Troubled times
It’s been a big year for ABC’s new head Paul Lee. The Briton, who cut his teeth at the BBC, took over the reins as President of the broadcaster’s Entertainment Group in mid-2010 and since then has been busy tweaking, developing or completely canning content to make way for this year’s new season of programming.
The fruit of his team’s labours were shown off in late May at the annual Upfront event during the L.A Screenings and the lineup is anything but ordinary.
“We’ve taken big risks this season,” Lee told TV ASIA Plus in an exclusive interview. “It’s our most broad slate yet and we feel it will pay off.”
With global hits Grey’s Anatomy in its sixth year and Desperate Housewives confi rmed to bow out after this season, Lee said it was time to take a fresh and dynamic approach and bring “ambitious programming” to television screens.
In search of the next big hit(s), a number of genres – and some new ones – are getting airtime. Examples include comedy Man Up, about three men who are trying to fi nd their inner (if not lost) testosterone, the serpentine tactics at play in dramedy Good Christian Belles (aka Bitches), and the visual splendour of a fairytale land in Lost creators Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz’s latest fantasy drama Once Upon A Time.
“We have real different programming with an emphasis on strong female characters,” continued Lee. Currently, more than 65 per cent of ABC’s viewers are female and the slate of new shows seeks to continue this bond but men are not completely abandoned.
One of Lee’s favourites is The River, produced by Paranormal Activity’s Oren Peli and Hollywood’s Steven Spielberg. The horror/drama enters new territory in storytelling bringing the multi-camera, multi-drama style Peli is known for in his fi lms and intertwines it with the mystery and intrigue of a boat crew’s search for TV host, and estranged father Dr Emmet Cole, lost somewhere up the Amazon River.
“It’s Oren’s television debut,” enthused Lee. “This is unchartered territory for us. We have some amazing talent on board this show.”
Speaking to Peli in a separate interview, he said the idea had been swimming around in his head for a while, “When Steven Spielberg said he wanted to do something in TV, I jumped at the chance.
“The series draws parables with reality television – cutting on the fl y, the use of multiple cameras capturing the action… But it goes deeper than this, the river represents a whole series of mysteries and adventures to uncover and each episode is different but interconnected through the characters.
“It’s raw and totally new and there’s nothing like it on TV” said Peli.
He added that television is now about pushing boundaries and breaking conventions, “Fantasy and horror are as much part of the television space as they are in fi lm.” Lee said this season’s programming decisions connect with the sentiment on the ground. “People are looking for pure entertainment. We thought that these are times when fairytales play strongly, when monsters play strongly, when yearning for the glory days play strongly.
“In times of hardship, audiences crave fantasy,” said Lee. He noted this also has to be sustainable throughout an entire season, alluding to the number of mid-season debuts this year. “I come from a world when you launch something throughout the year… We’re in a fragmented universe. You can’t just put a show on at 8.30pm and expect it to work.”
Of course what Lee wants specifi cally is to connect with millennials, viewers between the ages of 14 – 34. “That’s our target audience and what we do well at.”
DMD sees this demographic as being the most powerful but also the most challenging segment of TV viewers; tech-savvy, the driving force behind social networking but diffi cult to connect with. With an estimated 86 million millennials in the US, Lee said it is essential they keep up with them.
Of course millennials are not an America-centric phenomena. Lee noted that the international audience is just as important and programmes are being developed with them in mind. Asia-Pacifi c millennials (in the age range of 15 – 34) are estimated to make up 33 per cent of the population, or roughly 1.16 billion people, all primed to devour content across multiple platforms.
“We put a lot of value in the international market. Although ABC here is about creating great stories for the US, we know that our stories and characters also must work well overseas and resonate with all types of people and cultures. Five years ago this was not the case but it’s much more a part of our strategy now,” said Lee.
He cited how the ABC Studios medical drama series Body of Proof – starring Dana Delaney and returning this season – screened in Italy and Russia, before its domestic debut and performed well.
“There’s a chance other shows will be launched this way in the future. We are constantly thinking about how we can best connect with all our viewers.”
The international domestic
One series that is the archetype of DMD’s aim to forge closer ties with its global audience is ABC Family’s Nine Lives of Chloe King. The new action drama, created and produced by Dan Berendsen (Sabrina, the Teenage Witch), which premiered in the US in June, has been developed with the international millennial in mind.
Based on the book by Liz Braswell, the series follows the life and times of a Chloe King (Skyler Samuels), a high school senior, who discovers she has cat-like powers and is part of a dying breed of creatures called the Mai who are being hunted down by a mysterious Order.
Chloe not only has to come to terms with her newfound identity but also how it affects her friends and the world around her.
“Her super powers are secondary to her emotional and personal journey,” Berendsen told TV ASIA Plus.
He went on to say that in creating the series, they purposely wanted to make it look less American, “It was a conscious decision to take it out of the American high school environment. Although Chloe is a high schooler, we didn’t want her story to be told from that perspective.
“She is also originally from the Ukraine and was adopted by American parents.”
Adding an Asian link to the story, one of Chloe’s best friends is played by Korean American Ki Hong Lee.
“The core values and themes of Chloe are universal,” said Berendsen. “About trying to fi t in but be unique too. Fear, guilt (in the fi rst episode she kills someone), responsibility and acceptance… It’s a contemporary story of a girl dealing with the same issues others of her age group experience. It’s just that she has nine lives!”
Not only is Chloe aiming to be international in its characters and themes but also in its soundtrack. Once a by-product of adult dramas, such as Six Feet Under and True Blood, music (and not necessarily mainstream) features heavily Chloe. In the pilot, British indie favourites The xx are heard, along with tracks from Rosie Golan and Ke$ha. ABC Family also lists the tracks at its site and provides links to buy the songs at the Apple iTunes store.
“We use a lot of music in the series and indie music is what millennials are listening to and buying,” explained Berendsen. “We want to lead the way with these trends. It would be great to hear someone say ‘I heard this on Chloe’.”
Music is also something not geographically bound and adds to the international feel of the series, said ABC Family President, Michael Riley.
“Music crosses age groups and cultures and it connects well with the viewers we want to reach in shows like Chloe,” he said. Though still early days, the producers have not ruled out the possibility of releasing a soundtrack to accompany the season.
Riley added that such moves also help in connecting with a more diffi cult demographic; males in their late teens and early 20s. “We have a very strong female demographic so we have to make sure our programming is accessible at different levels.”
He said the same goes for the international market and agrees that Chloe is an example of where ABC Family programming is headed. But being too American isn’t a bad thing; the series The Secret Life of the American Teenager and Make It or Break It (both returning this season), were hits with Australian viewers aged 13 – 24, coming in at sixth and seventh respectively in cable TV’s top 10 scripted series last year.
Like its older brother, ABC Family also has an ambitious slate of shows this season. Along with Nine Lives of Chloe King, two other one-hour scripted dramas have been greenlit: Switched at Birth, which tells the story of two teenage girls (one is deaf), who discover they were switched as newborns, The Lying Game, premiering in the US this month, and half-hour comedy State of Georgia starring Raven-Symoné.
Riley is confi dent they’ve hit the mark this year but knows all too well the fi nal decision is in the viewers’ hands. He recalls the cancellation of last year’s big series No Ordinary Family, which after rating well and getting a full season was cancelled earlier this year.
“There are many factors at play but we know that quality story telling and identifi able characters are what our viewers want.
“Many of our shows have a fantasy element to them but are still rooted in everyday reality, it’s what we do best.”
