The Mystery of the NFL ratings drop

On a nationally televised Sunday Night Football game, the Arizona Cardinals and the Seattle Seahawks, two highly touted football teams, played to a 6-6 tie.  In overtime, both teams missed game-winning field goals from chip-shot distances.  In 75 minutes of play, no touchdowns were scored.  Sunday night’s game followed an uninspiring game from London featuring the Josh Brown-less NY Giants and the Los Angeles (again) Rams, who refuse to play number one draft pick Jared Goff, and the umpteenth disappointing Thursday Night game between the mediocre Green Bay Packers and the 1-6 Chicago Bears.

In other news, the NFL is puzzled why ratings are down for football games. 

Networks pay the NFL $50 billion for televising rights, and ratings are down 11%.  That’s not just the ratings of Thursday games or Titans/Jaguar matchups, but across the board.

There are obviously lots of scapegoats, from Colin Kaepernick kneeling during the national anthem (like an NFL fan would turn off a TV in disgust when seeing a player doing something during the national anthem) to the NFL Red Zone to, well, you name it. 

Frankly, I agree with those who dismiss the claim that protests are the cause of the ratings decline—why would any violence-loving red-blooded American male NOT watch large men commit violence every week because of something that happens when viewers are busy getting their snacks and beers ready?  I know we are a nation of Patriots but I doubt football fans take the anthem so seriously that it interferes with their enjoyment of the game.

Nor do I think Roger Goodell is making an uncharacteristically wise decision by sticking his head in the sand and saying there are just as many viewers while conceding that ratings have fallen by about 10%.  The lack of depth of this man’s analysis always stuns me—why is he making $40 million a year again?

The article linked to above cited, parenthetically, what might be a more direct cause, namely the combination of penalties for “unsportsmanlike conduct” penalizing celebrations and general refereeing overall.  Goodell approved of the “taunting” penalties saying that NFL players should be role models.  Taunting is one thing, but the league penalizes almost any expression of joy in accomplishing something difficult.  And when penalizing people for dancing after a touchdown exceeds penalties for Vontaze Burfict attempting to injure a player on the other team, the NFL’s lack of judgment comes into play again.

Other problems cited are the NFL Red Zone giving viewers all the exciting parts of games but none of the boring ones, Netflix weaning viewers off anything with commercials, and the existence of alternatives like streaming services and European soccer.  I think all these things contribute, but none explains the drop in ratings entirely.  I blame over-expansion.

Remember what happened to Krispy Kreme?  One day everybody loves those gooey sweet sugary messes, then their stores are on every corner and their products are in every grocery store, and suddenly they don’t seem like such a special treat anymore. 

The NFL owned America on Sundays; that was the great quote from the movie Concussion: “The NFL owns a day of the week. The same day the Church used to own. Now it's theirs.”  But America and Sunday weren’t enough.  They wanted to own London.  The wanted another day besides Sunday and Monday; Saturday was taken by college football, and Friday was for high school football, so they settled on Thursday.  Forget the fact that teams have a time-honored, rigorous schedule for preparing for the next game that takes at least 6 days, now teams had to be ready in three.

Playing games in London, which requires special transportation and adaptation to a strange time zone, and playing on Thursday night, dilutes the NFL product.  Can you remember a single memorable game played in London?  Or a Thursday Night game that wasn’t poorly played?  I didn’t think so.  Adjustments played for games in London and on Thursday affect other games as well.  Now teams at a disadvantage by having only three days to prep for Thursday will have nine days to prep for their next Sunday game.  In November, the Raiders and the Texans will have to play a football game in high-altitude Mexico City, which will test the physical capacity of those teams (maybe they should have had the Broncos, who are used to altitude, playing in that game).

Some decline in ratings is inevitable.  There are more alternatives to watching football on TV these days, and of course a dinosaur like the NFL would be slow to adapt.  The bottom line is that everything is adapting to declining ratings.  I have the series Profit, a TV show cancelled for low ratings after only three episodes aired in 1996, on DVD, and on the commentary the creators point out that the number of viewers they reached that got them cancelled in 1996 would have made them a top ten hit when the DVD was released in 2005 (they seem to be implying that if the show was resurrected it would reach the same numbers and thus be a hit, which is unlikely).

Mae West supposedly said, “Too much of a good thing is wonderful.”  Maybe, but too much NFL leads to a diluted, less entertaining product.  Add in the growth of soccer, refs cracking down on celebrations in the No Fun League, viewers wanting commercial-free venues, the Red Zone showing all the good stuff and none of the boring stuff, parity making every game look like a couple of teams of 8 year olds pairing off, and let’s throw in referees penalizing a team 66 yards in error. Frankly, only an 11% decline in ratings sounds not so bad.

The NFL screws up another disciplinary issue

Do you remember the Ray Rice incident?  Here is a brief recap—the NFL investigated charges of domestic abuse against Ray Rice, charges he admitted were correct.  The NFL imposed a two-game suspension that most people thought was too little.  Then additional evidence turned up that added no new information as to his guilt but made the allegations look worse, and the league re-opened the case and suspended Rice indefinitely (he is still suspended, not that anyone seems interested in signing him).

Let’s recap the recent incidents surrounding NY Giants kicker Josh Brown: there were charges of domestic abuse that were admitted to, and the NFL investigated and imposed a one-game suspension most people thought was too little.  New documents came to light that added no new information but made the allegations look worse, and the NFL re-opened the case and is now planning to impose additional punishment.

Sound familiar?

The criticism of the NFL’s suspension of Brown for only one game is legitimate, as the league established a six-game baseline punishment for domestic abuse.  So why did Brown only get a one-game suspension?  Because according to the NFL there were “mitigating circumstance.” Apparently chief among these mitigating circumstances was the fact that Giants management liked Brown and thought he was a nice guy who had just slipped up.

The league frequently cites “mitigating circumstances” as a reason for not imposing the minimum six game suspension, which is a little weird because six games is supposed to be the minimum, but if they always apply mitigating circumstances to lower it then it really isn’t a minimum.  Thus far the NFL has cited mitigating circumstance to lower the punishment in every case but two, but it has never cited “aggravating circumstances” as a reason for imposing more than a six-game suspension for a first time violation of the domestic abuse policy.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell wants to be the sheriff who imposes law and order on the players, but he can’t seem to get anything right.  Ray Rice was emblematic—first a botched investigation (permitting Ray Rice in the room when his fiancée/wife was interviewed), then an inadequate punishment, followed by embarrassment, then a pretext to “re-open” the investigation and impose a too-harsh penalty (indefinite as opposed to six games).  With the Josh Brown case, as the great sage Yogi Berra said, “It’s déjà vu all over again.”

Our Constitution prohibits something called “double jeopardy,” which is re-trying someone for something after the matter has been adjudicated.  Yes, the Constitution doesn’t impose any burden on the NFL, but there is a policy reason for its existence.  Matters need to be resolved. Players need to know that an allegation is behind them so they can move on.  The league being able to re-open an investigation anytime it wants leaves a Sword of Damocles hanging over players’ heads.

It also impedes the delivery of justice.  A player may accept a minor punishment, giving up his right to appeal, and then the league increases the penalty.  This encourages players to stonewall all investigations, which does not grease the wheels of justice.

If the league knew Josh Brown had committed domestic violence, they should have suspended him for six games.  If the King County (Seattle) Sherriff’s office refused to release important documents, the league should not have concluded its investigation until it had those documents or the criminal investigation was concluded.  If the owner of the NY Giants knew that Josh Brown had committed domestic violence, he shouldn’t have signed him to a contract extension on the grounds that he didn't know the extent of the abuse.  If the question loomed about the extent of the abuse, then he had a duty to inquire and not just say he was “comfortable” re-signing Brown.

The justice system of the United States is set down in words and printed in books.  The justice system of the NFL is located in Roger Goodell’s gut.  You can’t systematically enforce a code of conduct when you have one man who makes it up as he goes along.  It was wrong to suspend Brown for only one game when the rules said he should get six; it was wrong to re-open the investigation when “new” evidence came to light that the league overlooked when it concluded its investigation.  The Players’ Association gave Goodell a blank check on discipline in the last Collective Bargaining Agreement; now that they’ve seen the result, let’s hope they take it back in the next CBA.

DH or No DH? That is the question

If there was ever an argument to be made against the designated hitter, it would be made by the pitching staff of the Chicago Cubs.  Before tonight’s (Oct. 19) game the Cubs hitters were pathetic thus far in the post-season, so much so that 1/6 of the team’s 24 RBI’s were batted in by pitchers.  Not exactly what was expected of the high-scoring club when they qualified for October baseball.

But the fact remains that the time has finally come to end the schism between the National League and the American league and adopt the designated hitter for all of Major League Baseball.

When the AL adopted the designated hitter rule in 1973 (that’s 43 years ago), it was considered either an interesting little experiment or an abomination.  Since then the rule has been adopted by virtually every professional and amateur baseball organization, save for the National League and the Nippon Professional Baseball's Central League.

For a while it was an interesting aberration, having pitchers bat in the National League but not in the American.  It was a natural experiment that demonstrated just how connected all the elements in baseball are.  Older hitters had extended careers, there was more offence, games took longer, pitching changes became more complicated (or maybe less complicated, because you didn’t have to worry about keeping a pitcher in until it was his turn to bat?).

Things have changed in 43 years.  With the DH being ubiquitous in the lower leagues and college, fewer pitchers get any experience hitting, making them even less effectual (with exceptions like Madison Bumgardner and Clayton Kershaw).  The leagues no longer have any separate identity except for the DH, as league presidents cease to be some time ago.  Umpires now work across all MLB teams, and there is uniformity in how games are called.  The league umpires used to have different kinds of chest protectors, and the bulkier AL version led umps to stand further back which affected the perceived strike zone.  But all umps wear the same equipment, and technology now monitors the accuracy of umps calling balls and strikes.

The only meaningful difference between the NL and AL is the DH.  It was a minor inconvenience when inter-league play consisted only of the All-Star Game and the World Series, disadvantaging the AL teams when they lost their DH playing in a National League Park (the All Star Game wisely adopted the DH for both teams in 2010).  The problem became more pronounced when Commissioner Bud Selig instituted occasional in-season inter-league play in 1997, a move that invigorated interest in baseball (after the player’s strike of 1994) even while it aggravated purists.

Inter-league play was initially only dine early in the season, but it became year-round in 2013 after the Astros switched leagues to give each one 15 teams.  And there’s the rub.  As an example, this year the Detroit Tigers went into their last series of the season within a game of the second AL wild card.  Unfortunately, they played that final series in Atlanta against the National League Braves.  That meant they were playing in a critical series without their DH, Victor Martinez, who got only 2 at bats in the last three games of the season.  Without Martinez, who hit .289 for the season with 27 home runs and an OPS of .827, the Tigers lost the final two games and were eliminated from the playoffs.

With the one remaining difference between the American League and the National League starts impacting playoff races, it is time to end the “experiment.”  After 43 years the verdict is in, and the decision is that chicks really do dig the long ball.  The offense produced by having an extra professional hitter in the lineup has been accepted almost everywhere but in the National League.  Yes, good hitting pitchers like Bumgardner and Kershaw are a joy to watch, but they can still be used as pinch hitters.  It is time to end the National League’s hold out and adopt DHs throughout Major League Baseball.

And while I am on the subject, can we please get past the nonsense that DH’s should be in the Hall of Fame because they “didn’t contribute on defense.”  The Hall has lots of entrants who didn’t contribute much on offense—Ozzie Smith, Bill Mazeroski, Brooks Robinson, both Tinkers and Evers (Chance put up some good offensive numbers for the era).  Plus there are Hall of Famers who were defensive liabilities, like Harmon Killebrew; isn’t not being a liability as a DH more of a positive? 

With David Ortiz’s retirement the debate has already started on his Hall credentials. Similarity scores have only two HoFers in the top ten most similar players, but Hall member Frank Thomas is numero uno most similar; the other is legendary first baseman Willie McCovey.  The top ten players most similar to Big Papi also includes Rafael Palmeiro, who is not in the Hall due to his steroids connection and finger wagging, and Jeff Bagwell, who has some vague link to steroids but should make it someday, maybe 2017.  The top ten also includes future HoFer Albert Pujols, possible Hall candidate Manny Ramirez (more steroids), and likely candidate Jim Thome (612 home runs and no link to steroids).

FiveThirtyEight puts him right on the margin, but I think that understates his non-quantifiable contributions in the post-season.  He helped end an 86 year World Series drought and three times hit over .500 in a post-season series.  In the 2013 World Series he hit .688 with an OPS of 1.95!   In the 2007 ALDS against the Angels he hit .714 with an OPS of 2.418!  I think he is a clear Hall of Famer, maybe not first ballot, but the fact he played DH for the bulk of his career shouldn’t affect the voting at all.

But of course, it will.  Old fuddy-duddy baseball writers will penalize him for not being as good on defense as Willie Mays or Steve Garvey (which is silly), and for having a link to steroids (which is legit).  But let’s get him in the Hall, as well as Thome and Edgar Martinez.  There are some good reasons for keeping guys out of the Hall, but playing DH is not one of them.

Revise the NFL rules!

Complaining about football referees is a national pastime that is hardly fun anymore.  Baseball umps screw up too, but with the acceptance of instant replay Major League Baseball has entered the 20^th century when it comes to officiating and may noticeably improve.  Further, with Statcast accurately determining where any object on the field is within less than a millimeter (according to one of the authors of The Only Rule Is It Has To Work), perhaps we are on the verge of eliminating the human element altogether. 

This would have been a good thing in the recent Reds/Cardinals game where the Cardinals won the game on a clearly erroneous call that a ball that went over the outfield fence was not a ground rule double.  The umps refused to use replay because it was a “judgment call.”  Excuse me, but whether your child is ugly is a judgment call; where a batted ball bounces is a matter of fact.  And the fact that the Reds’ manager failed to protest within 30 seconds should not be dispositive as the Reds were running out the season and it was the Giants who were battling the Cards for a playoff spot.

Football is obviously harder to officiate than baseball.  I am sometimes reserved about the use of the word “obviously” but here it applies.  Baseball plays can be anticipated; the defense is stationary and only moves once the ball is struck, and once the ball is struck players move in a predictable manner.  But in football, 22 large men are moving all over the place and refs can only get so close before they get caught up in the action.

Further, the football rule book must look like a phone book.  Baseball has some obscure rules, but by and large baseball rules make sense.  The infield fly rule may seem arbitrary, but it prevents an infielder from turning a double play on a pop up when there is a runner at first.  The football rule book is filled with arcane, arbitrary rules about who can get in a three-point stance and how much balls have to be inflated (although I can’t imagine how that rule could ever affect the outcome of a game).  I still can’t believe that a referee in the Oakland/New England 2001 playoff game knew there was such a thing as the “tuck rule,” a rule that basically says a fumble isn’t a fumble even though the player fumbled.

During the week following a game played on September 24^th, Detroit Lions defensive player Nevin Lawson said that NFL officials had admitted that a record 66-yard pass interference penalty called against Lawson had been wrong.  The apology is nice, but it hardly makes up for the Lions losing the game (not that the Lions should count on winning many games this season).  Pass interference calls can be devastating, because a small infraction (or perceived infraction) can turn a game-winning hold on fourth down into a drive-sustaining first down and place the ball 30 yards or more down the field.

One response to the incorrect pass interference call in the Lion’s game is to call for pass interference to be reviewable.  This would help immeasurably, as the receiver and defender are both moving rapidly and the contact between them can be subtle and hard to discern from a distance.  Again, given the impact on a game the call can have, some back-up is not unwarranted.

As AV Club's Block and Tackle column (in the section on Referee Ron Torbert) points out, under pass interference rules a team can have an infinite number of plays to score after the game is technically over, because a game cannot end on a defensive penalty.  So a team down by one score can just keep sending people deep, not to complete a pass necessarily, but to hope for a pass interference call.

The NFL generally chips away at the rulebook, tweaking the definition of a “catch” (good luck) or lengthening the distance of a point after.  I wonder if the whole thing shouldn’t be reviewed from scratch.  The pass interference rule was adopted at a time when passing was far less important than it is now.  Maybe when it was implemented it wasn’t anticipated that there would be so many pass plays in a game.  And while there is some logic behind the penalty being where the foul occurred, because otherwise a defender who got beat would commit pass interference if it meant a 15-yard penalty instead of a game-losing touchdown, it is not consistent with other penalties.  Basically, the penalty assumes that but for the infraction the pass would have been completed, but that is impossible to know.  On a running play when there is defensive holding, do the refs estimate how far the runner would have gotten before being tackled?  No. 

Other rules should be revisited.  On a kickoff return, why call it back if there is a holding penalty away from the play?  Why not tack on 10 yards to the kickoff?  Brilliant coaches like Bill Belichik have gained an occasional advantage by making use of obscure loopholes in player substitution rules.  Rules regarding proper formations were created during the old “T Formation” era.  Rules about set positions didn’t anticipate players being larger and faster.

Of course most of the rules should be kept, lest football stop looking like football and appear more like Arena Football, or flag football.  One difference between baseball and football is that baseball is largely unchanged in 150 years; modern pro football is a totally different game from that played in the 1960’s and 70’s, not to mention the 1920’s.  I’m sure that a thorough review of all the arcane rules could slim down the rule book and make it easier for refs to know what is going on.

Player safety could also be enhanced if rules were made for modern players using modern equipment and not 160 pound players using leather helmets where the dominant philosophy was “three yards and a cloud of dust.”  New rules are needed for a new era, and the pass-happy NFL is in a new era.

TV Review: Van Helsing

One of the reason that vampires have been a staple of horror fiction for over a century is because they are so mutable.  All vampires kill humans for blood; but the other characteristics are infinitely flexible.  Some vampires can fly (Forever Knight), some can go out in sunlight (Moonlight), some go “poof” when they are killed (Buffy the Vampire Slayer), some cast no reflection (Angel), some can transform into bats or wolves (too many to name), some are sexy (Frank Langella’s Dracula) and some can control mystical powers (Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula). 

The new Syfy series Van Helsing comes at the vampire myth through a vaguely original lens (there is so much vampire fiction that nothing can be truly new, just different borrowed elements in a new combination).  An eruption of a super-volcano has plunged the world into a nuclear winter, and the lack of sunlight has allowed vampires to thrive.  They control the world as feral beasts, while pockets of human fight to survive.  One group of Marines, trapped in a hospital, have been guarding a comatose woman (Kelly Overton) for three years when vampires break in and one of them feeds on the woman, who awakens and promptly kicks some vampire ass.  The vampire who bit her is killed, but then he comes back to life as a human, cured by the blood of the woman who just happens to be a descendant of the famous vampire hunter, Van Helsing.

The creator of the series is Neil LaBute, who wrote the brutal yet acclaimed indie film In The Company of Men.  He also wrote the HORRIBLE remake of The Wicker Man with Nicolas Cage, so his street cred when it comes to horror films is dubious at best.  The idea of a world controlled by vampires is similar to that of the 2009 Ethan Hawke film Daybreakers, in which vampires ruled the world but were facing an ecological crisis because humans, their food supply, were becoming an endangered species. 

The acting is about what you’d expect from a Syfy series, namely competent at best.  Seeing the unfamiliar actors go through their paces makes you appreciate how lucky Joss Whedon was to find Sarah Michelle Geller, Alyson Hannigan, Charisma Carpenter and Nicholas Brendan for Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  Of course the first two episodes were busy setting up the premise and didn’t provide a lot of opportunities for emoting.

Frankly, I don’t like my vampires feral.  First of all, feral vampires are very similar to zombies, and I generally don’t like zombies.  I think an enemy that is intelligent and can plan is scarier than a pack of mad dogs wearing clothes.  Second, vampires that can pass for human provide for many more opportunities for plot twists; season 3 of Penny Dreadful packed a punch when the identity of Dracula was revealed to be a character we thought was nice.  There seem to be some intelligent vampires in Van Helsing, but except for a reference to “old ones” an explanation will have to wait for future episodes.

Supposedly Syfy is trying to ditch its image as the network with all those Shaknado movies and go back to being the network who picked up Emmy nominations for Battlestar Gallactica.  Most of their newer original shows (Killjoys, Dark Matter) and standard, disposable science fiction with attractive casts.  I watched Killjoys for two seasons, but I am dropping it as I can no longer keep the backstory straight.  Van Helsing, with its intriguing premise, is probably a step in the right direction; if nothing else it is an improvement over the bad Hugh Jackman movie of the same name.  

But the low-budget sets and generic actors will have to step up their game if they want to be as culturally relevant as The Walking Dead or even iZombie, much less get Emmy nominations.

TV Review: Mr. Robot season 2

Warning—I discuss Mr. Robot season 2, so there are SPOILERS (duh).

TV series are like babies; some will grow up to be President of the United States (like the West Wing), some will grow up to be drug-dealing pedophiles (the odious Dancing with the Stars), and most will grow up to be accountants with 2.5 children who die at 56 from a heart attack (any sitcom on ABC).  But when people are babies you just can’t tell.

Generally speaking, most TV shows that start out great begin to decline almost immediately.  Lost won the Emmy for Best Drama after its first season and then wasn’t even nominated again until its final season. It’s difficult to think of shows that started out okay and then got better.  Certainly Buffy the Vampire Slayer got better; also Angel, and Dollhouse.  Hey, what do those series have in common?

Season 2 of Mr. Robot was not as good as season 1.  I don’t mean that as condemnation; it was still one of the most compelling, best written, best acted shows on TV.  But where it differed from season 1 it seemed less interesting, and where it was the same it seemed imitative.

The main difference between seasons 1 and 2 that I noticed was the lack of a propulsive impetus that kept the plot in season 1 always moving forward.  There was a constant sense that things were building to a climax, events were out of control and there was no slowing down or getting off the train.  The episode that took a side trip away from the E-Corp plotline and was all about Elliot breaking his girlfriend’s drug supplier out of jail (after he put him there) felt like a distraction, even though it packed a powerful emotional punch.  The E-Corp hack was an impending train wreck that you could see coming but couldn’t avoid.

Season 2 spent a lot of time backtracking, losing momentum to restart the narrative.  We spent several episodes seeing Elliot in his new lifestyle, only to find it’s all in his mind and he’s been in jail.  The show carefully created this interesting yet improbable character named Ray who needs dialysis and runs a black market website, then we find he doesn’t exist, he’s just the physical avatar of Elliot’s warden.  The show sets up conflict and deadlines, then they all turn out to be figments of Elliot’s imagination.

Also, more of the decisions by Sam Esmail seemed random.  The use of Phil Collin’s “Take me home” over the burning of E-Corps millions seemed less like a quirky, idiosyncratic choice and more like pulling a song out of an iPod on random.  Elliot’s old boss Gideon Goddard (Michael Gill) being killed by some guy in a bar (only to be resurrected in a sitcom fantasy to be run over by Alf) seemed like a waste of a guest spot of a good actor.  Almost all the plot twists in season 1, even the ones from left field, felt like part of a design; in season 2 they just felt arbitrary.

But why dwell on the negative?  The show expanded the role of Joanna, Tyrell’s gorgeous, thoroughly evil wife, and actress Stephanie Corneliussen imbued her with fascinating malevolence.  Grace Gummer and Michael Cristofer joined the regular cast and were given multi-dimensional characters that were interesting but not bizarre.  BD Wong’s Whiterose was like the Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland, always enticing characters further down a rabbit hole that only he (she?) understood (maybe).  Regulars Carly Chaikin (Darlene) and Portia Doubleday (Angela) both portrayed formidable characters that thrived with more screen time and deeper backstories.

And then there is Rami Malek; excuse me, Emmy-winning Best Actor in a Drama Rami Malek.  Elliot’s emotional range is so limited it is hard to know exactly how good of an actor Malek really is, but no show on television today relies more heavily on the performance of its main actor, and Malek never disappoints.  He got to show a little more range this year, playing in a 1980’s sitcom fantasy and, in the season finale, doing a middling impersonation of Christian Slater.  But his vacant expression always somehow showed wheels within wheels going on in his head.

Series creator Sam Esmail assumed the unusual mantle of directing every episode of season 2, and he brought a distinctive visual style and an appreciation for all of the techniques available to a director to establish tone and mood.  He varied the soundtrack, playing jaunty spy music when Angela sneaks into to plant a bug in the FBI’s computer system, and then used an eerie Aimee Mann song in the scene in the finale where Darlene is shown the extent of the FBI’s knowledge about FSociety.  Esmail kept the show visually interesting, no mean feat in an industry where quality television direction is usually measured by how many set-ups you can complete in a day.

Of course the season ended with a cliffhanger, one that once again cut a little close to the Fight Club source material.  If I were handing out grades I’d give season 1 an unqualified A, season 2 an A-/B+.  Again, that’s not a criticism.  Being brilliant is hard; maintaining brilliance over time is nearly impossible.  Expectations get raised, tricks are revealed, tropes and gimmicks become familiar.  My hope for season 3 is that we spend less time in Elliot’s head, and more time working out the consequences of the 5/9 hack in the real world.

The most curious thing about Mr. Robot season 2 is that, despite all the publicity and awards, the ratings for season two fell from season 1. The ratings aren’t just a season-long hemorrhage, but started low from the first episode of season 2.  Is this a factor of Mr. Robot appealing to a too-high falutin’ audience? The new reality of Too Much Television and Too Many Channels?  How long will USA support one of its flagship shows if the ratings continue to fall?  We can only wait and see what season 3 brings.

Emmy ratings fall--no one can watch the winners

This just in—the ratings for the 2016 Emmys sucked. The only surprising thing about this is that the show surprisingly good. The pace was good, finishing early enough that there was some sense of padding at the end.  The In Memoriam was one of the best I’ve ever seen, interweaving photographs with film clips during lyric breaks in the song “Hallelujah” (my only critique is that they included non-TV performers like Muhammad Ali, Prince, David Bowie, and movie actor Anton Yelchin, whose last TV credit is over ten years ago). The winners were a pleasing mix of old favorites (Julia Louis-Dreyfuss cannot win too many Emmys) and new sensations like Rami Malek and Tatiana Maslany.  Jimmy Fallon’s ad libs were amusing, and the Jeb Bush cameo was (here is that word again) surprisingly funny.

So, what’s the problem?  Effective counter-programming, like the JonBenet Ramsey docu-drama?  Hardly; if there was real interest in the Emmys, the viewers would show up and DVR the competition. 

I believe the reason for low Emmy ratings is the same force that correlates Oscar ratings with the popularity of the expected winner for Best Picture.  When a popular movie is favored to win, as in 1998 when Titanic was a lock for Best Picture, the ratings soar.  When an indy film like Argo, or 12 Years a Slave, or Birdman, or The Artist are favored?  Not so much.

I have written before about the Balkanization of our viewing choices, about how television used to be an all-inclusive community that is being broken up into pay cable/streaming services niches.  I think this lowers the community unifying effect of TV, and also drives Emmy ratings down.

The big winners were, unsurprisingly, Veep and Game of Thrones, both repeating as Best Comedy and Best Drama.  Both are shown by HBO, a premium cable service relatively few households subscribe to.  There were two network shows up for Best Comedy, Modern Family and Black-ish; the rest were on premium cable (Veep, Silicon Valley) or pay streaming services (Transparent, Master of None, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt).  On top of the unavailability of most of the nominees, most were directed at a narrow target audience.  Political humor obviously dominated Veep; Silicon Valley was about high tech humor, a definite niche; shows like Transparent and Master of None have their audience but they aren’t exactly as large as Cheers’ target audience.

The only Best Drama nominee on a broadcast network was Downton Abbey on PBS, again a show with limited appeal to the heartland.  Homeland and Game of Thrones are on HBO; House of Cards streams on Netflix, and Better Call Saul, Mr. Robot and The Americans all are on basic cable.  Again, none of these shows is aiming at the same audience as CSI, NCIS, or Dancing With the C-listers.

Television is better than ever, with high quality shows like Mad Men, Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones on an ever-expanding number of platforms.  But gone are the days when an action show like Mission Impossible could get multiple nominations for not only best drama but also multiple acting nominations (winning Best Drama and Best Actress in 1967).

Maybe the broadcast networks should stop televising the Emmy Awards.  HBO took over the TV movie category years ago; Drama and Comedy are now dominated by cable shows and streamers; the only niche left to broadcasters is reality.  It used to be a prestige thing to do, and the Emmys could be used to promote upcoming new shows on the network airing the Emmys. 

But viewers are trailing off, and new shows no longer all debut in September.  Maybe the Emmys should take the hint and move to basic cable.  Or better yet, just use twitter.