Creative Rights And The Quality Of Television

A Call To Action by The Steering Committee of the Caucus for Producers, Writers & Directors

The Steering Committee believes it is time for the Caucus to assume a role of leadership and active militancy in mobilizing the creative community, the government, consumer groups and advertisers in refocusing the networks' responsibilities with regard to the quality of programming and the creative freedom in the choice and execution of that programming. The Steering Committee believes it is time to correct what has become an institutionalized arrogation of power by the networks' programming departments.

The Caucus firmly believes that the issue of quality television programming is intimately linked with the creative rights and freedoms of the creative community. By creative rights, we mean the rights of the executive producer, producer, director or writer to make all those decisions which are the natural prerogative of creators of the program, without interference from the network. These include all the decisions except those for star casting, final script and final cut, which the networks, as key financiers, should have rights to maintain. We contend that the right to approve everything else, including the writer and the director, naturally belongs with the executive producer and/or producer.

Creative freedoms extend to our ability to fashion the program with a vision and a point of view without being constrained and overridden by the networks' program executives who are, in almost all cases, less experienced, less qualified, and less intimate with the material. Creative freedoms are further constrained by the networks continual narrowing of what subject matters are acceptable for programming, generally limiting their choices to material that has succeeded in the past.

There was a time, not long ago, when the commonly accepted role of a network was that of an exhibitor who purchased exhibition rights from respected and trusted creative producers. Those producers, once the basic concept and casting were completed, were entrusted with the respect and power to make all relevant creative staffing decisions. This didn't mean that the networks didn't consult, didn't have opinions, didn't have story notes or preferences, but it did mean that, in the end, the governing assumption was the producer knew best. If the producer proved wrong, he or she lost the trust of the network. The networks recognized then that the best people to make the creative decisions were the producers they had hired, not the in-house programming executives.

Today, the network executives not only dictate who will write, direct, cast, act, photograph, edit, and compose, but sometimes dictate line changes, scene changes, editing, dubbing and the placement of music. The current presumption, very often, is that the producer is not the best person to make these decisions and that the programming executive is. This thinking is obviously incorrect. It is perhaps supportable only when the network go into business with producers so inexperienced that the relative newcomers in the programming departments may have the edge.

What is disturbing to the Steering Committee of the Caucus is that this younger generation of creators and executives have grown up in this new way of working and have accepted it as the way it should be. The Caucus is therefore committing itself to educating our creative community, as well as the networks and the public, about this misplacement of creative power and about its harmful impact on the quality of television.

The Steering Committee believes that if the public comes to recognize that the creative rights of producers, writers and directors are inextricably linked with the issue of quality television, we will have gained a powerful ally in our battle to influence the networks.

There are, of course, other issues that impede the quality of television, many of them economic. There is the erosion in ratings and the intensely competitive need for short term results in order for executives to maintain their jobs. There is the media fascination with the ratings and with who wins and who loses. There is the networks' insatiable quest for those ratings, which has bred a willingness to buy from anyone who controls the property, regardless of that person's ability to execute. Execution is less important than concept and thus quality suffers. The best idea in bad hands will almost always be a bad movie. A decent idea in excellent hands can become a great movie.

There was a time when television routinely looked for what was different and unique to create an event that drew an audience. This philosophy demanded top creative talent operating in a supportive and open creative environment. Today, the vast majority of film television has been transformed into a philosophy of purchasing the event and then airing it. This leads to a preoccupation with current headlines, instant movies and the mindless exploitation of personal tragedies. Further, it results in the nearly single-minded pursuit of name casting, whether or not the actor is the best available or even right for the part. This new thinking makes it highly improbable for executives to take risks with truly creative ideas. "Whatever worked last week, is what we want next." This limits the producer's freedom to explore subject matters and damns the American public to more of what was, rather than what could be. Lost is the sense of exploration (some would call it showmanship) and the trying of new materials and forms. Rather, we now consider vulgarity and salaciousness as breaking the mold and moving the medium forward.

Quality suffers, too, because the networks buy and operate in ways that force producers to waste large sums of money on nonproductive talent, commissions, and fees. These wasted moneys have an impact on the final program by stealing from what could have been. Also, the proliferation of viewing options has caused the networks to resort to cheaper programming. But cheaper programming does not necessarily have to result in cheap, shoddy, or vacuous programming.

There is another culprit in the loss of quality television; it is the American public. It is apparently too fascinated with exploitation, too undemanding or fearful of new ideas, and too interested in simple escapism to support those few programs of substance that the networks have been brave enough to broadcast. In this world of perilous economics, the public's seeming lack of support for quality has contributed mightily to the programs that are on the air. But, still, the Caucus believes that it is the networks' and the creative community's responsibility to develop as well as feed the appetite of the public.

We look to a future where the program services, the studios and the talent work in an environment that demands creative exploration and quality in execution and content and rejects exploitation, mindlessness and salaciousness. It's an environment that puts added responsibility on those of us in the creative community. It's a responsibility we must all assume; we must educate the younger talent in our community to take on these responsibilities as a given of their jobs.

The first step is to create a comprehensive action plan that integrates all of our objectives. It should operate on a reasonable time line with specific results at particular junctures. It must be an action plan capable of enlisting enough economic and public support to be viable and effective. If it is what we want to be, it will have public support. It will find financial support. And it will have an effect on the quality of television and the quality of our lives. Without such an effective and comprehensive action plan, we will be relegated to half-effective, short term efforts that bring limited or no results. That has been our history. It should not be our future.