The channels of Turner Networks (disclosure: a division of Time Warner, which owns TIME) have been making the case loudly that advertisers should consider large cable networks (like them) equal to broadcast networks (like NBC) that have been getting smaller and smaller. TNT’s The Closer, for instance, might be only a modest hit on a broadcast network, but it delivers broadcast-sized ratings nonetheless.
Symbolically, they underscored the message by holding an upfront presentation for advertisers this morning, the same week the broadcasters are doing so. Creatively, there’s another similarity between them and their big siblings. The shows on TBS and, particularly TNT, have often been the kind of safe, formulaic genre shows that the likes of CBS turn to regularly: cop procedurals, melodramatic medical dramas, sexy-lawyer sagas, etc.
This is the flip side to the creative possibilities that the rise of cable has enabled. Because more people are watching cable, and more cable channels are sinking money into original content, we get the likes of Breaking Bad and Rescue Me. But as cable grows, some of its biggest channels (TNT, USA) grow so big that they have to program for the broad, dull middle, just like the broadcasters they seek to replace.
The few glimpses of new shows I got at the Turner upfront (which also included reality/court channel TruTV) didn’t do much to change this impression. Most of the new shows previewed were on TNT. Hawthorne stars Jada Pinkett Smith and Michael Vartan in a medical drama about doctors, and especially nurses, who just care too damn much. Dark Blue is a loud-looking “intense” cop drama with one of TV’s loudest actors, Dylan McDermott.
The one TNT show that seems to have potential is Ray Romano’s Men of a Certain Age, launching in December. The brief trailer made this dramedy about middle-aged men look like a smarter version of the concept behind (the terrible) Big Shots, with less money.
But what mostly won me over was the stage banter at the presentation between Romano and his co-stars, Scott Bakula and André Braugher. To do the show, Romano said, he had two requirements. First, as on Everybody Loves Raymond, he needed to write what he knew. Second, “I wanted to make sure I made about 95% less money. And TNT went above and beyond that!” Turning to Braugher, he asked: “Why are you in this show? Because you’re like a real actor.” Braugher went on to describe his character, a married car salesman: “And I’m trying to sell American cars, so I’m like a superhero.”
This got huge laughs from the advertisers in the crowd. Though I’m not sure how well it played with the ones handling the Ford and GM accounts.