TV GOLD LIVE, AS IT HAPPENS. SORTA.

Since my last blog I’ve been chatting with other producers about the Olympic coverage, and a couple of them suggested I watch the shows ‘Live’, rather than the terribly put together clip show they’ve been putting on in prime-time.  

Now, this enterprise means some painstaking ‘watching of entire events’, and the all too complex to understand ‘inclusion of some other people’. Mainly it involves staying up late.  

So, anyway, I have been watching as much ‘live’ Olympic fun as I could.

On Saturday, I sat eagerly watching the ‘live show’ on NBC from 7.30pm, ready to witness Michael Phelps go for  his place in Olympic megastardom history by winning his eighth Gold.  

Everything was set. Beer in hand, curtains shut, pants off. …What I mean, of course, is that I was totally keyed up and there for it. I was ready. I was totally in ‘watching history’ mode, (generally a ‘pants off situation’, I think you’ll agree).

The graphic up at the top right said “LIVE”, and we all knew it was taking place sometime in the evening – the news was all about it all day. So, there I sat, waiting for the “Live-in-Primetime” event.

I sat in my chair, from 7pm, happy to watch all those products being sold to us because Michael Phelps was coming up live at any minute. Oooh goody. Here he comes… Any minute.  

By 9.30 I was beginning to do sums on my fingers, doing the complicated ‘just add 15’  math to work out what time it would be in Beijing. I even went on-line to double check my math… and then… it happened.  The cardinal sin of ‘live’ global events.  

Right there on my computer screen was the CNN latest news headline “Michael Phelps Swims to 8 Olympic Golds”.  

I stared at the screen for a moment – whipped my head back to the NBC coverage. It definitely said “LIVE” in the top right of the screen. Back to CNN… “….Swims to….”. I snapped my hand out and turned off the computer screen, half hoping I’d head off the information I’d read at the pass, stopping it from actually seeping into my brain.  

Nope. It was too late. I’d just seen the result.

Without passing on the news to my other half, I asked her if she could read the word “LIVE”? She said she could. I waited for the next ad break and turned off the DVR in case we’d accidentally hit pause at some point in the afternoon and were watching tv with a lag.  Nope.

The painful, awful truth of it was still there. I knew the result.

By this point my other half had rumbled that something was wrong, that I knew the result; and was now holding her hands over her ears, squeezing her eyes shut tight, and singing a loud song about ‘not wanting me to speak to her or even look at her’ until after the race.  

Like the ‘Live finals’ of American Idol, (where it’s actually only ‘live’ on the East Coast and delayed for the West Coast), any ‘live show’ which is only live in half of the country is no live show. What they should have called this  was a “recording of something which happened three hours ago, sucks to be you, California” show.

Someone, please tell me, why is it that I have a bloody V-Chip in my TV because some religious nut got concerned that they have so little control over their household that their TV’s off switch might not work; Janet Jackson flashes a ropey star-clad tit for a few none-too arousing frames and the FCC light up burning torches and march on Justin Timberlake’s house; but a major, historical event gets recorded and passed off to half the nation as ‘LIVE’ - and everyone seems to think it’s ok?

How the hell can they put that LIVE sign up in the right hand side of the screen and then NOT screen it live?

Someone tried to calm me down by telling me they did roll a tiny little graphic underneath the big LIVE sign which read: “EST/CENTRAL”. That was their caveat. “LIVE: SORTA”.

What’s to stop them running that logo over EVERYTHING to make it feel more ‘real’ and keep their audience? “Tonight, in Primetime: Mission to the Moon: LIVE: As it Happens: (C1969)”.  Or worse, recording EVERYTHING, then watching it all, coming up with a plan of how to play it out, and then screening it at their leisure as ‘live’, a couple of days later - or a week. Hey, why not stock-pile the news like a grain mountain, just tease it out when we get desperate. Or just live a year behind things actually happening?

Why not start with the elections. Or the weather forecasts? Cut out all the incorrect stuff and only tell us the stuff that they know is going to be important sometime down the road.

What made me the MOST angry about this was that the race, it seems, DID actually happen while I was sitting there watching TV on Saturday night. It was happening LIVE as I was sitting there patiently slipping off my trousers and popping open my beer – our friends in NYC saw it live, so why is it we weren’t allowed to see it live?  

I don’t know about you, but for me there’s some extra special importance to watching things live – something about the unpredictability, about the idea that we’re not able to change events, subvert them or rewrite them. Additionally, because it’s live, we’re part of the story, we become part of the moment. The history making moment.  It’s also part of the group dynamic of the event, the all important shared human experience.

Where were you when  Kennedy got shot? “I was in California and I watched it three hours after it happened. But it’s OK, it felt almost like I’d seen it live because the adverts were all the same”.  

And this is the reality – the reason they didn’t show it live, as they could have done, is because they knew we’d wait. And while we’re waiting for the event, we’d be watching commercials. And while we’re watching commercials we’re all buying.

And at the end of the day, I guess I have to grow up and admit, that’s exactly why NBC love all this ‘Olympic Gold’ stuff.

Olympic Sized Reality Show

It’s time for the World’s biggest reality show – the Olympics.

There will be winners, losers, characters we’ll want to see gone. There’ll be contested votes and odd people from all walks of life. There are a million B-stories and a great big finale. All, thankfully, without Ryan Seacrest.

Yes, I’m trying to justify why I’m writing about the Olympics. I think I make a good argument – so, I’m afraid you’ll just have to go with me.

Television is all about story-telling. Even news is about story-telling – that’s the chief form of storytelling in my view. Drama is easy – you get to write the lines and scenes; reality TV you get to cast the stupidest, most prone-to-being-nude characters you can find; but in news and sports you have to tell the stories of the people you’re given.

This is why I’ve been so frustrated with the NBC coverage of the games. I think they’ve totally missed the point.

Now, you’ll have to forgive me for sounding holier than thou for a moment, but I’m about to make a small reference to something I think we’ve traditionally done better in the UK – big World-wide audience events. I don’t get to do it often. So enjoy.

It’s partly because we lose a lot more often than we win events, but I think Britain’s generally humbled political position, (we gave most of the World back to its rightful owners some time ago, you might have heard about it?), means that we take far more interest in the Olympic theme of ‘Putting Aside the Petty Politics of the Day and Celebrating Excellence in Sports’.

What I mean, is in the UK, we get to learn about the other competitors, too.

Two nights ago I watched Michael Phelps winning one of his many Golds, if I hadn’t gone on line to search for the photos, according to the NBC coverage I could have safely assumed the guy was in the pool all by himself. While ‘one man-one pool’ events might be totally all-American, they’re certainly not good story-telling.

Aside from my wanting to see more of the other people because they’re from all over the place and because they’ve also spent the last four years training for this one special day, I also needed to see these people because they are a vital part of the story of the unfolding drama of the race. Who did he beat? Was it close? Was someone else ahead at any point? I don’t know.  Without the shots of the others I was left genuinely unmoved by Phelps’ World Record breaking achievement. And that’s the worst part of all of this.

I’ll take you back to the opening ceremony, the Parade of Champions. Matt Lauer had just done his opening, proclaiming that “we’ll put all the politics aside for now”…  we’d seen that awesome spectacle of the main show, then it was time for the Olympians to march in, waving their flags, smiling at a billion moms around the Globe.

I’m a bit of a school-girl about these things, and I go weak at the knees when someone plays some stirring music and says anything to a gathered crowd about ‘coming together we can overcome…’, ‘we’re all one World’, ‘we are the children’… and don’t even get me started on anything about going to the Moon.

So, for me I love it in the BBC coverage when the commentators, for a couple of hours remind us that all those Suits in power, invading each other, putting sanctions on him or making resolutions against her, are all rather silly.  What’s really important is that ‘the athletes from X and Y are amazingly holding hands and hugging’. What’s important now is the sports and human achievement.

As I watched the Parade this time on NBC, the audience was offered over an hour of remarks about invasions, partisan politics, ‘silly costumes’ and then, to top it off, coming back in from ad breaks, we were given a quick, edited montage of all those countries who aren’t really that important.  Now, this wasn’t a live event, so it’s not like we would have missed these countries otherwise – this was a decision – this was how NBC have decided to tell this story.

There’s often an attitude, one which is sometimes correct, that American audiences don’t watch unless there’s an America on tv. With the Olympics I think this completely, and dangerously misses the point.  American’s have so few opportunities to see citizens of other countries in any other context than on the news; burning effigies of Bush, or blood-soaked, running away from the effects of a suicide bomber – that to get to see them as real people who can sometime run faster than us, is not only important, but also the responsibility of the broadcaster.

With the accepted history now being that Bush’s Whitehouse manipulated information in order to invade Iraq, that they lied and covered up the fact that they had no evidence… and that the news organizations and broadcasters in the USA were lazy pawns who let them get away with it - I feel that events like the Olympics are vital in giving us the background to the World; all part of the story which may drip-feed into the public consciousness, into the news organizations, so that next time something like Iraq rears its head, Americans will see, rather than just a dusty country full of rock-throwers, ripe for the invading; these other people from other countries, with Moms, and an emotional tear when they win, are all a vital part of OUR story.

So long Nigel Lythgoe…

So, since the news broke that Executive Producer, Nigel Lythgoe is leaving American Idol after 8 seasons, I’ve been fielding confused calls from friends… mainly asking ‘why is this news?’…

I have to say that I am surprised by the reaction - it made the front page news on CNN and the BBC for goodness-sakes. I mean this isn’t the Dalai Lama deciding that he’s had enough of capes and quitting his gig, or Regis throwing it in saying he’s tired of not using the F-word on tv - this is a producer?!

In my experience there are two kinds of Executive Producer - 1) A complete a-hole who has no business being there and 2) A leader, guide - a general you’d follow into the shaddow of death. (They can also be a-holes, so my description isn’t perfect, but stay with me).

Those times when you have to let an EP walk into your edit suite are usually the times you can spot it.

The EPs who are put in place by a nervous network exec, who doesn’t know what he’s doing either, will walk in usually face buried deep in their Blackberry… then limit their comments to that most annoying kind - when they simply reitterate other people’s points three seconds after the original comment, but much louder. These would be the first kind of EP.

The second kind sit in sage silence, they’ll take notes, they’ll laugh and enjoy the funny bits - and they’ll rarely cry at the sad bits, (because they hate sentimentality - they love great story telling and they’ll catch you out every time you try to sneak sentimentality by them by pasting sad music over a scene), at the end they’ll list off three or four scenes that aren’t working, (something you knew already - usually because you’d plastered sad music over them hoping you’d get by), and then give you three or so places where you missed a trick, or where you could add a line that fixes the problem you stayed late three nights in a row trying to fix. Yes, this is the second kind.

Now, they don’t have to be nice about it, (see my comment about a-holes) - but if you’re in tv to have your back rubbed you’re in the wrong business, (or at least the wrong country - I think producers in Finland get their backs rubbed).

Yes, you can sometimes feel mugged, embarrassed, defensive, angry… but never right. You know they’ve made your show better. It’s a mix of enormous experience, confidence, intuition - and mostly pride. After all this show has their name on it, usually in much bigger fonts than everyone else’s - and at the very front of the show, right after the title.

The word on the street is that Nigel Lythgoe is definitely the second kind of EP. Someone who at the end of each day, as he leaves the studios in his solid gold rocket car, knows he just made a show much, much better.

I recently heard a pitch for his new show, and it’s a good’n - but once you’ve run the world’s most successful tv show for 8 years running, the usual getting out of a job line of ‘wanting to face new challenges’ couldn’t be more appropriate.

 

INSPIRED TV and FLAVA FLAV

So, you can imagine the scene… A TV executive hangs out with some people who are a bit different from him and he ponders… “what would it be like if I had to live with him/her”.  

Weeks later “Wife Swap” turns up on TV.  

A junior development producer travels to a far away island and ponders how living alone, stranded there with people you don’t even know might provoke a great fight… Voilà! ”Survivor” arrives in the middle of the schedules.

Don’t ask me what the exec who developed “Wipeout” was watching… but an average weekend round at my in-laws might have done it.

Anyway, the point is inspiration for a TV show can come from a lot of places.  But coming up with Reality TV shows is not quite as easy as sitting and waiting for inspiration to strike. No matter what you might think watching Tila Tequila.  

Sure - sometimes you’ll come up with a genius idea in the bath, or at spin class. Sometimes someone will pitch you a great idea… but not often. So you can’t rely on just coming up with ideas if you’re serious about being a reality tv company.  

One of the major mistakes that inexperienced producers make is to hold on to ONE idea way past it’s death-by date. You’ll meet producers who pitch to you and they have one show idea – but it’s lame, tired, (already on tv – yes, this really happens!) – in short, it’s just not working – but 6 months later they’re still pressing it – having made zero progress.  

Don’t get me wrong, tenacity is THE most important trait to have in reality tv, but if you’re not generating fresh sounding ideas for your company to make, then you may as well not be doing it at all. The chances that your ONE idea is going to be the one to make it through and get green-lit are very slim. So you’re going to need more ideas.

How?  

The most reliable way of coming up with ideas is BRAINSTORMING – not wild, off-the-wall brainstorming – but focused, smart regular meetings with your team, with a very short list of networks very much in mind.  

The next thing we do is draw up a list of ‘areas’, hot topics that are relevant, timely and ideally provocative. Say ‘Runaway Dads’, ‘DEBT & foreclosures’, ‘fathers at war’. We then take each one and talk through the issues at hand – what’s at stake, what are the core problems. We then think of similar shows in a similar vein. Finally, we talk over the way we’d handle that in an ENTERTAINING way on tv!  

But, the thing you’ll find is that once you create your ‘areas list’ you’ll also be focusing the way you even come across new RANDOM ideas. You’ll hear a radio story, talk with someone, or read a book - and then you’ll already be thinking how it could work WITHIN one of your ‘hot topic areas’.  

The important thing about this is that it will make every idea you come up with RELEVANT. People will always be so thrilled you’re always pitching ideas that ‘absolutely hits upon the zeitgeist’. So, you’ll also be making yourself hip and cool in the process.  

The most vital thing to remember in all of this is that every idea MUST have a home. This is important – you’re making shows for people to buy – and they are the networks on your list. If you can’t sell your show to these guys, you’re going to have a long, uphill battle to sell the show. And that’s not good. 

Any idea we run by each other MUST have a possible home at 4 or more networks otherwise we dump it.  

The way to work this out is to talk with the network, or, simplest of all – watch the network. Lots of it. Also, check out their advertizing, which shows are they turning into billboards? (This is A REALLY simple but valuable tip – because you’ll really see what shows they want to be known for. Study the graphics, the looks and feels of the press and the shows themselves. This will give you a great understanding of the ‘feel’ of the network – how edgy they are or want to be, or how ‘family oriented’).  

And if all this doesn’t work – then just stick a giant clock round the neck of a former Rapper – and have him try to choose a wife from a bunch of skanky lap-dancers.

IS THAT A SHOWREEL IN YOUR POCKET?

“Oh boy”, drools my agent, eyeing the DVD in my hand, “Is that Tape for me?”

My agent loves ‘tape’ – those five minute, well crafted ‘mini-shows’, (actually on DVD – but are still referred to as the old VHS version of them), which introduce your new pitch to the world in the most TV friendly way; on TV.

Wow, does he love tape. He loves it more than writing the words ‘packaging fee’ in a contract. Tape is perhaps his favoritist thing in the whole wide world.

The reason he really likes tape is that on tape your idea is already plain to see - it’s developed, clear and above all - especially for my agent - it doesn’t need any explanation. Most production companies now shoot tape for their pitches. It saves time, confusion and can really leapfrog a whole bunch of that killer time they call ‘development’, (which I’ve recently heard defined by one disgruntled producer as ‘the period of time it takes for your network executive to actually understand the idea’).

So, when do you shoot tape and how do you do it?

If it was possible I’d say shoot tape for every idea, and shoot it as soon as soon and in as short a period of time as you can. Now, unless you’ve been prescribed the Fountain of Cash drug - or if you’re ON some form of drug - this is almost impossible.

So how to decide WHICH ideas to shoot tape for?

This week I have to make that decision myself. I have two ideas; one is a big, blow-em-up science show, the other a tough talking ‘Intervention’ type format. In the case of the ‘Intervention’ show I have ‘talent’ (IE a person who I think will make a great host). I don’t yet have faces for the science show, but the idea is more complicated to ’sell’, and could benefit from a good tape to make it clear.

So, which one will I choose? Vote now!

Well, I’ve decided to make tape for the ‘Intervention’ type show. Why? Well, the primary reason is that it’s much closer to being a tv show. It’s a clear, simple new twist on a familiar format, (and that’s a total bonus!), and it has great talent attached, so will be that much clearer for the execs to ‘get’.

More importantly, as a production company I’ll see return on this idea much faster than the science show which we still have to cast - even if it is the most Mythbustingtastic idea ever.

The final, vital reason I’ve gone this way is that I know for almost no money we can produce a great looking reel that looks at least as good as comparable shows on tv. And THIS IS IMPORTANT.

Because, there is one DOWNSIDE to shooting tape.

No matter how many caveats you give, no matter how much benefit-of-the-doubt the execs give you, whatever you show them, it WILL look like the show you’re trying to sell. So, if you’ve got your mate to shoot it for you, it’s badly lit, you stole some shots from a VHS tape you found dangling from a tree - THIS IS what the execs watching your tape will believe is not only your very best idea of the show, but also will take it as a demonstration of your very best work.

I cannot tell you the number of times people show me horrible pieces of tape with bad/no sound, crappy edits and terrible music choices - and the young producer looks up at me when it’s finished and says something like, “oh, of course, the show will be BETTER than this”… Er… No, it won’t, because as far as I can tell this IS your show. You haven’t had networks mess with the idea, or deadly time constraints. This is the show you’re tying to sell me.

So, only ever shoot tape if it HELPS your show. And if the finished tape doesn’t live up to the show in your head - dump it. Quickly. It’s actually better to go to a pitch with no tape at all if it’s anything less than good.

But, finally, another great reason for shooting good tape is because, as my agent found out this week, if execs don’t want the show you’re pitching, they might still love what you do. And this week alone, we’ve already had two calls from networks who know us only through our tapes… and they’re calling US wanting us to pitch for shows they’re developing in house.

And my agent REALLY loves that.

THAT REALITY TV SHOW ‘LOOK’

It’s EMMY TIME!!!  

So, the Primetime Emmy nominations came out yesterday, and as I scanned down to the Reality TV show sections, (to see which of my friends would be buying me drinks this week - and which shows I SHOULD have worked on),  my finger suddenly stopped dead on a strange section.  

“BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY IN A REALITY OR UNSCRIPTED TV SERIES” 

Now, like a lot of people in tv, I’m a filmmaker who has been strangely drawn to the fast turn-over world of TV – so, let me tell you something… there are FEW reality shows on TV to which the word ‘Cinematography’ should be applied.‘Lovely’, perhaps. ‘Generally in focus, and sometimes in the frame’, certainly’. ‘Somehow caught by a static night-vision camera’ – you betcha. But, ‘Cinematography’? I think not.

While stuck in a house in the wilds of middle-America some years ago, (shooting a well known series about the TV friendly form of swapping your wife), it struck me that what the show really needed was some decisions to overcome the inherent problem of these shows; that they all look the same, and worse - that ‘reality tv show look’ simply doesn’t tell the story well.

It was pretty much my first major show, after doing a lot of cable – so, this was a great time to shine in network primetime – and I felt it should look the part. The tv equivalent of putting on its Sunday-best.  So, I chatted with the Director of Photography. Now, he’d been flown into the country to shoot this, and he’d shot commercials and feature-films. It was clear the production company DID, at least, sort of care about how the show looked – so I wanted to use him as I would if I were shooting a drama.  We talked story, scenes, breakdowns of character arcs – mood, lighting. We walked the location every morning before the rest of the crew arrived – and we had secret signals to let each other know when to instigate a certain ‘special move’. Finally, if for no other reason than simply to ensure that each day’s filming looked different from the last, (to give the show a real visual progression over the hour), we came up with a system of shooting in different director’s styles each day.

Monday, first day of the shoot would be bright and fun – “John Hughes”, I’d whisper to the DoP as we prepped the day. He’d nod, and for the rest of the day the shots would be built up with centrally framed mostly three-shots or medium wides, so we could fully appreciate the group dynamic and the general fun reactions people were having.  By day three things had turned… “Polanski”, I coughed as the mood turned dark. Sure enough, the nervous, can’t-quite-see-round-the-door shots flowed – and the scenes looked AWESOME.  

By Friday things had calmed down, and the story turned to the kids, “Spielberg, (pre-Janusz-Kaminski… more like Allen Daviau)”, I winked at the DoP, (that wink was one of our ’secret signals’… We were particularly proud of that one). So, all the practical lamps we could find in the house were placed low down where we could, and we swapped out the bulbs to make them warmer. The kids looked angelic and the scenes were roundly applauded as ‘perfectly shot’. The point is we REALLY thought about how to shoot this show. But, this case, I assure you is VERY, VERY, VERY uncommon in reality tv.

I interviewed an assistant-producer this week who’d worked on an enormously successful show about ‘good-old blue-collar working folk doing a dangerous job’. He told me that not only do they not have a director or producer with the team, they have a ‘Cinematographer’ who shoots all sorts of pretty stuff, without much knowledge of the story, and the assistant-producer shot most of the show himself because with nobody else there, who’d shoot it?  

“It’s really just point it at the men and let them do their thing”, he told me “I shoot it mostly on auto”.

So, back to my finger stopped dead over the EMMY listings. This show got nominated for Best Cinematography.

Independents Day - (or How I learned to stop hating the reality TV monster machines)

So, this week I want to pat myself on the back. For one whole year I’ve been paid by my own company, and only my company.

We’ve only been going as an Indie company for just over a year – and it’s time to reflect on all the good things that means.  

First off – I’m my own boss. So I get to call myself into my office and ask myself to take dictation, take my own messages – and learn my own annoying tastes in complicated coffee.  

Second – The money I make is the money I earn – if I don’t sell tv shows I get to enjoy the fruits of my labors.

Third – I decide how much work to do – Yes! If I don’t stay late again, work through the night and work another weekend to finish those proposals the network have demanded to have by the next approvals board to decide about taking your show to series, it’s entirely my choice.  

Yes! Choice and self determination is the way forward.  

There are many reasons for being your own boss, and those listed above are only some of them. The others include; not foaming at the mouth when you read that the big, non-union network reality show you slogged your guts out on last season to make the “tiny budget” work, just got sold for $70M to a cable station, (no, I won’t get any of it – not even a thank you card or a picture of my old boss sitting in his brand new rocket car). Not looking at your weekly rate and imagining if the production company will ever make it go UP, rather than making you work 6 day weeks “oh, and whatever other time you need to do the show”. And finally, maybe, one day having some breathing room so that you can really sit back and THINK about how to make a show better.  

These are the reasons I started my company. I have two awesomely talented partners, and they were two other great reasons, but, not giving someone else the benefits of my hard work is pretty much my A1 reason.  

Now, I’m not going to tell you it’s been easy – far from it… I haven’t bitten my nails so much about the rent check being due for a long, long time. And, if you’ve been reading about my rollercoaster ride here in my blog, you’ll already know my attitude towards getting excited about ‘great news’.  

I guess the only, single thing I miss about working for ‘the man’ has been someone patting my head gently, saying the tv producer equivalent of ‘that’ll do pig’. So, hence my self patting frenzy today.

Because, even though it might be hard, frustrating and strangely amusing in these months – in the not too distant future I may very well get to drive my own Rocket Car.

I GOT A NEW BADGE or BREAD AND BUTTER

So ever heard the phrase ‘poacher turned gamekeeper’?  

Well, I’m kinda feeling a little bit that way this week.

I’ve been a producer and director of documentaries and reality tv for over ten years, but when you hop the fence and actually own the company that makes the show, you can see just how hard it is to make ends meet in TV.  

It might surprise you that with all the cigar chomping, champagne swilling fat cats you see at awards shows, everyone, from the smallest indie to the biggest multinational are feeling the same.  

In the olden days a tv broadcaster would ask you how much a show was going to cost – you’d tell them some nice huge figure, and they’d give it to you… Houses for everybody.  

Then, when the tv bosses realized that Reality TV could, in effect, buy THEM even more houses than they used to – made as they are by non-union, fresh out of film-school kids eager to work for less and less each week – they jumped at the opportunity.  

However all this happened right about the same time that multinationals were opening up digital channels and soaking up even more of the money they’d really wanted to keep for themselves.  So, what to do?  Well, make these shows cost EVEN less, of course!  

Now, it’s a bit more complicated than all this – but imagine the big decision at the networks: “Rather than giving them a chunk of cash, let’s give producers less money, let’s audit every penny and split the underspend with producers (so giving them an incentive to make the show for even less – AND we still make money), and let’s take all the international sales for ourselves while we’re at it, (because if we don’t take it, the producers will – and if we take it, what are the producers going to do? They might whine a bit – but we’ll have their money, and they’ll have a bad mood. We win again!).” 

So, now producers had a stark choice. With every revenue stream cut off for them, either they survive on the small, line-item, commission they get from the budget, or go out of business. Make tv or don’t.  The image I can’t get out of my head is of the stupid lumberjack, stuck a hundred feet up, way out on a tree’s limb, sawing through the bough holding him up with all his might. “Wow! This is awesome”, he says, “Think how much money I’ll get for this branch!”.  

You see, from this side of the fence – I can tell you that producers are facing this extraordinary question - how to continue making tv, while still paying for our staff, paying rent on our offices, paying for the development for new shows, (another area networks used to cashflow but no longer do in any meaningful way) – and all while still having enough in the kitty for a birthday cake for Joan from business affairs on a Friday?  

Yes, these every day expenses are costs that you simply can’t put in the budget for season two of ‘When Trees Attack’, and until I come up with a new “WIPEOUT”, or “WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE” – I’ve just got to take from an ever shrinking well. 

You see, the saddest thing of all this week is that while I was sitting at my desk clipping, snipping and slicing this budget, is that there IS only one place you can cut costs – and that’s by cutting the pay of your crew, the people without whom you wouldn’t even have a show. But, as I polished my new Gamekeeper Badge, part of me, if I’m totally honest, was congratulating myself on a job well done.  

I finish this week by posing a question of my own, a question I’ve been posing for myself every night – ‘When an industry is built on a formula that means we’re producing tv for less and less each year, in an environment where we can only survive by cutting costs and making tv even cheaper… how cheap can you make TV before people stop watching?’

And will anyone notice?

YOU MUST BE MAD TO GO ON TV

No sane person could watch the contestants on a reality tv show without thinking there’s something very wrong with these people.

You’re only half right, though. Because while reality tv demands that these people are mad - it also demands that they’re ‘not too mad’.

Yes, we want you to be willing to go on tv and get into yelling matches with similarly mad people. We want you to be koo-koo enough to want to cry on cue about how ‘not winning the ‘Jello Down Your Pants’ Challenge’ has really scarred you for life. We even want you to be mad enough to go on national tv and have your private parts blurred out as you waddle away from a midnight tumble with the awful blond who should have been voted off last week.

But, we don’t want dribbling. And we hate stopping filming because we’re ‘all so concerned that Bobby might actually be losing it, should we call the network?’. We hate that most of all.

Yes, so even the most looney Survivor or Blind Dater has been certified ‘mad enough for telly’. How? It might be hard to believe they actually had to meet with a psychologist who would have quizzed them about everything from their childhood to how many times they think they’re a god per day - all for the all important stamp of approval. The real reason reality tv spends a good portion of its budgets on these heinously expensive psychological evaluations, or “Psych Evals”, is because while most of us think of reality tv as a lot of crazy people not adding much to the world, network tv bosses see reality tv as an enormous bunch of very very expensive law suits just waiting to walk into head-office and take away all their lovely money.

Yes, imagine if someone went postal in the Big Brother house? Or went gaga and throttled the Supernanny, right there on tv?! Now, while many of you might think Congressional Medals would be in order for those loopy Lou’s, you can only imagine the hours of wasted legal time to clear that mess up… so, psych evals it is.

But, the other, not often talked about reason we have these Psych Evals created is because of the wonderful veneer of responsibility it gives reality tv producers… er, like me.

Now, You might be the most caring, wonderful human being on Earth. But, if you’re stuck on location with a thousand better hotel rooms between you and home, and you’re watching a normal person, being absolutely normal for 24 hours a day… and niceties are flowing, people are getting on and NOTHING is happening, (by the TV definition of ‘Nothing’), even you would scream out for even the mildest mental issue to creep in. Just to spice it up. And you’re a nice person.

But, (putting on my Orwellian voice over voice), ‘We all know where this will end’.

I used to live in London, not far from the site of the infamous mental institution known, back when it was open, as “Bedlam”. One of my favorite haunts was a pub, overlooking the grounds. On the wall in the gents bathroom was a plaque that reminded us that where I was now relieving myself used to be the 2-penny Gallery, where for 2 pence you could stand with a beer in hand and look over the wall at the really, sick inmates going about their craziness.

This is where it would end. Tv producers would go wild. You can only imagine.

So, carrying my file of ‘Approved for Telly!’ psych certificates, I can walk onto set happy in the knowledge that while these people might be mad - these wonderful certificates under my arm say that not only are they not too mad, but I’ve been a really responsible producer, caring enough about these people that I even had them evaluated by a really expensive psychologist for their own well-being.

And that makes all us reality TV producers feel pretty darned good, I can tell you.

THE BRITISH ARE COMING AND THEY WANT TO SWAP OUR WIVES

It’s widely believed that the British started reality tv – in fact most people agree we are responsible for the whole lot of it.

Sorry about that.  

Yes, I am a Brit. I have a chirpy manner, an insatiable desire to correct Americans’ use of the word ‘irony’, and an unnatural love of “chim-en-eys”.  

Of course, if I were personally responsible for all of reality TV I’d be happy to welcome each and every one of you round to my place up on Mulholland Drive for another raucous night of champagne Jacuzzis and all night partying with the catwalk models I would have bought with cash from Tyra Banks.  

Yes, that would be nice.  

For those of you paying close attention, I did not come up with The Apprentice, Survivor, Who Wants to be a Millionaire, The Weakest Link, Wife Swap, Super Nanny, Dancing with the Stars, American Idol nor America’s Got Talent… but I know some people who did.  

They’re indeed British. And they have very nice houses.  And no champagne left this morning.

But, today’s blog is about a strange phenomenon in this tv invasion that I find quite puzzling. Some of you might even find some hope in it.  

I was recently back in the UK, and watched the finale of the British version of ‘The Apprentice’. In the UK this BBC smash hit/cultural phenomenon has whipped up the nation in ways not seen since the awesome ‘The Queen Visits Some People’ newsreel, or the last public hanging of a dentist.  

Maybe it’s me, maybe it’s the last 5 years of my living in the USA – but frankly, I found the show really, genuinely, mind-numbingly boring. Yes, as a Brit some of you will think that last sentence rather strongly worded.  

I’m sure in some olden-days time, this would have been considered treason.  

Over there, instead of The Donald, they have a graying businessman, with an equally chequered business history as Trump, by the name of Sir Alan Sugar. He’s bombastic, cheeky and charming in turns. Nothing wrong with that casting at all. Nor with the arrogant, smartly dressed assortment of hopeful Apprentices. Nothing wrong at all.  

What WAS wrong was that it was just, well, boring. Nothing happened. It was slow, it was ill conceived, it was lacking in any drama at all. It was better shot that the American version – I’ll give it that. Yes, it is a longer slot to fill, showing as it does on the BBC with no commercials, (about 8 minutes longer). Yes, the British audiences are ok with leaving a talking head on screen for longer than 5 seconds, unlike their US counterparts.  

But it was more than that. Screening as it is on a public broadcaster network – it felt to me just LAZY. There’s no real balls to it, no competitive edge, the sort that I felt we are constantly in pursuit of in the USA working on shows for ABC. We are always trying to raise our game, get better shots, tell better stories, think of even bigger, better ideas, all the time. We have competitors, we have peer pressure – we have Nielsen figures.  

So it struck me, suddenly in a moment of strange, guilt-ridden clarity, (the kind that you get when you realize for the first time that your parents are real people and might actually be talking bollocks from time to time), that while the British might have come up with the ideas for these shows originally - they just don’t have that, ‘killer’ instinct, and still need a good ‘ol chunk of American market forces to make the best of them.  

I think, uniquely, in reality tv it is exactly that mix of British ideas and American desire for raising the stakes that creates the quality of production we’re used to over here. And while I’d rather watch a British soccer match in Britain, there’s nowhere in the world I’d rather watch a Wife get Swapped, a Super Nanny, or an American Idol do their stuff than in America.

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