Why do TV Producers think Americans are stupid?

[CakeDragon]

I love Gordon Ramsey! People just don't know what to do when he gets angry. He does that a lot on British TV too so it's pretty much a common thing between both UK and US.
But they have completely ruined Top Gear. Our version is great, those guys just seem like they're trying too hard. And they got rid of the theme tune!?

 

[DarthFennec]

In any given location, the TV that sells the best becomes the TV that airs. Assuming that, it seems that a possible reason we have shitty mindless television that talks to us as if we were all about five years old, is that the majority of Americans would rather watch that bullshit than shows that are actually entertaining and interesting. Or maybe that's only a select few of us, and the rest of us are like me and therefore don't even think to waste the money on cable.

 

[UltraParanoia]

Duuurrr, it's Murican so it sucks, look at me! I'm so sophisticated!

For instance:

Top Gear-BBC

The hosts are charming and very entertaining. In between their humorous reviews of super cars, the host complete challenges, like, driving to the North Pole

Top Gear-US

Three hillbilly morons try to set the record for how many times they can use the word 'awesome' in one hour.

A. Adam Ferrara is from NYC, IIRC Tanner Foust is from California, so really, you've only got one hillbilly and he hasn't proven a moron to me.
B. Have you actually watched the show? It's a hell of a lot like the Brit version and isn't anywhere near as bad as you're making it out.

Life-BBC

Informative and beautiful nature program


Life-US

Apparently we're too stupid to understand English and want to be talked to like we're five years old.

Christ, cry more about irrelevancies why don't you? ZOMG, they're dumbing it down!

Gordon Ramsay-BBC

Stern, yet helpful chef turns around failing restaurants.


Gordon Ramsay-US

British chef yells at people, makes them cry

You could have used the American version of Kitchen Nightmares, which was stern yet helpful chef Gordon Ramsay turns around failing restaurants... Oh wait, that doesn't prove your point, nevermind.

Is there anyone who can tell me why US producers take good quality television and turn it into crap? They speak English, we speak English. The only difference is the Metric system and currency.

Money, It's harder to get shows to appeal to 300 million people than it is 60 million.

 

[Swaggers]

A large portion must be stupid or Firefly would have gotten better ratings never been caned and we would have more seasons of it...

 

[photog212]

Duuurrr, it's Murican so it sucks, look at me! I'm so sophisticated!

snip

A. Adam Ferrara is from NYC, IIRC Tanner Foust is from California, so really, you've only got one hillbilly and he hasn't proven a moron to me.
B. Have you actually watched the show? It's a hell of a lot like the Brit version and isn't anywhere near as bad as you're making it out.

snip

Christ, cry more about irrelevancies why don't you? ZOMG, they're dumbing it down!

snip

You could have used the American version of Kitchen Nightmares, which was stern yet helpful chef Gordon Ramsay turns around failing restaurants... Oh wait, that doesn't prove your point, nevermind.

snip

Money, It's harder to get shows to appeal to 300 million people than it is 60 million.

A. I watched the episode where they tried to evade a cobra helicopter with Dodge Viper. At one point they pulled into a car wash to hide. Suspension of belief and what not, no problems so far. THEN, they begin to compare the car to Pamela Anderson and the rest of the episode just became punctuated with the word awesome. Its not that this show is so god awful and only appeals to idiots, but it would have been more profitable (and in my opinion better) to just air the original on History Channel which more people receive than BBC America.

B. Why redo the narration? Why spend the time, and the money? Its nearly identical!

C. I was not aware of a US version of Kitchen Nightmares. I'll give you that.

 

[photog212]

Yeah.. one thing that you need to understand that you aren't really mentioning is the difference in risk between American television and the BBC. We focus far more heavily on cost/benefit analysis and pushing shows down to their lowest common denominator for the highest ratings possible. However, the difference in risk here isn't because American audiences are stupider than British ones, that's ridiculous. Rather, it's because the BBC is a national entity that is funded through that weird television license thing. That system takes an incredible amount of risk out of the equation, and allows content creators to get away with a lot more without producers having to drop the hammer and telling them they can't. In short, the systems of distribution are radically different, so it's not really fair to slam content comparatively.

Could you elaborate a little more on the " weird television license thing". I'm intrigued and would like to know more.

 

[bjj hero]

On Top gear they normally hate American cars. That would not go down very well in America, or with advertisers.

 

[Tibike77]

Is there anyone who can tell me why US producers take good quality television and turn it into crap? They speak English, we speak English. The only difference is the Metric system and currency. Is anybody else bothered by this?

It's the difference between a ratings-driven profit-chasing broadcasting TV station on one side (USA) and a subscription-driven (the television license) broadcasting TV station (UK).
For a more appropriate comparison, take HBO or Showtime USA and compare it to BBC UK.

When you don't care about ratings, you can care about quality of programming.
When all you care about is ratings... well, you only care about ratings, and everything else is of a distant secondary importance.
"Stupid" TV programming gets better ratings, because more people WILL watch it.

Could you elaborate a little more on the " weird television license thing". I'm intrigued and would like to know more.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licensing_in_the_United_Kingdom

 

[UltraParanoia]

A. I watched the episode where they tried to evade a cobra helicopter with Dodge Viper. At one point they pulled into a car wash to hide. Suspension of belief and what not, no problems so far. THEN, they begin to compare the car to Pamela Anderson and the rest of the episode just became punctuated with the word awesome. Its not that this show is so god awful and only appeals to idiots, but it would have been more profitable (and in my opinion better) to just air the original on History Channel which more people receive than BBC America.

B. Why redo the narration? Why spend the time, and the money? Its nearly identical!

C. I was not aware of a US version of Kitchen Nightmares. I'll give you that.

A. I didn't even notice the awesomes, and the first episode of a show is always hit or miss. The biggest complaints people had about an American Top Gear was that they would more than likely spend all of their time sucking up to the car companies(Like the last attempt), as of yet, that doesn't happen on this show. On to the second part, the only reason Top Gear is even known well in America is because of the Internet, and quite frankly, it wouldn't be profitable on History as anyone who wanted to watch the show has more than likely seen the episodes, so I'd imagine the profit margin is a good bit less than what you think.

B. Why do they do any of the shit they do, some focus group of random assholes told them the narration wasn't going to be popular, so they changed it.

C. It's pretty much exactly like the British version only set in New York(Maybe other places, I don't think it's been on in a while).

Honestly, TV producers don't think Americans are stupid, they just go with what works, and the current trend is retarded reality TV with a lot of drama and stupid challenges. I'm pissed they stopped Junkyard Wars and whatever the robot fighting one was called, but ratings weren't good so they had too.

And the BBC wierd licensing thingiy mentioned is(I think) essentially that they're Government funded, sans the Government having any real control over programming beyond S&P.

 

[Sakurazaki1023]

You're not going to like it, but it's because a fairly significant portion of Americans are stupid. You can't really blame them for knowing their audience.
Never have I seen more proof of that then when I've flipped to some American channel on TV and seen one of those commercials for those fucking lawfirms that try to reinforce the feeling of being a self-entitled dipshit in everyone.

As an American college student, I heartily concur that most Americans are downright idiots. The fact that the Jersey Shore and similar shows are popular should be enough to prove that.

However, lets be frank about this, a huge chunk of the entire human population are idiots. Idiots exist in every country and in every society. Television executives and marketers are in the business of giving the majority what it wants and they do their jobs extremely well. If the majority is slack-jawed morons, then the quality of programming will reflect that. It's just a shame that there are very few places to enjoy some intelligent television anymore.

I'm not sure if it's true in Europe, but educational standards in the US have been slipping recently due to local funding regulations. In order to get more educational funding from the government, many state's lower their testing requirements in order to ensure a maximum number of students pass. This makes the schools look good, but it severely damages the intellectual quality of society as a whole. Intelligence is being undermined by an increasingly shallow and materialistic popular culture that has little interest in scientific disciplines.

 

[The Rockerfly]

I think because a lot of the American presenters have very little personality in comparison to the British presenters. This is more specific to the Top Gear presenters but the British ones have loads of personality, great ambition and are actually funny on a more intelligent bases than "hurr hurr, are goes over mound, that's soooo funny".
Along with that, they are probably more concerned about advertisers than the British presenters because we have a publicly funded TV station that the BBC is presenting Top Gear and as stereotypical as it may seem, I have found in my experience, Americans are more greedy. Obviously not every American is but just in my experience a lot are

The video on the documentary I can't watch because of copyright,another American favourite

The final video well I don't know to be honest with you. Maybe it's because people actually want a presenter to shout at people.

 

[Ishamel]

The 'weird license thing' is essentially a yearly tax paid by anyone in the UK who owns a TV and will own up to watching live TV on it. The money goes to the state, which funds the BBC.

The Beeb is a 'public service broadcaster' which means that its remit in the UK is to inform, as well as entertain - taxpayers fund the programming, so that means that the telly they watch should be in some way good for them, or at least good. This is why Brits complain that their least favourite programmes are 'a waste of taxpayers' money.'

Interestingly Top Gear is one of the most expensive BBC programmes to make, but sells so well as a format abroad that it also feeds a lot of money back into the Beeb.

The comparison with cable is superficially a good one, but cable is not designed as a public service - it is still trying to make money, but has to prove that it gives value for money. The BBC includes things like radio in Welsh and the World Service and Shipping Forecast which are bad value for money but national treasures.

American, and indeed all other foreign telly, and indeed ITV in Britain, is motivated by the profits of advertising which is why there are more ad breaks in american telly than any Brit can stand. Quality programming be damned. Why else would people watch the Superbowl 'for the ads, it's part of it???'

 

[Bailoroc]

Hypothetical question; if every television/movie studio in existence were to decide to *not* dumb down their content and only produce intelligent shows, would they go bankrupt by not cathering to the idiots across the world or could such a scheme *force* dumb people to become smarter? I'm genuinely curious if we can force postive human evolution and/or mental development this way.

 

[Severin90]

Gordon Ramsay-BBC

Stern, yet helpful chef turns around failing restaurants.


Gordon Ramsay-US

British chef yells at people, makes them cry

You could have used the American version of Kitchen Nightmares, which was stern yet helpful chef Gordon Ramsay turns around failing restaurants... Oh wait, that doesn't prove your point, nevermind.

Content wise its basically the same but seeing how they both deliver the content is quite different.
The British version is smooth without much editing such as background music, special effects etc. just Gordon and the restaurant having their problems


The american however is quite the opposite. Like Kitchen Nightmare US they use a movie trailer guy as a voiceover, high action music orchestra so it feels like you are in an action movie and every time something happens they show an interview explaining what just happened
(most of the time they don't ad anything more than we just saw).

It's like they try to sell a cooking show as an action movie which in my opinion is more a disturbance than exciting, but I'll would figure it would certainly sell more in the states.

 

[smithy_2045]

It's worse when they copy the UK version completely when they Americanize it.

For example,

Spoiler: Skins

 

[Casual Shinji]

American shows what to get as many ratings as possible, and the only way to do this is to be as inoffensive as possible.

And since there are over 300 million citizens which might be offended in one form or another, the best buisiness plan is make the show as bland as can be.

Why do you think Avatar was such a huge succes!?

 

[Casual Shinji]

It's worse when they copy the UK version completely when they Americanize it.

For example,

Spoiler: Skins

You think that's bad, check out the American version of Red Dwarf.

 

[GotMalkAvian]

I'm an American, and I like to fancy myself one of the smarter of the breed. That being said, I take no joy in admitting that most of the TV-watching American public is extremely stupid. All you have to do is keep an eye on which shows are popular, and you'll lose pretty much any faith in American TV, Americans, or even America itself.
We're still mired desperately in the middle of the reality TV trend. These shows tend to follow one of several routes: Put a bunch of obnoxious people together until they start fighting, follow a has-been celebrity around and document their absolute failure to do anything redeeming yet still manage to make a comeback just by virtue of having their own TV show, or film a family of people who just don't know when to stop breeding.
Even our politically-themed programming for "smart" people is filled with stupidity. We have news channels for conservatives that report on nothing but how liberals are driving this country into the ground with their gay marriage and communist healthcare reform and anti-American anti-war propaganda, and then we have the news channels for liberals that report on nothing but how conservatives are driving this country into the ground with their old-fashioned religion-based morals and their savage warmongering and their sympathies toward big corporations who need billions of dollars so their CEOs can party hard and gut the company before retiring as billionaires.
Not to mention just how much our terrible celebrity culture is blending with our terrible political culture. How many times have you read news stories about President Obama's policies? Now how many stories have you read about Michelle Obama's fashion choices? We have members of the Palin family going on Dancing With the Stars- a game show for celebrities, mind you- and competing in an effort to drum up support for Sarah Palin who was supposed to retire but then came out with a book and now might be running with a different party altogether even though she's soooooo tired of the whole political circus...

Yeah, Americans are pretty damned stupid. The BBC is actually a great example. How many BBC shows have done well in America? Now, how many terrible remakes of BBC shows stripped of all the original wit and dry humor have done well in America? If you answered "Doctor Who and Monty Python" to the first question, you're right. If you answered "The Office, Coupling, and about a hundred other examples" to the second question, right again.

 

[SimuLord]

Because not only are Americans, by and large, incredibly stupid people, but the ones that aren't don't tend to watch much television (and that TV they do watch tends to fall into certain genres that might as well be called "nerd bait"---shows like Mythbusters and Dirty Jobs and Good Eats.)