TBI Weekly: Why commissioners should be hunting their own ‘Baby Reindeer’
Television Business International
TBI provides the TV community with informed insight, the latest programming trends and developments
With Netflix’s Baby Reindeer currently dominating the cultural water cooler conversation, Anthony Kimble ?? , TBI’s resident scripted expert and CEO of Arrested Industries, argues that taking risks on new voices will lead to far more success than playing it safe with the same old formulas.
Given that everyone seems to agree that ‘peak TV’ is going the way of the dodo, I have little doubt that commissioning editors and network execs the world over are feeling just as vexed as we producers.
But how are they looking to stop this downward spiral and find the next big original breakout hit? Putting the reboots, sequels and prequels aside – and the now extensive mining of games IP – rather bizarrely, almost every network or platform I have talked to in the last six months has used the same mix of buzzwords for the new content they want: propulsive, prestigural, action-thrillers, broad-based and commercial. Y. A. W. N!
How I long for the heady days when I knew to tune in to HBO for thoughtful, high-end drama, CBS for the latest Dick Wolf procedural or Paramount+ for a good formulaic thriller. Give it a few more years, and you won’t be able to tell the difference between any of the channels as they will all be transmitting the same paint-by-numbers, unchallenging drivel – televisual fast-food that the shareholders seem to think will keep people paying their monthly subscriptions. However, just as the legacy media companies messed up trying to keep up with Netflix, this panic-induced pivot to lowest common denominator TV is set to fail.
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