Many years ago, I interviewed Mel Gibson, and I asked him how hard it was to get the green light in Hollywood to make non-mainstream films such as his version of Hamlet, which he was then promoting.
He told me an anecdote that went something like this:
When Kenneth Branagh pitched the idea of Henry V, one potential backer asked him: “Henry Five, eh? How did Henrys One to Four do at the box office?”
I suspect it’s an apocryphal story, but it illustrates a point not only about the American movie industry, but about the current state of network television around the world.
When I visit Australia at Christmas time, and the networks are promoting the hell out of their next year’s schedules, one thing is immediate clear: everything is derivative. In the Middle East, where I now live, the language may be different, but the shows, especially the talent and cooking shows, sure look familiar — right down to the set design and the (often obviously contrived) dynamics between the hosts and judges.
It seem that every new show on free-to-air television is a reboot of something that used to do well, a franchise of something that’s done well elsewhere in the world, or a clone of another network’s successful show. Or — the final insult — a “celebrity” version of one of the aforementioned, usually starring people most of us would struggle to remember.
Nothing on the commercial channels strikes me as being truly original, because nobody’s game to back a hunch. Better to copy something else and hope lightning strikes twice than to take a risk on innovation.
The stakes are high, because they don’t have the game to themselves, and international laws and commercial realities are no longer protecting their exclusive rebroadcasting rights.
The likes of HBO, Netflix, Comedy Central and Amazon are now truly international. They are making targetted programming and delivering it directly to the audience.
Free-to-air television networks’ only chance of long-term survival is if they seriously invest in content creation, and become global players.
If they’re going to succeed, they will have to take some real risks and seek out ideas from people other than the usual suspects. They already have the studios and the technical expertise.
In television, as in all else, fortune (often) favours the brave.
