Tuesday, May 17, 2011

It's getting harder to get audiences to pay attention:

Many tired of having to pay such close attention to all the plot twists in "The Event." "I kept hearing, 'After a hard day's work I don't want to have to think,'" Wong said. The show premiered to almost 11 million viewers, but this week's episode had less than half that audience, and "The Event" probably won't make it to a Season 2.

The sci-fi show wasn't the only new drama to struggle this season. In fact, of the 22 dramas that have premiered on ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox and the CW, only five are likely to make it to a sophomore year.

Part of the problem, explain producers, is that digital-age audiences don't just focus solely on their screens these days. Like traffic cops dealing with distracted drivers who text and blab on the phone while sailing down the freeway, networks executives are facing viewers who are often fiddling with their computers, phones or iPads.

Ack.

Well, bear that in mind when you're writing your intricate multi-plot drama.

Labels: audience

3:01 PM

5 Comments:

I don't want to have to think....Well, isn't that sad?

By  jmulligan, at 10:50 AM  

I think audiences these days are maybe just tired of LOST-cloning shows that pack in more detail and twists than their stories can handle.

By  Mark Slutsky, at 11:53 AM  

I've been thinking of that lately, the fact that I don't spend more than ten minutes on one thing at times. I attribute it to lack of sleep and having a laptop, tv and cell phone in my bedroom... but I'm gonna change that.

As with plotting, I've noticed how weak films(movies) get high audience ratings and I'm thinking it must be something to do with bombarding people with trivial information so much that they can no longer distinguish good from crap.
Take "Thor", for example, what a piece of excrement that is (I saw it on Tuesday) yet viewers go hard on critics who criticize it.
Something has to be mended...

By  JamaicanInToronto, at 2:52 PM  

I agree with Mark - The Event was coming at us in a post-LOST world. That's why I didn't stick with it. Lost was such a disappointment in the end - as was X-Files, the other twisty show that couldn't find its ending - I just can't bear to start down that road again.

By  Clay McClane, at 4:02 PM  

Sci-fi is my genre of choice and I like nothing more than a serialized drama where missing an episode is like ripping pages out of the middle of a novel... and I didn't watch 'The Event' past the pilot. It was convoluted for convolution's sake and obfuscated information that needed to be clear. I believe you need to have a bedrock foundation to build a complex story and there was no foundation at all to be found in the pilot. It actually lasted longer than I predicted it would.

By  Clint Johnson, at 2:19 PM  

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