CHANALYZE

CBS

In which we dig in to each specific channel, seeing if there really is something to this whole “channel personality” thing

After deciding that the personification of ABC is one of those weird, schizo bitches who is always causing drama or throwing a tantrum, we now look to CBS. The one thing I know is that, unlike ABC, reading this article will have no effect on them whatsoever. ABC read the last article and cried for two weeks. CBS doesn’t give a fuck. This isn’t to say that CBS is cool, but instead the antithesis of cool. So far from cool that it would be impossible for them to care one way or the other about what you think of them. They are also, by far, the most dominant network of the big five. Everyone knows that by now. What isn’t talked about as often is how they do it: regular ass, scripted shows. The other networks subsidize their incredibly low-rated shows (which is pretty much all of them) with sports, events, and reality. CBS does it with shows.

ABC, after reading the last article. They have just sat frozen like this for two weeks straight.

The easy answer is to hand CBS the personification of old man – say Carl from Up – and call it a weekend. I don’t know if that’s necessarily the case anymore. If you’re old, you watch CBS, but if you watch CBS, you’re not necessarily old. There’s a strong chance that you regularly watch at least one of CBS’ comedies. As someone who completely doesn’t understand the appeal of either Two and a Half Men or The Big Bang Theory, I thought I was immune to this, until I suddenly remembered I’ve seen every episode of How I Met Your Mother. You might think Mother is horrible (which I get. I don’t agree, but I get), but love the shitty, offensive-in-the-way-they-didn’t-intend-ness of 2 Broke Girls. We all have one. And this is how CBS is killing the market. They are getting their hooks in all of us fine young things, hoping that we will keep watching for so long that we eventually get to the age where we think “You know, maybe I will give Blue Bloods a chance.

Featuring Tom Selleck as Magnum P.I.E.

They also have the very enviable position of only canceling things that don’t make enough money, as opposed to the other networks, which have to cancel things when they lose too much money. Case in point: The Mentalist. Rumors are that this show may be on its way out. Solid numbers, solid fanbase, a little more expensive than your average drama. “So fuck it,” the heartless CBS monster says. “We’ll find something cheaper, and idiots will watch it anyway.” And then CBS laughs so loud that the four other networks, cowering in the corner, shit themselves.

“I should have seen this coming,” says John Mentalist, who may or may not be a psychic on this show I’ve never seen.

That old joke, about CBS being old, is really losing steam. Their numbers in the prized demographics aren’t as high as the demographics that make you disgusted they even watch your show, but they’ve achieved something else that (I think) the other networks are really going for: Network Singularity. Network Singularity occurs when humans become robots, able to watch every show on a channel, if they like one show on the channel. You, discerning television viewer, can’t think of a single channel where you love every single thing on it. (Please remember the Sundance Channel rule: for the purposes of that last statement, the channel must have at least five original shows.) But CBS locked it down. They’ve got that put-down-the-remote-for-the-rest-of-the-night mentality, and they succeeded at it. Think about it. If you like NCIS, you’ll probably like NCIS: Los Angeles, right? And if you like that, you’ll probably like CSI. And if you like that, you’ll probably like Person of Interest. And from there, you can make the leap to The Good Wife. See? It saves time for CBS viewers, who no longer need to search for something good, and it saves time for CBS during pilot season, because they know right away whether or not a pilot or a pitch fits into CBS’ bland, gentle, mass appeal. Network Singularity at its finest.

“I love the original CSI, but hate the other CSIs,” said Marg Helgenberger’s mother and no other person ever.

Look at CBS’ new shows for proof of this. It was a mercifully small batch of new shows, including the comedies Mom, The Millers, and The Crazy Ones, all of which fit right into the CBS lineups. I find it hard to believe that anyone who loves all of CBS’ comedies hated any of these three. They fucked up, however, with the other two new shows. Like spectacularly, gloriously fucked up. We Are Men was a one-camera sitcom (not a CBS specialty) about four bachelors, that was stupid even compared to CBS’ other offerings, and was canceled after a few episodes. Hostages was a drama/thriller thing, which is CBS’ specialty, but it told one season-long story. That couldn’t be less CBS if it was called HBO-AMC-The-CW. It flopped hard, and we’ll most likely never hear from it again. CBS’ takeaway from these two shows should be “Don’t make awful garbage.” Instead, it will be “Next season, let’s stray even less away from the CBS brand.” And that’s a shame for people who don’t love CBS shows, but great for those who do. Someday, in a  decade or so, CBS will be at the bottom, just like they were a couple decades ago, when NBC could do no wrong. Now, NBC sits outside of CBS’ mansion, eating cockroaches and performing sock-puppet shows for half-eaten cockroaches. CBS’ personification is an old man, but it’s a crafty one. It’s Tywin Lannister. CBS has achieved a position of power, and can now sit back, make smart (yet boring) moves, and watch all of the other networks fuck each other like they were brother and sister.

CBS! CBS! CBS!

– Ryan Haley