(Subscriber Report) Ed Martin Live from TCA - TCA Today: How Comic-Con Has Changed the Game

By The Myers Report Archives
Cover image for  article: (Subscriber Report) Ed Martin Live from TCA - TCA Today: How Comic-Con Has Changed the Game

There's something different about the annual Television Critics Association summer tour this year. It begins today, approximately three weeks later than usual.

There are two significant reasons for this: Digital technology and the media monster that is Comic-Con.

To begin with the larger issue, the TCA tour in recent years has been dramatically altered by technology, resulting in huge changes in the quantity and characteristics of the content produced during it. I attended my first TCA in January 1990, and for at least 15 years thereafter it was literally a two or three week marathon of press conferences at various hotels in the Los Angeles area (broken up by off-site set visits, dinners, networking parties and other events). Reporters dutifully attended sessions and gave panelists their undivided attention, took copious notes, and then raced off to put their own spin on the day's information output and produce columns that would run in print, via fax or, later, online, usually the following morning.

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But during the last few years it has become increasingly clear that it isn't enough to be a smart reporter and gifted writer if one is to survive TCA. One must also be a talented stenographer. Once wireless technology was installed in the hotels where TCA takes place, the sight of reporters taking notes on paper became almost quaint. Instead, most TCA members now sit behind laptop screens, multi-tasking their way through the day, taking notes, writing columns or blog entries, answering e-mails and surfing the Web while television executives, stars and producers take their questions. Many are racing against each other to be the first to post quotes and news items. The advent of live-blogging took this up a notch. Now, many TCA members must also take time to Twitter throughout panels. This is expected of them by their editors, even if many of their tweets prove to be somewhat mindless.

Does this make for a better TCA? It depends on whom you ask. Regardless, it is what it is, and it is only going to continue morphing along as technology advances. TCA guidelines currently prohibit live radio or video coverage of any kind, but I am certain the day will come when each panel is televised somewhere in some fashion.

It is all of this live-blogging, instant publishing and Twittering that prompted the TCA to move its summer tour to a later date, somewhat closer to the start of the fall season. That's because the program information and interviews that appear online throughout the tour are of more use to everyone – newspapers, magazines, Web sites and especially the networks – if they are generated closer to the time that shows make their premieres. (Some shows will premiere within a month of the final day of TCA, August 8.)

The other big reason why TCA has been moved to a later time is that it has recently found itself in competition with the annual Comic-Con in San Diego. Comic-Con is now the biggest media event of the year – a four-day period during which hundreds of television and movie executives and the casts of their series and films descend on the city to feel the love from approximately 150,000 pop-culture loving attendees. It's a massive ego-stroke of unprecedented proportions, but it is also enormously productive. Rare is the sight of a Comic-Con attendee who is not carrying a phone, camera or video recorder of some kind, eagerly documenting and publishing their experiences as they go. Once a session for their favorite television show or movie (or video game) ends they pour out into the hallways and produce a mushroom cloud of promotional goodness to be collectively shared by millions.

Networks and studios have in recent years withheld from TCA members everything from news announcements to screeners of new shows, choosing instead to maximize the power of Comic-Con. Two years ago, ABC pissed off TCA by deciding not to reveal news about the upcoming fourth season of Lost until the Con, which ran right after the tour. This would have resulted in hundreds of reporters having to explain to their editors why they didn't have said news in their TCA coverage had members not screamed at ABC Entertainment president Stephen McPherson during his session to spill. (He did, but it was awkward all around.) Last year, NBC made no mention during TCA of its troubled Heroes, choosing instead to bring the cast to the Con and premiere the first hour of its upcoming two-hour season premiere in front of six thousand rabid fans. (This may have backfired: Heroes tanked last season despite the giant Con push. Compelling TCA interviews might have done more to generate viewer interest.)

Now that TCA runs after the Con, reporters here can follow up on all the news announcements that came out of there and build on all of them.

The panels and screenings get all the attention in the media, but the brilliance of Comic-Con lies in its ability to be all things to all fans at all times. Smart network and studio executives know this. The Con blurs the lines between television, movies, Web sites, video games, toy collecting and, finally, comic books. (The lines for autographs from popular comic book artists are often just as long as those for TV stars.) While the panels take place upstairs in the mammoth San Diego Convention Center (a small city in itself), thousands of exhibitors hawk their wares and promote their products in booths and at tables on the first floor. It is possible to generate thousands of positive impressions every hour by simply being there.

All of this marketing spills out into the streets of San Diego, as well. It was impossible to walk around without seeing some kind of promotion for Syfy – from giant balloons and painted buses to the total reworking of the popular Hard Rock Hotel restaurant Mary Jane's into Café Diem, a fictional eatery that immersed visitors into the world of the Syfy series Eureka. Similarly, there were eye-catching ads for Showtime's Dexter everywhere one looked. Same with AMC's upcoming The Prisoner. Who ever thought AMC would have a presence at Comic-Con?

It isn't just the fan boys and girls who soak it all in and turn it all back out with such unbridled gusto. A record number of mainstream media reporters (and more TCA members than ever) attended the Con. Entertainment Weekly had such a huge presence at the Con this year one might think the magazine was sponsoring it.

It is a measure of the power of the Con that the networks now see it as a place to generate awareness of properties that are not genre-specific, as is almost everything there. Showtime, for example, had a panel for is funky comedy Weeds. ABC introduced the new Patricia Heaton sitcom The Middle. Fox filled a giant ballroom with the premiere of the second episode of its musical comedy Glee. Some people fear that the inclusion of such unrelated entertainment will dilute the Con. But there was no indication of that during my visit. One can't argue with the power of the fans. My ears are still ringing from the thunderous applause for David Tennant of BBC America's Doctor Who (who seemed genuinely surprised by the size of his audience), Tom Welling of The CW's Smallville (in his first visit to the Con) and especially Zachary Levi of NBC's Chuck.

The big risk at the Con is that myopic television producers and writers could come away thinking that they can do no wrong with their shows. As we saw last fall with Heroes, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that they are preaching to the converted. TCA members, on the other hand, aren't at the tour to pump sunshine. They aren't afraid to challenge Hollywood heavyweights. Show-runners and executives alike would be wise to listen to them, even if they don't like what they hear. Their shows might be the better for it.

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