When The Blacklist and Scandal became the most watched shows on broadcast television last season, many assumed they would serve as the catalyst for a new wave of original series development from the big four (five counting The CW). Then, again, when How to Get Away with Murder blew past its Nielsen competition, the assumption was only amplified. However, perhaps now more than ever, we're living in the most adaptation heavy development season of recent memory. Minority Report, , , Frankenstein, , , these are just a handful of the IPs being slated for 2015's pilot season, and as we all wonder why things went this way after the success of originality seen in 2014, perhaps we need to start, once again, examining television's pension for imitation.
Yes, The Blacklist and Scandal are some of the most watched scripted series on television, especially in the key demographic of 18-49, but neither are the most watched scripted show on television. That honor falls to AMC's zombie juggernaut, The Walking Dead. Like it or not, right now The Walking Dead nabs more viewers than anything else (scripted) by an unfathomable margin... an adaptation. When considering that, it's no surprise things have gone the way they have this year, especially after the ratings came in for the AMC drama's season five premiere.
Like its big screen cousin, the world of broadcast television is focused now more than ever on the concept of high risk, high reward over the idea of creating a string of smaller, original hits that can score lower but track longer. It's the same imitation based business model we've seen time and time again, one network's success spawns fifty lesser versions. Everyone wants to be number one, and by striving for that goal rather than trying to make the best product possible, all audiences are left with is a pile of unwanted series based on things they've already seen, and worse, possibly forgotten - was anyone really clamoring for a Hitch series?
Rather than working to breakdown the reasons why The Walking Dead has sustained its audience after all this time, networks are continuing to look at the broadest of broad facts: The Walking Dead is an adaptation, thus people must want adaptations. The big five continue ignoring the fact AMC has embraced things the audience keeps asking for such as easy to access streaming deals for back episodes, unfiltered violence, fan service with things such as The Talking Dead and, most importantly, time to grow. That is the biggest key: AMC gave The Walking Dead time.
Has anyone ever gone back and looked at what the series scored in its first premiere? Just a hair above 5 million viewers total, a number that lessened to 4.7 million in the second episode. Overall, season one of the series averaged 5.2 million viewers total, a little more than a third of what it scores now, and that's without calculating time shifted and mobile numbers. Why do none of those factors matter to the big four? Because they don't have the luxury of time.
The Walking Dead in no way has anything to apologize for in relation to broadcast development, but right now, when it's the most watched show on television, it's the gold standard by which all others are judged. Take the critically adored but low rated NBC series Hannibal for example: the violence is raw and affecting, the drama is crisp and the story is well constructed, so why doesn't it track better? Because NBC doesn't know how to program it. The show airs on Friday nights rather than television's prestige night of Sunday, and back episodes are not nearly as easily accessible as The Walking Dead thanks to an exclusivity deal with Amazon Prime instead of Netflix. Even if time is the most important factor, which NBC has granted the horror show, it's not the only one. When it comes to television, it's either all in or not at all.
In the end, this is all a cycle. When the day finally comes The Walking Dead is no longer television's viewership darling, we'll see things change... assuming whatever takes its place isn't another adaptation. For the moment, broadcast should stop focusing on what's working now, and start thinking about what's going to work 12 months from now. What will a developed series look like in a year? Two years? These are the questions that need to be asked in development, not how popular property X is over property Y. If a shift started there, then maybe broadcast television would once again find the ratings it so desperately seeks.
0 Comment "'The Walking Dead' Might Be To Blame For TV's Adaptation Craze"
Posting Komentar