A rchive Date
[ 24-02-2003 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Mass Media ]
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[http://www.canoe.ca/Television/feb23_war-sun.html
War: TV's ultimate reality show?
Forget Saddam, the United Nations, millions of anti-war protesters and France. Would U.S. president George W. Bush defy the TV networks?
By BILL BRIOUX - Toronto Sun
Could even war derail Survivor, The Bachelorette or Joe Millionaire? Would reality ever be allowed to intrude on reality TV?
So far (as this story went to press late Thursday, at least), the U.S. military has not been able to invade the sanctity of sweeps. "No one's looking forward to a war," Les Moonves, president and CEO of CBS, said last month in Los Angeles. "I think it does affect what we do. It is harder to be silly, and a lot of these shows are silly, (especially) during a time of war."
Moonves is referring, of course, to the rash of stunningly silly reality shows swarming the schedules. His network led the way with Survivor, but now things are completely out of hand. There's I'm A Celebrity - Get Me Out Of Here, Married By America and Are You Hot?
To some, this is a sure sign of the apocalypse. What's next, as a writer for the Christian Science Monitor recently suggested, The Bachelorette In Baghdad? G.I. Joe The Millionaire? Star Search And Destroy?
At the very least, the reality shows will stand in sharp contrast to grim news reports from a war that could start at any time.
Pentagon officials are reportedly set to allow "embedded" journalists to accompany frontline soldiers right to Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's door. Boot camps have even been set up to train journalists to survive possible exposure to biological or chemical weapons.
News networks, such as CNN, are ramping up their war chests. The Atlanta-based network has budgeted from $35-$60 million, according to published reports, in covering the coming war, with some of that going to hi-tech goodies like portable cameras and phone-based uplinks.
Canadian and American network news divisions are following suit, spending money on state-of-the-art gear, opening new Middle East bureaus and adding field reporters. News anchors such as CBC's Peter Mansbridge, CTV's Lloyd Robertson and CBS' Dan Rather have already reported live from Baghdad.
If war breaks out, they will front far different shows. Forget those fuzzy, green, Gulf War images of smart bombs detonating from a mile in the sky. This war could be up close and gory, live and in colour and beamed right into your living room. Brace yourself for the most graphic war footage on the nightly news since the Vietnam War.
Some people are sounding a little too excited. CNN news boss Eason Jordan says it will be different than that '91 skirmish in the Gulf. "There are great stories to tell out there," he told TV critics in January, "and we're committed to trying to own the story."
Other network heads are a little less giddy. Imagine the folks at Fox, holding their breath while the current storyline on 24 plays out: A possible nuclear attack by air over Los Angeles.
What of CSI, the No. 1 scripted series in both the U.S. and Canada? The series, and its spinoff, CSI: Miami, both take place in a hi-tech forensic police lab. There are many scenes with investigators hovering over dead bodies on autopsy tables. Are North American viewers going to have the stomach for CSI once war casualties start mounting and body bags are a regular feature on the evening newscasts?
CSI: Miami executive producer Jonathan Littman denied that network officials have told him or anyone else to tone down the body count. "People like the show because it is entertaining," he told me last month on the set of his series in Los Angeles. "And if there's a war, they'll want to be entertained even more."
Maybe, but will networks foot the bill to find out? After the attacks on New York and Washington, episodes of The Agency and 24, among others, were pulled or re-edited to steer clear of direct parallels. CTV shelved their signature movie Torso for months to keep body parts off screen.
The changes cost networks money at a time when ad revenues plunged. It is estimated that the U.S. networks lost $1 billion in ad revenue with wall-to-wall news coverage in the days following 9/11. The ripple effect saw ad spending drop nearly 10% in 2001, the worst slump since the Great Depression.
Ad agencies today are already ramping up their war strategies. War clauses are being worked into contracts to keep sponsors away from violent images or harsh news. According to a recent USA Today article, American Express has insisted on being able to yank or change campaigns to avoid delivering the wrong message at the wrong time.
Marketers are also planning for the eventuality that networks switch to commercial-free prime time war coverage as they did after 9/11 and during the early days of the 1991 Gulf War.
Moonves says he and CBS News boss Andrew Hayward spoke "literally 15 times a day" following the 9/11 attacks. "There was a feeling that throughout the week it would be inappropriate to go back to regular programming and to commercials," he says.
Exactly how that would play out again if America goes to war in Iraq, nobody, including Moonves, knows for sure. MuchMusic vice-president and general manager David Kines, for one, doesn't expect to see the same level of programming sensitivity as there was in the days following 9/11. "This time we're being eased into it," he says. He plans to adjust, look for "socially relevant" programming and stay nimble.
While all the networks have drafted war schedules and made contingency plans, "it's something you have to sort of play by ear," Moonves says. "It's feeling what the mood in the country is, feeling what the mood is with your sponsors."
What is not in doubt is that a long, bloody war would seriously hurt each network's bottom line. "There's no question that when you're displacing revenue it has an impact," says Slawko Klymkiw, CBC executive director, network programming. "The issue is: Can you, over a period of time, make that up?"
His network could probably weather a long war better than most. "It depends on how long it would go, to be quite honest with you," he says. CBC Newsworld takes away some of CBC's war coverage responsibility, but he'd likely have to clear the main network to cover the early days of war, too.
Like CNN, CBC's ratings tend to go way up in times of crisis. "What happens often and happens every single time on the big event, in news or sports, they come to us," says Klymkiw, who bagged his biggest ratings ever last winter during Canada's gold-medal hockey run.
The bad news is, also like CNN, there doesn't seem to be any lasting effect from this ratings spike.
Trying to second guess the market can be just as perilous. After 9/11, Klymkiw figured viewers were ready for lighter, "cuddlier" drama. Tom Stone, a show seen as a Canadian cross between Moonlighting and The Rockford Files, was commissioned. The results were underwhelming. "That's not what they wanted at all," Klymkiw says. "They wanted reality shows."
CBS has taken a similar, if entirely different gamble. They've ordered a mini-series based on the early life of Adolf Hitler (produced by Toronto's Alliance Atlantis). Think Osama or Saddam are evil? Meet their daddy, goes their logic.
The reality trend suddenly makes sense as a cheaper, less risky choice. Klymkiw says the Brits led the way. "After the Gulf War, when there was so much money spent on coverage, people were looking for more economic models," he says. The BBC took a sword to their schedule, ditching pricey dramas for cheaper reality fare.
Hence the original versions of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire and American Idol, among others. As Klymkiw points out, "A lot of these models come from Britain in terms of reality television."
The U.S. networks were quick to cash in. ABC, which has leapt back into the ratings race with The Bachelorette, is also behind Are You Hot: The Search For America's Sexiest People, All American Girl and the return of Extreme Makeover. Their third instalment of The Bachelor will bow March 26.
Silly, it must be noted, also ruled during the dark days of Vietnam. In 1968-69, the two top-rated shows in America were Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In and Gomer Pyle, USMC. That same season, the contentious Smothers Brothers were replaced by Hee-Haw. Last year, ABC yanked Politically Incorrect and replaced outspoken Bill Maher in late night with Man Show brat Jimmy Kimmel. Coincidence?
Patriotic shows also will likely soar. CBS, which has seen ratings for JAG spike, have ordered a spinoff.
But, for now, silly equals safe. Will reality continue to rule if war breaks out? As ABC entertainment president Susan Lyne recently put it, "If we go to war, we're all going to have more to worry about than whether or not reality shows keep their ratings."
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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