as opposed to creating it. Even when they remake foreign shows, at least they're creating something rather than just taking stuff somebody else created. Hollywood's culture makes a fetish of creative ability; whether they have earned the right to do so is another thing, but delusional or not, there it is.

Franchise and other business potential. Every open prime time slot is a chance to build your own empire. A successful show can be spun off into more shows, sold on DVD, novelized, movie rights sold, etc. But only if you own it. Sure, very few shows turn out to be that successful. It's a long-shot gamble but that just makes it all the more important to devote all your timeslots to that gamble.

Format competition. By the time they aired those shows, they'd probably be out on DVD, not to mention available on bittorrents, and undercut their value.

Americans dislike/can't understand furrin accents, etc. I think Hollywood has the idea that a foreign show not remade as an American show will flop. Since they never test this proposition, it's hard to know whether they are right. It would be interesting to see it tested someday.

 

[Hermiod]

Would that the producers of television and movies would just leave the "blowing shit up" audience segment to the game manufacturers, then, and actually produce more material that's different from that, rather than trying so hard to emulate it...

Video games aren't just about "blowing shit up" anymore. They're about teamwork and problem solving and most importantly having fun. TV seems to have forgotten that it's supposed to be fun to watch.

^It's still taking a growing number of eyeballs away from television.

Did I disagree with that? The only thing I disagreed with is that the "best" TV and movie dramas would be "jealous of" the plot lines coming out of the video game industry, because that's just not true in a general sense. The film industry isn't dead, the best TV and movies are very good.

And I'll reiterate my point - games like Mass Effect 2 have stories the best television shows, especially Science Fiction shows, would be jealous of. Most games aren't like Mass Effect 2 in the same way most TV isn't like Lost - most games aren't that good and most TV isn't that good.

 

[Mr. Sin]

Doctor Who doesn't always end up on PBS. It was on sci-fi for a while, and has been having a very sucessful run on BBC America along with Torchwood. Also classic WHo hasn't run on most PBS stations since 2004/05 because of the new series.


Part of the problem with classic WHO is that it's in a very different format from the new series; it is VERY serialized, broken into parts that use to air weekly and stuff like that. Some have tried to edit it into movie format (Such as the early VHS), but that doesn't work out always.