Skip to main content

The Daily Beast: "Downton Abbey: How PBS Got Cool" (Again)

At The Daily Beast, my colleague Maria Elena Fernandez and I examine how PBS got cool: the massive success of Downton Abbey has brought PBS an increase in donations, funding for Masterpiece, a boost in ratings for other programs, and an unlikely place in the zeitgeist. (Plus, RuPaul on Downton's appeal.)

You can read my latest feature, entitled "Downton Abbey: How PBS Got Cool," in which Fernandez and I talk to Rebecca Eaton, RuPaul, PBS SoCal, WNET, and PBS executives, and The Soup producer Matthew Carney, among others.

Patton Oswalt obsessively live tweets it from his weekly viewing parties. Katy Perry is using it to distract herself from her marital woes. Roger Ebert has stepped outside the movie realm to praise it in his blog. Saturday Night Live spoofed it. Mob Wives star Big Ang Raiola recited favorite quips for Us Weekly. The Onion equated watching one episode with reading a book. And Wednesday night The Soup will celebrate it with a special parody starring RuPaul and drag queens Raven and Shangela.

Could all of this fuss really be about a PBS show? Quite right. Masterpiece's Emmy- and Golden Globe–winning hit, Downton Abbey, created by Julian Fellowes, a TV ratings success and cultural phenomenon, has catapulted the public-television broadcaster with the stodgy reputation to the cool kids' table.

“We don’t know how to handle that over here,” said Mel Rogers, CEO and president of PBS SoCal, the PBS member station that serves greater Los Angeles. "We got accidentally popular.”

Continue reading at The Daily Beast...

Comments

CrazyCris said…
Interesting post... but all this makes it sound as if PBS is responsible for Downton, isn't it a BBC show??? It's also very popular here in Spain where I live, and the local channel isn't claiming it as theirs!
Jace Lacob said…
A few errors in your comment:

(1) It is not a BBC show, but airs in the UK on ITV.
(2) It is a co-production and co-financed by ITV in the UK and WGBH/Masterpiece. WGBH is the local PBS member station for Boston.

PBS and ITV can both share in the success of Downton and PBS not only contributed to its production and development but also can reap the rewards.
CrazyCris said…
Ahhhhh, thanks for correcting me! I'm afraid I tend to assume most of the excellent British productions I see are BBC, I'm not really aware of their other channels. Here in Spain there was no mention of the specific origin, we just knew it was a UK production.

If it was produced by both, why do they air the show in the US so much later than in the UK? Aren't they worried about losing audiences via online viewing/downloading issues?

In any case, hat's off to all of those involved with this project!
Jace Lacob said…
It airs on Masterpiece, which airs three programming cycles: Classic in Winter/Spring; Mystery in Summer; and Contemporary in Autumn. Downton airs as part of Masterpiece Classic, so has to air in January regardless of the UK broadcasting pattern. Likewise, the median age of PBS viewers is 62, so there is not much tendency for piracy for that age group. Add to that the fact that S2, which aired months after the UK airings, doubled in audience and continued to grow throughout S2, proving that the delay didn't hurt their ratings in the least.
Craig Ranapia said…
"If it was produced by both, why do they air the show in the US so much later than in the UK? Aren't they worried about losing audiences via online viewing/downloading issues?"

I'm obviously not privy to the precise nature of the co-production agreement, but I can't see why ITV would have any issues with a Doctor Who-like arrangement where PBS screens Downton days (or hours) after UK transmission. As Jace pointed out, the various Masterpiece strands have a fixed spot in the schedule; if American audiences with multi-zone DVD players felt that strongly about it, there's nothing stopping them from ordering legit UK discs from British on-line stores. (Down here in New Zealand, Downton Abbey has been hitting stores quite literally the day after the finales of both series.)

Popular posts from this blog

What's Done is Done: The Eternal Struggle Between Good and Evil on the Season Finale of "Lost"

Every story begins with thread. It's up to the storyteller to determine just how much they need to parcel out, what pattern they're making, and when to cut it short and tie it off. With last night's penultimate season finale of Lost ("The Incident, Parts One and Two"), written by Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, we began to see the pattern that Lindelof and Cuse have been designing towards the last five seasons of this serpentine series. And it was only fitting that the two-hour finale, which pushes us on the road to the final season of Lost , should begin with thread, a loom, and a tapestry. Would Jack follow through on his plan to detonate the island and therefore reset their lives aboard Oceanic Flight 815 ? Why did Locke want to kill Jacob? What caused The Incident? What was in the box and just what lies in the shadow of the statue? We got the answers to these in a two-hour season finale that didn't quite pack the same emotional wallop of previous season

Pilot Inspektor: CBS' "Smith"

I may just have to change my original "What I'll Be Watching This Fall" post, as I sat down and finally watched CBS' new crime drama Smith this weekend. (What? It's taken me a long time to make my way through the stack of pilot DVDs.) While it's on following Gilmore Girls and Veronica Mars on Tuesday nights (10 pm ET/PT, to be exact), I'm going to be sure to leave enough room on my TiVo to make sure that I catch this compelling, amoral drama. While one can't help but be impressed by what might just be the most marquee-friendly cast in primetime--Ray Liotta, Virginia Madsen, Jonny Lee Miller, Amy Smart, Simon Baker, and Franky G all star and Shohreh Aghdashloo has a recurring role--the pilot's premise alone earned major points in my book: it's a crime drama from the point of view of the criminals, who engage in high-stakes heists. But don't be alarmed; it's nothing like NBC's short-lived Heist . Instead, think of it as The Italian

The Daily Beast: "How The Killing Went Wrong"

While the uproar over the U.S. version of The Killing has quieted, the show is still a pale imitation of the Danish series on which it is based. Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "How The Killing Went Wrong," in which I look at how The Killing has handled itself during its second season, and compare it to the stunning and electrifying original Danish series, Forbrydelsen , on which it is based. (I recently watched all 20 episodes of Forbrydelsen over a few evenings.) The original is a mind-blowing and gut-wrenching work of genius. It’s not necessary to rehash the anger that followed in the wake of the conclusion last June of the first season of AMC’s mystery drama The Killing, based on Søren Sveistrup’s landmark Danish show Forbrydelsen, which follows the murder of a schoolgirl and its impact on the people whose lives the investigation touches upon. What followed were irate reviews, burnished with the “burning intensity of 10,000 white-hot suns