Perception vs Reality...cable shows on network TV

I read an interesting blog post this week about perception vs. reality.  Go ahead, read it!  It tells the story of a store owner being asked what their best selling item is and the store owner guessing incorrectly based on a couple recent sales.  In reality, their bestseller was a totally different item and if they’d filled their stock room with the wrong item, they would have paid the price…literally…they would have over bought the wrong item.

This reminded me of a conversation I was having the other day with some fellow baby and aspiring writers about networks wanting cable shows/buying up scripts for cable-like pilots.  While I know many people are excited about this trend, I think it is fueling its own perception vs. reality problem.  The perception is that cable shows are extremely popular.  I mean…aren’t they?  All your friends do is talk about Mad Men and have Mad Men parties and change their Facebook profile pics to their Mad Men-ify yourself equivalents.  And Mad Men wins all the awards every year.  So, Mad Men is super hot…right?

Wait...what was that question, again?

Reality check.

These are the ratings for the 2010-2011 season.

So…write the next American Idol and you’re all set!  Kidding.  The point is that among scripted shows, the most popular in terms of total viewers were show like NCIS, NCIS: LA, The Mentalist, Criminal Minds, and CSI.  In other words, crime procedurals. And what about cable shows? Well, take a look at what was on top this past week.

This link changes every week but on top are gonna be reality shows like Jersey Shore and Pawn Stars, sports if it's sports season, and...more procedurals like The Closer, Rizzoli & Isles, Burn Notice and reruns of NCIS.  Also, the scripted shows aren’t nearly as watched as the network procedurals (they tend to top out around 6 million viewers).

And…once again, back to the ubiquitous Mad Men.  Their most watched episode of the past season had 2.47 million viewers, and their highest rating ever was their season 3 premier back in 2009 which was 2.76 million viewers (numbers courtesy of the sometimes inaccurate Wikipedia).  Does this mean Mad Men isn’t popular?  No way.  It's certainly popular enough for AMC, though it's not their most watched show (that would be The Walking Dead).  And hey, don’t underestimate the power of network advertising.  Not everyone has basic cable, and maybe if Mad Men was on Fox, way more people would watch.  Also, plenty of shows succeed with limited appeal.  Heck, the CW dedicates itself to shows that only cater to a very specific demographic, like Gossip Girl, and that show often has fewer viewers than Mad Men...but I digress…

My point is, I guess I think there is currently a false perception that cable/cable-like shows are really popular/hot (not just critically) and that false perception might manifest itself next season.  A few networks seem to be going for shows that are more cable...and even a couple Mad Men-like period shows (Pan Am and The Playboy Club).  But, remember Lone Star last season?  I believe I read an article where Kyle Killen said Fox wanted a “cable show” for network and that’s where Lone Star came in…and well…Lone Star was critically acclaimed but only brought in around 3-4 million viewers in their first 2 episodes.  Those would be record breaking numbers for Mad Men, but clearly, no good for Fox.

Anyway, I’m not saying it’s dumb to write cable-y shows (I’m writing one myself) or that I don't want to see more shows like Mad Men and maybe a few less procedurals…just that maybe there’s gonna be a backlash if a lot of these cable-y shows for networks don’t draw big enough audiences to stick around next season.