The future of TV--too many channels, too little time

So, what do Thursdays Emmy nominations mean?  They mean the world of video entertainment is becoming increasingly incomprehensible.  When there was a universe of three broadcast networks, it was possible to make determinations that weighed this show against that show and decided on a victor.  Best Drama, Best Comedy, heck Best Western back when that was a category, it all made sense.

Then FOX came along and three networks became four (four and a half with PBS on the fringes).  In the 1960’s changes in FCC regulations suddenly increased the need for more programming for local affiliates and syndication took off, although it was ages before any syndicated show could compete for Emmys.  Cable came along, but shows on cable were kept in the ghetto known as the Cable ACE awards.  Remember those? 

In 1987 cable shows were finally allowed to compete for Emmys, and they got 15 out of 337 nomination, or 4.5%.  This year the five broadcast networks got 188 out of 567 nominations, or 33.2%.  Only two of the 14 shows nominated for Best Drama or Best Comedy are on broadcast networks: Modern Family and Parks & Recreation in the comedy category.

A quick recap on why this matters; after all, 95% of households now get the “broadcast” channels via cable. Still, the FCC regulates the broadcast networks more tightly as presumably they are being “beamed” into people’s homes unbidden.  Therefore cable shows have greater latitude in content and language.  Premium channels like HBO and Showtime don’t rely on advertisers, allowing creative producers to create edgier content without the fear of offending sponsors (a manufacturer of gas ranges once objected to a Rod Serling script that mentioned the gas ovens in German concentration camps).  Premium channels also rerun content more often, so they can demand fewer episodes per season, resulting in higher quality per episode.  Cable, especially premium cable, has a huge advantage over the broadcast networks when it comes to producing quality TV.

That just deals with a cable/broadcast universe; now content can come from anywhere.  Yahoo, an ISP, got its first Emmy nomination for Community (in the stunt coordination category).  Amazon, which is essentially an on-line warehouse, produced Transparent which got 11 nominations and has already picked up a couple of Golden Globes.  Louis C.K. got six nominations, thanks in part to content released on LouisCK.net. Something called Acorn TV, which I can’t find on my cable network, picked up a nomination. In 2008 Joss Whedon won an Emmy for his internet sensation Dr. Horrible’s Sing-a-Long Blog in a category called Outstanding Special Class – Short Format Live Action Entertainment; if it were released today it would be nominated for Outstanding Movie.

With content now so ubiquitous, who can take it all in?  Is Kyle Chandler’s performance in Bloodline really one of the six best performances by an actor in a drama?  Did those voting check out all the content on IFC, Logo, EW.com, Pivot, and FunnyorDie.com?  I doubt it. 

There are in the neighborhood of 352 scripted series on television.  If 5 nominations were adequate when there were 4 broadcast networks and nothing else, then there should be 15 nominees per category now that broadcast sources amount to 1/3 of the nominees.  Instead of a system of nominations and runoffs like now, where we winnow all those who make submissions down to 6 to 8 nominees and then select from among them, there should be a television version of March Madness with 64 nominees in brackets facing off to see who ultimately wins.

By the way, I am really getting peeved by everyone saying that someone who didn’t get nominated was “snubbed.”  Not everyone who deserved a nomination could get a nomination, because there are too few nominations to go around.  Yeah, I’m pissed off that Eden Sher, Ellie Kemper and the cast of You’re the Worst didn’t get nominated, but I am going to assume it wasn’t anything personal.

Getting back to my point, this fragmentation of televised content coming from broadcast networks, basic cable, premium cable, DVD distributors, ISPs, and internet sites makes the Emmys outdated.  We’re not comparing apples to oranges, we’re comparing apples to irrational numbers.  A single ascetic criteria cannot hope to encompass all of the content emanating from all of these sources.

What is the answer?  I don’t know.  While the Emmys seem to have stemmed the tide somewhat this year, with more first time nominees and better definitions of categories, eventually they will become irrelevant.  So many shows will be inaccessible to so many people that no consensus can form as to who is worthy of distinction.  I only watch two of the Best Comedy nominees; why should I care?  I don’t have time to track down the others, or I don’t subscribe to HBO or Amazon Prime. 

Every year humans are capable of watching an increasingly smaller fraction of the televised universe.  Eventually everyone will watch shows that cater to their niche, and no one will care about shows from other providers.  Then we can have a hundred Emmy Awards; broadcast, basic cable, internet, etc. 

Bruce Springsteen’s lament that there’s “57 channels and nothing on” will be an understatement.  There will be 10,000 channels, and people will think there’s nothing on 9,990 of them.