One-off TV dramas deserve another chance

By SUSAN NEMEC*

The announcement by Judith Tizard, the Associate Minister for Arts, that the Government is pushing for more signature drama on television raises wider issues for the film and television industries.

Signature drama is usually associated with one-off, one-hour drama. A drama that is distinctively New Zealand: the sort of drama you used to see on Sunday night on TV One.

In the first instance, the announcement addresses some of the Film Commission's concerns about the development of emerging film-makers. The Government hopes signature drama will help short-film writer-directors make the leap to features.

In the past, television one-off, one-hour dramas have provided that career step, allowing writers and directors to get their heads around the different pace and rhythm of a longer narrative structure.

One-off dramas have been seen as a good training ground between the comparative execution simplicity of the short film and the complexity of the feature or telefeature.

Many successful New Zealand film directors have honed their skills through shorter television drama formats. The likes of Roger Donaldson, Gaylene Preston, Costa Botes, Stewart Main, Alison McLean, Gregor Nicholas, David Blyth and Niki Caro to name but a few.

That is without looking overseas. Internationally, possibly the best example is Steven Spielberg, who purportedly made 50 television dramas before his first feature.

The Government's announcement also brings up the curly question of the difficulty of making signature drama that broadcasters actually want.

Signature drama is seen as a vehicle for a diversity of voices to tell their stories in interesting ways. The stories are often distinctive, and have none of the blandness that springs from producing something that is universal.

That all sounds good under the Government's charter environment, but broadcasters are going to need some convincing that they should screen one-off dramas.

The broadcasters' argument against them is quite simple: in New Zealand, the quality is variable, and often such dramas do not rate as well as foreign imports or series or serials.

Series and serial drama are infinitely preferable when the advantages include relative cost-efficiency, the ability to incite channel loyalty and the provision of an effective channel flagship in a brand-conscious industry.

Long-form serial drama prompts reliable patterns of viewing and gratification in ways that short-form drama cannot. In other words, audiences simply do not want to watch one-off dramas, preferring the more complex storylines and characterisation that long-form drama offers.

Even if a one-off achieves excellent ratings on a single occasion, it means little to TV networks. Their ratings competition is played out on a daily and continuing basis.

One-off dramas, whether or not they have good ratings, cannot provide these benefits as much, or as consistently, as long-form dramas.

For NZ On Air and the broadcasters, where money is tight and investment in drama is tied to commercial results, one-off drama cannot get past the relative advantages of series and serials.

Sunday night viewing on Television New Zealand is important commercially. There is a long tradition of good-quality, telefeature-length dramas.

The dramas have come under the umbrella of sponsors such as Montana and Lexus, and have been an important feature of the weekly schedule.

The content of the last TVNZ series, in 1997, was diverse and created a number of different opportunities for "voices" to be heard, but the quality was variable. Understandably, TVNZ is nervous about another series, especially when it looks at the ratings and sees clearly that Kiwi one-off dramas in this slot do not stack up.

It's a real shame. But maybe Sunday night is the wrong night to judge these dramas based on ratings.

However, I never could understand TV3's argument against one-off, one-hour dramas. Sure, there were problems with getting them off the ground, but even though the 1998-funded one-off dramas (screened on TV3 last year and this year) were shown on an ad hoc basis - not as a series - they did all right in the ratings.

The four dramas that screened last year (one was shown this year) rated at similar levels to other programmes shown in the same slot in previous and subsequent weeks.

One in particular, Possum Hunter, rated better than programmes in previous and subsequent weeks, especially for the TV3 demographic of 18 to 35. And Staunch and Fish Skin Suit did well at this year's TV awards.

I could never understand why TV3 claimed these dramas did not work. Maybe from a cost perspective it is cheaper to have imported programmes or a series but this is not a discussion about cost.

Audiences (as far as the TV3 ratings go) did appear to like these dramas.

They could have done much better if they had been run in a series where there was the option of audience "appointment" viewing.

I don't understand why this 1998-funded round of one-off dramas was not scheduled as a weekly series; it would have rated even better.

Furthermore, the quality of the dramas that did make it to air has been given the thumbs-up. Two were nominated and won various awards at the film and television awards. Fish Skin Suit won best drama programme, the best actor went to Staunch lead Tamati Te Nohotu, and the best director and script went to Staunch.

There is a place for one-offs under the charter but the way ahead is to find other forms of signature drama that work for the broadcaster, such as telefeatures or mini-series. Or to make sure that one-off, one-hour dramas are screened as a series, so that audiences can have appointment viewing and the quality is not so variable.

Perhaps that is the biggest challenge: to make sure the quality is good enough. But the fact that two of the four of that last group of dramas won awards suggests it is worth taking a punt again.

Certainly the skill level is improving.

* Susan Nemec, a television producer-director, has just completed a masters degree in film, television and media studies at Auckland University.