Identity Crisis

I’ve have one of those weird months in which I’ve had the same conversation literally dozens of times with dozens of people. That means that either I’m obsessed with the topic, or that it’s of general concern among the television community. I’m going with option two, as it feels slightly less narcissistic.

Everyone who wants to know knows that broadcast television is getting it’s collective ass handed to it in terms of ratings. Some say it’s due to an oversaturated market… a plethora of cable nets and online content have made the competition so stiff that audiences naturally “even out” among the channels of distribution. The more cynical claim that it’s the content. TV is crap- you know the argument.

I think it’s a little of both. And something can be done about it.

Let’s take a quick look at the first argument. Namely, let’s analyze the competition, starting with cable TV. The primary difference between cable and broadcast channels is the niche, or an ability to attract a target demographic and hold their interest over a period of time. Discovery is for science junkies. Bravo is for the culture freaks. Lifetime is for the ladyfolk. Online content is even more specific, given that it’s usually little more than a single series, like Fred or The Guild. It also has the tremendous brand benefit of being tagged with keywords and accessible via search engines, often available over many distribution outlets.

So, who or what does ABC appeal to? What about Fox? While you can throw a rather broad blanket over any broadcast network, you’ll always find a show that slips out from underneath. A show that’s trying to “hit a new demo.” Point being: they have no collective brand in terms of their content.

Argument two is quality of content. I would argue that, if someone complains that broadcast TV content is crap, then why do they watch it? And how did they arrive at that conclusion if they don’t? We all watch it, we’re just not loyal to it. While broadcast networks have certainly had their share of misses, so have cable networks. What makes the broadcast network duds stand out is that they’ve specifically brought in a demographic that isn’t naturally attracted to them, and they’ve disappointed them. It’s like trying a new restaurant to sample a specific dish, being disappointed, and then telling all of your friends that the restaurant is bad. You aren’t being unfair, you’re just being marketed to incorrectly. The restaurant should have advertised the restaurant, not the dish.

So how do broadcast networks act more like cable networks? How do they advertise their entire, diverse package of content as a niche brand? Well… the irony is that they already know how. Because they used to do it.

Everyone who was alive  in the 70s and 80s remembers Battle of the Network Stars. Every kid who spent some part of their childhood in the late 80s in the U.S. remembers ABC’s TGIF lineup. These were network packages- miniature universes in which all of their shows and the characters in them could exist simultaneously. Urkel knew Balki, and Topanga and Sabrina the Teenage Witch hung out on the weekends. It was branded with a community when the shows spoke to one another. And you could only find this specific community on a specific network.

Further, many people don’t remember that networks used to do a “fall lineup special,” in which they would give you a sample platter of all the shows they planned to release in the upcoming season. That’s right, broadcast nets once committed to their schedules before the season began. Why would they ever do a silly thing like that? Because they crafted their shows to compliment one another. They branded their programming blocks, and they did it well. If a show failed, that group of characters simply moved out of the virtual TV land neighborhood as another group moved in.

There’s hope yet, but unfortunately it means that the networks will have to gather their hatchlings and get their collective ducks in a row (that’s 2 duck analogies) the way they did over a decade ago. The nightmare lies within- corporate culture at the broadcast networks is dog-eat-dog, and playing as a group might be the most difficult task at hand. As one former network exec once told me, “In this place, there’s no ‘i’ in ‘team,’ just ‘a me.’”