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Why I don’t agree with Bevan Lee

Do social media users want to hijack TV creators? Or is it just a modern vehicle for audience applause?

2013-11-01_2354Screenwriter Bevan Lee (A Place to Call Home, Packed to the Rafters, Always Greener) has spoken out against social media for television shows, arguing that it risks hijacking the creator.

Speaking at Google’s Big Tent event in Sydney yesterday he said: “I’m really worried about the audience. They want to get more involved in the production. What I see as one of the biggest problems is when I hear things about facilitating the audience talking to each other throughout the program.

“It makes my blood run cold because there is a creator and you owe him the duty of coming to his creativity and your choice is to like it or not like it.”

Citing the recent example of the audience anger over the Dexter finale, he said: “What the audience seems to want to do with this new media is hijack the creator.

“My response was ‘bugger you’. You came with the creator, you stayed with him right to the end and even if you didn’t like it, he didn’t let you down, you let him down by not trying to come with him.”

Mumbrella reports he likened the conversations on social media during shows to talking in the cinema, or going to the opera and “singing along with the aria.”

Assuming Lee hasn’t been quoted out of context, I respectfully disagree. And I say that in the light of A Place to Call Home being the best thing Seven has produced this year.

Social media engagement, which is championed by Seven through pro-active FANGO promotions, isn’t about hijacking anything. It’s about facilitating audience response. For centuries the audience has responded to artistic performance, but now it happens in ways we can concurrently agree / disagree / question / laugh / cry in an online space. You can choose to participate or opt out.

Instead of the viewer writing a “Dear Editor” letter to their TV Guide, now they can express a reaction instantly. While this works more effectively for Reality and Panel shows, more than Drama, all of them are valid forms of audience feedback. The audience is still saying whether they “like” or “dislike” a show, albeit with more detail, and frequently with unfiltered emotion.

Shows like Offspring have harnessed this to great effect.

The outpouring over the death of Patrick was genuine audience passion. It made their response tangible, created more awareness, media buzz, higher ratings over successive weeks. All of these are positives. Yes, many were angry and wanted to rewrite the ending. The writers knew they would invoke reaction, having cleverly manipulated viewers to the point at which they were heavily invested.

Dexter viewers were similarly invested, including me, having watched for 8 seasons. The entire season failed to live up to its potential and the finale was the final insult.

Dexter‘s executive producer and showrunner for the first four seasons Clyde Phillips also criticised the finale. Final season producer John Goldwyn also said that the writers were told by Showtime that Michael C. Hall’s character had to stay alive. A financial not an artistic decision.

Social media also helps drive Live viewing, which is why the Seven network has FANGO promos telling us to engage in real time during Home and Away, My Kitchen Rules and, yes, A Place to Call Home. This in turn helps keeps creators and everybody else employed.

What audiences owe creators is honesty.

Social media is just the vehicle for communicating it.

17 Responses

  1. I can see his point of view – it’s basically peer pressure on an extreme level – but I think a lot of the problem is the Australian networks are trying so hard to push social media that people are too distracted with it to realise what the show’s intent was. It works in some cases, but generally the way the networks handle social media is more irritating than welcome. Do we really need, vapid ‘this show is so good LOL’ tweets filling up the screen, for example?

  2. Bevan Lee might want to know that the creator of Scandal, Shonda Rhimes, attributes the explosive growth of the shows ratings doubling from season 1 to season 3 entirely on social media.

    The show creators and writers very actively encourage twitter and FB use during live broadcast

    Scandal is the most socially active show on TV

    Actors writers creators producers etc all live tweet during The broadcast

  3. Instant judgement is doing TV no favours and the obsession with Twitter in recent years has done more harm than good.

    People just want to sit and watch, not sit and critique and provide the networks with feedback. If people want to tweet they’ll tweet – no need to beg for it on screen.

  4. I think Bevan Lee needs to listen to the audience more. Maybe if he did listen to social media more he wouldn’t write shows just for a female audience. I challenge him to make a show with an all male lead cast for a change.
    Why can’t there be more shows with male lead characters. It seems TV is in the age of female tv where every show has to skew to a female audience.

  5. Totally agree with David.

    The creator is not the be all and end all of artistic development. Sometimes they get ‘it’ or a part of ‘it’ wrong. I’m happy to go along with the creator and experience his vision, but I doubt any creator sets out to disappoint an audience. He/she may instil anger, surprise, astonishment, wonder, etc but I doubt any creator actually aims to disappoint.

    After all, most artists’ egos are pretty fragile at best without actively seeking rejection.

  6. Well said, David. Odd comments. Maybe he was just having a bad day?

    I have watched many of Bevan’s shows and some have been very good, but I’m very disappointed with the current two. APTCH is slow and predictable and W&L is cliche ridden and derivative of so many other shows.

  7. @BarrieT- so agree it’s such a boring drama series tried to watch it from the start there was nothing that got me hooked even the characters were so boring was hoping it wasn’t coming back to ch 7 it just didn’t work.

  8. Good article, David. Completely agree. Methinks Mr Lee is being a bit precious. And arrogant.

    “… even if you didn’t like it, he didn’t let you down, you let him down by not trying to come with him.”

    Er, no… using the cited Dexter example, the audience were most definitely let down by the writers. I also don’t agree that the audience let the writers down by remaining faithful for seven seasons and then complaining that the eighth wasn’t up to scratch.

    His analagy is wrong, too. When you’re in a cinema (or at the opera) and someone starts talking (or singing), you have no choice about whether you hear them or not. However, when discussions are taking place via social media, it’s your choice whether you’re on Twitter or Zeebox or whatever – as Sairy says, it’s more like chatting with friends and family in the TV room. Surely Lee isn’t suggesting that people don’t…

  9. I don’t know Bevan Lee, but I agree with every word he said!
    Watching a TV program while twittering and facebooking and chatting or texting on the mobile are all signs of people with Attention Deficit Syndrome!
    In my opinion of course!

  10. I myself interact on Twitter while watching Dramas. But i do it During the Ad breaks or after the show is finished. This is why you’ll see things trending into the hours afterwards.

    It’s no different than having a conversation with your housemates/family during a show. The only difference is you’re talking to a big room full of people from all over the country(or world).

  11. Dexter is a poor example. The writers clearly ran out of ideas halfway through the last season and the ending was poor. In part because Showtime executives determined what they could and couldn’t do.

  12. Social media is not going to save the networks and is not relevant to dramas.

    Participating in social media does help the audience share enjoyment of event TV, which people watch live anyway. But the networks can’t control or directly benefit from that — it is people using twitter, facebook and the IMDB instead of paying attention to the ads.

    For dramas the trend is the opposite. People sit down and watch dramas when they have the time and are in the mood to lose themselves in them in. Social media works against that.

    It can be flattering for an author to get lots of praise and instant feedback from the internet. But hard core fans know and care more about the story and may not represent the audience as a whole. And when you don’t do what they think you should they go crazy.

    George RR Martin talks about this in an interview the SMH Spectrum today. I have seen the same…

    1. “For dramas the trend is the opposite. People sit down and watch dramas when they have the time and are in the mood to lose themselves in them in. Social media works against that.”

      Dramas have also trended at #1 while the shows were on air and continued into the next day. It’s not an either / or situation, it depends on how compelling the content is.

  13. Interesting post, David. Thought provoking, and great for this long time follower of your blog to read your take front and centre. Bevan Lee has been working this biz for 30 years or so. The times they are a changin’.

  14. Sounds like Beven Lee has lost his understanding of what an audience really is, and what they really mean to a production.

    My opinion, is that social media is extremely powerful, and beneficial to creation, with an instant connection through feedback, response and people willing to share and engage with what you have created.

    It’s almost as though if Bevan had his way, there wouldn’t be fan fiction, fan videos, people willing to tell people to watch a show, and come to conventions to meet the creators and provide feedback and basically create a community between the audience and the creators. The internet is the future for where digital content will go, and the audience is already demanding it through them having the power to interact and choose what they want, when they want, and who they wish to interact with.

    Overall, sounds like Bevan has an ego, and lacks respect and…

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