It’s Not Much of a Day for the Independents

The glow from barbecues and sparklers doubles as a signal to TV’s production community that the frantic rush toward the new fall season is about to begin. Yet the Fourth of July is also time for a less festive event--namely, my annual rant regarding the fading light emitted by television’s independents.

For while the U.S. celebrates its independence, TV’s independents--from stand-alone producers to local stations--continue to disappear, swallowed up by the entertainment industry’s appetite for consolidation.

Several producers spent the early 1990s vainly sounding alarms about this scenario, but the government has nevertheless spent the last decade stripping away rules that prevented the big from getting bigger, turning the producer-network game--never an entirely fair fight to begin with--into the equivalent of Florida State versus Sister Cecilia’s School for Wayward Girls.

As a result, truly entrepreneurial program suppliers have mostly been transformed into employees, as broadcasters increasingly own and control the programs they air. Nothing demonstrates this better than the fact that 27 of 35 new prime-time series scheduled to debut this fall being produced by an entity with corporate ties to the host network.

TV stations, meanwhile, are no longer “very independent,� as Southern California’s KCOP used to boast in its marketing slogan. Instead, the prevailing trend is to run two stations with a single management team, a cash-saving structure that has swept the country, including the pairings of KCBS-KCAL and KTTV-KCOP.

As nebulous and subjective as creative decision-making and news judgment are, this erosion of independence does have consequences. Put simply, it’s the difference between mom-and-pop stores and the local supermarket, between debating what’s best for a program with a potential client and your boss. Granted, people still give their opinions, but unlike producers of yore who could fight for their creative vision, right or wrong, the way a lioness protects its cub, in this jungle you ultimately do the company’s bidding.

Despite this dynamic, the handful of conglomerates dominating media has cleverly helped foster the perception that only cranks, has-beens and conspiracy theorists care about any of this--abetted by the understandable reluctance of most show-business folk who still need regular paychecks to publicly bite the hand that feeds them.

It doesn’t hurt, either, that the public has never embraced these issues, exhibiting little interest in who owns what so long as the channels and choices keep coming--even though the aforementioned cartel owns most of them, too. An executive once told me that writing about such matters was itself quixotic, apparently failing to recognize that anyone who watches this much TV learns to draw sustenance from hopeless causes.

That said, the Writers Guild of America, Caucus for Television Producers, Writers & Directors and several prominent former TV executives have all expressed concern about whether today’s media environment stifles diversity of voices and opinions. And while these folks may be pining for an era that no longer exists, efforts to dismiss them obscure the more pertinent debate as to whether the current system is inequitable.

Some legislators have also started asking that question, with a trio of U.S. senators recently urging the Federal Communications Commission to assess the degree to which bulked-up media companies “discriminate against independent programming� and favor their own. Another senator proposed a like-minded bill last week designed to curb excesses in radio.

Barring a staggering shift in federal policy, however, such pleadings appear unlikely to disrupt the march toward less regulation by the FCC, which has announced plans to jointly review its TV, cable and newspaper guidelines and introduce a new scheme next summer.

While some media operators griped about that leisurely timetable (among them Tribune Co., owner of this newspaper and KTLA, which is waiting for the commission to formally lift a cross-ownership ban on newspapers and TV stations in the same city), most assume all that really does is delay an inevitable further loosening of the regulatory leash.

What that augurs is hardly in doubt, because media giants haven’t hidden their desire to grow bigger. Radio companies, for example, say they must acquire more outlets to keep pace with massive Clear Channel Communications, which owns more than 1,200 U.S. stations and franchises formats across cities as if they were hamburgers. As Lewis Dickey--chairman of Cumulus Media, which owns a mere 250 radio stations--told the New York Times recently, “The one thing we’ve learned from Clear Channel is the advantages of size and scale.�

In that respect, some growth becomes defensive, a celluloid twist on the Cold War. AOL Time Warner and Viacom must add to their holdings, they suggest, to ensure that the Walt Disney Co. and News Corp. don’t launch a first strike.

As for producers hired by these companies, let’s just say when icebergs bump into each other, a little collateral damage to those clinging to the surface is to be expected.

So consumers’ news and entertainment menu will keep expanding, but more of the items will come from the same kitchen--undermining the zesty give-and-take between producer and buyer that, at least theoretically, helps push the cream to the top.

“It’s hard for the public to grasp how the best things they’ve seen, from ‘All in the Family’ in the 1970s to ‘The Cosby Show’ in the 1980s, came about because the producer stood up to network interference,� said independent producer Len Hill, who has been outspoken on this issue for more than a decade.

Not that the TV industry’s Gullivers appear to be paying much attention to its Lilliputians. Sure, Hollywood loves waving the flag to commemorate Independence Day along with everyone else, but when it comes to honoring independents, that’s something else again.

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Brian Lowry’s column appears Wednesdays. He can be reached at [email protected].