Watching the golden age of American television - in the UK

As Kevin Spacey noted in his recent MacTaggart lecture, scripted American television is going through something of a golden age.  It is very easy to real of a list of the modern American classics: The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, The Walking Dead, In Treatment, Madmen, Modern Family, The Wire, Game of Thrones, Dexter, House of Cards and Breaking Bad.  

Sadly it was rather telling that Kevin didn't mention a single scripted British show in his speech. Looking at the output covering the same period; in drama Queer as Folk, Life on Mars, Sherlock and maybe Skins would qualify as modern quality, groundbreaking shows - in comedy The Office, Outnumbered and The Thick of it, stand out - but quite honestly, there is little else.   Where is the British Sopranos, Breaking Bad or Wire?  Hell, where is the British Simpsons or Friends?

With all this quality stuff available from across the pond, surely our tv networks will be falling over each other to snap it up.  Sadly not, somewhat curiously, almost all the output output of this golden age of American tv has failed to find a home on the main British television channels. Since the 1990s, American imports have all but disappeared from BBC 1 and ITV.  Channel 4, once the proud home of American TV has gradually shifted most of this output to its digital channels. 

Amongst broadcasters, regulators and politicians; this cleansing of the airwaves is considered a good thing.  In reality, it is cultural protectionism at its worst, made possible by the widespread (& laughable) belief that British television is the best in the world.  It means that in the UK, it is regarded as more desirable to fill the schedules with poor quality, home grown shows - rather than some of the greatest television ever made.  

There may also be another motive for not presenting these great shows to the masses: By not showing them, people don't know what they are missing.  If Game of Thrones was at the heart of the BBC One schedule - would they not have to raise their game in the rest of their output?

Sadly, even if the best American shows were to be broadcast on the main television channels, there is little chance that they would be given the respect they deserve. US imports have often been treated very badly by UK broadcasters.  Often shown months (or even years) after their American transmission (The Larry Sanders Show); constantly moved around the schedule and dropped at a moments notice.  Many of the shows that are now regarded as all time classics - (Seinfeld, The Sopranos) - were treated as little more than filler when they were first shown on UK television.  Even a mainstream hit like Desperate Housewives was dropped from the schedule, midseason, for three months to accommodate Big Brother.  It pretty much killed DH in the UK.

Thankfully, for those willing to pay, things have started to get better. Pay tv channels like Sky One, Fox and Watch have built their success on the back of US imports, and treat them well.  In 2011 BSkyB launched Sky Atlantic.  It finally took the great shows of HBO and put them right in the heart of primetime. A couple of years later, Netflix is now giving the more established UK broadcasters a master class in how to treat one of the finest shows of modern times, Breaking Bad.

The first couple of seasons of Breaking Bad were actually shown on British television, but at after it failed to find an audience (the second season went out at the viewer friendly hour of 11pm), Channel 5 declined to show any further seasons.  The show then inexplicably (and to British broadcastings shame) failed to be picked up by another network.  

Traditional televisions loss, was the internets gain - Because  Netflix picked up the rights to all past and future seasons of the show. This, combined with DVD and iTunes sales, has helped build an ever increasing UK audience for Breaking Bad.

The way that Sky Atlantic has presented HBO's Game of Thrones - showing it at 9pm, the day after the US transmission - set a new benchmark in how to treat a quality US import.  Even so, this is still at a time that suits the broadcaster, and unlike in the US - GoT has commercials.  Now Netflix have gone a step further:  New episodes of Breaking Bad are made available, commercial free, within four hours of the final credits rolling on the US west coast telecast.  With Netflix Original Series, like House of Cards - the entire series is available at once, the same day as the US.

How long it will be before the traditional UK networks behave in the same way, is unclear.  But first they need to make some decent shows.