Why The Quality Of Writing On Cable Television Is Better Than The Networks by John Truby Video Lecture | Screenwriting: From Beginner to a Pro - Career Development

John do you think the quality of shows
on cable is higher than those that are
on network TV and why they are higher
quality on cable but then on network and
it has to do with this major structural
problem that the networks deal with
which is that first of all they have to
do anywhere up to 24 episodes per season
a cable show like an HBO show a game of
thrones for example 10 episodes per
season The Sopranos 13 episodes per
season the requirement of doing 24 shows
versus 12 shows is immense because what
writers don't realize is that a single
episode of television whether for
network or for cable is approximately
half the length of a feature film and
yet on television you have to then write
half of a feature film sometimes as
quickly as once a week now that is
tremendously difficult in a screenplay
for a feature film if you wrote it in
three months that would be outrageously
fast so the requirement to do this at a
high speed and maintain the quality is
just immense and there is simply no way
that a staff even a large staff of a
network show can produce that kind of
quality at the same rate that a show on
on HBO can and that's the biggest
problem you also get the problem that
network shows tend to meddle much more
in the creative process the writing
process then on the cable shows now
we do have to make a distinction between
paid cable like an HBO and cable that
has commercials right like an AMC now
AMC also has tremendously high level of
quality you get shows like Mad Men
Breaking Bad Walking Dead through the
best shows on television but again the
number of episodes per season much less
you look at a show on network like The
Good Wife The Good Wife is the best
written drama show on network television
and the the fact that they can do that
kind of quality with the number of
episodes that they have to do compared
to say an HBO show to me is is the real
story there I mean that that show is
phenomenal given the requirements that
they are and the obstacles that they
have to overcome to write at that level
do you think also the fact that on
networks certain subjects are off limit
or you can only explore them to a
certain length whereas with cable it can
be more of an r-rated type of a show and
therefore have more of a following do
you think that factors in at all
I think that there has for many years
been that perception that on an HBO type
of show you can have more nudity you can
have in terms of the level of violence
for example or you know drug use use of
language and so on and so forth but I
think that's really a false indicator
because you know the it might have been
true when really HBO was first coming on
and we had this strong contrast and
people have never seen this before on
their home television but it's now been
that way for such a long time that that
kind of difference isn't really that big
of a deal anymore and network has pushed
much further than they ever did in terms
of subject matter nudity and so on and
so forth so to me that's that's really a
false indicator and and those elements
who really have nothing to do with the
quality of this story what you see on
these cable shows is the story quality
the level of story is so high the the
the quality the writers working on these
staffs
is so good that that's what's bringing
them back especially when you keep in
mind that almost all of these shows that
are so highly rated are all serials so
it means that these are writers who are
again tracking over an entire season
which is ten times more difficult than
creating a great story in a single
45-minute episode
you