Dick Wolf + The Procedural As Streaming's Next Big Thing.
Joe Epstein
Head of Marketing | 15+ years marketing Media, Entertainment, Gaming, Culture | Digital Strategy | Brand Positioning | Insights + Data | Consumer Storytelling | ex TikTok, Apple, Warner Bros, Fox, Sony | MBA
“Maybe rooting for the heroes [isn’t] so bad after all.”
NCIS, Grays, Criminal Minds, Bones, Suits … as we know, all these older network shows continue to throw off huge viewership numbers.? Per National Research Group ’s Future of Series research, a somewhat staggering 60% of the total share of time watching TV is spent rewatching old favorites or watching old content for the first time.
While much of this viewership is attributed to having something on in the background while audiences ‘cook dinner or fold laundry’, I think there is more to it than background noise: These are entertaining shows with compelling characters and show concepts that propel each episode forward (I mean, the crimes are ‘particularly heinous’ so count me in).
So if old programming continues to be an important foundation of audiences’ content consumption, I was super-interested in the NYT piece on the master of the procedural Dick Wolf. As the creator of the Law + Order (7 series), Chicago (4 series) and FBI (3 series) franchises - Wolf needs very little introduction. He is a first ballot Hall Of Famer for Television. But what is the master of network procedurals plan for streaming? Well, Wolf and his team have smartly read the tea leaves and are doubling down on what works: Compelling characters and fast-moving narratives wrapped inside a procedural structure. His new show, “On Call”, rocketed to number one on Amazon Prime Video’s Top US Shows as a 30-minute cop show based in Long Beach featuring a discrete conflict resolution with each episode. And like Wolf’s other procedurals, in success the On Call universe expands to feature paramedics, Coast Guard etc, per the profile.
“He thinks the format will thrive in an era of constant interruption… “I’ve got a 14- and a 17-year-old, the attention span of them and their friends is startlingly brief.” He added, “I firmly believe that half hours are very appealing.”
Aside from a short attention span, the procedural show structure scratches another important itch: predictability. Per NRG’s report on why ‘older’ programming is finding new life: the #1 driving factor for why they rewatch old shows is because they “know it is good.”?
And by the immediate success of On Call, it's clear that Wolf continues to know what is? good.?
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As always, stay tuned.?
Postscript: While no budget figures were shared, these 30-minute likely are far less expensive to produce than some of the more scaled-up prestige dramas, which can cost upward of $15M per episode to produce. Moreover, these procedurals works fantastically well in international markets. So expect more of them.
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President at Media Dynamics Inc.
1 个月30-minute "cop" shows worked well in the early days of TV---"Dragnet", M-Squad", etc. and for some of the private eye shows--"Peter Gunn" as an example, but mainly because at that time the public was starved for action -adventure formats instead of the game shows, varieties, and dramatic anthologies that ruled the early days of TV. This applied to the early westerns as well---"Wyatt Earp", "Lawman", "The Lone Ranger", "Have Gun, Will Travel", "Trackdown" etc. ---but after a while the TV viewing public wanted more than bang bang action. It wanted to know more about the characters---especially the bad guys and one by one the half- hour entries fell by the wayside in favor of one hour formats where the characters were better developed and their motives made clear. "Gunsmoke" shifted from a half- hour to a one- hour format and survived an additional 14-15 seasons, and many other Cop shows and westerns that went the sixty-minute route had long, successful runs. I wonder if this isn't still true today. We shall see.
Producer/Senior Executive/Creative Consultant/Expansion & Elevation Strategist/Inside Agitator
1 个月Look, I love procedurals. Have watched L&O Original Recipe on repeat for years. And I'm kinda feeling the new Amazon series from my man Eriq LaSalle. But I thought the NYT piece was surprisingly thin; cop shows didn't just fall out of favor due to streamers, there was a wholesale questioning of their value and purpose in the wake of the so called racial reckoning of 2020. Color of Change released a landmark report called 'Normalizing Injustice' that examined the ongoing societal impact of Wolf's trademark 'copaganda' that compelled many writers, executives and showrunners to question the genre. And Wolf didn't just like the format of 'Dragnet'; the show has indelibly colored his worldview, politics and storytelling. Felt like the NYT piece could have dug a little deeper in talking about how his shows might tell us something about him. Like I don't know too many 78 year olds with 14 and 17 year old kids...we could pull on that thread a little bit, too. I still love a good procedural; I just love good reporting, too, and they could have done alot better.
Business Development and Strategy
1 个月60% of all viewership is “old” content? Very interesting post!
Digital and Social Media Strategist | Storyteller | Community Manager
1 个月I tried to watch "on call" with my mom. I was excited to show it to her because she loved law & order and chicago anything. Four episodes in and she was done. Her comment, it's too depressing and some of the language is unnecessary. She had no further interest in the show. For me, it is shot in a weird style and i was confused because they are a long beach police unit but suddenly, they are covering events all over LA. It appears he just let his name to the show and nothing else. If he's trying to reach teens with a "half hour show" this is not it. We need happier shows to watch rather than all these murder shows (which i love). That is why people go back to the classics or love hallmark movies. This is why my mom said more shows need to be made like "Man on the inside". And yes, my mom is my gage for shows, because she's the average broadcast tv watcher - and she loves Jeopardy! :)
Fanthropologyco.com | Partner at Fanthropology - Entertainment Strategy + Fandom expertise exp. Disney, Amazon, Universal, Apple, Lionsgate, WB, Sony, Paramount, Marvel, Lucasfilm
1 个月I think Wolf underestimates teen attention span - they can pay attention to things for a long period of time - ex. gaming - and many engage in binge watching behavior. Attention span is brief in front of adults and to things they're not interested in. Plus, everyone under a certain age has been trained to have a nearly constant second screen, I would consider that indicative of how long they'd want a show to be.