THE TWELVE COMMANDMENTS OF TELEVISION - PART TWO

This morning Javier Grillo-Marxuach (@OKBJGM) posted a thread on Twitter about the appeal of episodic television and how so many creative execs dismiss a form that has mad Dick Wolf over a billion dollars. I retweeted, singing Javi's praises. I have known him through most of my career in scheduling and take some pride in all that he has accomplished given that he started as a management associate at NBC. 

Javi brought up the rules of television which I developed with Eric Cardinal who was head of research at the time.

I thought I had published the rules on the blog but after an initial tee up I wound up publishing them on TV BY THE NUMBERS which I gather is shutting down soon.

As a result of a give and take on twitter several people asked where they can find them so I took the post from TVBTN and here they are.

I did minimum editing. I felt they should reflect where my head was at over twenty years ago. The business has changed but these rules hold up pretty well so here they are:

I thought it would be fun to share with you the Twelve Commandments of Television. They are based on correlating pilot testing data (at NBC) with the ratings success of the pilots that went to series. We wanted to know what traits successful series exhibited and whether it could help us in selecting the shows that went on the air.

No system is perfect, and this is simply probability, i.e., how do you increase the odds of success? We never asked the creative executives to change anything other than to be aware of these “rules.”

 The first Commandment is:

TRIED AND TRUE = DEAD AND BURIED — NOT!

There are fewer and fewer hits in the business, but if you look at recent successes they seem to be based on the time-tested genres of family comedies (“Black-ish,” “The Goldbergs,” “Young Sheldon”) and dramas (“This Is Us”), over-the-top soaps (“Empire”) and medical dramas (“The Good Doctor”).

For me, two of the most powerful engines to success in TV are human connectivity and healing. It doesn’t mean every show has to be about a family (see “Friends” or “Will & Grace”) or take place in a hospital (“Quantum Leap”). It’s about people who care about each other or help people get through adversity.

One season in the early ’90s, virtually every drama on CBS featured a doctor (“Dr. Quinn,” “Diagnosis Murder,” “Picket Fences” et al), but you would never define them simply as medical series.

You can rely on a proven genre and have a promising script, but the Second Commandment of Television is:

A CONCEPT IS ONLY AS GOOD AS ITS EXECUTION

There have been several occasions during my career where we were all excited about a script and could not wait to see the pilot, only to have our excitement crushed by what we saw. You need to be in good hands, and I think this is why casting is so important. Imagine “Seinfeld” with Larry Miller as George or “House” with Gary Sinise in the lead role. Those things almost happened.

You have to know when to keep characters alive, even when they are supposed to be killed off in the pilot. That was the case with Hill and Renko on “Hill Street Blues” and Nurse Hathaway on “ER” (Julianna Margulies was on “Homicide” when she shot the “ER” pilot).

If you are going to do something different like “This Is Us,” you better have the rules down pat. I think that’s why sci-fi has such a hard time breaking out beyond its core audience. Fans of the genre are sticklers for following the rules that are set up at the beginning of the show and will quickly abandon a series when it doesn’t.

I still remember sitting at a TCA session in July 1994 listening to John Wells describe his vision for “ER.” I was sitting with my boss, Warren Littlefield. We knew we had a kick-ass, high-testing pilot, but I had never heard a showrunner articulate his or her vision for a show the way John did at that session. I told Warren we were in good hands.

One of my favorite pilots of all-time is “Jane the Virgin.” Not only is “JTV” a hybrid of a family dramedy and an over-the-top telenovela, but the pilot also had a unique vision using a narrator and creative visuals. It has maintained that sensibility throughout its run.

“Mr. Robot” is sort of an example of how a well-executed series, at least in its first season, is not enough to grow into a successful long-term show. As we go through the commandments you may see why that is.

Next up the third and fourth Commandments for making successful show. Remember, this is not meant as a cookbook. In today’s fractionalized world of television, there are examples of shows where these rules may not apply.

However, if one’s goal is to create a ratings hit, you will find that the Commandments still hold. Also, these homilies offer a blinding glimpse of the obvious, but as someone who spent 35 years in the business, you would be amazed at how often the obvious is overlooked in developing a show.

The Third Commandment of Television is:

VERY FEW SHOWS SUCCEED WITHOUT RELATABLE, SYMPATHETIC, COMPETENT (AND IN COMEDY, FUNNY) LEAD CHARACTERS

Simply put, you need to find someone in a show to root for or feel a connection to. “Friends” is an excellent prototype for this notion of relatability. I always felt the success of the show was in part that it spanned several generations of cohorts. You either aspired to be these twentysomethings when you grew up, you were them and could identify with their lives, or you fondly remember being them.

Competence is an essential component in both comedy and dramas. You want to believe that your leads are smart. The “CSI” franchise and shows like “Bones” worked in part because they featured teams of competent investigators and scientists who you knew would always solve the puzzle.

“The Cosby Show” pilot was one of the highest-testing comedies we ever had at NBC, and I always felt that the scene where Cliff taught Theo about the value of money was what put it over the top. I called it the Cosby moment and would evaluate and advocate having a moment like that in our family comedy pilots.

When your lead isn’t all that sympathetic or relatable, you better have someone who loves, supports or understands them so you can see the person through their eyes. That was Edith Bunker’s role on “All in the Family,” and the residents on “House” also served that purpose.

The Fourth Commandment of Television is pretty simple:

PEOPLE DON’T WATCH TV TO GET DEPRESSED

It is really difficult for a show to go beyond niche if it is relentlessly bleak. I think we saw it this fall with “Ten Days in the Valley.” A golden rule is not to do series where children’s lives are put in danger.

“Rectify” is one of my all-time favorite series, but it was relentless and would never go beyond its small, devoted audience. “Homicide: Life on the Street” survived because there were several of us at NBC who loved the show, but to our marketing department it was an impossible series to promote. I wish you could have seen the looks of our top marketing executives when “Homicide” came up at our weekly current meeting.

This notion of dark, bleak shows signaling quality started on cable, where the ratings were not as important as they were on the broadcast platforms. As they permeated the networks, I coined the phrase “cable envy” to describe the desire by some development executives to replicate cable shows without regard for the ratings consequences. “Lone Star” at FOX was a quintessential example of this phenomenon.

For me, it was always important to inject some humor into these dark shows. I always believed that the best dramas have lots of humor and the best comedies have dramatic moments.

Here we go with the Fifth Commandment:

PEOPLE DON’T WATCH WHAT’S GOOD FOR THEM UNLESS IT’S ALSO FUNNY, EXCITING OR EMOTIONALLY INVOLVING

Over my career there have been several occasions where I read a pilot script or saw a pilot and would say, “This feels like spinach.” I never believed broadcasters had a responsibility to offer the viewer programming that we felt was important for them to see. Sometimes that’s the case, but generally it happens if the program works on other levels and is not announcing its intentions.

When you’re deciding on a pilot, you often have to watch out for the social bias in the respondent’s evaluation of a show. They may often be hesitant to tell you they won’t watch something that feels important. You find that out the hard way when the ratings come in.

This doesn’t stop broadcasters from occasionally coming across a show that they know in their gut won’t work but they think is too important not to put on the air. For me it was “I’ll Fly Away” and “Homicide: Life on the Street.” After all, we’re only human.

The lesson is to be entertaining first and have your message communicated subtly. I know this sounds cynical, but hey, it’s on the tablets.

The next Commandment is as relevant today as it was 20 years ago and is probably the one that is ignored the most often. It is at the core of “Puzzle TV.”

IT’S EASIER TO LIKE SOMETHING YOU UNDERSTAND

“Mr. Robot,” “The Leftovers,” “Legion,” “Twin Peaks” — there is a whole genre of television that is based on not having a clue what is going on. What these shows generally share in common is that they get pretty low ratings, but they are disproportionately discussed on social media.

Sci-fi is especially vulnerable to this Commandment. You often get an intriguing, high-testing pilot, but by episode 3 the concept starts to fall apart. When we would test pilots, we often included a series of questions about confusion. Respondents would often give a show high marks but still be confused by what was going on or what the show was really about. To me that was always a warning sign.

A good indicator that a show is going to be difficult to follow is the way it is promoted. I find there is a strong correlation between the ability to explain the show in a promo and its chances of success. The more promos try to cover up the concept with bells and whistles, the more likely the show will fail.

 Although many of these commandments still apply, I think the seventh commandment has probably evolved more than the others.

SERIALIZATION IS AN OPPORTUNITY AND A RISK

By the 1990s we were at the tail end of the “Dallas”/”Dynasty”/”Knots Landing” era, and the vast majority of dramatic series on television were some version of an episodic series. With the exception of FOX, which targeted 18-34s with “Melrose Place,” “Beverly Hills, 90210” and “Party of Five,” there were no successful soaps on the major networks. There were attempts, but they generally failed, and even FOX had some clinkers.

The other genre that was in short supply during the ’90s was science fiction. I have talked many times about the problem with science fiction on broadcast TV. There were issues with rules and confusion. I would always tell my bosses that the horses left the gate quickly when it came to science fiction, and once the gate was closed there was no returning. As much as I personally loved “Fringe,” it was so confusing that by the second season there was no way it was going to recruit a new audience.

This commandment was intended to warn developers and network programmers that serialized television significantly increased the chances of failure. However, what we pointed out was that there did appear to be a “formula” for success, and that was the family drama, which were reflected in the big three of the ’80s and in the FOX serials of the ’90s.

Along came “Empire” and “This Is Us,” and the serialized family drama is back.

I also think the emergence of cable dramas, starting on premium with shows like “The Sopranos” and flowing over to basic with “Breaking Bad” and “Sons of Anarchy,” have made this rule less relevant. When you add in streaming and the shortening of series from 22-24 episodes to 13 or less, and you factor in the luxury the non-broadcast platforms have to ignore ratings and allow shows to just exist, I have to admit that this commandment is less applicable in today’s media environment.

I still think it applies to sci-fi and high-concept shows like “Mr. Robot,” but maybe that’s me just trying to hang on to something.

The next Commandment still has relevance:

EVERYBODY WAS YOUNG ONCE

I have brought this up in several ways on this site. Regardless of age, the viewer identifies with youth, and the more youthful the cast the more demographic success you will have. Another way of putting this is that when you start a show with older appeal, you have little chance of broadening out to a younger audience. If you target youth, you can always get the older audience to eventually join the party.

The one caveat to this is that the younger audience is also the ficklest segment of the audience, and they are the quickest to move on to the next show. The best examples of this were the FOX and WB serials of the ’90s. Those shows started out with a solid base of teenage and young-adult viewers. The successful ones broadened out to the 35-49 segment, and then you started to see the younger audience bail on the show. That left with the older end of the audience, which could sustain the show for a few more seasons.

It took me a while to realize that what was going on wasn’t an age phenomenon but a cohort phenomenon. Those soaps tapped into a cohort that followed the show as they aged, but they were not replaced by a younger audience. They were looking for their own show.

Like the Seventh Commandment, this one has also evolved a bit, as the younger audience is less likely today to sample the network fare. Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try.

Before we get to the next commandment I just want to say up front that in my business, you sometimes need to generalize a bit. When we screen pilots, and even when we test them, we often will say things like, “This is a female-skewing show” or “No one under 50 is going to watch this.”

Of course, men will watch something “female-skewing,” and we all know a young person whose favorite show is “NCIS” or “Bones.” Without some way to categorize shows, however, everything becomes a crapshoot.

Network television is a game driven by women 25-54. CBS plays it well. FOX continues to operate under the delusion that they are some sort of hip, younger-skewing network. They do attract a young male audience for their animated shows on Sunday, but targeting “young” and “male” has niched them down to where they generally deliver 2 or 3 million viewers below the other networks.                       The ninth Commandment of Television addresses this issue:

IT’S EASIER TO GET WOMEN TO WATCH SHOWS INTENDED FOR MEN THAN IT IS TO GET MEN TO WATCH SHOWS INTENDED FOR WOMEN

When movies were a big part of our strategy, I ranked all movies — made-fors, miniseries and theatricals — on all networks on women and men 18-49, then indexed the ratings for each group against the overall 18-49 rating. There was a clear and obvious pattern.

The primary difference between the movies women and men would watch (IN GENERAL!!) was that women were capable of watching movies that required an explanation, while men only needed a title — but if you needed to go beyond a few words, forget about it.

The “male-skewing” movies would still manage to get lots of women, but most “female appeal” movies would get minuscule ratings among young men.

I guess the lesson in all this is still a factor today. When you look at “Game of Thrones” or “The Walking Dead,” they both deliver a pretty gender-balanced audience. Both are shows that, on the surface, look like they will have limited female appeal. However, even with the action and violence, there are strong elements of family in both of these shows. There needs to be something for everyone.

The 10th Commandment of Television addresses an issue that was emerging in the late ’90s, when these rules were generated:

PEOPLE WHO REALLY WANT TO SEE SEX AND VIOLENCE ON TV HAVE BETTER CHOICES THAN THE NETWORKS

I have often talked here about “cable envy,” which was expressed by networks complaining they cannot make the kinds of shows people consume on premium cable or even some basic cable channels. The networks are constrained both by advertisers and also by the fact that they don’t own the licenses to broadcast in the vast majority of local markets. They have to be sensitive to “community standards,” which of course vary throughout the country.

The point we were trying to make here is that yes, there are limits as to what a network can offer, but that just requires us to be more creative in our storytelling and not rely on sensationalism. I know that sounds a bit “conservative” or prudish, but those were the rules that we had to play by 20 years ago, and to some extent, they remain in place today.

My all-time favorite example of how to be creative but yet edgy is the “Seinfeld” episode “The Contest.” Other comedy showrunners would try to get away with more raunch after that episode, but rarely did it approach the cleverness and creativity displayed in that episode.

I know they seem obvious, and there are exceptions to every rule, but the goal of these Commandments was to give developers a checklist for aspects of a pilot which may increase the chance for a successful series.

With that in mind, here are the final two commandments. The first may be a bit counter-intuitive to some, but:

TV MAKES ITS OWN STARS

Television is about discovery, and that is especially true of casting pilots. It’s easy to fall into the trap of casting name actresses and actors in pilots. It makes for big announcements, and sure, their fans may check them out in a new show, but we discovered that it is even more exciting when a “new” face is discovered and can define a character without the baggage of other roles.

What if I told you that Gary Sinise was the original Dr. Gregory House or that Larry Miller was George Costanza? Ray Romano was in the “NewsRadio” pilot before being replaced by Joe Rogan. Megan Mullally and Sean Hayes were virtual unknowns when they met for the first time in the second episode of “Will & Grace.”

I could go on, but the point of the Eleventh Commandment is to take a beat before getting all excited about getting a star for a major role in a pilot. The viewer is interested in characters first and name recognition second. That’s why it’s so important to have talented casting directors on your team.

I was fortunate to work with Lori Openden at NBC, who pushed for Jason Alexander for the George Costanza role, and Marcia Shulman at FOX, who cast British comedian Hugh Laurie as Dr. House.

P.S. Lori is still doing great work at The CW.

We have now come to the final Commandment:

MAN, WOMAN, BIRTH, DEATH, INFINITY. MAJOR LIFE EVENTS YIELD MAJOR RATINGS.

As many of you “older” readers know, that was the opening to “Ben Casey,” the ABC medical drama that ran from 1961-1966. On NBC, Richard Chamberlain starred as “Dr. Kildare.” Both shows aired in the same time frame, both did about 150 episodes, both featured a wise mentor (Dr. Zorba for Casey and Dr. Gillespie for Kildare). Most importantly, both shows dealt with life-changing events.

An important element to the success of a show is to provide several opportunities for change and evolution of the main characters. Part of the appeal of both “The Walking Dead” and “Game of Thrones” is that at any moment, the lives of any character can change in unexpected ways. It’s also true of “This Is Us.”

The highest-rated episodes in a series often involve a death, a marriage, or a birth. If you create series where those events are part of the fabric, you will have a better chance of long-term success.

Thanks to Javi for stimulating me to post the Commandments on my blog. They still apply more or less and, as I said it’s not a cookbook but rather a checklist. If the pilot shows a few of these rules they have a better chance of long term success.