A Sign of Things to Come: The Audience for TV’s New Season Keeps Shrinking
October 3rd, 2008 by Alec McNayrPosted in Business, Content, Media, Strategy | No Comments »With every new season premiere of every show on TV, the story seems to be consistent: audiences are not coming back this fall.
Just got an email from THR and all three articles in it were about TV networks hemorrhaging audiences:
- ABC had three season premiere stinkers (all good shows, btw): Pushing Daisies dropped 55% over last year, Private Practice 38%, and Dirty Sexy Money 31%.
- Despite being the first basic cable show to earn a ‘Best Drama’ Emmy, Mad Men lost audience in the week after its big win, from 1.9 million the week before the Emmys to 1.6 the week after.
- And despite Dexter’s big gain in audience (likely due to its temporary move to CBS during the writer’s strike), Californication lost audience as well.
Broadcast networks, cable networks, and premium cable networks all getting the same story. They’re losing audience.
Add on this article from the New York Observer: Only Two-and-a-Half Sitcom Writers Left in Hollywood.
“At one point in the 1990s, NBC had 16 half-hour sitcoms on the air. This fall, it has four. And two of those four—The Office and 30 Rock—though critically beloved (both are up for Best Comedy Emmys on Sunday, Sept. 21), are struggling to be embraced by mainstream audiences.”
Yikes. Makes it a difficult sell to work up the courage, nerve, and gusto necessary to write a TV spec script, doesn’t it? With all the money in the world for advertising, production value, and star power, what the heck is going on?
We’re in the midst of a painful shift of media, and everyone is feeling the pinch. Writers, directors, actors, executives, agents, everyone. Especially up-and-comers that are working dangerously hard to ‘break into’ the business. Will there be any ‘business’ left when they get there?
Well, the only answer is: adapt or die. The only thing failing faster than traditional network’s’ TV shows are traditional networks’ online shows. They’re suffering from the same symptoms. These fledgling show concepts are expected to bolster the weight of a lot of overhead (only with less money). They’re hoping the independent producers will sell out their ideas so that the future revenue will remain in the corporation. You can’t build a lasting model that way, when self-distribution costs are so low. Everyone has to work fast, cheap, and good. The trifecta of creativity.
The audience (their attention to ads being the primary source of revenue these days) is not staying with any studio, network, or medium. They’re fragmenting like crazy, and it’s up to the individual creator to harness, compel, and motivate an audience to stick around.
Adapt or die. It’s no longer good enough to just write. You have to write and edit and web design. Or know about online video distribution, direct, and act. Or all six.
Creativity is the only thing that’s still pure about this business, and a new wave of audience is seeking it out. Online originals, TV-on-the-Web (Hulu, ABC.com, etc.), and Tivo are all killing traditional numbers because they give choice and satisfaction back to the consumer.
What are you doing to increase your skills? Editing better, writing better, marketing better? We’re learning that big, slow overhead won’t get the job done. Nimble, quick responses to audience will build an audience.
Update: Fresh Hell reports on shows that gained audience this fall — most of them on CBS and CW. My rant still applies…
