Reply #1: That time was years ago...

[Chan790]

reality shows, prime-time game-shows and the godawful idea about having Jay Leno on from 10-11 5 nights a week...they got to go. They're terrible ideas. More and better drama and content and giving that content enough to time to develop and mature. Great TV does not come from thin-air, it develops and matures. That takes time and effort. The desire for instant gratification is killing the industry.

What network TV also needs to do is be more like cable. Think about the truly great programming on TV over the past 3 years. How much of it has been on network TV? Not much. How much of it could be on network? Almost zero. Even something fairly mild and tame like Big Love(HBO) would never fly on network, it's too provocative. Something like Battlestar Galactica (Sci-Fi) would have been killed by focus group, twisted into some form unrecognizable even to its' creators. Much of the original-drama content being put-out by USA, TNT and even AMC would be dismissed out of hand as "quirky". (Much of it is more successful than anything on network.) What they really mean is it's not stupid enough and they're misguided to think so; thoughtful, complex, intelligent content sells.