TV programs exclude middlebrow audience
Talk of the shrinking middle class has gotten plenty of lip service in the U.S. political arena for several years. Some say the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer, and there seem to be fewer opportunities for those who would be content finding a comfortable life in the middle class.
TV is undergoing a similarly polarizing trend. Some networks are engaged in an apparent race to the bottom, eager to schedule more hours of lowest-common-denominator programming than their competitors. Others intend on airing only sophisticated original content with an air of intellectualism, most of which could be justifiably accused of being inaccessibly elitist.
Networks clearly had both extremes of the taste spectrum in mind when scheduling lineups. But if you’re looking for something more middle-of-the-road, don’t hold your breath — television’s disappearing middlebrow makes finding shows to suit your tastes unlikely.
A quick look at how a handful of recently premiered shows are holding up in their debut seasons suggests that major broadcast networks are seriously underestimating their audience’s maturity level.
ABC’s Work It received the critical equivalent of tarring and feathering many weeks before its on-air premiere and perhaps best represents viewers’ desires not to be patronized. Before the network made the prudent decision to cut losses to finances and reputation after only two episodes, the show depicted the cross-dressing exploits of two men who thought they’d have better luck finding jobs in the guise of females — because everybody knows this is a woman’s world (81 cents to every dollar a man makes? Yes, please!).
Beyond the expected outcry from the LGBT community, which protested the show’s exploitation of demeaning stereotypes for jokes — though not for successful laughs, mind you — the broader audience appeared to take offense as well. Seeing ABC’s decision to air Work It as an insult to the audience’s intelligence doesn’t seem to be an unreasonable interpretation. Surely ABC didn’t think it could air a slap in the face of Work It’s caliber and not expect to bruise a few egos in the process.
Audiences are now voting with their viewership, and their message is clear: Throw the bums out.
CBS’ Rob starring Rob Schneider, on the other hand, appears to be holding onto a significant number of eyes. Despite seeing a 15 percent fall-off in viewership from its debut, the show, a 22-minute-long Mexican joke predicated on the hilarity of an interracial marriage, has posted two strong ratings performances in a row.
But Rob has clearly found its perfect home on CBS. Factoring in the racial caricatures that dominate the network’s shows, such as 2 Broke Girls, the network seems to be actively cultivating a reputation as the finest pickers of low-hanging fruit.
Programming skewing toward the other end of the spectrum has problems of its own, but loud opposition is not among them. As a matter of fact, highbrow shows have quite the opposite problem: Too few people are watching to care one way or another about their destinies.
For all their cultural clout, critically acclaimed shows are generally seen by only a fraction of the audience of shows like American Idol. For instance, the all-time most watched episode of Mad Men still drew less than 3 million viewers — ratings that would get the show canceled on a broadcast network.
The story is the same for many other critical favorites, such as Breaking Bad, Boardwalk Empire, Downtown Abbey, and even a few comedies, such as Shameless and Flight of the Conchords.
Obviously, all these shows have one thing in common that keeps them from ever posting Big Bang Theory or American Idol numbers: With the exception of PBS’ Downtown Abbey, they’re all cable or premium-cable shows.
Even if these shows weren’t forced to contend with the fragmented audience that naturally accompanies a medium like cable, they would have a hard time finding a footing in the broadcast format. Many juggle complex storylines and are too serialized for broadcast networks’ undependable viewing audiences.
Still, there are certainly elements of highbrow shows that could contribute to a fantastic middlebrow program.
Compelling seasonal arcs are absolutely crucial in every one of television’s most-respected shows, as is a strong sense of place — no disrespect to ABC’s terrifically funny, Chicago-set Happy Endings, but it could take place anywhere, whereas Showtime’s Shameless makes no mistake about its location in the Windy City.
It also never hurts to throw in flaws and moral ambiguity — sometimes it seems as though a mere extra in Mad Men has greater emotional complexity than Cory Monteith’s Finn Hudson on Glee.
By combining the marketable appeal that defines broadcast fare with the maturity, storylines and dedicated sense of setting that characterize cable’s best, the pilots for NBC’s Smash and Fox’s Alcatraz show tremendous promise for the resurgence of the middlebrow.
And shows like FX’s Justified, which recently kicked off its third season, indicate there’s still some life in the procedural format, if only executives are brave enough to shake things up a bit.
So middlebrow audiences, take heart: There are reasons to hope. The best of both worlds is yours for the taking if you know where to look and what to watch.
Louis Lucero II is a senior majoring in environmental studies. His column “Small Screen, Big Picture” runs Tuesdays.