IN MY DESIRE to do as little as possible on the blog this week, a longtime TV professional familiar to Sticksters by his pseud, Frank "Dolly" Dillon had something to say about this line in my post yesterday:One final, final thought -- Battle of the Blades is now consistently way, way higher than any scripted show on theCBC. Mercer comes close, and that's it.
So what are those two shows giving the audience that the scripted fare isn't?
Frank's comment:
With Blades I think the biggest surprise is that anyone is surprised that it is doing well.
The concept is immediately understandable and the show stars a group of the Canadian publics most recognizable public figures (hockey players/figure skaters) in a role where we can "learn a little bit more about them.
For hockey fans it is "fun" to watch and the results can be surprising -- Claude Lemieux is still in and Glenn Anderson is out? In a skating contest? And the producers picked very wisely when casting the hockey players (a nice mix of "pretty boys" and "tough guys".
The CBC also got a guy who knew what he was doing when it comes to these kind of shows -- John Brunton and his team at Insight pretty much re-invented the Junos, ran a pro looking Canadian Idol, and has done innumerable figure skating specials.
At the end it really wasn't rocket science -- pick a project you know the public is going to want to see and pick the best, most experienced professionals to execute the concept.
If they applied those standards to their other fare, we'd all be in much better shape.
The concept is immediately understandable and the show stars a group of the Canadian publics most recognizable public figures (hockey players/figure skaters) in a role where we can "learn a little bit more about them.
For hockey fans it is "fun" to watch and the results can be surprising -- Claude Lemieux is still in and Glenn Anderson is out? In a skating contest? And the producers picked very wisely when casting the hockey players (a nice mix of "pretty boys" and "tough guys".
The CBC also got a guy who knew what he was doing when it comes to these kind of shows -- John Brunton and his team at Insight pretty much re-invented the Junos, ran a pro looking Canadian Idol, and has done innumerable figure skating specials.
At the end it really wasn't rocket science -- pick a project you know the public is going to want to see and pick the best, most experienced professionals to execute the concept.
If they applied those standards to their other fare, we'd all be in much better shape.
And yet there was surprise. And beyond surprise, a whole lot of sneering and carping from CBC insiders who want Classical Music 24/7 on Radio 2 and who think that CBC needs to begin and end with The National.
This disconnect between public taste and decisionmaking was reflected a few years ago when CBC bobbled the negative P.R. from the possible departure of Ron MacLean from Hockey Night in Canada. It surfaced again when they let the iconic theme go from HNIC. Both times, huge stories that seemed self-evident to most of us, but that caught the insiders unawares.
The point is, there is proof now. It's not just Hockey. Hockey, Mercer, Blades, Dragon's Den -- CBC can draw over a million viewers, consistently. If the scripted fare doesn't meet that metric, then maybe it's time that Frank's common sense started to enter the equation, no?
Something to think about.
22 comments:
"What's the poster, Kid?"
;)
He's right. At the end it really wasn't rocket science -- pick a project you know the public is going to want to see...
It isn't even new in Canada. TV (at least the CBC) right now looks like the publishing industry ten-fifteen years ago - classical music 24/7 and starting and ending with The National just like publishing used to insist on nothing but prairie coming of age and depressed maritmers a hundred yeas ago. Chick lit? No. Crime fiction? No. Sci fi? Why even ask.
But then Guy Gavriel Kay, Louise Penny and so many more started selling lots of books and the publishers still have their CanLit standards to keep them warm at night.
So, it can happen at the CBC, too, but someone has to want it.
"pick a project you know the public is going to want to see". A nice thought but complicated in the case of drama in that part of what the public wants are production values and star power that are not possible with Canadian budgets. With comedy, maybe ...
And nobody, ever, nowhere in show business has been able to predict the public taste. It's trial and error. Again, in Canada, we don't have the sort of money to conduct as many trials as the industry in the US. Turns out "Erica" doesn't connect with an audience, that's not for any lack of professionalism. With 20/20 hindsight you could say the premise was limiting or something but the truth is nobody knew how it would go. Valuble experiment, helped build a Canadian star, take that and move on, grow.
Kinda, sorta true. But in many cases very successful drama's have been mounted without "star power" up front. Many of the classic ensemble drama (Hill Street, NYPD Blue, etc) came to prominence without STAR POWER and with production values that can be matched by current Canadian shows (Listener, Flashpoint etc).
Obviously there is always going to be a strong market for star vehicles -- hence Jimmy Smits various projects, Heather L back on Melrose etc -- but there is a stream of strong drama's that have flourished without a recognizable STAR -- heck, even David James Elliot was essentially a nobody before JAG as was the original cast of CSI TV created them and turned them into stars (as it will with Erin K from Erika).
And yeah, you are right, you can't predict the public taste but you can recognize certain things that have always been true -- the most successful drama's (in terms of bringing eyeballs to the screen) have for the last forty years focussed on COPS, Doctors and Lawyers (with the odd PI thrown in for good measure). With the exception of Doyle, most of the stuff in the CBC development slate stays away from these venues -- venues that have held the populist audience since the advent of the medium. Given that the network is trying to reinvent itself as a commercial entity this seems something of a mistake.
What if you modify it slightly to say, "Pick a project you *believe* the public is going to want to see"? As in, a project you - with your understanding of the audience's wishes hopes and dreams - believe in.
The network trying to reinvent itself as a commercial entity is what's a mistake - and I suppose it's a mandate that comes largely from government pressure, which is also wrong-headed.
I'm not saying that CBC shouldn't consider what the audience wants - far from it - but that they shouldn't be required to play the same ratings game as the commercials. We have plenty enough choice of those kinds of networks - CBC should be encouraged and allowed and funded to be the best at what it is, instead of brow-beaten into being some kind of confused wannabe fakeass imitation of something that's not completely worthy of aspiring to.
I know I'm hardly the first to say this but I really want to beat this drum. I grew up on CBC Radio and I think for a while it was the only TV station I got on my little black and white 12-inch. And yeah, sometimes it was like eating gritty whole wheat bread because my Mom refused to buy the obviously smoother and prettier white Ben's, but most of us grow up to realize our Mom was right about a lot of things - this was one of them.
CBC should be the best damn whole wheat it can be, and the government (or maybe the next one) should be the Mom to all those almighty whining taxpayers who want to eat candy for dinner every frigging night: "I don't care if you don't like it, you're going to get it anyway."
Erica's a great example - it's doing what it set out to do, writing, production values and all - and, yes, it's making a Canadian star. It's *building* something, and that's what the CBC can do.
I'd like to see this happen in drama because that's what I want to write and that's what I want to watch, but as a citizen nowhere is this more important than journalism.
Fewer and fewer mainstream media outlets are to be trusted for news, and real journalists don't know anymore how they're going to get paid. CBC should be the port in this storm. It should be able to focus again not on numbers here, but on being the best damn source of real journalism we can get.
We might not tune in by the millions every day, but it's worth our while as a country in the world to know CBC is there when we need it.
That's where I want my amazing, low low price of $36/year taxpayers dollars to go.
Mary:
I understand what you are saying about what the CBC should be (and I might even agree with what you think it should be) but that discussion is a "no win" right now.
CBC V 7.0 or whatever version we are watching right now, is run by exec's who have been charged with the responsibility of delivering more viewers (and hopefully viewers in a demo advertisers find attractive). That's their gig, their job, their mandate -- whether it is self, or government imposed, I dunno but it irrelevant to the question Denis asked which is -- paraphrased -- If the CBC success is to be measured by the number of viewers it attracts what is the drama department doing wrong that other departments seem to be mastering.
As someone who was with the team of writer's accused of selling out the CBC with the creation of a night time soap (Street Legal) and one of the writer's involved in the last CBC historical mini-series (October 1970) I have heard, and been part of the argument, as to what the CBC should be for way too long.
As a working professional, one needs to be aware of what the client wants, and this client wants "water cooler shows". The great danger to all of us (writers/directors/producers) right now is that if this current crop of "water cooler shows" fail it is us, not the execs, that will be blamed for their failures.
The only point I am trying to make is that if the current CBC is trying to become more popular and get larger audiences, the people in charge of network development need to acknowledge that there are certain types of shows that will give you larger audiences than others and they need to be seeking them out instead of dismissing these concepts as "beneath them".
Even the now venerated Da Vinci's Inquest was, at the height of its popularity, nothing more than a very well written procedural with ripped from the headlines storylines (Paul and Karla et al). It proved that if one could work a very familiar concept -- the Crusader -- with skill and intelligence that you could have both a critical and ratings success. Where it started to flounder was when it abandoned it's familiar structure "the case of the week".
In my heart of hearts I would be happier with a more "whole wheat" CBC but right now, that is not what the CBC wants to be. If one wants to work for it and accept the rules of the game, it would be nice if the folks in drama who can commission ideas were at least pulling on the same rope as their bosses.
Bill: I use "what's the poster" all the time. And it's shocking the number of times I've used the metaphor with a Cdn producer or broadcaster and seen a 'huh?' on the other side.
And then they want to go back to discussing what it's "going to say" -- or something.
Frank is again right when he talks about the star power thing. Yet another eddy that we get lost in as we run around like chickens without heads here.
TV makes the stars. If you look at the top fifty shows going back to the dawn of TV I'm going to bet that no more than 15 percent were built around stars who were already established. TV creates the fame. Seinfeld & Ray Romano were popular standups, not stars. Nobody knew Alan Alda, McLean Stevenson, or Wayne Rogers. Ted Danson and Shelley Long were nobodies. Hugh Laurie was best known in the USA for being the Dad in Stuart Little.
The grain of truth in that is that sometimes, what we don't have enough of building our shows here is star QUALITY. Those actors do tend to flee south. Erin Karpluk has that.
I also don't know if you can say that Being Erica is an example of failure. The point I was making is that the wild swings indicate something awry. Is it just that SYTYCD is exactly the wrong show to put up against it? Maybe. Maybe not.
And the "it's not science" and "nobody knows what will hit" thing doesn't explain it either.
(cont)
In the 3 years I've been doing TV eh I haven't seen as many Canadian shows regularly in the top 30 as I have this fall. Most are reality programs, so it doesn't really end the interminable "should CBC be chasing ratings or giving us stuff we wouldn't see on private nets" argument. But still. I'm in a "let's celebrate the victories" mood.
What I was shocked by when I was down in L.A. a couple weeks ago is how deeply the execs I talked to knew TV. They knew the shows -- all of them. The US networks know their audience. CBS gives notes and they are CBS notes -- they know what their audience is looking for -- so yes, the ideas don't always hit. But they're not slapping around in the dark.
We're, too often, slapping around in the dark. There's nobody that has a knowledge of TV as deep as a guy like Jaime Weinman. They haven't seen half the shows. Why not? That's the business. I came back from L.A. with four suggestions of shows to check out. I have never, ever come out of a meeting in Canada with anybody who namechecked a show I wasn't aware of or hadn't seen.
So you're fighting the sneering idea that Blades is "beneath" the CBC. There's also a weird, pervasive thing in Canada where people assume the audience is really stupid.
Part of Frank's point -- about cop and medical, is that they're familiar -- not just in setting but in format. Canadian shows rarely have a decent, sustainable, identifiable engine, and when they do, rarely do they display the discipline to stick to it. (So you have The Newsroom's first season flight into Fellini, or The Border dipping into melodrama and away from procedural, and Frank's point about DaVinci, or Erica's struggle to reinvent -- and whatever the hell was going on with Wild Roses (which did find itself about ep 9, but, you know, so what?)
"Pulling the same rope" is key. We can't seem to do that when it comes to CBC because in our delightful Canadian Royal Commission way we always want to go back and have the discussion Mary P's talking about. So you're trying to justify that at the same time as you're trying to fulfill that mandate -- whatever it is.
And the "whole wheat" mandate of the CBC is a recipe for failure anyway. It is too undercapitalized for that. That 36 dollars a year would have to be closer to BBC TV license levels -- 150, 200 a year per person. Never. Gonna. Happen.
And, -- and here's where I get controversial -- part of that lack of definable engine problem is really an experience problem, which fails to recognize the simple truth that the idea is not the thing you buy; the ability to execute the idea is what you buy.
CBC consistently has picked shows by people without the depth or breadth of knowledge to execute an idea successfully.
And then they change what they want on a dime...
...And then the micromanaging...
"CBC Comedy," the story goes, "Where laughs turn into smiles."
All of these people are decent people. They all want the same thing. But there's four or five or six things slightly out of whack that take the normally very, very difficult task of crafting a show that will connect with an audience, and make it damn near impossible.
I am only now at the point where I would consider trying to create a series. And even I feel like I would love to have some big guns helping me. I set out to win knowledge when I started writing. And now, maybe 10 shows in, I think - THINK - maybe I'd be ready for the shot.
And I say that with the grace and humility knowing that there are others with ten times my experience.
Too much, too fast, too unfocused, too out of touch with the audience, too focused on the wrong battles -- somewhere in there is your CBC Rx.
But you know what a good start would be?
Doing a little soul searching about Battle of the Blades. It's a good place to start.
...And Diane raises a good point.
Which, in its own way backs up my own. Many of those reality shows were format buys. Proven template. Execute.
Does that always work? No. But when it does you get people, like Frank said, like Brunton who then can do a homegrown version that's just as well and tightly formatted.
Contrast that with Rumors -- a format import from Quebec that didn't even try to adjust -- instead of adapting for a market they translated scripts -- doing it on the cheap.
Or Sophie -- a format where they immediately cut it to a half hour and lost whatever made it connect in its original market. Why would you buy a format and change something so fundamental?
One of the most common things you hear in Canadian TV development if you come in with something that's even slightly different. "I'm not sure if this is a half hour or an hour."
Oh the woe and the hoops that proceed from that moment.
But that's a question you don't hear very much in the USA, ever. Because you know your format going in.
Even if you're bending a format, or busting it -- you know exactly how you're doing that, too.
All shows "find themselves." But there's "find yourself -- I have to figure out what kind of doctor I want to be" and there's "find yourself - am I a pelican or a 1969 Dodge Charger?"
'Battle of the Blades' is the first CBC show in recent history that I've heard A LOT of friends and acquaintances talking about and clearly loving.
That said, I also run into many folks with a bizarre hate-on for all things CBC.
Honestly, even though it's tax-funded, CBC just impresses me because it's the only real Canadian broadcaster that provides most of its own programming. Yeah, the bar is that low, but we really don't have other points of comparison here the way Americans can set ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC against each other.
'Battle of the Blades' isn't my cup of tea, but 'Mercer' certainly is ... and it's another example of the type of show no one else (in Canada or elsewhere) is making.
So it's great if CBC can be both unique and popular, but I'll always appreciate it enough just for being unique.
Does anyone here really think that the broadcasters set out to make shows that are going to fail?
Here's the thing - NO ONE knows what will, and won't, click. Recreating great reality formats are a safe bet, Battle of the Blades (which everyone I know at CBC in the drama side of things were VERY excited about pre-launch), also had everything going for it - hockey + figure skating all wrapped up in one.
But if all it takes for a show to succeed is for it to be a "procedural", then (and no offense to these shows) The Guard and The Listener should be getting Flashpoint ratings. So should The Border. And The Bridge and Copper better as well - and hopefully they will. But will they for sure? No way to tell.
Being Erica does connect with an audience, Geoffrey Firmin - an audience that is younger and more female skewing than anything else on the CBC, aside from perhaps Heartland. And like Denis pointed out, our numbers have been all over the map - 800,000 one week, 400,000 the next, then back up again. And those numbers, good or bad, don't include PVR, streaming, or iTunes, which are BIG for this show. And which do count.
The question was asked in an earlier posting by Denis - which is more important, eyeballs or demos? Being Erica is a prime example of a show that attracts a certain and desirable demo - even if we haven't garnered a million pairs of eyeballs week after week. I'm not saying that's "good enough", but I am pointing out that it's a reality for this show.
Sorry, I'm going to say it again.
CBC should be encouraged and allowed and funded to be the best at what it is, instead of brow-beaten into being some kind of confused wannabe fakeass imitation of something that's not completely worthy of aspiring to.
That is pretty much exactly the argument publishers used to use in Canada. "We don't want to publish crap, we only want to publish literature."
But after a while they actually wanted to have a little more control over what they published and not rely entirely on whatever novelists could manage to scrape together enough Canada Council grants (and then lose that writer to international publishers when they started to have a big readership).
And that meant paying advances and that meant making some money and that meant publishing books that more people wanted to buy.
And so that's what they do. And they didn't have to stop publishing Margaret Atwood and Alice Munro - in fact they were able to develop a lot more literary writers - in order to do it.
I haven't been involved in TV very long, so I really don't know much about it, but wow, that post about people in the businesses not having a really deep knowledge of it sure sounds right. Coming over from publishing that was one of the most shocking things to me.
John I'm glad you said it. It's a nifty little analogy.
And yes. I said nifty.
Let's add the X factor here too -- it's the CBC.
Everything they do is wrong.
...to somebody.
Sad. But true. And also important. Because when I sit through things like the CMF briefing and hear how people really, really do have a hate-hard on for making CBC "compete" on a "level playing field" (ie: no more $$$ for you to fund your ALL CANADIAN schedule in prime time...) it makes me see red.
By "whole wheat," I don't mean that the programming should all be "good for you" literature-tv -- but that the CBC should be recognized by Mommy as good for the country, and paid for and brought home even though the kids complain.
What it then becomes I don't know - greater minds - but I absolutely do not think being good for the country precludes making shows that people want to watch.
It's tough to chastise CBC for going awry when this is a hit show that just combines two of their most popular properties, i.e. figure skating and hockey. It's not like it came outta nowhere.
There's another CBC show I want to mention--Heartland. It reached over a million last week. The reason for this is that it's a good quality family show, something lacking on both sides of the border. It's a show not trying to be "different" or "unique" or "innovative" or "artistic". It's a show grandparents and grandparents can watch together. IMO too many recent Canadian shows weren't focusing enough on producing shows that the nets on the other side of the border aren't producing and they aren't focusing on multi-generational family shows where they can maximize the audience.
Battle of the Blades is a show families are watching together (as well as other reality shows like SYTYCDC and Idol). That's something scripted shows can learn of reality shows.
One of the nice things about the jump to PPM's has been the uptick in Heartland's numbers, which are quite significant.
I don't write about a lot of Family oriented stuff here b/c that's not my interest, and I don't know anything about that market. But as you say, Heartland is a show that families watch together, like Blades, and now that those people are being counted more accurately, the ratings reflect that.
On the other hand -- here's something interesting I heard. University Students aren't counted if they don't live at home. Hmm. I wonder if that has impact on the Being Erica numbers, or at least the crazy week to week jumps.
It must be gratifying to CBC to see Heartland return to success like that -- CBC owned that familiy hour on Sunday for years. I wouldn't exactly call it an underserved segment -- not with at least three or four services catering to that age group. But one of the other big gainers on the PPM's is Teletoon, because parents watch the cartoons with their kids.
I don't know if there's a "lesson" in that, per se, because it's not like CBC can or should be doing all family friendly fare either... but at least maybe it will make the people feeling anxious about the show's fate feel less angsty that doofers like me don't write about it more. With that kind of audience, I'm pretty sure Heartland isn't going anywhere anytime soon.
A clarification to what Aaron said above, now that I think about it...I too had a couple of convos w. Development folk at CBC who were enthused about Blades and hoping it did well.
But I think it's sheer revisionism (or entirely PPM related) to think that number would consistently top 2 million.
And there were more than enough people willing to say it was a terrible idea before it debuted, too...
This discussion convinced me to update my naive, utopian wishes for the CBC - thank you to all for that.
In terms of Blades' success, is there anything to the fact that CBC has the HNIC eyeballs already there to promote the show and then build from there?
Whereas, for example, for Being Erica, there's no comparably large audience to say "if you like this, you might like this." As if people watching something like Glee were getting promos for Being Erica. I had to nag a friend into watching Erica, and once she saw an episode she was hooked - but CBC is practically a foreign land for her. Marketing problem?
Well, by definition, you can't bring new viewers to CBC by advertising during CBC programs.
The promotional campaign for Battle of the Blades had to reach out beyond the typical CBC audience. So did that for Being Erica.
Both series, I'd say, have attracted non-typical CBC viewers. But one substantially more so than the other.
Post a Comment