Some questions about US Television? :) (1 Viewer)

[Craig: Mclaren]

Hello all,

I've been a big fan of US TV shows since i was a kid in the mid 80's. I'm currently loving the High standard of programming that has been exported to the UK, The Shield, 24,The Sopranos, CSI, Boomtown, The West Wing etc. However i have some questions that i'm hoping my American cousins can answer

1. Shorter program length? My Airwolf, Miami Vice and Kojak DVD's have an average episode length of 47 minutes. My CSI and 24 DVD's run an average 42 minutes?? In 20 years we've lost five minutes of programming for more bloody hot dog commercials?? Is this really necessary. I know how important advertising revenue is but it should never affect the quality of prime time shows. 47 minutes is a fine minimum I reckon

2. Title sequences and theme tunes.

CSI has a great song for its theme tune but the title sequence is shockingly short. Less than 30 seconds. It used to be a nice 60 seconds standard for all my fav shows. 24 is a great show but it lacks a killer theme tune. Though i can forgive it because it is trying to be different. The last great decade for original themes was the 90's. The X-Files , E.R, The Simpson's etc. Is this now a lost art? The 70's and 80's had lots of great theme tunes and title sequences, sometimes better than the actual shows! Is there a reason for this decline?

3. Swearing in prime time?

US shows have always been violent but will the censors ever allow the f word etc to be spoken by the likes of Jack Bauer?

 

[Jason Seaver]

1. You've got shows getting smaller audiences due to more programming/entertainment options and higher (more expensive) production values. The money to pay for that has to come from somewhere, and that's generally going to be more advertising.

2. A lot of US television execs look at theme songs as an opportunity for the audience to turn away. And, referring back to #1, if you've got to cut runtime to fit in more ads, I'd rather it came out of the theme song than the show itself.

It's not all bad; I for one like the Randy Newman song they've added to Monk, but it's got just as many detractors (of course, I really like Randy Newman). Firefly also had a nifty theme, and the Dragnet title sequence was very cool (but will probably be replaced this fall).

3. We have goofy standards. I'm not going to cry too much over not having characters dropping f-bombs with regularity - it's generally used as a filler word anyway.

 

[PS Nystrom]

2. You want a great, modern theme song and opening sequence? I recommend Six Feet Under .

Pieter

 

[Michael Reuben]

US shows have always been violent but will the censors ever allow the f word etc to be spoken by the likes of Jack Bauer?

Now that "bullshit" has made it into primetime (on NYPD Blue), I'm sure the rest won't be far behind.

M.

 

[John_Berger]

US shows have always been violent but will the censors ever allow the f word etc to be spoken by the likes of Jack Bauer?

This is yet another one of those government short-sighted situations backed up by a bunch of jerks called a U.S. Court.

The FCC (Federal Communications Commission) has declared that they have final say over any broadcast that would go over the airwaves unscrambled because those signals can be picked up by anyone just for owning a TV and an aerial. I am pretty sure that this stupidity is backed up by a court ruling. The five major networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, and PBS) have affiliate stations in just about every corner of the U.S., and they all transmit their signal over the airwaves as well since not everyone has or can utilize cable or satellite. Hence, the Morality Police ... er ... the FCC has deemed that swearing or nudity is pretty much forbidden unless there are very specific disclaimers before and during any show that is broadcast openly over the air.

Shows like The Sopranos, however, are not created or shown by the big five. In this case, The Sopranos is shown on Home Box Office (HBO) which goes exclusively over cable or satellite; therefore, the person needs to purchase specific equipment and pay additional monies to gain access to these non-aerial TV stations. In short, if you're paying for it, then you are assumed to know what you're getting into. So the FCC still regulates these companies, but they have little or no say over what gets broadcast on them. Violence, swearing, nudity, sex, whatever ... the FCC doesn't touch them on "closed" TV stations.

Obviously, these cable/satellite channels still try to behave themselves during the daytime for market purposes (kids might be home sick or something like that), but it's not unusual to have something like Beverly Hills Cop on at 10 AM (and we all know how many time Eddie Murphy says "f**k" in that movie) because the signals are not open to everyone without the use of special devices or descramblers that the person must pay for. So the FCC has just about no control over content on these channels.

There are even some very hard-core porn channels that show such movies 24 hours a day. They're cable or satellite, so the FCC can't touch them.

I'm just glad that we don't have to pay a yearly tax ... er ... fee just for the privilege of owning the damned set like our cousins across the pond do.

 

[Malcolm R]

The whole purpose of commercial broadcast television is to attract the largest audience possible to view the commercials. Quality is definitely secondary to quantity.

The lower the ratings, the less the networks can charge for the advertising. So regardless of quality, those shows that don't deliver the eyeballs for the advertisers are cancelled.

 

[MarkHastings]

Considering the way many stations use the actual SHOW to put up their banner ads I wonder how long it will be before commercials start running through the entire episode (i.e. like in a picture-in-picture window)

 

[Bryan Tuck]

24 is a great show but it lacks a killer theme tune.

Well, I wouldn't exactly call it killer, but it does kind of have a theme. Actually, it's more of an extended motif, but it gets the job done. It runs over the end credits and is worked into the scores of most episodes.

But you do have a point; there are some shows that I think could do with a bit more creative music. Glad to hear you're enjoying so many of our shows. I'm a fan of quite a few UK shows myself.

 

[Andrew Grall]

Speaking of the censorship of the f* word...

I noticed on last nights broadcast of Jerry Maguire, they removed the whole scene between the little kid and Jerry where Jerry says,

"The f* zoo is closed."

and the little kid responds with "You said F*.", and after an awkward silence says "Don't worry, I won't tell."

Sucked to have that omitted for such a silly reason...

 

[MarkHastings]

One of the most bizarre things I saw was a Dennis Leary stand up act on Comedy Central. They started the show by playing the "asshole" song and then Dennis came out and sang it. They never bleeped the word "asshole" throughout the the entire song, but when the song ended, Dennis started to do his routine and talked about that song.

Basically his bit was about how his son started singing the "asshole" song around school and when the teacher talked to Dennis about where his son could have head this song from, he had to explain that it was his song , but the weird thing was, they bleeped out every reference to the word "asshole" .

Why would they let it go through the song, but not during his act? (which was describing the words to the song he just sang uncensored)

 

[Mike Broadman]

I don't think anyone can make heads-or-tails of the how basic cable censors things. I think the ultimate example is South Park. They get away with murder on that show. Why can can cartoons say things that humans can't?


I'm glad 24 has no theme. It gives a the show a "documentary" feel. I actually don't like themes and TV show songs in general. Sure, some have the nostalgia factor, but that's all.

 

[Craig: Mclaren]

Thanks for the response people

Some interesting stuff there. I'll throw in my two cents. Regarding the importance of revenue from commercials can you tell me exactly how many advert breaks a standard hour show will have? I was last in the states in 2001 and I remember The Simpson's had something like three ad breaks compared to the one we have in the UK. Does this mean a 60 minute show has five or six? What about the money made from overseas sales. Prime time US shows have been popular since the 60's and surely shows like CSI which are picked up by 50 plus countries worldwide brings in tons of green? Surely this money pays off the budget and with some to spare? You also have the new TV DVD market. These shows are released across all four Regions. Plus they'll be making money from world wide re-runs for the next 25 years old. Colombo has never been off UK TV and has been bought up by THREE channels Starsky and Hutch, Kojak, The A-Team etc are still racking in the bucks via syndication. Surely the Stations can afford to give us a 47 minute show complete with a killer 1 minute title sequence again? I always thought the title sequence/ theme tune was one of the most attractive things about a good show. A nice teaser followed by a cool tune sets you up nicely. I'm checking out a re-run of The Equalizer just now specifically for that classic tune (I like the show too though!)

I'm glad your enjoying a few Brit shows. However our TV industry is a joke at the moment. However some shows of the decade so far that are worth checking out are The League of Gentlemen, Spaced, Hornblower, Spooks and Man Child.

 

[Lew Crippen]

The League of Gentlemen is one of my (and my wife’s) favorites. We were also big fans of The Royle Family among others.

 

[Jason Seaver]

Surely the Stations can afford to give us a 47 minute show complete with a killer 1 minute title sequence again?

It depends on the show, and the station. If a show is cheap, or owned by a corporate cousin of the broadcaster, it needs less advertising support.

Also, there's often a difference between "stations" and "networks". While the networks generally own their broadcasters in the largest markets (except UPN, whose NYC/LA stations are owned by Fox's parent company, which gives you an idea of how messed up UPN is), local stations and networks have odd relations. In some cases, the network pays a local station to show their programming, since covering more of the country makes their advertising spots more valuable for advertisers; in others, local stations pay the network because network programming will draw a higher audience than whatever they would scrape together otherwise.

So, consider an television station that is paying NBC for programming. NBC already has to sell a lot of advertising to make ER, Friends, and Law & Order profitable for what they're paying the shows' producers, but they have to leave some extra room for commercials so that the local station can make back what they're paying NBC.

 

[MarkHastings]

Does this mean a 60 minute show has five or six?

The best (said in complete sarcasm) is when there is a movie on and they do that thing during the :30 minute point...

The movie will start at (for example) 8pm, then at about 8:27pm, it'll go to commercial - then at 8:30 (after the normal 3 minute commercial break) they'll show a quick thing like "You're watching Star Wars on Fox!" - then they'll do another 3 minute set of commercials

It's 5-6 minutes worth of commercials in a row!

 

[Jack Briggs]

Regarding the frequency of commercial breaks (and their length), it should be noted that long ago an "hourlong" program used to mean fifty minutes of programming along with ten minutes of messages (and anywhere from 28 to 32 episodes per season). Now it means 40 to 44 minutes of programming, with an entire act now removed for those additional commercials (for seasons that last from 22 to 26 new episodes per season).

It's interesting to observe, now that so many classic programs are on DVD, how more "fleshed out" the stories were in the era of "real" hourlong programs. Original series Star Trek seems more "complete" than many Next Generation episodes due to the benefit of that additional act.

So, as you kind of see by now, commercial broadcast network television in the U.S. is all about selling ads and drawing viewers to those ads than it is about quality programming. For quality, we turn to the Public Broadcasting System.

 

[David Von Pein]

...more "fleshed out" the stories were in the era of "real" hour-long programs.

Amen Jack!
A good example of this is The Fugitive (1963-'67), with each episode featuring 4 full acts and an epilog and ran 49 to 50 minutes per (including the little "preview" at the top of the program). I suppose I'd still enjoy seeing Barry Morse chase David Janssen for just 41 minutes nowadays, but the extra several minutes is more satisfying.

 

[Craig: Mclaren]

Is there anyway that this trend of shorter shows can be stopped? I mean in ten years it could be a 35 minute show and 25 minutes of commercials! :frowning: The X-Files seemed to run for about the 46/47 minute mark throughout most of the 90's. As did E.R. This shorter length seems to have crept in since 2000/2001. That 5 extra minutes could add a lot more story and character over the course of a season. Isn't there some sort of quality control department that can say minimum 46 minutes per show or something? Maybe the Networks need to re-structure how they do business?

 

[Michael Reuben]

For quality, we turn to the Public Broadcasting System.

What a quaint and charming notion!

My esteemed colleague has obviously forgotten about pay cable. HBO and Showtime are where much of the quality programming in the U.S. now resides.

M.

 

[John_Berger]

My esteemed colleague has obviously forgotten about pay cable. HBO and Showtime are where much of the quality programming in the U.S. now resides.

That statement, however, is completely relative. I still prefer PBS and BBC America to just about anything that HBO and Showtime offer. Just because HBO and Showtime make one or two hit shows each doesn't qualify the whole channel as offering "quality programming". They both still show a hell of a lot of crap, and almost always MARed.