I just couldn’t resist…
(Advance warning on the unnecessary analysis)
So they fired Frank Darabont from The Walking Dead, one of the few shows I still watch on TV (even fewer since Desperate Housewives is going off the air now*), and there was quite an interesting amount of information about why AMC execs went in that direction, involving some fascinating internal business dynamics and creative personalities, but the key points are/were:
- The Walking Dead is the only show AMC completely owns (that’s pretty interesting, and I’m thinking maybe it’s because AMC just recently has been going into original programming, and maybe they hedged their bets when it came to Mad Men. Then, when Mad Men became a phenomenon, they went all in**), which means they get all reward, as well as all the risk
- The show was a ratings record breaker, about 8 M viewers for the premiere (5.3MM in the premiere, an additional 3MM in the repeat), and yet…
- The budget for the second season was cut from 3.4MM to 2.7MM (so the per budget episode for season 1 was $566,667 to now $450,000, which doesn’t sound too bad I guess)
- The budget for Mad Men, for comparison, is reportedly 2.3M per episode!
- The show typically shoots 8 days per episode, and the second season was increased from 6 episodes to 13 (ouch: so now they have to spread that 2.7MM over an extended 13, making that about $208,000 per episode. That’s a 63%(!) drop per episode, which is a pretty substantial drop in quality for a cinematic-striving series: the zombies will probably be made with the makeup bought from the $1 Store now, and they’ll have to throw in a laugh track now)
- The 30% tax credit that the show got from filming in Atlanta would have gone towards helping this budget cut, would instead go to network coffers (gangsta)
- To make up for that budget cut, execs wanted more indoor filming, and more zombie “sounds”, as opposed to showing the zombies themselves. Specifically, they were asking for 50% indoor scenes
- Frank Darabont is a creative who fights against the suits over the “vision” (see my previous article), and that big suit would be Joel Stillerman, head of original programming, who doesn’t have a good relationship with Mad Men’s Matt Weiner, either (so that’s two bad relationships for an exec against two pop-culture phenomenons, and might explain that Mad Men premiere push back to 2012…)
- AMC only makes 60 cents for each cable subscriber (and a look at their company’s balance sheet (I warned you), specifically at their supplementals, shows that they get about 97MM subscribers, so that’s about $58 MM from the total net revenue of $292MM, if I did that correctly. On the whole, though, the company is doing pretty well, and that’s consistent with their recent direction on original-quality programming)
- HBO operates on a loss! (but since they’re owned by Time Warner, that’s okay with them)
- AMC is having a hard time handling it’s success
- Everybody likes Darabont, except the execs, and this guy fights for the cast and crew
- Even with Darabont gone, they still have some key people in there, like the original comic creator, the makeup guy, that zombie from episode 3…
The problem is that of creative vision against the pragmatics of operating a business. But, in this case, the creatives are the one directing the ship. A company like AMC could have always showed old movies, but the reason they are getting all this increase in advertising revenue (a 21.2% increase from last year), and who was responsible for that?
”The increase in advertising revenue was led by AMC and WE tv”
So we have creatives creating success for AMC, and AMC is trying to kneecap their own success because of budget cuts, as well as an executive team that reportedly is having a hard time managing their relationships with their producers.
You would think that AMC wouldn’t do this, because they’d be shooting themselves in the foot: but politics can really mess up a good thing, as has been noted many times before. What’s more, television is similar to online advertising, in that users can easily change the channel if they don’t like what they see, so keeping them watching is really, really important. In this case, they have replaced Frank Darabont with Glen Mazzara, who’s thought of as a good choice. They cut the budget, took the tax credit, have mingled in the actual production of the show to save some money (more “zombie sounds”), and have let go of the producer.
What could happen? A cheaper Walking Dead would most likely mean more of an emphasis on story development to make up for the loss in production and effects, which might be a good thing. If I was producing, less outdoor shooting could mean mean an entire story-arc in an underground sewer or something, and that’d mean indoor shooting, less zombies, an increase in the suspense and fear element, and an emphasis on some good old fashioned story-telling, throwing out the original story from the comic book series, but with a resulting decrease in overall operating expenses. It could work, but you’d need a visionary to do it. If that’s Mazzarra, then that’s his decision, but Darabont was a tested and proven resource.
Anyways, that’s one avenue, but it’s tough to justify the AMC position when they’re already doing so well, on a formula that has proven itself. With Mad Men having been pushed back to 2012, if they lose this show, then they have no one to blame but themselves.
* i was joking
** and wouldn’t you know it, my hunch was right (paragraph 8)
