That's why the network is rebooting "Night Court," which was not a "Seinfeld" level show (although little is), even though it was on the legendary Thursday night schedule as part of "Must See TV."
I might have seen a half hour of "Night Court" tops, when you add in all the time I was flipping and came across it. Then again, even in the eighties I was time-shifting and not watching commercials. I taped everything. I had this amazing NEC VCR that you programmed right on the remote, there was a little window with the prompts and results, it was easy and amazing.
Actually, I can't tell you what's on network television these days. I can't even remember the last time I watched it. As for football... I'll probably watch the Super Bowl, but I distanced myself from the game three or four years ago, maybe longer, because I just don't want to feed this CTE-inducing gladiatorial sport.
So why am I aware of the "Night Court" reboot?
Because the paper had a story on John Larroquette, because he played the doofus heavy in "Stripes," my favorite stupid movie.
I read a couple of lines, and Larroquette admitted he did it for the money. I mean why not? Everybody can use more money.
But does anybody need to see this show? Certainly not me, even if it got good reviews, which it didn't. I've been taught over the past two decades that nothing worth watching is on network. It's just not edgy enough. Did you read that story in last week's "New Yorker" about the programmer at Netflix?
"How Much Netflix Can The World Absorb? Bela Bajaria, who oversees the streaming giant's hyper-aggressive approach to TV-making, says success is about "recognizing that people like having more.": bit.ly/3Hd70Fx
It scared me, because they fired the woman who brought the high rent shows to the streaming giant and put the choices in the hands of this woman who... It's kind of a golden gut thing, it's hard to quantify what will work, but by time I finished this article I was not a believer. I want more highbrow stuff, otherwise Netflix is going to be the new Elon Musk and Tesla. You need people to believe. Which is another problem with their essentially dead on arrival advertiser-supported tier. Apple, the world's most valuable company, makes their products for the elite and charges accordingly. And you may hate them, but those who buy them adore them and will defend Apple to the nth degree, even though it's inanimate.
Sure, there might be a good show on network, but if it's that good I can ultimately watch it on a streaming outlet sans commercials. I don't watch commercials, period, life is too short. All the time people say "You know, like in that commercial." But I don't know. It's evidence how mass has decreased in the internet era yet so many see the new world through the old lens.
The most valuable real estate in entertainment is the Netflix homepage. You see it when you log in. You can't avoid what is proffered, even if it's different for different people. The homepage show makes an impression. There's no impression like this on NBC. If you don't go to the channel, you're usually unaware. And ever notice how HBO affixes trailers for new shows to their hits? That's how hard it is to reach people. As for people seeing movie trailers in the theatre, like network television you must partake, and if you don't...it's like it doesn't exist.
We don't have an equivalent homepage in music. Spotify is made for the phone. I've got the largest iPhone available and I never ever see the promoted track/album/artist.
Radio used to be the music business's homepage. Especially in the heyday of Top Forty radio. Many fewer than forty records were spun, and if you tuned in you were aware of them. An act could go from zero to hero nearly instantly if it had a contagious track.
But we haven't had that spirit here...for at least a decade. I don't care how great your track is, crossing audiences, never mind reaching your main audience, is nearly impossible.
As for reboots... None of the dinosaurs has released a new album anywhere near as good as their old, classic material. To the point where when you hear an act has a new album you laugh and don't even bother to listen to it, in the same way I, and many others, don't watch network television. So the reboot formula is not working.
So how do you get a project started in music?
Well, you can be featured on a hit act's track. Rappers pioneered this, rockers have still not caught on. Rockers are doing covers albums, a formula that is now dead on arrival. Hear anybody talk about the Springsteen record recently? Of course not. It was superfluous, unnecessary. None of the tracks were in the league of the originals, never mind that the arrangements were faithful. It seemed like an exercise at best.
So what can you do?
Well, you can put on an amazing live show and hope that the word spreads. The 15-20,000 in the arena are a captive audience. They watch and experience it all. If you can wow them, they'll tell others. And you can increase your business. Or you can play a favorite album live. But there are only so many of them.
So we can't reboot music.
And acts' new material can't get noticed.
That's the problem.
We have no equivalent to the Netflix homepage, never mind much more product. TV is much more expensive to make, we're talking about hundreds of shows, not hundreds of thousands of tracks uploaded to streaming services every week.
Also, we haven't had an act that we could all get behind in years. Adele was the last one. The twenty first century is mostly arid. You can't have guilty pleasures because there's just not enough that's pleasurable.
But the ship keeps rolling along, no one is trying to fix the underlying problem of the marketing of new music. Everybody has thrown up their hands, it's too damn difficult. They want someone else to do it.
The music business could have one priority a week. That all streaming services got behind. Well, that might raise an antitrust issue, but couldn't Spotify have an artist of the month, just like the burgeoning book clubs, and promote it to everybody?
A brand new act, or one without serious traction. That people could listen to and talk about. One with credibility. This is how the entire streaming paradigm began. Netflix paid more than any traditional outlet for "House of Cards" and when it was aired... You've got to say one thing about highbrows, they talk, they spread the word. You've got to reach the right influencers. And if people believe in a record, like they believe in their iPhone, they'll talk about it all the time.
But if NBC is so hard up that it has to reboot a mediocre decades-old show... Then how hard is it for your new work to be recognized and heard?
Very hard.
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