About a year ago I gave an interview to Television Week magazine on the future of television in which I stated:
To keep the attention and interest of the viewers in the ever-fracturing media landscape, I believe that television is going to have to move with them as well ...They're doing short runs as well to better package them as discrete units of entertainment content. Eventually, that's going to be what the TV networks as they exist now are going to have to do.
So it was with some interest that I read this story in Entertainment Weekly, claiming that television executives are starting to mull the idea of launching certain kinds of shows (mainly serial dramas) with an end date in mind. This would allow for a number of creative and financial benefits:
- It gives creators a finite time to tell their story and eliminates the need for wheel-spinning episodes.
- It gives viewers reassurance that the story is going somewhere; it opens more slots in broadcast schedules for new programs (no more Law & Order clogging up the schedules).
- More programs mean networks can truly program a 52 week season.
- It could allow for more big-name actors to commit to a series if they know it will only be for two years.
Cable outlets such as AMC and FX are finding success with such fare as Mad Men and The Shield. Each season is self-contained (though building on events of previous seasons) so that if the network decides to pull the plug, viewers get a whole story and are not left wondering what happens next.
One of the first experiments in limited run series on network television will be CBS' upcoming murder mystery Harper's Island, scheduled to run for 13 episodes this spring. If successful, the show could return later with a new cast and new story.
So what say you readers, would you be willing to re-commit to television if you knew that you only had to pay attention for a season or two?
(Image: Social Technologies)
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