Made-for-TV makeover

Networks abandon made-for-TV films and miniseries as cable channels reinvent them.

By ERIC DEGGANS

© St. Petersburg Times, published May 27, 2001

Now that the networks have settled on their new fall schedules, it's time to ponder a significant aftershock:

The death of the original network TV movie-of-the-week.

Such productions have a rich TV history, including the straight-up sentimentality of 1971's Brian's Song (James Caan and Billy Dee Williams as Brian Piccolo and Gale Sayers, football players and best friends whose bond is tested as Piccolo succumbs to cancer).

More recently, talk show titan Oprah Winfrey briefly revived the genre on ABC with her Oprah Winfrey Presents efforts -- including the straight-up sentimentality of 1999's Tuesdays With Morrie (hotshot sportscaster visits his college mentor, who is dying of Lou Gehrig's disease).

Once upon a time, network TV movies of the week provided some of the medium's most classic moments (I still shudder while remembering Duel, the Steven Spielberg-directed Dennis Weaver flick about an murderous, unseen trucker who tries to kill a motorist with his rig).

But in arranging their fall schedules, NBC dropped its last made-for-TV movie night on Sundays, ABC dropped a movie night on Mondays, and CBS, which last season featured Sunday and Wednesday movie nights, axed their Wednesday edition for a "reality TV" show and an hourlong drama.

"TV movies are a vestige of the past," said NBC Entertainment president Jeff Zucker, in a conference call with reporters last week. "Viewers just aren't there for these types of programs. Right now, we had to step up and say, "This genre is over.' "

It seems others in network TV-land agree. According to a study conducted by the Lifetime cable channel, the five biggest TV networks (ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox and the WB) in 1996 made 264 movies that averaged a 7.5 rating.

By last year, they had made just 146 movies -- a 44 percent decline -- which averaged a 5.4 rating. In contrast, cable channels doubled their annual number of made-for-TV movies from 1990 to 2000, with four times the number of cable outlets airing original movies last year compared to a decade before, according to the study.

Even non-fiction-based channels such as Animal Planet and Court TV are getting into the act, picking up any made-for-TV movie slack that the networks' retreat may provide.

"Networks . . . they tend to run in a pack, and they're on the (reality TV) kick right now," said Tim Brooks, vice president of research at Lifetime, which airs one made-for-TV movie each month. "I don't think it's that (viewers) are tired of the network's movies. It's that there's so much competition for their attention."

Indeed, cable networks have found made-for-TV movies a valuable tool for showing viewers exactly where their focus lies.

VH1 and A&E can run a thousand commercials touting their wares. But a single Meat Loaf biopic or Nero Wolfe movie speaks volumes.

Which helps explain how the woman-centered Lifetime channel has found success in a style of movies that slowly died on network TV.

The formula that has driven viewers away from CBS' older-female-focused Sunday and Wednesday night movies -- predictable plots, women-in-jeopardy formats, tear-jerking melodrama, past-their-prime actors as stars -- has become Lifetime's calling card.

Last month, the Sissy Spacek movie Midwives drew nearly 4-million households; the month before, Brooke Shields' What Makes a Family brought more than 3-million. On a network scale, such numbers are chicken feed, but in the lower-profile world of cable TV, they're a fountain of plenty.

And because cable channels often run a movie several times in the same week -- TNT airs its movies three times on the same day during a premiere -- the cost of production is spread over a larger number of telecasts, and cable outlets can make fewer movies in a year.

"For cable, these kind of movies raise the profile of the channel and its perceived value to the viewer," Lifetime's Brooks added. "(Sometimes) it almost doesn't matter if they make money."

I'm tempted to blame the demise of the made-for-TV movie on something simpler than cable competition and economics.

Most made-for-TV movies these days stink.

I'll be honest; for TV critics, made-for-television movies and miniseries are a true test of character. Anywhere from 2 to 20 hours long, they demand a level of attention that's tough in today's MTV-fast world, even when you're getting paid to watch them.

And what a load of stuff you have to watch. Just a sampling of the pabulum offered viewers lately says it all: Mary Tyler Moore chewing scenery as aging sociopath Sante Kimes on CBS's Like Mother, Like Son: The Strange Story of Sante and Kenny Kimes; Sex and the City's Chris Noth stuck in a ludicrous moustache and even sillier production of Steve Martini's The Judge on NBC; The Practice's Camryn Manheim channeling Cyrano through a comedy club in ABC's Kiss My Act.

Compare that to HBO's programming in a similar period -- Kenneth Branagh's and Stanley Tucci's mesmerizing performances as evil Nazi officers developing the "final solution" in Conspiracy and Billy Crystal's loving, detailed look at Roger Maris' struggle to break Babe Ruth's home run record in 61*.

Yes, HBO has more money and time to develop projects. But even the low-budget Boycott, which offered an electric and innovative retelling of the Montgomery, Ala., bus boycott, found creative success by breaking rules. Actors occasionally talked to the camera, documentary-style, and lead character Martin Luther King Jr. was shown speaking with contemporary black youths.

"The CBS Sunday Night Movie, which was a stalwart on the CBS schedule, crashed this year like a 747 running into the ground," said Stanley Brooks, executive producer of NBC's Submerged, one of the few quality TV movies to air on a network so far this year.

"The movies that have shown any legs are the ones that break the form," added Brooks, a producer of TV movies since the mid-'80s. "It's not a coincidence that something as different, unique and well-crafted as ABC's Judy Garland miniseries was one of the (ratings) bright spots. We need to reinvent the form."

Brooks suggests networks hand smaller budgets to hungry, innovative young minds to create cheap yet creative Boycott-style movies, saving larger budgets for specialized event movies aired during ratings periods.

The networks could also take a page from cable and run their movies more than once in a month. If ABC can air that Bruce Willis big-screen stinko Armageddon twice in a week, surely offering audiences a few chances to see Anne Frank wouldn't be too difficult.

"When TV movies started in the '70s, (networks) lost money," he added. "That's when Brian's Song and Duel got made. It's time to turn back the clock and give the next Spielberg a chance."

Hear, hear. Because if these movies and miniseries don't start surprising us more often, no one will care when the networks stop making them once and for all.

To reach Eric Deggans call (727) 893-8521, e-mail deggans@sptimes.com.

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