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Ben Stephenson, BBC drama controller, has rejected calls for UK television to ape the U.S. and create longer-running shows. Last month, screenwriter Paul Abbott (State of Play, Shameless) urged drama bosses at the Edinburgh TV Festival to commission drama series that run for as long as US series – either a 13-parter or 24 episodes. British dramas are usually ordered in 6 parts. Stephenson, launching the BBC’s drama schedule for the next 6 months, said US TV risks losing the voice of the individual author. I’m told that US TV writers look on enviously at the British tradition of just employing single writer on each show. No writer’s room here. Stephenson said: “Get out of the room if you want to write anything else … writers would be told – make it 13 or 24 or get out. Steven Moffat would not be able to write Sherlock how he wants to. He would be biffed of and replaced with a showrunner who could give a financially acceptable model of 24 eps.”
Stephenson said that US television is driven by having to appeal to the 18-49 demographic. And for a cable network you need to be 18-49 and middle class, the BBC drama boss said. “Would we really like to see our drama suffer the same fate as new critically acclaimed Fox 24-part series Lonestar? Premiered last Monday, axed yesterday,” he said. In any case, said Stephenson, the UK just can’t afford to make drama on the scale of the US. The first episode of Boardwalk Empire cost $20 million to produce. Stephenson said: “There is a terribly fashionable, but naive mythology about US television. Of course they make great television … we should love American TV but adore and cherish our own.”
Stephenson also biffed Sky on the nose for the comparatively paltry £30 million it spends each year on original British drama.
Stephenson announced that Sam Mendes, Oscar-winning director of American Beauty, is to exec produce four new Shakespeare History Plays – Richard II, Henry IV part 1 and II and Henry V – for BBC2. Richard Eyre (Iris, Notes On a Scandal) and Rupert Goold, acclaimed stage director of Enron, will direct some of them. Pippa Harris, who runs Neal Street Productions with Mendes, will also exec produce. Really it’s hardly surprising that we Brits are so good at Shakespeare. As Louella Parsons once observed, the weather’s so dreadful on this tight little isle that we can’t wait to get in out of the rain and practise our Shakespeare on each other.
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More Shakespeare? Whoop de doo!
Oh sure! One writer, paid peanuts, answerable to ten teenagers with laptops; enviable?
Would that UK broadcasting were as professional as the US but it will always be rinky-dink and of little interest beyond format rights.
American TV drama makes UK efforts look crude, cheap and old-fashioned.
Ben Stephenson, I find your comments some what alarming and a little arrogant. To say the least.
You sit in an ivory tower payed for by the British public who are forced to pay a License Fee and have no control over where their hard earned money is going. This maybe something the BBC will loose with attitudes as archaic as yours.
For those not able to draw on the funds of the public we have to go out and fight to get our stories financed. Many times we fail to even get heard. Many times we find ourselves dumped to the sidelines because companies like the BBC have built-up relationships with producers they went to Collage or University with. You may not have noticed but the world of media has some what changed in recent years.
I love the BBC. How else would we have such stunning shows as the Blue Planet. The BBC makes great drama. No doubt. But you should listen to people like Paul Abbott. Yes American writers are jealous of people like him. Of course they are. Because he’s a fantastic story teller. His work has made a difference and his stories have made money. All Paul Abbott is trying to say is don’t be so f-ing tight with our money!! Not yours. Give writers a bloody chance. Help our industry with our money.
I started my TV career at the BBC. Worked with Alexei De Keyser on Casualty and Waking the Dead. I worked on Spooks for Gareth Neame. I am one of those UK writers you commented on. So here’s my response to your comments about UK writers being happy to write limited episodes and with no control over any of the production on their own words.
BOLLOCKS!!
My name is Simon Mirren, I am currently an Executive Producer on Criminal Minds, happily authoring and producing my own words and that of fellow writers. If you have any doubt about the US model then clearly you have not seen such shows as The Wire, The Shield, Weeds, Glee, Californication, & so I could go on. The only person I see naive about this industry in the UK is you. There is NO fashion or mythology about US TV, yes there is money but that in itself gives thousands of writer a year a chance to be heard.
The BBC’s BEING HUMAN is one of the best shows on TV period. It’s what TRUE BLOOD could never be despite all the money HBO throws at it. I shudder to think what American TV will do in a remake of this first rate show. It’s not always about the money Mr. Stephenson!
Well, non-plussed, to each his own, but please riddle me this:
If UK tv is so rubbish, as you suggest it is, then please explain to me why US networks and cable are remaking or planning to remake the following tv series: Skins, Shameless, Being Human, Spooks etc.
Also, please tell me – since the Brits clearly lack the professional production values as you suggest – how did the US remakes of Coupling, Life on Mars, Blackpool, The Eleventh Hour do?
Did they last many seasons?
Your not making much sense, nor comparing similar things. Firstly, some of the shows listed for remakes are not BBC shows. Channel 4 and ITV do have much better production values.
There are some good writers in the UK, and there some good actors (actually there’s lots of both, but usually crowded out of TV, as it’s all who-you-know, not talent, there). There aren’t, however, many good editors, colorists, or DoP’s working in UK TV — and seemingly none at all in the BBC. Almost every BBC show is over-exposed, their photography is appalling.
You only have to look at The Office to see it. UK version, good writing but overacted and badly-performed, and appallingly shot — the US version is vastly superior.
The shows you list to be remade may well not make it past the pilot stage. Life on Mars was never a well-written show in either country — but the US version at least looked good. Similarly, Eleventh Hour.
The bottom line is that BBC is the World’s largest broadcaster, has no commercial pressures whatsoever, is relatively unaccountable to anyone, and yet fails to deliver content as high-quality as The Sopranos, The Wire, Mad Men, Boardwalk Empire, etc etc. It CAN afford to produce them, and do so for many seasons without caring about ratings.
And yet, it doesn’t… A very small percentage of its shows sell abroad, and even those are not exactly high-quality. Top Gear? Phoned-in period dramas that are exactly the same as every other one they made? (and are overexposed of course) Most of the rest that sell are remade to higher quality production values.
Seriously, the BBC could start by employing at least one camera op that knows what an iris control does.
In the 60s and 70s the UK based ITC ruled TV everywhere with slick, exciting shows — those days are long, long gone in the UK.
Dave,
As I said to each his own, but you tend to focus on the stuff that is less important and disregard that which is most important: you talk about exposure and poor photography, therefore implying style is more important than substance.
You could theoretically have a tv show look as good as Avatar, but who cares if the stories and scripts are not any good? I completely disagree with your assessment on Life on Mars, certainly in the writing – have you actually even seen it? Have you seen the two different endings? The ABC ending was pretty much reviled and I don’t remember many people at the time saying “Well, it looked really good!”
The Office – again difference of opinion. UK version – 2 short series and a few specials = stays gold because it’s short and sweet. US office – several seasons; when it ends, will people remember it fondly or will they consider it tarnished because it went on for longer than it should? Time will tell.
Would you care to name names of actors and writers who are included and excluded due to nepotism?
And you’re wrong about the BBC about having no commercial pressures and not being accuntable to anyone – it is accountable to someone: the taxpayer. In order to compete and continuously fund tv productions, the Government has to raise the licence fee for everyone to watch tv – paying more taxes in this financial climate is hardly desirable. We don’t have sponsorship and promos to fund tv, like the networks do in the US. We simply could not produce the volume of drama like the US do nor could we even begin to fund the actors’ hefty salaries. To even do a fraction of this, we’d probably need to change the licence fee and it would probably amount to the equivalent of a second monthly mortgage payment. Not going to happen, so we have to make do.
They absolutely need to start doing more episodes, at least of their comedy series. It is horrible that we can’t get UK series in the US because there are not enough episodes to syndicate in our market.
There is no excuse for series such as Beautiful People and The Inbetweeners to only have 12 episodes total.
Can you imagine only getting 6 episodes of The Big Bang Theory a year? It would be horrible.
I understand dramas and mini-series. But the writers for them should be able to create as many number of episodes as is needed to tell great stories.
And THANK GOD we don’t have the historical dramas over here.
And think about the DVD market if we were able to get enough episodes of comedy sere is run on a daily basis.
Their model is inefficient and a complete waste of limited resources (including actors). Maybe it’s one of the reasons the BBC is in so much trouble.
“Can you imagine only getting 6 episodes of The Big Bang Theory a year?”
I WANT TO LIVE IN THAT WORLD.
Nonplusssed is the perfect moniker for one so nonplussed about the realities of television. Have you been in a room when you’re slogging through episode 19 and 20? It’s brutal and it burns out the creative process. 13 episodes is the right balance between the UK’s 6 and the US’ 22. What I wante to know is what happens when you “biff” somone on the nose?
Is that why CSI is enjoying over ten years on the air with 3 series, and Law and Order is still going (as a franchise, if not the flagship show) after 20 and at least SIX iterations?
Hell, Dick Wolf’s been telling the same damned story for 2 decades now. Doesn’t seem to be burning his writers out.
Sure, it’s hard to do 25 episodes of scripts a year, –that’s what they call it WORK! But they get paid, and paid well for it.
And when reading about WGA meetings/negotiations I’ve never heard of writers whining that they’re forced to write too many episodes.
…and that, Comrade, is why CSI and L&O have chewed through so many writers and producers over the years. They’re sausage factories, more comparable to “Casualty” or ‘The Bill” than prestige authored dramas like “Mad Men”.
There are some bits of the American system that could be good for British shows to adopt, like the writers’ room. A blanket the-American-way-is-best attitude isn’t one of them…
There’ll be anger. Maybe blood.
Nemesis, don’t pat UK TV on the back just because the US has remade a handful of your shows. The fact is, we here in the US cannibalize our own TV and film franchises just as much, and probably more than your programs. We’re not cherry picking your shows because they’re special or superior. We’re doing it because it’s convenient and we’re lazy.
Ditto what Nemesis said.
Look, the Brits come up w/ some great programming. The fact is that some U.S. series on cable benefit by a smaller run of episodes to start. A complete story arc can take place w/o running into the cliffhanger finales that we see all the time on U.S. shows.
It’s a shame that the U.S. networks have given up on mini-series.
Bruce F,
You’re absolutely right – I am packing British tv on the back, only because I get tired of comments like nonplussed’s which involve talking our tv down; unfairly so, I might add.
British tv not perfect and we do not always get it right but I think it is the best we can do, considering the circumstances – we simply do not have the money or Hollywood’s infrastructure to produce similar volumes of material. However, what little we do produce is actually pretty good – I’m proud of some the BBC’s output lately with Sherlock, Luther and Being Human. And I think the miniseries format/six-part episodes is actually advantageous – the writing is tighter and there is less opportunity for filler episodes, which is more likely to happen with a 24 episode order.
The crazy thing is that Hollywood knows this already – ask yourself this question – what do The Shield, The Wire, Deadwood and Battlestar Galactica have in common, apart from being cable dramas and being seriously good? They all have 13 episodes per series.
That midway point does seem like a good compromise, especially for dramatic arcs: see Dexter, Sopranos.
one of the reasons i enjoy BBC programming is because they never push their shows to the death. it’s more about quality and never about quantity.
the Brits should do a few more epis for their series. I just get into a season of Torchwood and then, puff,it’s over! In America we are TV whores, it’s in our DNA.
You can’t compare apples and oranges. The Brits are outstanding at giving creators with a unique voice a platform. Some things are perfect at 6 episodes. Some can go for more. It depends on a myriad of things. Kind of like you only have Toblerone at Christmas. I love that Sherlock was only 3 movies, it worked. Doubt it would work as well as a series. But the US also has some amazing visionary storytellers … Kevin Williamson and Greg Berlanti come to mind, amongst others. Whether or not you care for their work, it is indisputable that creatively they shape their series from start to finish.
UK is the testing ground for future US TV shows.
Once a tv show like Skins, Shameless or Inbetweeners becomes a success in the UK, Hollywood copies them for US audience.
It’s less risky business that way.
Whatever the merits of a debate on American vs. British television, both are capable of producing compelling dramas and sophisticated humor. Perhaps the British are a bit ahead of us however. As wonderful as Mad Men is why are we so astounded by it and why isn’t there more of it? Not saying there aren’t other wonderful shows around now and in the past but with a small number of notable exceptions it pretty much took cable (read: HBO) to unlock that box.
I do want to proclaim my love for Paul Abbott who also wrote the created Touching Evil (police unit profiling and solving crimes by serial killers) and its fascinating characters and wrote its brilliant opening episode. Abbott also write the delightful romantic comedy-drama Reckless mini-series and its sequel.
Hey, Simon Mirren, why did you guys do away with such strong female characters? Well written to boot. It’s not like we have an overabundance of them on TV. Really a disppointing and bad move.
22 episodes IS a lot. But 6 episodes is too little for a lot of shows. 13 episodes is a great compromise. It’s not too many so as to lose quality and focus, but it gives series a reasonable amount of episodes to develop stories.