By that should we simply have shows with built in short runs (6 to 13 episodes) That may or may not be one offs. Currently we have shows with interesting premises that’s quality can never survive the demands of long runs.
For example had Prison Break been a one off 13 episode series with a definite end in mind then I think it would be a better regarded show than the meandering silly mess that it has become.
With a beginning middle and end built in to any show then story arcs could play out better and there is less likely a chance of the writing become predictable or worse stolid as it tries to slow the pace of character development so as to go one for another season.
That doesn’t mean a series ends after 13 episodes it can come back again if the ratings are good (See Doctor who for a long running series)
The up side is possibly better writing, more seasons in a year with new shows each season. Possibly this would be a way for networks to take more creative chances knowing that the run of a show is limited.
I mean reality shows seem to do this already, why not sit coms and other types of shows?
I like the way U.S. cable shows are set up. They resemble Brit shows in that they have shorter seasons, so there tends to be less filler eps. Battlestar Galactica had better storytelling in its first season than in its subsequent seasons.
The real money is in re-run syndication.* You need ~4 seasons of shows to have a chance at making syndication dough. Very, very few shows last that long. But Hollywood is all about dreaming big. A typical studio exec is always thinking in terms of going for the biggest possible blockbuster. They’d rather make a small amount of profit on one big thing that a lot of profit on several smaller ones.
There have been some attempts at “telenovella” formats. One of the tertiary networks tried this a couple years ago. Did not succeed. Regardless of the reasons for failure (cough Bo Derek cough), this means that there won’t be any more attempts at such a format for a good long time.
Hollywood execs are such lemmings that they don’t even know that “lemmings” isn’t really the right term.
While networks love reality shows (cheap to make), producers don’t (no re-run potential).
No, because American & British TV operate much differently. American TV is used as a money-making device. All of their income comes from commercial time, so it literally pays to have 20+ episodes a season. Most British stations are funded from the government or are paid for by viewers, so they get their $$ either way.
The philosophy of producers seems totally different in the US. Networks want shows that could last forever. That makes syndication sales more likely. To hell with quality.
Occasionally some short-lived-concept shows make it through the cracks, like Prison Break and Worst Week. If they succeed, the network will run them into the ground anyway. This almost happened with Lost, until the writers put their foot down.
No TV in the UK is government funded. The BBC is paid for by a licence fee which whilst set by the government, is not administered by the government. IT IS NOT A STATE BROADCASTER, the government has no editorial control. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office do provide funding, but still have no editorial control, for the BBC World Service. The BBC also has a commercial arm, BBC Worldwide, which runs BBC America and BBC Canada and distributes magazines, DVD and licences BBC shows for foreign broadcast (eg Top Gear, The Office etc).
Channel 4 is a publicly owned corporation, its revenues though are 100% based on advertising.
ITV is a purely commercial (ad funded) broadcaster (and is failing in the multichannel environment).
Channel 5 is also a commercial operation, also ad funded.
Cable and satellite TV are run by Virgin and SKY (A Murdoch company) respectively and are a mix of advertising-based and subscription-based channels.
Freeview and FreeSat are terrestrial and satellite digital TV platforms and are administered by a consortium that includes the BBC after the original commercial outfit, OnDigital, went bust.
I would like to see them adopt this approach. I know that I avoided serial dramas like Prison Break or The X-Files because I don’t want to commit to watching them for years on end. My enthusiasm for Lost was starting to flag, at least until they announced a definite end date, and I think the show would have made more sense if it had wrapped up in one or two seasons.
I would be more likely to watch non-sitcoms if I knew that there would be a satisfying ending. In the past, I would get caught up in the story and characters and then it would just end, due to bad ratings. I watch sitcoms almost exclusively because of this.
I think the US model works well for things where the editions are self-contained. US sitcoms have been better than ours for years, and we have never managed to come up with a homegrown version of things like Letterman or the Daily Show, despite repeated attempts. For satire and barbed comment on the news we rely on weekly shows such as Have I Got News For You, which run in seasons rather than being permanent fixtures in the schedules. We don’t really have that tradition of late evening daily talk shows.
But for multi-episode drama, the US system is not ideal. I’m actually wary of getting into American drama series, because you know the show will either be cancelled or they’ll drag it out indefinitely. You start watching Lost or Heroes because of all the hype, but at about the sixteenth fucking episode, and knowing that another 23-episode season is coming, you start to doubt that they’re ever going to resolve the storylines.
To expand on what others have written, it’s all economics:
–Television in the US is not geared toward high quality. The networks are run by publicly traded companies. They are under obligation to bring in the maximum revenue. Since it takes a lot of time and money to deliver a hit show, they have to maximize the profits by making all the money they can on one. And we’re talking BIG Money. *Seinfeld *alone brought in more than 1 billion dollars to G.E. *Friends *and *ER *were also kept on for a long time for the same reason.
–There are channels that follow the BBC model here in the US. HBO & Showtime. We just have to pay extra for them. But they don’t care as much about ratings, since they are subscription based. They’ve had quite a few short-run or mini-series.
This is the show I was going to mention. People always want to argue about this, but I definitely remember early interviews in which the producers (Abrams, maybe) said the show had a definite beginning middle and end and it was supposed to be short (2 seasons? 3 seasons? I can’t remember) and when it was an unexpected success the network told them to draw it out. That’s why season 2 of Lost is the most pointless, incoherent, rambling mess of a story arc ever. They were making it up as they went.
I also remember reading somewhere that Ugly Betty was going to be 1 season until it became such a big hit.
Anyway, I agree with the OP. I wish American tv would do this. I’d much rather see short, good shows than drawn-out crappy shows with whole episodes of filler.
OK, yes, there’s some channels or programmes where advertisers have a strong enough influence that it might be described as ‘editorial control’. In any case, I was referring more to the British commercial channels.
Edit: I find it a bit insulting, actually, for it to be suggested that there’s this vast government editorial control over our largest and broadest media outlet, which none of the 60 million people here have noticed, but that at the mention of the licence fee, Americans can spot at a glance.