The Concept of Quality TV - Essay Example

CONTEMPORARY TELEVISION STUDIES What do you understand by the concept of “Quality TV”? How do “Quality TV” shows, (Mad Men in particular) problematise the issues of production/industry, audience/context and authorship? Television, in modern times can aptly be called as an influential medium and American television, as one of the most competitive sectors in this world. The influence of television among the people is so high that it can dissolve images and ideas and can affect and shape how billions of people see themselves and each other. The concept of “Quality TV” has paved the way for many discussions and the judgment of quality has often been a matter of controversy among the intelligentsia. Some believe that quality can be analyzed or judged through aesthetic, political or moral perspective. Some other is of the view that quality or quality TV is the product of the interpretive community or professional community whose norms, ideals and methods determine an interpretation’s validity (McCabe & Akass 145). Many regard Quality Television is a concept formed by the Television critics and broadcasting advocacy groups who categorized the programs as higher quality when they concerned their subject matter and content. It has to be noted that during the past years, especially after the Second World War, only the government funded channels were considered as quality televisions. But later the advent of various channels and the variety programs broadcasted earned them the name “Quality TV”. Nowadays, various television programs like Mad Men has exerted predominant influence in the audience and one can see significant changes in the attitude of the audience and the television critics whiel looking upon the concept of quality TV. When one attempts to explore the concept to quality TV, one has to wade through many previous studies that have clearly stated or studied this concept. Prior to analyzing the concept of quality TV, it would be preferable for one to understand, what is conventional TV, and what are the basic differences between conventional and quality concepts? Rustad and Vermeulen (2010) make a clear distinction between the two concepts. They rightly observe that the conventional TV preferred “rhetoric, i.e. narrative, plot, dialogue, over aesthetics” and “prioritize straightforward and static compositions over more complicated arrangements, and emphasize close-ups instead of long shots.” They have identified that “Quality TV” brought an overall change over the conventional or traditional method giving due importance to rhetoric and aesthetic. According to Rustad and Vermeulen, “The so-called “Quality TV” of the last decade is thought to have increasingly rebuffed these conventions, holding rhetoric and aesthetic in equal value, adopting what is often (yet at times wrongly) called a “cinematic style” (Rustad & Vermeulen, 2010, p.2). These words throw light to the fact that “Quality TV” combined both rhetoric and aesthetic, altered the mise-en-scéne which expanded the terms of television style. Rustad and Vermeulen find out that “series like Mad Men seem to stress not so much in the rhetoric of the dialogue, with its problem-and-solution, situation-and-pun; they focus, in a word, not on the narrative „action“, but on the non-narrative reaction - the waiting” (Rustad & Vermeulen, 2010, p.2). When observing the peculiarity of Mad Men, it is identifiable that there is a ‘late’ or ‘delayed’ cut after the scenes and the camera sketches the situation of the character even after the scenes is ended. It is an endeavour to outline some specific traits or notable expressions of a character that varies from others. These expressions will be the emotional centre of these shows. It is also noteworthy that such a centre is continuously diffused or postponed, conveying the typical televisual set up. Paul Buhle (2003) in reporting David Marc’s study emphasized that “high-culture critics almost uniformly considered films to be dreck until television—when they enshrined the cinema auteur.” But later when it came to the next stage, some televisions accorded the status of “art.” Paul Buhle (2003) also reports that the intelligent reviews appeared in the daily press since 1950 helped the readers to interpret that there would be something that can later be called as “quality.” The presentation of the drama and docudramas has contributed much to the concept “Quality TV.” Buhle has also commented that the “postmodern television, at its best, may be equal to anything that contemporary film has to offer.” The modern channels like HBO have brought revolutionary changes in television fields. It could produce social films as once produced by Warner Brothers and other production companies in low budget. Thus it makes clear the fact that modern television industry is capable to compete with film industry, though it cannot claim the Hollywood-style special effects. But its claim is that it can produce dramas which can raise our aesthetic level. Producing shows and films very often become problematic influenced with certain facts. The production of “Quality TV” shows, especially ‘Mad Men’ is not an exception. ‘Mad men,’ is an American dramatic television series created and produced by Matthew Weiner. One of the influencing factors in the American television drama is the advertisers who keep stress on the producers. “Despite this, there is considerable pressure experience by producers in terms of the positioning of their programme...” (Henderson, 2007 p.168). They will also need to share the story and cast etc. with the advertisers. Regarding the issues of production of television dramas one can see that it is mainly concerned with getting a good script or writer, “If the script isn’t good, the film won’t be good” (Macabe and Akass, 2007 p. 99). If the head writer-producer is not a writer, and if he has never written a teleplay or screen play, there is possibility for the whole production to collapse and the series a failure. The intervening of the director in the script also will lead the show to total failure and every episode felt as if it belonged in a different series. Naturally, it will affect the whole industry and will make the production issues more problematic. David Liddiment (McCabe & Akass, 2007 p.145), creative director of All3 Media argues that the producers have to create and realize ideas that sell, if they want to survive. Liddiment’s words throws light to this reality when he says, “Capturing the public imagination with innovative programmes that serve purposes other than delivering commercial impacts or increasing share is not necessarily at the top of their agenda.” McCabe and Akass (2007 p.14) in their book, “Quality TV: contemporary American television and beyond” writes, “...American quality TV breaks the rules of the established television; it is produced by people of quality aesthetic ancestry outside the field of television; it attracts a blue-chip audience; uses ensemble casts and multiple, overlapping plot lines that indicate literary values; includes social and cultural criticism; and creates a new genre by combining old ones.” These words clearly indicate the complicacies of quality TV, which as Thomson (McCabe & Akass, 2007 p.14), mentioned, ‘it weren’t television at all but something ‘better’ and more artistically worthy’. It was the American freelance writer Ashley (McCabe & Akass, 2007 p.14) who tried to define quality TV accurately. According to him, quality TV is, “politically engaged, often independent TV that aims to enlighten, as well as to entertain.” But it is to be noted that the concept quality television and good television are not overlapping fields. Various conducted among students have proved that they do not like the typical style of the quality television as it makes them boring. This leads us to the inference that too much concentration on quality of perfection may filter the interesting element from it. Many regard Mad Men, the American dramatic television series, as the best form of quality television, and the show shines far above almost anything else TV has to offer. The popularity of the show underlines the previous statement. There are also differences of opinion regarding quality television shows. Television critics find out differences between American quality television and British quality television. They are of the view that British quality television seems to exhibit a level of discomfort with their subject matter. They fail to maintain a critical distance and emotional distance from such programmes. They also regard it as a commercial wheeze , an overpriced product that, at root, is little different from its cheaper variations (McCabe & Akass, 2007 p.22). Another criticism against the so called quality television can be found in Jonathan Bignell’s book, “An introduction to television studies” where the author writes, “...programmes claiming to be ‘quality television’ can contain more graphic violence, more explicit sexual behaviour or more obscene language than programmes that cannot easily make a claim to be ‘quality’” (Bignell, p.245). Anyway, one can see that the popularity of the quality television shows is undisputable. Issues of authorship in television dramas are quite common in modern times. Karl S. Green in his online article, “Issues of Authorship in TV Drama” proposes the discussion topic: “Locating the author in a work of literature is usually a straightforward task, but in television drama the subject of the ‘author’ is a complex and confusing issue,” and attempts to find out the answer. To help support his study, Green quotes the words of John Caughie (Karl S. Green) when he said, “It has become a commonplace of television studies that, whereas in classical cinema authorship is invested in the director...in television drama the status of ‘auteur’ has historically accorded...to the writer.” While going through the previous comment it is crystal clear that it is the handing over of the authorship causes the problems. Even then one has to keep in mind the fact that competitions are going on for the survival of quality television right across this industry. The increasing pressure to reach large number of the audiences also is a threat to the quality television. Unlike the television channels of the past decades, modern channels have been converted as the centres of various arts and cultural programmes designed to satisfy the appetite of the audience. As the concept and aesthetic appreciation of the audience are changing day by day, the channels have to promote various quality shows as satisfying them. Nowadays the audience prefer trash and sensation over a quality drama along with profound information. The study of the quality television leads to the following conclusions. The study has clearly explored that the influence of television in modern times is not negligible that the number of television channels help the audience to disperse their images and ideas. It has also understood that the concept quality television and good television will not go together. Quality television was can be considered as opposing the concept of conventional television and combines both rhetoric and aesthetic. The concept of quality television was mainly brought out through the presentation of dramas and docudramas in television channels. It has been observed that quality television also causes for some issues related to production. Unlike films or other series of shows that ends with one or two hours, here the producers have to create and realise ideas if he wants to be an established producer. Also, as it combines the old and new genres, the directors and the script writer should be more careful in maintaining the smooth flow of the plot and the story. Therefore, it leads to the inference that quality television is a concept that has deep rooted in the minds of the modern people who have whole heartedly received dramatic television series like Mad Men. References Bignell J. 2004, An introduction to television studies, illustrated edition, Routledge. Buhle P. 2003, Quality Popular Television. Brown University, London: BFI. Viewed 22 Sep 2010, Green S.K. Issues of Authorship in TV Drama,Viewed 22 Sep 2010, Henderson L. 2007, Social issues in television fiction. Illustrated edition, Edinburgh University Press. McCabe J., Akass K. 2007, Quality TV: contemporary American television and beyond, I.B.Tauris. Rustad C. G & Vermeulen T. 2010 Contemporary Serial Culture: Quality TV Series in a New Media Environment, International Conference, Potsdam-Babelsberg, Germany, viewed 22 Sep 2010, Read More