For Television, It's a Grim End to a Great Year

I'm dreaming of a White Christmas, and I may get one if recent weather patterns hold in the northeast. But when my attention turns from the world around me to the business of television, the outlook is so dark and dismal no amount of holiday cheer can help. I have been writing about television since 1990, and I cannot recall a time when so much was suddenly so wrong with my medium of choice.

Television survived the economic difficulties that came with covering the Gulf War amid a crushing recession in early 1991, titanic ratings losses for scripted series (especially in daytime) during the O.J. Simpson double-murder trial in the mid-Nineties, and many previously unheard of challenges in the difficult months that followed the terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in September 2001. It even survived the 1988 writers strike, when the stakes weren't nearly as high as those at the center of the current Writers Guild of America work stoppage.

But can it endure the mounting challenges of the moment, which threaten to continue well into the New Year and in some respects way beyond? What throws me the most about the current confluence of problems that threaten to damage television in so many different ways is that it comes at the end of what has otherwise been an extraordinary year in terms of program content and cultural influence. From the disposable fun of the Sanjaya Hair Watch to the zeitgeist-charging finale of The Sopranos to the historic arrival of High School Musical 2, the power of television never dimmed in 2007. Two extraordinary documentary miniseries, Planet Earth and The War, provided further reason to celebrate the medium's critically important storytelling abilities while reminding us that we can still learn from and be personally enriched by it.

Seemingly overnight, however, the overall sense of advancement and accomplishment that characterized so much of 2007 has been crushed under an avalanche of controversy and bad judgment. The fall season brought with it no new hits and only a couple of modest successes (ABC's Pushing Daisies and Private Practice, CBS' The Big Bang Theory). The WGA strike is about to move into its third month with no end in sight and collateral damage spreading by the day: Mounting job losses in Los Angeles and New York, the cancellation of the January Television Critics Association tour, the decimation of the all-important pilot development season, the probable cancellation of the networks' upfront events in May. The People's Choice Awards, the Golden Globe Awards and the Academy Awards are at risk. Two similarly devastating strikes, by members of the Screen Actors Guild and the Directors Guild of America, loom on the horizon.

The situation looks increasingly dire no matter which way you look at it. Throughout the WGA work action, executives at the networks and studios against whom they are striking have repeatedly asserted that they cannot give the writers what they want (compensation for Internet streaming of their work) because financial models are not fully developed for digital media. (Come June, when their current contracts expire, this will be a key issue for actors and directors, as well.) How can this be happening? Can it be true that entertainment conglomerates have collectively invested billions in the development of digital media platforms without sufficient knowledge of their inherent profit potential to deal with such matters? More to the point, can anyone step up and settle this ridiculous mess? Actually, one very wise man has already provided invaluable insight and direction for everyone involved. You can learn a lot from him simply by clicking here.

Meanwhile, as television continues to be held hostage in this raging dispute between the haves and the have-mores, another huge shadow has begun to spread across the landscape: The February 2009 switch from analog to digital broadcasting. This is no big deal for early adopters and people who work in the media and fully understand what is going on, but millions of Americans still have no idea that the way they watch television is going to undergo a dramatic change. The millions who prefer to watch over-the-air television are in for the rudest surprise, unless they start educating themselves very shortly. The millions who still receive analog cable remain blissfully unaware that their monthly cable bills are going to soar. I ruined another dinner party this past weekend when I was asked to explain the dollars and nonsense of digital television to everyone at the table, another group of educated, professional people who had no idea what 2009 has in store.

There is also much talk about how people are going to turn to original Internet content as the WGA strike continues and likely never go back to their favorite shows once television production resumes. I'm as susceptible to the seductive appeal of YouTube as anyone (its clips are like chips -- it's impossible to enjoy just one). But I cannot take seriously the idea that people who appreciate Heroes or CSI or 24 will not return to those shows after an extended absence because they have been sated by professional video clippery on FunnyorDie or MyDamnChannel, or by user-generated Web fodder like the footage that briefly appeared on PerezHilton this week of Liza Minnelli struggling to belt out a song during a recent concert in Sweden. (It was quickly pulled.) While it had a certain ugly car crash appeal, Minnelli's eight-minute misfortune was hardly as satisfying as an episode of Dexter or an hour with the wine-soaked Walkers of Brothers and Sisters.

And yet, there are kids and teens in the lives of everyone reading this column who clearly prefer to spend time at their computers rather than in front of their television sets, and the strike will do little to alter that. These generations have no special affinity for TV in general, let alone a particular network, and the Internet is producing genuine celebrities such as professional flirt Tila Tequila, gossip maven Perez Hilton and singer Colbie Caillat. I would argue that Miley Cyrus and Zac Efron are bigger than any of them, and remind everyone that they were "developed" on the kid-friendly television network Disney Channel rather than on Web sites. But there is no telling what the future will bring.

At least the New Year will usher in the return of David Letterman, Jay Leno, Jimmy Kimmel and Conan O'Brien to late night television. Their shows will return in watered-down formats, without written content, including monologues. Presumably, these guys will find much conversational humor in TV's terrible trials while providing important promotional platforms for struggling television programs. Right now, their collective return feels like the best holiday present of all.