Ask the Critic: Paul Brownfield

Question: Do you think the gulf between pay cable and broadcast television is widening or narrowing?

Brownfield: I assume you mean creative gulf, as in are the broadcast networks scheduling “edgier” (that dreaded word) fare to compete with cable noisemakers like “Sex and the City” on HBO and the more recent “Nip/Tuck” on FX?

This TV season, people are pointing anecdotally to the cheeky ABC drama “Desperate Housewives” as a sign that the networks are trying to emulate cable, but I doubt it. I think the marketplace is shaking out so that cable series have become the equivalent of boutique stores, while the broadcast networks are the Targets -- huge superstores that offer everything.

Don’t get me wrong, the Big Four networks would love the lavish, advertiser-friendly media attention afforded “Nip/Tuck” or HBO’s “Six Feet Under.” And I do think, to a certain extent, a show like “Desperate Housewives” wouldn’t exist without the creative groundwork done by “Sex and the City.”

But cable shows, remember, operate under much less of a mandate to pull in a big audience. If aired on a broadcast network, most would be canceled due to low ratings. On cable, they merely need to reaffirm a niche network’s brand in order to keep subscribers and generate new ones.

Then, too, any gulf that might exist between cable and broadcast is mitigated by the fact that giant media corporations own everything. How much competition is there between CBS, for instance, and Showtime or MTV, when Viacom owns all three?

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