This is Later with Lee Matthews, The Lee Matthews Podcast More what You Hear weekday Afternoons on the Drive. Peter Biskin is a cultural critic and film historian. He is editor in chief of American Film Magazine, also including publications of New York Times, LA Times, Rolling Stone. Also best selling author of Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, and Down and Dirty Pictures. His newest volume is interesting to me, and I'll tell you why in just a minute,
But it is. It's called Pandora's Box. Pandora's Box and how television is basically going down the tubes? Is that a question? Now, Okay, I'll try to answer this. If that is a question, I'll try to answer it. When I started this book, it was meant as a kind of tribute to this new golden age of TV that we were living in, often called peak TV. But over the course of the three or so years I was writing it, suddenly the whole picture changed. And now all you
do is read about obituaries for peak TV. So it's a constantly changing landscape, and who knows how it's going to evolve or devolve in the next year or two. Peter Biskin Pandora's Box. How gut Skyle and Greed upended TV? Can you trace where it all began? Because I've got my theory. Well, okay, my theory is that it all began with HBO, and the reason it began with HBO was because HBO dropped the network's sponsor advertising business
model and substituted a subscriber based model. The problem with the network subscriber the network advertising based model with the advertisers didn't want their products, you know, their buicks and their refrigerators and aspirin and whatever else they were selling. They didn't want those ads to be adjacent to scenes of sex, violence or controversy.
So they enforced the kind of fifty's puritanical morality on the networks, where the networks were producing lowest common denominator programming, trying to reach as many people as possible by being as inoffensive as possible. I mean, the network programming was more interested in not offending people than in producing shows that appeal to people.
So HBO came along and substituted a subscriber based model where subscribers willingly chose to subscribe to HBO and the cable HBO is a cable one of the first cable stations, and the cable apparatus was privately owned, so the Federal Communications Commission had very little jurisdiction OVERBO, and HBO was able to produce the kind of programming that networks shied away from, sex, violence and controversy, and HBO took advantage of it. My theory is kind of dovetails your theory.
My theory was cable television and the onset of more than just four or five channels per metropolitan area. Because then people began to have more choices, and television all of a sudden had to start dealing with a ratings phenomenon that we've been dealing with in radio for a long time, instead of people listening for
thirty to people watching for thirty to forty five minutes. Because there were more choices and everybody had a remote with an easy way to change those channels, Viewing went from you know, several several quarter hours to you know, five or six minutes, and all of a sudden, the television channels, especially the competitive Big three networks, had to find ways to compel people to keep
watching longer. Well, yeah, that was that that ability to change channels was called the dread the dread Ward for it was churned the h u RT just flicking a flicking a button, you could, you know, go from Netflix to something else or one of his competitive competing streaming channels. One of the one of the ways Netflix got around that was by introducing binging, yeah, which meant that they could drop a whole season in one day and every
and which is what they proceeded to do. And everybody told Ted Serrandos, who was running Netflix then still is uh that he was crazy, But that's what they did well. And that's another thing I wanted to touch on. Peterbeskind is here at Pandora's Box, how guts, gyle and greed upended television. I am not a binger, and I get I have to be very choosy when I'm okay, what do I want to watch tonight? And I
look and okay, is that a series or is it a movie? If it's a series, I won't watch it because I'm not going to get involved in a series that's going to take me ten or eleven episodes to get through. And all I want is something to get me through the night. Well, yeah, I mean, in fact, and the network. The streamers are pretty much abandoned binging, not necessarily for the reason you just gave,
but also but because it's too expensive. I mean, a show can cost easily cost one hundred million dollars or two hundred million dollars for eight episodes for a season, and if Netflix drops them all at once, they're essentially and somebody and somebody like you decide to go through a whole season in a marathon viewing session or two marathon viewing sessions, then it's over and Netflix has blown
one hundred million dollars or more. So binging is now that you find the streamers are essentially releasing maybe two episodes when a new show premieres and maybe two episodes when it ends, but no more binging. Well, the other thing with a lot of the binging series is is the so called slow burn effect. It might take them forty or fifty minutes to get through what should be
maybe five minutes of content in order to try to keep you watching. And I can't help but think that I know it frustrates me, it must frustrate other viewers. Yeah, I mean I think that a lot of people have criticized binging and streamers because shows are too long. You know, they feel like they're pat it and that's absolutely right, and sometimes they are. Often they are just for that reason, which adds to the expense, I imagine.
Yeah, I mean, you know, you know, it's it's interesting now that Netflix has lost some money, they've lost subscribers, and I guess about a year ago and they introduced a number of changes which essentially backtrack on all backtrack on all the innovations that network that Netflix made, so they're more binging. They introduced an ad supportive tier. They're cracking down on passwords, sharing, et cetera, etcetera. So essentially you have not Netflix. Netflix
became not Netflix. Yeah, best selling authors with us. The name of the book is Pandora's Box, How Guts, Gyle and Greed Up into TV. Peter Biscuin is with us. So what is the future? Peter? I mean, I know several people in my circle of friends who have completely cut the cable and all they do is stream on whatever device they happen to have in their in the palm of their hand. Is that going to be the future? Well, I think yeah, I mean I think streaming is
in one way going to be the future. But to me, the future looks fraught with uh trouble because it's like just alluded to. I think that the differences between network and streaming or breaking down and the streaming. You know, when when Netflix started, Read Hastings, who founded it, sort of said that his main Netflix main competition was Sleep. But that was then and
this is now. Now. They're like a handful of competing table streaming channels competing with Netflix, and each one is trying to get the largest possible audience. And when you try to reach the largest possible audience, you get into that network buye where you're making programming that is trying trying not to offend more than to appeal to. And there are many many examples of where edgy programming
it is being essentially castrated or cut off at the knees. The anti hero, I mean cable HBO is famous for the sopranos, and now it seems as if the anti hero is going out of fashion. In fact, one of the reviews of my book was called and they called it how Ted Lasso killed Tony Soprano, which is more or less true. Well, and then there's the woke culture too. In the cancel culture. It's getting to the point where, all right, you don't dare make something that's even mildly offensive
because they'll boycott you or or worse, called you into court. I think that's true. I mean, I mean, there are many many examples of you know, Apple TV. When it started, it was kind of a feel good streamer, and apparently Tim Cook would say over and over again about the different shows on Apple, the new shows on Apple, don't make them
so mean. And now Apple has dumped a number of uh that they severed their connection to John Stewart because he was reporting on controversial subjects that were too controversial. That dropped a number of shows like After Party, City of Fire, and Suspicion, And they reportedly canceled to see a copalist adaptation of Edith Wharton's The Custom of the Country because it had an unlikable lead character. So that kind of thing is happening over and over again, not just an Apple,
but on other streamers. Peter Biskin and Pandora's Box, How Guts, Gyle and Greed up into television. If you feel the way about television the way I do, you'll love this book. And Peter I thank you for joining us today. Thank you thanks for listening to Later with Lee Matthews, the Lee Matthews Podcast, and remember to listen to The Drive Live weekday afternoons from five to seven and iHeartMedia presentation