Why Television Sucks: An Outsider's Perspective
You're going to have to bear with me on this one folks, 'cause I'm not really sure where I'm going with this but I have to ask...what the fuck happened to black television? I don't get it.
It never really occurred to me when I was younger, and I guess because when you're young you assume that what's going on around you is the World As It Should Be, but looking back now I realize how spoiled I was a 90's child. And while I could go all hipster and say I was one of the first people to notice that years ago, that's nowhere close to my point, which is what I already asked: What the fuck happened to black television? (Or television in general--but I've got some other stuff I need to get out first.)
At the dawn of the last decade of the 20th century, television had no shortage of programming for African-American audiences. And unless you just DIDN'T have a television or cable, you saw at least one: The Cosby Show and it's spin off A Different World (both hold overs from the late 80's), In Living Color, Living Single, Martin, The Wayans Bros., The Parent 'Hood, Sister Sister, Hanging with Mr. Cooper, Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Family Matters, Smart Guy, Moesha, The Steve Harvey Show, The Jamie Foxx Show... It was simply impossible to miss all of these. Even kid's networks had shows like All That (which had a mixed race cast but it's urban styled comedy definitely appealed to black children) and Kenan and Kel. Like I said, it was easy to take for granted what you had because it seemed like it had always been there--if you build a timeline of all of these they run from roughly 1982 (The Cosby Show) to 2001 or so, a nineteen year period.
Now right now, if you're a fan of a lot of black television that airs today, you're probably looking at this article funny and wondering what the hell I'm talking about. There's plenty of television shows for black people on right now, right? Maybe, but it's not quite the same. Look at the networks a lot of these shows aired on: The Cosby Show, A Different World, and The Fresh Prince of Bel Air all came on NBC. The Wayans Bros., The Parent Hood, Steve Harvey, New York Undercover, and the Jamie Foxx Show all aired on The WB, which eventually became The CW after merging with UPN (which aired Moesha). In Living Color, Living Single, and Martin all aired on Fox. In short--the majority of these shows were on major, MAJOR networks that reached the largest and widest range of audiences possible. This gave these shows--and the actors in them--a crossover appeal that's absolutely necessary if you're going to really, really make it in Hollywood. (Ask Bill Cosby and Will Smith about what crossover appeal can do for you.)
The shows you want to point to now? What channels do they air on? BET? TV One? Basically, any channel you might call a "black network"? That's a problem. Don't get me wrong, it's GREAT that we have multiple networks that we can produce television for--that's something that a lot of African-American writers and directors probably couldn't even dream of back in the 90's. But in having those extra avenues that we can take, we can't forget that it's also important to get black television onto the big networks where EVERYONE can see them. Yes, it's absolutely possible for a person of another ethnicity to watch something on BET, but ask yourself this: If you're a guy, how often do you want to turn to Lifetime? Mmm, bad example as most women don't want to turn to Lifetime either. (Understandable--it's kinda terrible.) But you see my point: Networks like that breed an exclusivity that we don't always want or need.
The follow-up to this is that there ARE some black shows on major networks. House of Payne and Meet the Browns both air on TBS, right? Yeah, but here's the thing: Those are both Tyler Perry shows. And no disrespect to Tyler Perry, but he's somewhat of a problem. Now while I DO have some problems with him as a writer in the way that he portrays black people, this isn't about that. This is about the fact that Tyler Perry has become so well-known, and such a powerful juggernaut in both the movie and television industry, that Hollywood execs have pretty much got to the point that if they don't see his name SOMEWHERE on your script (writer, director, producer, SOMETHING) it'll probably end up in the garbage seconds after you leave. I'm fine with Tyler Perry being successful, but I'm not fine with the idea that he's almost the only black person that gets to show his vision to a network audience.
When I wonder how we got to this point, the first thing I have to ask myself is how we managed to get so much quality black programming on television in the first place. And the answer I come up with is the dawn of cable and the rising popularity of hip-hop in the 90's. When cable networks first began sprouting up like weeds in the 90's, it created a need for a lot of new programming (nature abhors a vacuum), so when a lot of black writers and directors came up with these shows, they were put on the air because the channels needed SOMETHING to show. At the same time, you had hip-hop culture becoming more popular by the day in the early to mid 90's, and so many of the shows I mentioned embodied that culture (A Different World, Martin, Moesha, etc.). It filled a need that television execs didn't know existed, and as a result so many of these series got respectable five to seven year runs because--surprise!--people like to watch shows with characters they can relate to.
But with the 2000's came reality shows, and with that came a way to capture the attention of many without paying a cast of actors, writers, and directors a proper wage. Just bang out a basic script idea, hand it to some non-union regular people, put a camera on them and voila! Television that costs little to make but brings in if not more money, then almost the same as what you were airing before.
Unfortunately, that (and a few other problems) are starting to bite networks in the butt. Type "Death of Television" in Google, and you won't get a bunch of random blog posts. You get articles from respected websites like Forbes, HuffPo, and BBC. Every couple years I read a new article with a bleaker outlook on traditional cable television's continued existence.
In embracing reality television, quality was sacrificed for a bottom line. Remember when the television networks had "blocks"? Remember "TGIF"? It ran for way too many years for me to be the only kid that grew up on Boy Meets World, Family Matters and Step by Step. No one wants to invest in a series and give them real chances--both the Dick Van Dyke Show and MASH are series that were initially not very popular but reruns ended up making them HUGELY popular and by their second and third seasons they were hits. Meanwhile Fox and ABC are known to cancel series inside of eight or nine episodes, not even letting a full season of a series they short-ordered to begin with air all the way through.
Cable networks aren't any better. Remember when they all had an identity? If you wanted classic science fiction movies and television series as well as the occasional good original series, you watched The Sci-Fi Channel. Now it airs wrestling. TV Land had ALL the best older series like Hogan's Heroes, All in the Family, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Odd Couple and other classic television programs, now if you flip by there it's airing Scrubs. The "Cartoon Network" airs live-action programming. And don't even get me STARTED on what happened to G4.
So now you've got cable and network channels alike panicking at the idea of Netflix. Why? Because Cable and Satellite charge you $60-80/month for all their programming, so much of which you don't even want to WATCH while Netflix charges you $10/month and the only true drawback is that they don't keep you current with your favorite shows. I'd venture to say that the only thing keeping cable networks afloat are the older people who never acclimated themselves to newer technology, and ESPN. But as soon as ESPN comes up with an inexpensive, widespread way to allow sports fans to view football/baseball/basketball without relying on television, there will be a serious problem that I'm not even sure CAN be fixed. But next time I might get into possible solutions, since this article is already long enough.
It never really occurred to me when I was younger, and I guess because when you're young you assume that what's going on around you is the World As It Should Be, but looking back now I realize how spoiled I was a 90's child. And while I could go all hipster and say I was one of the first people to notice that years ago, that's nowhere close to my point, which is what I already asked: What the fuck happened to black television? (Or television in general--but I've got some other stuff I need to get out first.)
At the dawn of the last decade of the 20th century, television had no shortage of programming for African-American audiences. And unless you just DIDN'T have a television or cable, you saw at least one: The Cosby Show and it's spin off A Different World (both hold overs from the late 80's), In Living Color, Living Single, Martin, The Wayans Bros., The Parent 'Hood, Sister Sister, Hanging with Mr. Cooper, Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Family Matters, Smart Guy, Moesha, The Steve Harvey Show, The Jamie Foxx Show... It was simply impossible to miss all of these. Even kid's networks had shows like All That (which had a mixed race cast but it's urban styled comedy definitely appealed to black children) and Kenan and Kel. Like I said, it was easy to take for granted what you had because it seemed like it had always been there--if you build a timeline of all of these they run from roughly 1982 (The Cosby Show) to 2001 or so, a nineteen year period.
Now right now, if you're a fan of a lot of black television that airs today, you're probably looking at this article funny and wondering what the hell I'm talking about. There's plenty of television shows for black people on right now, right? Maybe, but it's not quite the same. Look at the networks a lot of these shows aired on: The Cosby Show, A Different World, and The Fresh Prince of Bel Air all came on NBC. The Wayans Bros., The Parent Hood, Steve Harvey, New York Undercover, and the Jamie Foxx Show all aired on The WB, which eventually became The CW after merging with UPN (which aired Moesha). In Living Color, Living Single, and Martin all aired on Fox. In short--the majority of these shows were on major, MAJOR networks that reached the largest and widest range of audiences possible. This gave these shows--and the actors in them--a crossover appeal that's absolutely necessary if you're going to really, really make it in Hollywood. (Ask Bill Cosby and Will Smith about what crossover appeal can do for you.)
The shows you want to point to now? What channels do they air on? BET? TV One? Basically, any channel you might call a "black network"? That's a problem. Don't get me wrong, it's GREAT that we have multiple networks that we can produce television for--that's something that a lot of African-American writers and directors probably couldn't even dream of back in the 90's. But in having those extra avenues that we can take, we can't forget that it's also important to get black television onto the big networks where EVERYONE can see them. Yes, it's absolutely possible for a person of another ethnicity to watch something on BET, but ask yourself this: If you're a guy, how often do you want to turn to Lifetime? Mmm, bad example as most women don't want to turn to Lifetime either. (Understandable--it's kinda terrible.) But you see my point: Networks like that breed an exclusivity that we don't always want or need.
The follow-up to this is that there ARE some black shows on major networks. House of Payne and Meet the Browns both air on TBS, right? Yeah, but here's the thing: Those are both Tyler Perry shows. And no disrespect to Tyler Perry, but he's somewhat of a problem. Now while I DO have some problems with him as a writer in the way that he portrays black people, this isn't about that. This is about the fact that Tyler Perry has become so well-known, and such a powerful juggernaut in both the movie and television industry, that Hollywood execs have pretty much got to the point that if they don't see his name SOMEWHERE on your script (writer, director, producer, SOMETHING) it'll probably end up in the garbage seconds after you leave. I'm fine with Tyler Perry being successful, but I'm not fine with the idea that he's almost the only black person that gets to show his vision to a network audience.
When I wonder how we got to this point, the first thing I have to ask myself is how we managed to get so much quality black programming on television in the first place. And the answer I come up with is the dawn of cable and the rising popularity of hip-hop in the 90's. When cable networks first began sprouting up like weeds in the 90's, it created a need for a lot of new programming (nature abhors a vacuum), so when a lot of black writers and directors came up with these shows, they were put on the air because the channels needed SOMETHING to show. At the same time, you had hip-hop culture becoming more popular by the day in the early to mid 90's, and so many of the shows I mentioned embodied that culture (A Different World, Martin, Moesha, etc.). It filled a need that television execs didn't know existed, and as a result so many of these series got respectable five to seven year runs because--surprise!--people like to watch shows with characters they can relate to.
But with the 2000's came reality shows, and with that came a way to capture the attention of many without paying a cast of actors, writers, and directors a proper wage. Just bang out a basic script idea, hand it to some non-union regular people, put a camera on them and voila! Television that costs little to make but brings in if not more money, then almost the same as what you were airing before.
Unfortunately, that (and a few other problems) are starting to bite networks in the butt. Type "Death of Television" in Google, and you won't get a bunch of random blog posts. You get articles from respected websites like Forbes, HuffPo, and BBC. Every couple years I read a new article with a bleaker outlook on traditional cable television's continued existence.
In embracing reality television, quality was sacrificed for a bottom line. Remember when the television networks had "blocks"? Remember "TGIF"? It ran for way too many years for me to be the only kid that grew up on Boy Meets World, Family Matters and Step by Step. No one wants to invest in a series and give them real chances--both the Dick Van Dyke Show and MASH are series that were initially not very popular but reruns ended up making them HUGELY popular and by their second and third seasons they were hits. Meanwhile Fox and ABC are known to cancel series inside of eight or nine episodes, not even letting a full season of a series they short-ordered to begin with air all the way through.
Cable networks aren't any better. Remember when they all had an identity? If you wanted classic science fiction movies and television series as well as the occasional good original series, you watched The Sci-Fi Channel. Now it airs wrestling. TV Land had ALL the best older series like Hogan's Heroes, All in the Family, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Odd Couple and other classic television programs, now if you flip by there it's airing Scrubs. The "Cartoon Network" airs live-action programming. And don't even get me STARTED on what happened to G4.
So now you've got cable and network channels alike panicking at the idea of Netflix. Why? Because Cable and Satellite charge you $60-80/month for all their programming, so much of which you don't even want to WATCH while Netflix charges you $10/month and the only true drawback is that they don't keep you current with your favorite shows. I'd venture to say that the only thing keeping cable networks afloat are the older people who never acclimated themselves to newer technology, and ESPN. But as soon as ESPN comes up with an inexpensive, widespread way to allow sports fans to view football/baseball/basketball without relying on television, there will be a serious problem that I'm not even sure CAN be fixed. But next time I might get into possible solutions, since this article is already long enough.
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