American television networks are reading surveys with their hearts pounding. I’m talking about the three major, competitive and state-run television networks-CBS, ABC and NBC. These are the three mega corporations dividing the TV audience of America. American television is 100% commerce. In other words, all TV companies fight to get viewers.
The main “players” of prime-time American television are shows and soap operas-not Latin American. American soap operas are expensive, interesting and high-quality. They’re like mini-artistic films, which have never been shown in Armenia. It’s an expensive product, which Armenia can’t buy at the moment and perhaps never will be accessible to the Armenian public.
I’ll talk a little about the structure of the abovementioned three TV companies. Soap operas are shown on prime-time American TV every day. Generally, there are two soap operas-before news broadcasts and in-between the late night talk-shows. Soap operas go on every week. For example, “What would you say about Bryan?” is shown every Monday, “Lost” is on every Wednesday. There are soap operas for every day of the week. Surveys usually show the taste, preferences and the psychological status of American viewers. The variety of themes of soap operas gives psychologists the chance to find out just what Americans would like to watch.
And so: the soap opera that Americans watch the most is “Gray’s anatomy”, which is shown on ABC. The main characters are the doctors and their complicated relationships. Americans like to get emotional over a happy ending, the “fairy-tale” endings and the permanent, perfect characters.
The year’s biggest blockbuster is “Lost”. After the collapse of a plane, passengers find themselves on an island where there are mystic phenomena taking place. The viewer gradually reveals that the heroes are average people and didn’t deserve to be stranded on an island. Currently, “Lost” is in the third season. Producers invited new screenplay writers who had promised to “shock” and “amaze” the TV viewer. For the time being, Americans are simply bored.
The breakthrough soap operas for this season are “Heroes” on NBC and “Ugly Betty” on ABC. The first one-“Heroes” is about young people with unusual abilities and it’s much like the “X-files” and “X-man” movies. In a word, it’s a science fiction soap opera. The second one is about an ugly Spanish woman, her family, her boss and the boss’s family. Although the main character is ugly, however she’s sweet and loving. The soap opera’s screenplay shows how Betty will become beautiful and will fall in love with her boss one day.
The top soap operas for Sunday are “Crazy Women” and “Sisters and Brothers”. The first one is about married women, the anti “Sex in the City”. This is about married women and their husbands, their sex life, the wrinkles on their faces, adolescent children and their issues. In a word, a family soap opera mainly for women. “Sisters and Brothers” is about a large family, which goes through many problems after the death of the millionaire dad.
This season was full of mystic soap operas, which although didn’t reach much success this time, but were successful a couple of years ago. Psychologists have found the answer to this in the moods of Americans. The Iraq war, the undefeatable strategic politics of the White House and the aggressive propaganda, elections, inflation and unemployment levels have made Americans fall into depression.
According to psychologists, American society is living through an “unconscious” depression. That’s why it doesn’t want to watch extreme shows, but more relaxing shows, where nobody dies in the end, where fat and ugly people find the person they love, where they don’t see crazy women who think about sex the whole day, but women who have a husband and children.
Nowadays Americans prefer to see shows about families, family values and things that can happen to anyone. For example, this week Americans are going to watch “Sisters and Brothers” and see how they are going to solve the problem concerning the younger brother, who has received a “letter” to go and serve in Iraq. Currently, the family of the soap opera is split into two sides-the mother and sisters say “let’s send him to Mexico”, while the brothers say “let’s see what we can do with the law”.
Are “their problems” really that different from the problems of Armenians? Sometimes I, although I don’t watch soap operas, watch them to see how Americans solve their problems. There was a time when a classic said that all families are happy about the same thing, but each family complains about different things. So, the family overcomes those difficulties differently both on the screen and in real life.