Apolitically Incorrect » Save Your Favorite Show By Watching Online

nbc_kings_header1 Whenever I hear the statistics on television watching, I get more than a bit nauseous. “According to the AC Nielson Co, the average American watches more than 4 hours of TV each day (~28 hours/week or 2 months non-stop TV watching per year).” I’m not nauseous for the significant amount of wasted time, but for the fact that there is almost nothing worth watching. How can the average American spend four hours a day watching hideous reality TV and Law and Order reruns? Eck.

Sure, are a few awesome shows (Battlestar Galactica for one), but the majority of television is utter rot. And sure, reality TV may be responsible for the cultural illiteracy of entire generation of American youth, but the real problem lies among timid television executives. Despite noble sentiments to the contrary, television (in addition to music and literature) is a business. (A horrifically expensive business.) TV executives want to make money, which is done by running programs that are popular and profitable. This usually means that instead of trying something different, they opt for renewing Law and Order: White Collar Crime over something, for lack of a better word, good.

That’s why it’s such a shock and pleasure to see a series like Kings emerge. (Put out by NBC of all people!!!) Kings isn’t just different, it’s bold. It is a retelling of the biblical story of David, except set in modern times. I came across Kings when browsing through the iTunes music store. They were giving the pilot episode away for free, so I decided to download it and give it a try. I was blown away.

The writing is smart, the acting is excellent and the production is closer to what you would see in a motion picture than on the small screen. Like the biblical account, Kings gets the Goliath bit out of the way right up front, because, Goliath is probably the the least interesting part of the David saga.

Unfortunately, like many other promising television shows, NBC handled the launch of this one poorly. First, they spent millions on an initial promotion. Then, when the show failed to gain a massive audience after two showings, they changed the show’s air time from Sunday evenings to Saturday (the worst night of television) without bothering to notify anyone. They were then surprised that the ratings went down.

Kings isn’t like an episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, it is going require some time to find it’s audience. However, timid television executives aren’t known for the patience (or their foresight). As a result, it looks like a piece of interesting television is headed for the chopping block. And that’s a real shame, because Kings is one of the first shows in a long time that has persuaded me to turn the television back on.

However, there is something can be done. As I alluded to above, TV is a business; as a result, it isn’t necessary to convince NBC that Kings is worthwhile television, only that there is an audience for it. And surprisingly, the least effective way to do that is by telling your friends and family to tune in to a program. Want to save your favorite show? Stop watching it on television.

Here’s the problem: television isn’t a democracy. The only people who are allowed a vote are the 25 to 30 thousand households with Nielsen rating boxes in them. Nielsen boxes are poll stations that record what gets watched and then transmit that information back to the networks. When you hear Fox brag that 30 million people tuned in to the premiere of American Idol, that number is based on an estimate from the Nielsen households. Other than those 25 thousand, the rest of us simply don’t exist to the networks. We’re invisible. And if the networks don’t know you exist, then trying to save your favorite show by tuning in to watch it won’t have any effect.

There is, however, an alternative. Go watch your favorite television through a medium where they the viewership can be counted. That means either online or through download services like Amazon Unbox or iTunes. Video sites like Hulu.com make it easy to watch TV on your own schedule. It’s completely free (supported by 30 second ad clips), but more importantly, the viewership can be counted. TV executives like numbers. They want to know who is watching a given television show, when they watch it, and how they watch it. Hulu give them access to all of that information for the entire population, not just a few select Nielsen households. So, go do both yourself and an excellent television show a favor. Head over to Hulu and catch the first episode of Kings online. Then go tell your friends to do the same. It feels good to make a difference.