Why Do Critics Confab for This Stuff?

Cedric the Entertainer, star of a new comedy-variety series on Fox, was kidding Sunday when he said to TV critics that with the seeds of a new television season planted, “you ... are the fertilizer that will help those shows grow.” Still, it was one of those jokes made funnier by the awkward ring of truth.

The twice annual Television Critics Assn. tour--a multi-network showcase held in Pasadena the past three weeks--doesn’t end until Friday, but it probably can’t come too soon for the critics, who beyond sheer exhaustion can doubtless relate to the fertilizer analogy, having been repeatedly told how irrelevant they are.

Of course, you won’t hear such pronouncements from HBO, largely because the pay service plays by a different rule book--one placing a huge premium on high-class (and often little-seen) productions that generate award nominations and glowing reviews, seizing on critics’ approval as another incentive for consumers to subscribe.

Advertiser-supported networks, by contrast, have always been driven by a commercial imperative frequently at odds with such acclaim--tension that appears to be growing as sales departments push programmers to reach the young and restless, which increasingly means catering to the undiscriminating and fickle.

Why should programmers fret excessively about critics, then, when notoriety and curiosities--think Fox’s “Celebrity Boxing” and E!’s upcoming Anna Nicole Smith show--too often trump positive reviews, as viewers pause to examine some new car crash along the information superhighway?

This attitude has come through loud and clear as broadcast executives politely and sometimes not-so-politely explained their programming strategies in recent weeks. Officials at the WB implied that the mostly middle-aged critics are too old to appreciate the network’s youth-oriented programs. ABC said its new shows are meant for people simply looking for entertainment after a hard day at work, not critics hoping to be surprised and challenged. “We’ll leave groundbreaking to someone else,” ABC Entertainment President Susan Lyne said.

NBC has consistently reminded critics that programs such as “Fear Factor” and “Dog Eat Dog” are aimed at “real” people, not them--to the point where critics barely asked about such shows Tuesday, though even rival networks are wondering how low the network can limbo with such fare. CBS Television President Leslie Moonves, meanwhile, defended plans for a Victoria’s Secret lingerie special by saying the network “isn’t your grandmother’s CBS,” which may come as a shock to the millions of grandmothers who help constitute the network’s older-skewing audience.

Fox, after garnering honors from the critics for its new series “24” and “The Bernie Mac Show,” did offer thanks for the praise, only to be asked if these brushes with quality hastened last season’s spiral into the ratings toilet. Notably, the network has received a ratings boost this summer from the talent show “American Idol,” essentially a product-placement vehicle for Ford and Coke barely watchable to anyone older than 18.

For these reasons and others, it may be time to consider retiring the press tour--which admittedly serves a purpose but doesn’t do so as well as it should or once did for any of its constituencies.

Yes, networks love the publicity, especially now that it’s so difficult to launch new programs, but they hate the expense. Critics love the access to people and programs they cover but understandably hate most of the shows and have reason to feel that way about many of the people--prone as they are to parrot back answers in a carefully massaged corporate-speak that doesn’t belong in a press release, much less a newspaper.

The event also promotes various bad habits, perhaps foremost among them lazy language, beginning with “The critics love this” or hate that, as if they were all of one mind. Although many major critics are represented, arguably the two most respected--The Times’ Howard Rosenberg and the Washington Post’s Tom Shales, both Pulitzer Prize winners--don’t attend.

“I never have liked the concept of lock-step critics and the notion of a consensus, a kind of party line, that you have to adhere to,” Shales said via e-mail from Washington, adding that he bristles at the idea of “the critics loved it,” especially in cases when he didn’t.

Sequestering critics in a hotel together potentially helps fosters such group-think, which seems antithetical to the lonely art of criticism. Forced into what could pass for a version of CBS’ “Big Brother” minus the cash prize, critics can’t help but talk shop occasionally, in the same way doctors discuss surgical procedures at medical conventions.

This isn’t to say that a gathering of TV critics should be limited to talking about baseball or zoology, but because individual taste is so subjective, it’s worth questioning whether they should assemble at all. Rosenberg, for example, expressed concern about a pack mentality and prefers not to share margaritas with people he might have to criticize, avoiding any chance it might color his opinions.

Network executives keep ruminating on ways to reinvent their business, just as journalists struggle with adapting to a new era complicated by 24-hour news channels, the Internet’s ability to propel rumors around the globe and legitimate apprehension that a generation bred on MTV won’t be predisposed to read.

So rather than move the TV critics tour from Pasadena to Hollywood in January, as is the current plan, maybe it’s time to contemplate letting the whole event sink quietly into the sunset and craft an alternative.

In the interim, networks could make stars and executives available via conference calls and plow the money saved on lavish soirees into marketing their shows, or better yet, developing a few riskier scripts, which would yield more laudatory reviews than any number of cocktail parties with the cast of “CSI: Miami.”

As for the critics, it’s not as if meeting the producers of “Temptation Island” is going to enhance anyone’s understanding of the show, or for that matter make it any better. Besides, with the media world having become so frenzied, there are other things we could all be doing with our time.

You know, like watching HBO.

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Brian Lowry’s column appears Wednesdays. He can be reached at brian.lowry@latimes.com.