Could Tony on A&E bring restrictions to cable?
Posted 12/1/2006 3:17 AM ET
By David Lieberman, USA TODAY
NEW YORK — When HBO introduced The Sopranos in 1999, critics applauded the smartly crafted stories about a modern-day crime family. They saw the obscenities, sex, nudity and violence as part of what made it so realistic.
But it's unclear how audiences will react beginning Jan. 10 when a version of the series moves from the 30 million homes paying a premium to get HBO to the 90 million that get A&E Network in their basic cable TV package. Some of the more graphic elements have been edited out, but it may still cause a stir.
That's because an army of fed-up parents and lawmakers already are making an issue of what they see as the spread of child-unfriendly programming on basic cable that has followed the success of taboo-breaking basic cable shows including FX's The Shield, Rescue Me and Nip/Tuck, Comedy Central's South Park and MTV's annual Spring Break.
"There are cable network programmers whose clear and sole objective is to break any boundary without regard for what the consequences are for society," says Parents Television Council Executive Director Tim Winter. Some shows, he says, have glamorized rape, pedophilia, incest, racism and misogyny.
The risk cable now faces is that if edgy shows such as The Sopranos lead many more people to conclude that Winter is right, that could result in government restrictions for these basic networks, which now largely regulate themselves. Although such a change would raise free-speech questions, critics say that the fact that 86% of all homes get TV via cable or satellite services makes basic cable and broadcast programming virtually indistinguishable. About 60% of adults endorsed programming standards for basic cable in a recent Pew Research Center survey.
"You're hearing the tom-toms beating in Washington," says Henry Schleiff, CEO of Crown Media, which owns the Hallmark Channel. "The risk is that we are subjecting ourselves to potential regulation from the Federal Communications Commission or Congress. That's a very, very big thing."
Congress last year considered letting the FCC apply the kinds of rules for obscene or indecent programming on basic cable the way it now regulates broadcasters that use the public airwaves, including ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC (see box).
An alternative approach, favored by FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, would require cable and satellite to offer basic channels on a so-called a la carte basis instead of in all-or-nothing packages. That way, programmers could air what they want, and consumers could judge — and buy — each channel individually the same way they can now with premium channels such as HBO. That's an approach cable operators say would kill off many smaller and specialized channels.
These crosscurrents forced A&E to painstakingly edit The Sopranos. It couldn't be so bland that it would turn off the young adult viewers that advertisers covet, viewers the network must win to justify the record $2.5 million it is paying for each of the 78 episodes.
"We do not want to be the people who ruined The Sopranos," says Dawn Porter, A&E vice president of standards and practices. But A&E had to do something to escape the wrath of anti-smut activists who might target it and its advertisers.
"Generally, I would say, 'Come on, it's an adult show,' " general manager Bob DeBitetto says. But of the final edit, he adds: "When I look at … so much that's on television elsewhere already, I mean, my goodness, we're so well within that."
No easy choices
The state of the cable business isn't making the choices easier. Established, general entertainment channels know if they don't air attention-grabbing shows, including some that anger parents, they risk becoming irrelevant. The days of double-digit growth appear to be over for many ad-supported basic channels. Non-premium network revenue likely will hit $37.9 billion this year, with annual growth slowing from 16.8% in 2004 to 7.5% in 2010, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers.
And these numbers understate the issue for older, general entertainment networks. Prime-time ratings fell 1.7% in the first three quarters of 2006 vs. the period last year at the 36 largest cable networks. The average home now gets 95 channels, up from 77 in 2000.
"The environment has gotten a lot more competitive because there are a lot more options: (regular) channels, video on demand, video on broadband," says David Zaslav, who is NBC Universal's president of cable and domestic TV and new media distribution and will become CEO of Discovery Communications early next year. "To reach viewers, you have to be clear about what you are in your niche."
Many executives are backing away from offering mainly reruns of broadcasters' hit sitcoms and dramas. "Outside of Law & Order, there aren't a lot of (rerun) series that have really boosted a cable network," Schleiff says. "NYPD Blue didn't do much for Court TV," which Schleiff ran before moving to Crown.
One solution has been for channels to produce their own shows. FX showed how that could pay off beginning in 2002 when it introduced The Shield. That show, plus Nip/Tuck and Rescue Me added later, helped lift FX from the No. 12 cable network in prime time for prized 18- to 49-year-olds in 2001 to No. 5 this year. The Shield, starring Michael Chiklis as an anti-hero cop, "was the first of these high-quality, scripted, highly successful dramas on basic cable," FX President John Landgraf says.
In response to cultural critics shocked by The Shield's fascination with torture and sexual violence, Landgraf says the widely acclaimed show is for adults, it carries a warning about its graphic content and it airs at 10 p.m. ET. Still, Nielsen ratings show 5.2% of the average 2 million viewers per show over the last year were under age 17, including 2.4% under 11.
"Post-10 p.m. has been deemed since time immemorial … an adult viewing hour," Landgraf says. "Even though we're under no obligation to abide by that standard (as broadcasters are), we've abided by it voluntarily because we think it's responsible." The network also discovered with The Shield and its other graphic shows that there are secondary revenue sources. "There is an incredible appetite for (the series) overseas," Landgraf says. "They also do well on DVD. … I recently looked at a list of television DVDs, and we had four of the top 20."
Other channels caught on, and also pushed the edge. "Even a show like (Sci-Fi Channel's) Battlestar Galactica has pushed the envelope further than you'd see on a broadcast network: more graphic scenes of violence, some sexual content," says Larry Gerbrandt at Nielsen Analytics. "It's a darker vision."
Premium reruns
Along with more original productions, basic cable channels have taken a new look at the potential in reruns of hits from premium channels. Besides A&E's deal with HBO for The Sopranos, Bravo picked up its Six Feet Under and TBS got Sex and the City.
The cable industry says it can help parents who don't want their kids to see such fare. Late last year, the major operators introduced, as an alternative to basic cable packages, bundles of only kid-friendly channels. Comcast, Time Warner and Cox declined to say how many homes signed up. The industry also beefed up marketing to tell parents how their TV sets, cable boxes or DVRs can block certain shows or channels. "We've done some great campaigns on that," Zaslav says. "We have a rating system that provides real clarity."
Even the slickest technology can't help, though, when channels don't synchronize programs with ads. For example, DVR owners who recently recorded late-night airings of Spike TV's The Three StoogesSlap-Happy Hour — rated PG, meaning OK for 8-year-olds — might have been surprised to see ads for DVDs of Girls Gone Wild: Ultimate Rush. Spike TV's parent, MTV Networks, wouldn't address the specific example, but said in a statement: "We restrict mature content to late-night hours."
Cultural critics say the focus on blocking misses the point. So do federal rules. They want the freedom to subscribe to channels individually so they don't subsidize shows that they say coarsen the culture. Basic cable channels have two sources of revenue: ad sales and a fee from the cable operator for each subscriber to the basic package. "You're seeing exponential growth in this stuff," Winter says. "If it weren't for the forced bundles, this could not perpetuate."
And channels that trim graphic scenes still "help to legitimize the more vulgar stuff" and "allow advertisers to get comfortable" with the shows, he says.
The problem A&E faced a few years ago, though, was that advertisers were turned off by viewers who tuned in to shows such as Murder, She Wrote. "With a 61 median age, we were outside even the older of the valuable demos," DeBitetto says. In 2004, A&E began to chase younger viewers, and "We had to do something that was scary, which was to fairly rudely … show our loyal viewership the door."
The Sopranos is key to that effort. "This is certainly going to change A&E," says Kagan Media's Deana Myers. "It gets them talked about."
A&E says the edited versions will be rated TV-14 (some episodes will include labels indicating strong language or violence) and will air Wednesday nights, with repeats on Mondays, at 9 p.m. ET.
Little had to be cut, Porter says. "Our little secret is that it wasn't as hard as people think it is." The first two seasons presented the biggest challenges. Producers didn't expect the show to become such a big hit and didn't film less-graphic versions of key scenes. A&E got around some of those problems by using footage from the cutting-room floor and soundtracks with the actors replacing profanities.
Violence was "by far the easiest" element to address, DeBitetto says, because shows such as The Shield have redefined what's acceptable. More troublesome were naked dancers in the background of key scenes. "We were able to pull the frame in a little bit so maybe you see the girls' legs but not the naughty bits."
The bottom line, though: "It's an adult show. Surely, people would want to exercise discretion."
But pretty soon, even The Sopranos might seem tame. "There's absolutely no reason the episodes that are on A&E could not air on local television stations," says Scott Carlin, HBO's president of domestic programming distribution. If A&E hadn't bought the show, "We would have had a pretty easy time syndicating The Sopranos around the country."
