A Show for wealthy people?
“Wealthy audience might help ‘Studio 60’ survive poor ratings” - this was a headline in the Columbus dispatch from Columbus Ohio, this morning. The article reiterates a lot of old information, such as: Studio 60 is the most time shifted show, again, meaning it is TiVo’d and watched later by more people then any other show, but what caught my attention is the concept that it is watched by households with incomes over $75,000, thus making it a show watched by the wealthy. Assuming we agree with the concept that just because a household has an income of that amount classifies it as wealthy, I began to ask myself - How do you write a show for wealthy people? What do you have to put in the show to attract a “wealthy” audience? This leads me to think maybe the assumption is that wealthy people are also intellectually superior, so maybe the writing has to be wittier, cleverer, more subtle to appeal to the wealthy. If this is the case, then Aaron Sorkin has certainly achieved that. His dialogue is clever and his characters are witty and the plot hooks are subtle. But I am still not convinced that you can equate wealth with intellect. Many fortunes have been made by sweat and hard work, not just by being smart and well educated.
It would seem that the show is introducing more romanctic intrique into the plot. I believe this is an atttempt to raise the viewing numbers. We know that romantic twists always grab the viewers with the success of such shows as Moonlighting, JAG, and even Law and Order SVC, so by making the show more about the Matt/Harriett, Danny/Jordan and Tom/Lucy realtionships, maybe Aaron is hoping that the tried and tested formulae will work once again.
I dont know the answers and I would love to hear your ideas.
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