unwelcome neighborhood fear factor
June 30, 2005
ABC pulls edgy reality show after groups complain - Yahoo! News
ABC has pulled an upcoming reality series in which people with various backgrounds vie to win a house in a white neighborhood, after gay and conservative watchdog groups raised concerns, the Hollywood trade papers said Thursday. The six-episode "Welcome to the Neighborhood" had been scheduled to debut on July 10. Seven families, including a gay couple with an adopted son, people of Asian, black and Hispanic descent and pagans, had to convince conservative residents that they were worthy of moving into the house near Austin, Texas.
"Our intention with 'Welcome to the Neighborhood' was to show the transformative process that takes place when people are forced to confront preconceived notions of what makes a good neighbor, and we believe the series delivers exactly that," Walt Disney Co. -owned ABC said in a statement carried by Daily Variety and the Hollywood Reporter. "However, the fact that true change only happens over time made the episodic nature of this series challenging, and given the sensitivity of the subject matter in early episodes, we have decided not to air the series at this time."
Daily Variety said ABC could eventually air a condensed version so that the feel-good ending comes sooner.
Groups ranging from the
Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) and the National Fair Housing Alliance to the conservative Family Research Council had raised concerns about the show, the papers said.
GLAAD was concerned that the gay couple might get grilled by the neighbors, while the Family Research Council was worried that the conservative neighbors might be ridiculed for their Christian beliefs.
The National Fair Housing Alliance argued the show contravened various housing laws prohibiting discrimination, though Daily Variety said it passed muster with ABC's lawyers. A network official was unavailable for comment.[...]
Mediaweek's Programming Insider puts the entire thing more tersely:
-ABC Nixes Welcome to the Neighborhood:
In an unexpected decision, ABC has decided not to air six-episode reality/competition series Welcome to the Neighborhood, which was scheduled to debut on Sunday, July 10 at 9 p.m. ET. The move was made after complaints were issued from advocacy groups like the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation and the Family Research Council over the content of the series. ABC was concerned that the three families selected to choose their new neighbor might have appeared to be intolerant of outsiders.
Well, DUH. Wasn't that the entire point? They would appear to be intolerant, they would meet all these people, get to know them, sing kumbayyah, and then tearfully tell all but one couple, "We're sorry, but you're not on the list. We wish you were, but there's only one house." But everyone would have gotten to know other people better and maybe learned not to judge purely based on appearances or facts that don't take everything into account. Warm fuzziness ensues. The end.
That aside, the coalition of groups opposed to the show was truly remarkable. Far left, far right, and the government. What a remarkable unity of purpose. (I will allow that the government's objection is entirely reasonable on its face and can be taken at face value. I do wonder about both the GLAAD and FRC objections, though. I freely admit that I have no reason for this, aside from the fact that the groups are what they are. I just wonder, however, if they weren't concerned that showing the people in this light might ... humanize them. That the conservative Christians wouldn't appear necessarily bigoted, just uninformed. That the gays wouldn't be demons flaunting their perversion, but just normal people who wanted to raise their kid in a safe and quiet neighborhood. Both sides have a lot of investment in saying, "Look, we're just normal people, those guys are the badduns." But again, that's just me.)
I wonder what ABC will do the next time they broadcast a show that manages to potentially offend such a broad spectrum of people. Note that it was only a potential offense; the show hadn't actually aired yet. Given that it was bothering so many people, the first episode at least would have been a summer ratings bonanza as everyone else tuned in to see what the fuss was all about. That consideration aside, is it good business for them to show that they can be pressured this way? Broadcast networks are peculiarly vulnerable in this way, yes, but to what extent do they want pressure groups dictating their network programming? It's one thing if a show fails either because it lacks the network's support or because the public says, "Eh. Not our taste," and just doesn't watch it. It's another thing entirely for a show to fail -- or, more properly speaking, fail to air -- because the network says, "... We're scared. We're very very afraid of the creepy Christian people and the perverted gay people and the gross government people."
Where, if anywhere, does a network draw its line to say, "We won't be intimidated by people who haven't even seen the show yet. If the public doesn't like it, fine, but you people have no right to expect us to do something just because you say so."
Or maybe we do. Broadcast nets are publicly licensed, after all. Maybe a public license and government oversight means that we do have a right to say, "We hate that. You shouldn't air it," and have the networks take us seriously.
But somehow ... that doesn't sound right, does it?
Posted by iain at 11:44 AM
and there she is! ... on CMT?
June 28, 2005
The Miss America Pageant has landed.
CMT and the Miss America Organization have reached an agreement to telecast the Miss America Pageant on CMT in January 2006, it was announced Monday (June 27) by Brian Graden, president, entertainment, MTV Music Group and president, Logo; Art McMaster, president and CEO of the Miss America Organization; and Brian Philips, executive vice president and general manager, CMT. CMT will retain telecast rights through 2007, with options through 2011.
CMT plans a multi-million dollar promotional push behind the Miss America Pageant, with resources within CMT and across MTV Networks. VH1 will air Miss America-related programming leading up to the premiere of the pageant on CMT in January.
I'm guessing that the "Miss America-related programming" that's going to be on VH1 will be the reality-television aspect that they were talking about earlier. Given what VH1 has televised so far during the Summer of Cheese -- Kept, featuring several young men who wish to be Jerry Hall's kept boytoy; Strip Search featuring several scantily clad young men who wish to be Chippendale-type dancers, with Surreal Life 5 and other fun stuff forthcoming -- I suspect that if this is true, VH1 is going to push very far in a direction that Miss America will find itself somewhat uncomfortable with.
That said, it makes sense to try to leverage VH1 and the other MTV networks to increase the pageant's visibility on what is a much less viewed network. While it was originally created to appeal to slightly older viewers, VH1 has long since abandoned that to head for more or less the same viewer group as sister net MTV. (And, like on MTV, VH1 actually showing videos would now seem ... quaintly antique, really.) Programming on MTV and VH1 may be able to pull some of those viewers in to watching the actual pageant -- assuming, of course, that their cable system actually carries CMT. Carriage is going to be a real issue for anyone not purchasing digital cable; many nondigital systems simply don't carry CMT.
CMT and Miss America are a more logical match than WE and Miss America would ever have been. CHT has a much larger male audience than WE, and an audience that is viewed as more conservative and traditional, and Miss America is nothing if not conservative and traditional. And hey! babes in bathing suits!
It'll be interesting to see how this all works out for them.
Posted by iain at 11:45 AM
there she ... ain't
June 20, 2005
Article reprinted in its entirety due to brevity.
Miss America doesn't have a date, and the uncertainty has her world in a tizzy.
With three months to go before its traditional start, the beauty pageant is still without a TV contract and has yet to establish a date for the crowning, which traditionally is held in early September. Dropped by ABC last fall because of record-low viewership, the Miss America pageant has been searching for a new television outlet to carry the 84-year-old pageant. Art McMaster, CEO of the Miss America Organization, has declined repeated requests for an interview about the pageant's hunt for a new TV outlet. Spokeswoman Jenni Glenn said Friday the pageant is in "final negotiations with interested networks" and will have an announcement within two weeks.
Pageant officials have said they are considering a shift away from the tired formula of the telecast -- which drew only 9.8 million viewers last year -- in favor of something more in line with reality TV shows. Instead of a once-a-year special that struggles to interest viewers, McMaster has pitched the idea of Miss America as a show aired over several nights, with viewers getting to know the contestants as they do on "American Idol" and other reality shows. "I don't think there's an audience for squeaky clean," said Shari Anne Brill, director of programming for ad-buying firm Carat. "It has to be modernized in the way we've all been fed such reality. You need to see the tears, the drama, the makeup, the mascara, the crisis of finding out you have a zit."
You know, I think that may be wrongheaded. If nothing else, "Dancing with the stars" (which, as it turns out, draws higher ratings as a summer series than the last edition of the Miss America pageant did as a leadoff for the fall season) indicates that there is still a place for "squeaky clean" of a certain type. "American Idol" also indicates that there's a place for "squeaky clean" of a certain type -- although AI is only squeaky clean as long as you don't look at the various rap sheets and awkward aspects of some of its contestants' personal lives. It may be, however, that the "squeaky clean" we still have a place for isn't the Miss America Pageant.
It may be that the "squeaky clean" we still have a place for has to be a bit ... cheesy. Almost, but not quite, self-consciously over the top, a bit self-mocking, something that doesn't take itself too terribly seriously (regardless of whether or not the contestants do). Miss America has, for years, taken itself deadly seriously. It's had to, in order to defend its place as a scholarship contest with a vaguely (but not sufficiently) cheesy beauty pageant attached. And it may be that beauty pageants have simply had their day on broadcast television; the Miss Universe Pageant, which never once had the slightest qualm about being all about the cheese(cake, that is), suffered a steep ratings slide this year. If beautiful women in bikinis and evening gowns isn't going to draw the "discriminating male viewer", when the pageant's sole purpose is to present those women to be ogled (and for said women to win fabulous cash and prizes as compensation for the ogling, of course), then what hope is there for the televised pageant?
That said, if Miss America really plans to try to present themselves as some sort of reality TV series, they're going to have to bring back the talent competition. In all seriousness, and with some apologies to the contestants, the talent competition was one of the things that kept people watching. Yes, in a 2-3 hour telecast, it was very hard to accommodate, and much of the talent was repetitive. Since the performance order was random, it was entirely possible to have Miss Kansas doing an opera aria, followed by Miss Kentucky doing an opera aria, followed by Miss California doing something from a musical that still sounded like it wanted to be an opera aria when it grew up, and at that point the audience is changing channels to keep their ears from bleeding from all the high notes. Nonetheless, the talent competition was the one place in the pageant where you could have some good, oldfashioned, authentic, wholesome cheese, of the "I can't believe she's doing that on stage!" variety. After all, where else were you going to see at least one baton twirler per year on television in this day and age? Possibly a flaming baton, if we were very luck (although fire codes and the possibility of spectator lawsuits made the Miss America Foundation and the network rather tetchy about flaming anything on stage).
Even so, talent section or no, it's doubtful that the pageant could survive quite so thorough a rearrangement of its "squeaky clean" image as a reality-show series would provide. Part of the reason that people liked it at all was the image of all-American, wholesome young women that it presented; people may not want to see Miss America in her natural state, pageant cattiness, zits and all. That type of presentation would likely just kill the pageant dead in its tracks ... and if it didn't, after one or two seasons, the scholarship foundation might well wish it had. Imagine the difficulty they might have if you actually got to see Miss Congeniality being ... well, much more congenial than the eventual winner. It's one thing to have one of the losing women voted Miss Congeniality by the other participants; it's another thing to have the audience see exactly how and why she got that honor ... and still lost.
Reportedly, the pageant is looking to American Movie Channel's subsidiary Women's Entertainment -- WE -- cable channel for carriage. Cable may be the proper place for something as oddly anachronistic as the Miss America Pageant -- something that's pretty much guaranteed to have a relatively small, aging, but dedicated core audience. The question is, would the pageant as it is currently constructed actually have all that much appeal for WE's audience? Was the Miss America Pageant's audience ever primarily to or for women? (The scholarship competition, yes, by design, but the pageant itself?) Can WE somehow do advertising that will convince a few men to give it a watch? And, most importantly, can the WE channel pay a price for the pageant that will allow Miss America to continue to fund local, state, and national scholarships at their current levels or higher, as educational costs incrase?
It will be interesting to see what the scholarship competition does if, as seems likely, they don't find a sponsor for this year. Strange as it may seem to some, most of the Miss America contestants are deadly serious about their career advancement and their further education. Miss America has funded a rather astonishing number of scholarships for lawyers and doctors and other graduate and undergraduate education opportunities. It would be sad if that opportunity was lost. But then, perhaps it's inevitable; there is no logical connection between the swimsuit competition or the eveningwear competion and an academic scholarship, is there? (I hear some of you saying that there's also no logical connection between football or basketball and academic scholarships. Hush up; it's not nice to point out that the emperor's got no pants on. Then again, all the logical connection that's needed is that [1] networks are willing to pay to carry those sports and, [2] people are still watching them in relatively large numbers. Unfortunately, that's no longer true for Miss America. That said, you could argue that there is a logical and traditional connection between the interviews and/or the talent competition and the scholarships; there are many of those sorts of scholarship competitions around. But those sections alone wouldn't necessarily make for compelling television, would they? Or not as easily compelling as babes in bikinis. But I digress.) The best you could say is that the competition teaches women that they're going to be judged on their beauty, no matter how interesting their personality or how strong their intellect. People continually think of Miss America as nothing but a beauty pageant, so perhaps it might, eventually, be best for the pageant to be decoupled from the scholarships, if the scholarships can find some other way to survive.
Posted by iain at 03:41 PM