Welcome to your daily report and commentary from the intersection of Faith &
Media.

Sarah Palin’s debut ratings + TV audience report = increasing clout of conservative audiences on TV programming. 
    Sarah Palin’s new TLC reality series Sarah Palin’s Alaska was given lots of TLC by viewers — nearly five million of them made it the highest-rated launch in the network’s history. You don’t have to be particularly a Palin fan to recognize that for what it is: star power.

    But couple that debut (move over Jon & Kate) with the Experian Simmons’ marketing report I told you about last Thursday and you arrive at the conclusion that television executives are on the brink of learning what movie execs are already coming to grips with. Conservative audiences make hits.

    I’ve been arguing that for some time — but I’m no longer whistling in the wind. No less an industry bible than the Hollywood Reporter is proclaiming in a headline “The Reign of Right Wing Prime Time.” 

I actually think that’s an overly-politicized overstatement. As I wrote about the launch of Kelsey Grammer’s Right Network, it’s not politics or bashing liberals that mainstream (generally moderately-conservative) American TV viewers are hungry for. To paraphrase George H.W. Bush, what they really want is kinder, gentler television that supports rather than denigrates traditional values. More than a thousand channels they seek Bush’s much-maligned (in the media) “thousand points of light.” In short, the world is edgy enough.

    And, as the popularity of Modern Family with modern conservatives suggests, counter to Hollywood’s conventional wisdom (aka prejudice), conservatives will support intelligent, well-crafted programming which extends tolerance to include gays (as well as other groups, including Muslims and even Democrats). Mainstream audiences aren’t out to bash or marginalize anyone. They just want the umbrella of respect to cover conservative Jews, Christians and Republicans too.

   And, while most of them don’t actually belong to the Tea Party, they’re tired of seeing them unfairly maligned as racists (demonstrably untrue) just because they don’t tow the liberal Hollywood line on the mission of government. Likewise, they’re tired of hearing smug liberals like (Mr. Political Correctness himself) Bill Maher compare mainstream Americans to dumb animals. (“America is like a dog…It cannot understand actual
words. It understands inflection, it understands fear, but you can’t actually
explain issues to a dog.”)     

    What conservative-values viewers want are programs that deal with and explore universal themes in a positive way. Seinfeld was funny in its day but the age of cool nihilism has gotten old fast. Liberals, more than conservatives, often tend to equate nihilistic storytelling with intelligence and are more apt to elevate it to the level of art — in effect bestowing deep meaning upon the meaningless (See No Country for Old Men). To many conservatives, art is a Norman Rockwell painting. Therein, lies the great cultural divide.

    This quote from the Hollywood Reporter says it all: “To Hollywood, the data suggest a potentially
disquieting idea: The TV industry is populated by liberals, but big-league
success may require pleasing conservatives.”

   Then there’s this from the same article: “Given the utter ratings domination of Fox News, demonstrated again during this
month’s midterm elections, an entertainment channel branding itself as right
wing could be a big idea.”

      Are you listening, Comcast? As you prepare to take over the NBC Universal family networks, you might consider that television viewers are sending every indication that they long for family programming — as well as adult programming — that strengthens our shared values rather than erodes them. Again, it’s not about politics. It’s about uplifting messages that transcend politics. It’s about an overall tone of hope, kindness and respect toward all people, including (but not limited to) people of faith.

    Faith plays as important a role in most people’s lives as their politics or even their sexual orientation — and, for most people, that role is a positive one. Yet, if you check out characters across the TV landscape, most are either clearly not religious or, if they are, it’s considered inconsequential to their characters (unless they’re somehow scarred by their strict upbringings).

     Television executives like to slice and dice demographics to create the appearance of hits out of non-hits (See Mad Men). By declaring a sliver of the audience more valuable than the audience as a whole, such illusions can be maintained — for a while.  But we are reaching a critical mass in audience data that is delivering the network gatekeepers (and advertisers) a clear message that is close to being undeniable. That is, if you want to create genuine mainstream hits, you need to appeal to mainstream viewers with conservative values.

     Get ready. Two years ago no one in the media foresaw the massive shift in Congress we just witnessed. Now, the tone of television, movies and mass entertainment is about shift too. Which ever network figures that out first will be poised to be the big winner when the dust settles.