TV, Torn and Tattered
I was six, and my great-grandmother was a knowing 88 when we watched an I Love Lucy rerun together one afternoon. During the show, Lucy told Ethel that she was "expecting." Mysteriously, nothing more was said regarding the specifics of what the wacky redhead was waiting for, but the entire episode hinged upon it. There was also talk about some sort of "blessed event."
This ambiguity frustrated me. I was a no-nonsense, get-to-the-bottom-of-things first-grader. I wanted the whole world to simply tell it like it is and make sense. Finally, when my indignation grew too overwhelming, I said, "Expecting what, Grandma? What is Lucy getting?"
She chuckled and said, "A baby. Lucy is expecting a baby."
I remember furrowing my brow and asking, "Then why didn't she just say pregnant? I thought she was expecting a phone call!"
I'm not even half way to 88 yet and that world feels like it should be classified as prehistoric. Wiped out are the days when broadcast television was so conservative that pregnancy was considered too scandalous and personal to mention, much less physically portray. Erased are the years in which the Federal Communications Commission effectively barred the door leading to obscenity. Prime time was once protected by the government with the same ferocity my dog, Theodore, protected me. This revered spot between 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. on the coasts and 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. in flyover country was once home to the networks' best and brightest shows. It was a guaranteed safe haven for families to watch TV together.
But, today, I'm asking you, Do you even remember when television was truly harmless enough to watch with a 6-year-old?
Prime Time's Got Some 'Splainin' to Do
It's eye-opening to trace the steady moral decline of network television. In 1976, according to the Parents Television Council, a woman's nipple was exposed on NBC's Captains and the Kings. In 1977, a gay character got a regular spot on Soap. In 1981, a Saturday Night Live comedian let loose with the f-word on air—but was promptly fired. (Never mind that the show aired after prime time.) In 1986, the word condom was used for the first time, on Cagney & Lacey. The first lesbian kiss occurred on L.A. Law in 1991. And in 1993, with Stephen Bochco's highly acclaimed ABC series NYPD Blue, violence, sex and partial nudity cemented themselves as prime-time staples.
Then, in 1997, another SNL comic repeated the word his predecessor used—but was not fired. In 1999, Chicago Hope became the first prerecorded prime-time series to leave the s-word unbleeped. In 2003, bestiality was introduced on the (thankfully) short-lived Fox series Keen Eddie. Also in 2003, U2 frontman Bono exclaimed on a live, uncensored Golden Globes broadcast, "This is really, really f‑‑‑in' brilliant."
The FCC deemed his language acceptable because the obscenity was used as an "adjective" or "expletive." Please. If I had said that word, my great-grandmother would have punished me so severely I would have been happy to see sunlight again let alone watch TV.
It is, in 2010, utterly amazing and quite literally forehead-slap inducing to think that there was a time when Jack Paar couldn't even use the expression "the W.C." on the air. And, of course, Lucy couldn't say she was pregnant.
Enter on Stage Left: Cable
Today, the issue is no longer whether broadcast prime time will get sleazy, it's how much sleazier. And why it's been so steadily corrupted.
That last question has a likely answer: cable.
In 1975, the first uncensored cable TV comedy special included comedian Robert Klein marveling at pay television's new permissiveness. He said on camera, "It's subscription. … We can say anything! S‑‑‑! How'd you like that? S‑‑‑!" How did we as a culture like that? A lot. And to prove it we made cable so popular everybody else wanted to be just like it.
Specifically, the big broadcast networks wanted to be just like it. They're gradually getting their way. Is it coincidence that prime time put on its first display of partial nudity less than a year after Klein reveled in cable's wide-open spaces? Or that broadcast TV's moral decline continued in lockstep with the likes of HBO and Showtime? In 2004, the FCC actually gave ABC permission to air the R-rated war movie Saving Private Ryan uncut, with its numerous f-words and explicit violence. So is it any wonder that CBS is to this day still challenging the government agency's decision to levy a fine for Janet Jackson's Super Bowl "wardrobe malfunction"?
They're fighting for their lives, the networks feel. Folks don't want I Love Lucy anymore, they say. They want Sex and the City, Nip/Tuck and their MTV. They want the uncensored version of Lady Gaga's raunchy new music video on YouTube. They want sexy apps on their iPhones. And, frankly, it's hard to blame them for thinking so. While Lucy once easily drew more than 70 million viewers, today's network shows garner a mere fraction of that. A show that draws 15 million these days is considered a smash hit.
During the 1994-95 television season (not all that long ago), 43% of viewers watched ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox. Today it's closer to 27%. The situation is so bad for prime time, in fact, that NBC chief Jeff Zucker said last year, "Broadcast television is in a time of tremendous transition, and if we don't attempt to change the model now, we could be in danger of becoming the automobile industry or the newspaper industry." More recently Zucker announced that NBC will probably cut the number of hours or maybe even the number of nights it airs original programming.
Where's My Great-Grandma When I Need Her?
This is the end of the beginning of the end, then, for TV as we've known it. I know that sounds predictable and maybe even a bit stale. Many have echoed that refrain for so many years. But it's still seems a shame that most Americans are unaware of or unconcerned with traditional TV's collapse. Prime time—particularly its first hour, once called the "family hour"—was perhaps the last collective bastion of broadcasting decency. And average families, systematically desensitized by the last 35 years of television's indecent antics, don't even realize what they're missing. [Read Secrets of the Movie for information about one current effort to improve TV's family hour.]
Of course live TV is still big and actually getting bigger. Reality shows such as American Idol and events such as the Super Bowl and the Oscars seem to still hold a place in viewers' hearts and real-time schedules. But how many Super Bowls can you have in a year? How many award shows can you stomach? These super-shows can never fill the prime-time schedule. And I'm actually afraid of what will.
I wish I could ask my great-grandma what the meaning of it all is.