Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Characters Welcome


            

Once upon a time in 1977 there was a little baby cable company called Madison Square Garden Network.  The little company grew up into a beautiful network called USA, a division of NBC Universal, and it became the number one cable television network five years running.  It became the number one cable network five years running because it created for itself a brand, a brand that is the love-child of sharp marketing and mature business philosophy. And this brand consists of three main components: characters, visual image, and story format.  Because of this basic branding formula, every aspect of the USA network—from advertising to online presence to fascinating staff-writing gambles—is cohesive and forward-thinking, making it a “’go-to’ network instead of a ‘last resort’ network,” as Sandra Berg says in her article for the Writer’s Guild of America, West’s online magazine. 
            USA’s slogan is “characters welcome”—the characters (rather than special effects or big name stars) drive the story, and because the characters drive the story, the plot gets to do some incredibly fun off-roading.  Each show consists of (generally) one to two main characters who are exceptional at something, but have an endearing, perpetual flaw.  For Monk, this manifested itself as an almost-incapacitating obsessive compulsive disorder that was actually the flaw and the exceptional ability: it stunted him socially, but it also gave him the ability to detect minutiae that others missed, and therefore allowed him to solve the cases no one else could.  Monk ended up being a hugely successful show that owed much, if not most, of its success to the endearing qualities of its leading man.
            The USA brand is also shaped by something called the “blue skies” approach[1].  This is a literal and figurative term—literally, they want to show more blue skies, more outdoor sets, and more saturated, specific color palettes.  Burn Notice is branded with an immediately identifiable orange logo, with acid-blue ocean waves in the background, colors that scream Miami and mayhem.  


Royal Pains is a deep, royal blue, a blue of leisure and money, embodying in its color the personality of the characters and setting involved.  

Psych has a lime-green logo, 

Monk has candy-apple red logo,

  Covert Affairs is purple.  

The figurative aspect of the blue skies method is that the shows, while grounded in a believable, worldly setting, are a little too good to be true.  No one really believes that there are burned spies roaming Miami looking to help the poor and oppressed while they search for the identity of the people who burned them.  But viewers are entirely willing to suspend their disbelief, because it’s a really fun show to watch, as well as visually-stimulating.


            The third part of the brand is the format.  All of USA’s shows are (generally) set in an unusual (or under-television-filmed) location, where a character does something that they would normally do, but they do it in an unusual setting or circumstance while searching for a way to get back into their former setting/circumstance, constantly battling against some sort of direct authority in order to do so.[2]  For instance: in White Collar, 


a con man consults (and does the occasional government-sanctioned con) for the FBI after being caught and sent to prison.  He is constantly tempted to ditch the straight-and-narrow life to return to the thrill of the full-blown jobs he used to run when he was a free man.  In Burn Notice, a “burned” spy does special ops work for well-deserving civilians while trying to figure out who burned him and how to become an active spy once more.  In Suits, 

a high-end lawyer takes under his wing a genius protégé—who’s never been to law school.  Both try to avoid getting found out while people from the protégé’s past constantly threaten to accidentally or intentionally expose the both of them.
            But the branding of the show doesn’t stop when the credits roll.  USA is so invested in their slogan “characters first,” that they actually have the stars of their shows represent the company as a whole in television promos.  This is expressed perhaps no better than in the cross-show promotions, like the one with Burn Notice’s character Michael Donovan sending Royal Pains’ character Hank Lawson a care package, explaining that he knows what it’s like to lose your job, find yourself in unfamiliar settings, and want to get back to living the life you were used to.  It ends with a comical gift basket from Michael to Hank: sunscreen, sunglasses, and a block of C4—“because you never know when you’ll need a stable plastic explosive.”[3]  


And the strategy seems to be working—USA is not only the #1 cable network, its shows are being viewed in more than 98 million American households,[4] and according to the Nielsen ratings on its website, those 98 million households can be divvied up thusly: it has most viewers in the 35-54 age-range, 44% having attended college, it’s almost evenly split between male and female viewers, 71% are home-owners, and the average income of a viewer’s household income is over $57,000 a year.
And these are important numbers to people like advertisers.  The characters, therefore, go even further in supporting the network—they even dress up and sweet-talk the companies who want to buy advertising spots.  As the USA website says, “USA Network creates an emotional connection with our audience on every platform—inviting them to take part, and show us their characters, too.”[5]  During the May 2011 Upfronts, the stars of White Collar, Burn Notice, and Royal Pains got on stage at Lincoln Center, giving impersonations of real USA executives without advertisers ever having to hear an actual pitch.[6]
In advertising itself to the world, USA has come up with a couple other creative solutions.  Rather than compete with dozens of other ads, USA bought the rights to every single ad in the Talk of the Town issue of  The New Yorker, which hit stands this past May through August, and was also available on the iPad.[7]  Speaking of iPad—USA is certainly with the times when it comes to technology.  They’ve created a campaign specifically designed to target iPad users for their new season premieres.  For White Collar specifically, iPad users played a game within the ad banner that set them up as special agents who could search the webpage for clues that would eventually unlock exclusive promos and sneak-peaks.  Not only does this advertisement target iPad users for the USA network, and in turn specific USA shows, it hooks viewers by making the advertisement interactive—twisting was is essentially a promotional advertisement into a game that viewers actually want to play and engage with.  In short, USA managed to make the advertising experience enjoyable.  That, in itself, is somewhat groundbreaking, and will surely influence other networks’ advertising formats.
Their online presence takes this idea to a whole new level.   On the USA website there is something called the Character Arcade, 


which features over 50 games constructed around the USA shows’ characters and content.  As players play the games, they accumulate points.  As players post in the message forums or link USA website content to social media sites, they get points.  The players with the most points get prestige, virtual prizes, and, occasionally, real, tangible prizes.  This “gamification” has driven USA website visits from spending an average of 4 minutes to an average of 28 on the site, and increases return visits by 40%.[8]  Advertisers, too, can see how incredible these numbers are, and are now asking USA to create games around their specific products in the worlds of the USA characters.[9]
The USA website goes beyond just games, though.  Burn Notice now has its own two-volume online graphic novel featuring the adventures of Michael Westin.  


There are forums for fans to discuss the latest episodes or where they wish the show would go.  There’s an entire Fan Appreciation Day (October 6th this year).  There are surveys, there are causes, there are featurettes and interviews and schedules and full episodes available for viewing.  In short, the USA website has almost everything a fan could want to find out what they need to know about their favorite shows.
And the USA executives are largely to blame for USA’s creativity and inherent success.  Because of the NBC-Universal merger, USA president Bonnie Hammer left major operating power to new co-presidents Jeff Watchel and Chris McCumber, who’ve been with USA since 2001.  The fact that they’ve promoted from within with members who have been around since the integral re-branding of USA seems like a wise and promising move.  In fact, it was Watchel who pushed shows like Burn Notice, Royal Pains, White Collar, and Psych in the first place, and McCumber was responsible for the “Characters Welcome” slogan and rebranding.[10]
And while it is the USA executives that have made all these decisions that have created USA into the network that it is, it is the decisions that they made regarding their staff writers that—as a writer—intrigues me the most.  Like the executives Watchel and McCumber, USA shows tend to promote—or pull over—from within.  Several of the writers on Burn Notice also worked on several previous shows together.  Also, several of the writers of different USA shows (Burn Notice, White Collar, Suits¸etc.) worked on previous non-USA shows together before coming to USA and splitting to their respective shows.  This seems to indicate a high level of importance placed on previous friendships, and an appealing sense of professional loyalty. 
The other exciting prospect for me, as an aspiring writer, is that, according to their IMDb profiles, the broad swath of the USA writers have very few writing credits of any kind—and for many, the USA show they currently write for is the only TV writing credit they have at all.  As a network that I would legitimately hope to one day work for, this is encouraging, as I have no professional writing experience on my resume.  USA seems to want quality writers-in-the-rough rather than no-gamble tried-and-true veterans. 
As USA grows, however, their brand may choose to grow with it.  The 1-hour dramedies with quirky characters in sunny locations has worked fabulously so far—and while they may always remain the bread-and-butter of USA, they’re about to be joined by some tantalizing side dishes.  WWE Raw and WWE Tough Enough add a speck of sports to the otherwise-dramacentric network.  Acquired shows like Law and Order: SVU and NCIS give a bit of variety to the formulaic programming.  But with new original programming, co-president Chris McCumber stated that USA is going to aggressively expand the USA formula: “Developed strategically through our brand lens, this diverse roster represents the network’s introduction of more provocative, innovative original programming than ever before.”[11]  This expansion includes seven new one-hour dramas and five half-hour sitcoms.  The following are summaries of the show and how they fit into the USA brand:
·         Silent Partner (1-hour drama) is about a Florida attorney and his paralegal—who works with him long-distance from India.  Two quarky main characters who do a normal job very well, but do it in unusual circumstances in two very sunny locations.  USA brand: check.
·         On We Go (1/2 hour comedy) is about an actor (Nathan Lane) who looks like Nathan Lane, but is not Nathan Lane.  He wants to work on Broadway, but has to return home to Texas after his father gets ill.  A quarky character doing a normal job but inhibited by unusual circumstances, check.  Sunny and under-filmed locale (Texas): check.
·         M. Deity (1-hour drama) is a medical drama about a doctor who battles hospital bureaucracy in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.  Sunny/underused location (Louisiana): check.  Unusual circumstances (post-hurricane bureaucratic mess): check.
·         The Special (1-hour drama) is about a homicide detective with hypomania (which is, according to Wikipedia, where “individuals in a hypomanic state have a decreased need for sleep, are extremely outgoing and competitive, and have a great deal of energy. However, unlike with full mania, those with hypomanic systems are fully functioning, and are often actually more productive than usual”)[12] who doesn’t quite fit in at the precinct.  Quarky character, extraordinary ability, unusual circumstances: check.  Sunny location (LA): check.
·         Big in Japan (1/2 hour comedy) is about a boy-band reuniting twenty years after their last gig.  No other details were given about the location or the characters.
·         We the Jury (1/2 hour comedy) is about a jury team on a high-profile celebrity case for as long as the murder trial goes on.  No other details were given, so I can’t say whether it fits the brand, or how the show will live more than a season with the nature of its storyline.
·         TGIM (1/2 hour comedy) is about suburbanite parents who are so enslaved by the demands of their children’s schedules that going to work on Monday actually sounds better than staying home.  No other details were given.
·         The Enclave (limited series) is a fairly vague: a new job causes a family to move to a new town where “nothing is what it seems.”
·         The Exceptions (1-hour drama) is about the daughter of the mayor of New York City who uses her connections and status to solve cases that would otherwise fall by the wayside.  Quirky characters (if you’re the daughter of the mayor of New York I bet you’d have some quirky qualities) who does a normal thing (investigating) in an unusual setting (she does it under the radar using status and connection—reminds me a little bit of Castle, actually): check.  Not a particularly sunny location, but the rest fits the bill.
·         Hard Cover (1-hour drama) is about a middle-age-soccer-mom-undercover-operative working with a rogue FBI agent.  Sunny location?  No idea.  Something usual in an unusual setting?  Yes.  Quarky?  Absolutely.
·         Winslow (1-hour drama) is about a private detective (named Jimmy Winslow) who’s a general failure: recovering alcohol, massively in-debt, father’s in jail, etc.  But he’s got a perfect record at solving cases.  Quarky: yes.  Unusual ability in a usual job: check.  Again, don’t know the city, but we can hope it’s set somewhere with lots of sunshine.
·         House of Cards (1/2 hour comedy) is about a recently college-graduated young person who gets a job at a greeting card company while trying to build a writing career and find love.  This reeks of 500 Days of Summer, but it fits the brand.
·         Regular Einstein (1-hour drama) is about the Duncan family: they consist of three genius siblings and one younger sibling named Einstein—who is the only one of them that’s not a genius.  But he makes a pretty great cop.  Sunny?  Who knows.  Quarky: I would certainly expect it to be, yes.  Normal person in unusual circumstances: I don’t think you fit the USA brand better than having a normal-IQ kid in a family of geniuses.

It’s hard to tell how well some of these will fit the USA brand on such limited descriptions of the show.  More information may reveal how the shows will fit into the structure of the blue-skies approach, and how well audiences will receive them having come to expect a certain winning formula from USA in recent years.  At the moment, however, USA is staying strong, and it’s remained strong thus far because of its slogan “characters welcome”—and characters first.  From the shows to the advertising to the games online, the characters hook audiences, make them fall in love, and keep them coming back for more.  With this business philosophy dominating every decision USA makes, I can only predict that they will remain one of the strongest cable networks in America from here on out.
Works Cited
21, January. "USA Network Scores with Gamification on Psych TV Show | VentureBeat." Tech News | Innovation News | Money News | VentureBeat. Web. 05 Oct. 2011. .
22, January. "USA Network Blends Advertisers into TV Show-based Games | VentureBeat." Tech News | Innovation News | Money News | VentureBeat. Web. 05 Oct. 2011. .
30, June. "The End of Demographics: How Marketers Are Going Deeper With Personal Data." Social Media News and Web Tips – Mashable – The Social Media Guide. Web. 05 Oct. 2011. .
"Advertise on USA Network | Comcast Spotlight Advertising." Comcast Spotlight | Experience the Power of Comcast Spotlight Advertising. Web. 05 Oct. 2011. .
"Breaking News - USA Network Names Heather Olander Senior Vice President, Alternative Programming | TheFutonCritic.com." TheFutonCritic.com - The Web's Best Television Resource. Web. 05 Oct. 2011. .
Elliot, Stuart. "A Cable Premiere Elbows in On Network Turf." New York Times. 22 Oct. 2009. Web. 5 Oct. 2011. .
Elliott, Stuart. "USA Network's Twist on 'Upfront' Puts Stars Up Front - NYTimes.com." A Guide to the Media Industry - Media Decoder Blog - NYTimes.com. Web. 05 Oct. 2011. .
Hampp, Andrew. "USA Network Turns Major Online Player Via Branded Gaming." Advertising Age. Web. 5 Oct. 2011. .
Haston,, Chris. "Entertainment News: Celebrity Gossip Blogs, Photos, Videos & Stories - USATODAY.com." News, Travel, Weather, Entertainment, Sports, Technology, U.S. & World - USATODAY.com. Web. 05 Oct. 2011. .
"Hypomania." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Web. 05 Oct. 2011. .
"Jeff Wachtel And Chris McCumber Named USA Network Co-Presidents – Deadline.com." Hollywood Entertainment Breaking News - Nikki Finke on Deadline.com/hollywood. Web. 05 Oct. 2011. .
Levine, D.m. "USA Network Previews New Programs at Lincoln Center Upfront Presentation | Adweek." Adweek. Web. 05 Oct. 2011. .
"Meet the Writers of USA Network." Writers Guild of America, West. Web. 05 Oct. 2011. .
Ng, Philiana. "'Burn Notice,' 'Royal Pains' Premieres up - Live Feed." The Latest Entertainment & Hollywood News - The Hollywood Reporter. Web. 05 Oct. 2011. .
"Nielsen Ratings for Week of Sept. 26 - USATODAY.com." News, Travel, Weather, Entertainment, Sports, Technology, U.S. & World - USATODAY.com. Web. 05 Oct. 2011. .
Numbers, The. "Brand Transition? — On What’s at Stake for USA Network This Summer « TV Surveillance." TV Surveillance. Web. 05 Oct. 2011. .
Seidman, Robert. "USA Continues At #1 - Ratings | TVbytheNumbers." TV Ratings, TV Nielsen Ratings, Television Show Ratings | TVbytheNumbers.com. Web. 05 Oct. 2011. .
"TV Schedules, Cable and Satellite Television and Show Schedules - USA Network." Television Shows, Series, Movies, Sports and Characters - TV Channel - USA Network -Homepage - USA Network. Web. 05 Oct. 2011. .
"USA Network Buys All Advertisements in The New Yorker’s Special Issue — NYConvergence.com." NYConvergence.com — Digital Media Technology in the New York/New Jersey/Connecticut Tri-State Area. Web. 05 Oct. 2011. .
"USA Network Drives Tune-in to White Collar with IPad Rich Media - Mobile Marketer - Advertising." Mobile Marketer - The News Leader in Mobile Marketing, Media and Commerce. Web. 05 Oct. 2011. .
"USA Network HOME." Web. 05 Oct. 2011. .
"Westen Meets Lawson: Formula as Brand and the Potential of a USA Network Genre | In Media Res." MediaCommons | a Digital Scholarly Network. Web. 05 Oct. 2011. .
"What USA Network Knows About Branding That MTV Doesn't." Influential Marketing Blog. Web. 05 Oct. 2011. .

[2] http://mediacommons.futureofthebook.org/imr/2010/07/11/westen-meets-lawson-formula-brand-and-potential-usa-network-genre
Posted by at 10:17 PM
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1 comments:

  1. Always been more of an AMC guy myself. But I think your analysis is spot-on.

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