THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER 12 FEBRUA RY 26, 2020
Illustration by Bruno MangyokuT
he twilight of basic cable’s scripted
era has arrived. Steep linear ratings
declines and parent companies more
concerned with their burgeoning streaming
businesses are prompting a new commitment
to less expensive nonfiction programming
— and even the networks known for original
dramas, like TNT and USA, are scaling back.
“Cable is now the comfort food of media,”
says ITV America CEO David George, a top
supplier of unscripted content. “The bigger
swings, the scripted swings, are happening at
the streamers.”
Speaking to investors Jan. 29, WarnerMedia
CEO John Stankey announced that his com-
pany’s own big swings would be reserved for
upcoming streamer HBO Max. His suite of
legacy Turner networks (TNT, TBS, Tru), in
turn, is set to become a more aggressive buyer
in the unscripted space. “You can get the
same rating at a fraction of the price,” adds
George. “You can take 30 swings, as opposed
to one or two.”
This reallocation of programming budgets
makes sense, considering the need to over-
stuff subscription services hitting an already
crowded marketplace, as well as cable’s recent
low batting average in the scripted arena. USA,
which has seen its scripted efforts more than
halved since its “Blue Sky” heyday, launched
pricey anthology Briarpatch out of The Sinner
on Feb. 6. A steep audience decline in the
second episode prompted the network to shift
the series to the unorthodox 11 p.m. Monday
time slot in hopes of luring more viewers froma WWE lead-in. Even middling triumphs are
becoming hard to find.
Apart from a few outliers — The Walking
Dead’s lingering, if diminished, thrall on
AMC, Paramount breakout Yell o wston e and
History dramas such as Project
Blue Book and Vikings — scripted
is grossly underperforming on
basic cable. In 2019, scripted
series represented 24 percent
of the 25 highest-rated original
series on cable. That’s down from
50 percent just five years ago.
Thank streamers for sucking up
the oxygen in that room.
“Streaming has really excelled
in terms of getting people to watch scripted
shows, but cable still has the edge in the
unscripted world,” says NBCUniversal presi-
dent of lifestyle networks Frances Berwick,
who’s solely focused on unscripted after brief
dalliances in scripted on E! and Bravo. “The‘The Same Rating at
a Fraction of the Price’
As studios hold scripted series for streaming platforms, unscripted
shows increasingly provide a rare return on investment for basic cable
BY MICHAEL O’CONNELLparadox of choice is that sometimes you just
want a lean-back experience without the end-
less scroll.”
Bravo has enjoyed atypical stability in the
cable space, with ratings holding largely
steady from 2018 to 2019 thanks to franchises
such as The Real Housewives. Scripted-focused
networks were not nearly as fortunate. FX
and AMC sunk double digits in 2019, the latter
hemorrhaging 30 percent of its primetime
showing among adults 18-49. A few program-
mers have seen the tide turn and have shifted
strategies. A+E Networks Group president Paul
Buccieri announced a course-correct at A&E
in 2017, abandoning its pursuit of scripted
and doubling down on high-minded nonfic-
tion like Leah Remini’s Scientology and the
Aftermath and Live PD. For those networks
hoping to do the same, Buccieri cautions that
they cannot do it with just a handful of series.
“Changing a brand isn’t easy,” says Buccieri.
“When you change a brand, you need con-
sistency for the viewers and a real volume of
similar, like-minded content.”
In success, unscripted provides a rare
return on investment and unparalleled scale.
A&E’s Live PD reinvigorated the network’s
weekends and prompted an early renewal for
a whopping 450 hours. On TLC, Discovery’s
most resurgent network, the sprawling 90 Day
Fiancé franchise occupies three slots in cable’s
list of top 10 series. Those two series, more
than others, come up in pitch meetings.
And unscripted producers, vocally dis-
pleased with budgetary constraints at
Discovery Networks and stalled develop-
ment at Viacom’s cable portfolio in recent
years, are (for once) in a position to be choosy
about where they’re taking their next big
ideas. Several producers who spoke with
THR stressed that the cable networks mov-
ing into unscripted won’t have much luck
if they aren’t as easy to work with as, say,
Netflix — on a buying spree and anxious to
narrow the gap between its unscripted and
scripted output.
“As more and more players get on the
field, producers really have choices now,”
says Michelle Van Kempen, who serves as
the interim general manager of nonfiction
producers guild NPACT. “They’re drawn to the
places that are collaborative.”
Despite the ephemeral nature of most cable
trends, this move from scripted to unscripted
seems to be part of a broader identity crisis.
Producers and executives alike are question-
ing how much longer some of these cable
brands will even be able to stand on their
own — and not just serve as pipelines to the
broader conglomerate efforts like HBO Max,
Peacock and Disney+.
“Most cable networks are preparing them-
selves to be a little box on a screen,” says
George. “That little box has to have brand
value to the consumer.”BerwickGeorgeSource: Nielsen live+7 day averagesUnscripted Holds Steady
Primetime averages for scripted-heavy
networks plummeted dramatically
from 2018 to 2019 in the 18-49 demoBasic Cable’s Top 5 SCRIPTED NETWORKSBasic Cable’s Top 5 NONFICTION NETWORKS↑12%
TLC↓16%
TNT↓4%
Bravo↓18%
TBS↓1%
A&E↓16%
USA↓13%
MTV↓25%
FXESPN
↓5%Adult Swim
↓23%