The Death of Network Television

Some day in the not-too-distant future people will ask when was it exactly that network television died. When the day comes — and it will — and someone asks you, the answer is January 19, 2003. At least, that's my answer. It's a tough answer to refute. That was the date of the Golden Globe awards. Normally the Globes are seen as a precursor to the Academy Awards, and while that may hold true, that wasn't the only significance, or even the main significance this year. In addition to motion picture awards, the GGs also present awards for television. This year, only one of those awards went to a show produced for one of the major networks. All of the others went to cable networks — mostly HBO, but two big ones went to FX for The Shield, and another to Monk, which airs on USA of all places.

It's not new for HBO to win awards. The Soprano family has been hauling home GGs and Emmys in their trunk for a few years, and made for HBO movies have gone from being farcical to persistent award winners, but the fact that a series which airs on FX, a network known for running dated movies and repeats of Fox shows, could take home best drama series and best actor in a drama series proves that award-winning television (and to be frank, really good television in the case of The Shield) can come from anywhere.

HBO figured this out years ago, and it appears that the other cable networks are catching on, but apparently no one sent the memo to the Big Four. While cable is taking risks and reaping the rewards, network TV is content to sit back and let the empire slide. Sure, there are some inventive and daring shows on the networks, such as the brilliant 24. But while Fox saw that they had a good thing in 24, at the same time they threw shows like The Tick, Greg the Bunny, Undeclared, and Family Guy to the lions. These were all shows that existed outside the typical paradigm of the mainstream and all were shows that had great potential. All were snuffed out before ever having a fair chance to reach that potential, and that's just one network and one season. Instead of new and fresh and good material, Fox was content to throw us extra repeats of The Simpsons and more episodes of Cops.

Fox is even willing to take more chances than the three old-school nets. ABC, CBS and NBC are swimming in the shallow end of the creativity pool. One look at the cast of ABC's Tuesday night lineup reveals this. In something that Saturday Night Live aptly called "Last Chance Tuesday," we have shows featuring John Ritter, Jim Belushi, Bonnie Hunt, Katey Sagal, Andy Dick, and the oh-so-relevant Eric Roberts. How exciting.

Over at CBS and NBC they have resorted to super-sizing episodes of popular shows to keep audience attention. This resulted in 90 minute editions of CSI and Survivor last week, and in some 40 minute editions of Friends. Yes, you can tell more in 40 minutes than in 30, but it wreaks havoc on the scheduling, and frankly it's a completely uncreative and most likely very much a short term solution.

Of course, short term solutions are nothing new to network television. Remember the Who Wants to be a Millionaire craze? ABC had planned to build their schedule around four episodes of Millionaire every week. Yeah, that went well for them. That goose was going to be laying golden eggs forever, but when Millionaire went sour faster than a glass of milk sitting in the sun all day, all ABC was left with was a dead goose and no golden eggs. The resent resurgence of "reality" shows like Joe Millionaire is likely to end up with a similar slaughter of waterfowl.

What really drove home the fact that network television is coding would be ER over the last two weeks. Not that I know what happened on ER, mind you. I didn't see either episode. The first week I planned to record it, but set the wrong station and got half of the Michael Jackson interview instead (which I didn't watch, and which is another rant for another time). Then last week I planned to record it and catch up, only I set the time wrong. Oops. The thing is that I don't miss it at all. This week I'm not even going to bother with ER at all. Two missed episodes and they lost me, possibly forever. I'm not watching CSI very often either. This latest edition of Survivor? I couldn't care less.

I'm not the only one tuning out. No one at the networks is willing to admit this , but network TV is dying. It might be a slow and reluctant death, but unless something changes drastically and soon, it is inevitable. By the time it takes place, though, I don't think there will be many people at the funeral.