-
V O L U M E 3 9 N U M B E R 2 6 M U L T I C H A N N E L . C O M
D E C E M B E R 3 - 1 0 , 2 0 1 8 $ 6 . 9 5
Discovery Goes South, And Live, on the Border
Executives of the Year:Murdochs’ Brave New Fox
Forty-two years after ‘Network’ premiered, issues raised in the
fi lm are as relevant as ever as it shifts to Broadway
TV’s Timeless ‘Mad’ Man
Bryan Cranston as Howard Beale in the Broadway stage adaptation
of Network.
MCN1052.cover.indd 25 30/11/2018 21:29
-
8 M U L T I C H A N N E L N E W S D E C E M B E R 3 - 1 0 , 2 0
1 8 m u l t i c h a n n e l . c o m
COVER STORY
NETWORK, THE 1976 FILM about a rat-ings-challenged news anchor
who vows to kill himself on the air, and sees his Nielsen numbers
skyrocket as he delivers loose-cannon jeremiads about politics and
media and corporate America to viewers, is set to premiere on
Broadway. Bryan Cranston plays anchor Howard Beale.
While the story is set four decades ago, the play — and the
not-so-dated movie before it — raises some pressing and familiar
issues about the media’s role in our lives today.
Beale is wrestling with the public’s dedication
to the almighty box sitting in their family rooms. “ is tube is
gospel, this tube is the ultimate rev-elation,” he shouted on the
stream-of-conscious-ness-driven Howard Beale Show, which took the
place of his staid newscast. “ is tube can make or break
presidents, popes and prime ministers. is tube is the most awesome
goddamn force in the whole godless world!”
� e Howard Beale Show is something of a precursor to the
personality-driven, soliloquy-rich content one nds on cable news
today. e lm, said � e New Yorker, “was uncannily prescient
about our outrage-fueled news-as-entertainment culture,
foreseeing the likes of Sean Hannity, Jerry Springer and Laura
Ingraham by decades.”
Every night, some 27 million to 29 million people tuned in to
see Walter Cronkite deliver the CBS Evening News, according to
Forbes magazine. Beale did a little better than the Most Trusted
Man in America as his new program took o . As the anchor starts to
become unglued, he’s visited by a ghost. He asks the apparition why
he’s been approached. Because you have 40 million Ameri-cans
watching, he is told. Jan
Vers
weyveld
, 20
18 (
4);
Scre
en
gra
b N
etw
ork
Mo
vie
Bryan Cranston on stage as Howard Beale in the Broadway
theatrical version of Network.
At right, Peter Finch as Beale in the 1976 Hollywood fi lm.
Howard Beale Is Still Mad as Hell Forty-two years after
‘Network’ came out, story of unhinged news anchor takes the stage
on Broadway
BY MICHAEL MALONE@BCMikeMalone
ANALYSIS
MCN1052.coverstory.indd 8 30/11/2018 21:21
-
People loved watching Beale’s “angry prophet” routine, but as
happens with viewers, they lost interest over time. His boss, Diana
Christensen — she’s played by Orphan Black star Tatiana Maslany —
tells Beale he’s “dropping like a stone” when his audience share
falls below a 40.
Network chiefs today can dream about that 40 share. e average
audience for the evening newscasts on ABC, CBS and NBC stands at
5.2 million viewers apiece, said comScore TV Essen-tials, a 7% drop
from the year before.
But that’s not to say people aren’t consuming awesome amounts of
media. Last year, Fox News Channel generated some $2.67 billion in
revenue,
CNN tallied $1.59 billion and MSNBC took in $798 million,
according to SNL Kagan. Seeking to reach its consumers on the go,
Fox News launched its OTT product Fox Nation last week. For six
bucks a month, users get on-demand programming starring the likes
of star-polished personalities Tomi Lahren, Britt McHenry and Sean
Hannity.
Fox News senior vice president of development and production
John Finley likened the new chan-nel to a combination of Net¤ ix
and Facebook Live. “It’s kind of a hybrid mix between the two,”
Finley said, “in terms of format and o erings.”
It’s safe to say Beale would be blown away by Net¤ ix, even
though he would probably be disap-pointed by the platform’s lack of
news. Net¤ ix is spending close to $13 billion on original content
this year, according to � e Economist, way up from $8 billion a
year ago. If one can’t swing the eleven bucks a month, one can
simply stand in Times Square, a quick hop from where Network shows
at the Belasco eatre, and watch the massive digital billboard
showing Net¤ ix clips all day long.
Standard Deviation Beale also lamented the breakdown in the
lofty
standards the news business once held itself to. “Television is
not the truth,” thundered Beale. “Television is a goddamn amusement
park. Tele-vision is a carnival, a circus, a traveling troupe of
acrobats and storytellers, dancers and jugglers and sideshow
freaks, lion tamers and football players.”
Speaking with � e New York Times, Cranston — who, of course,
played methamphetamine-making Walter White on Breaking Bad — shared
his own thoughts on the state of news media. “We’re seeing it now,
very clearly: agendas of di erent outlets, to promulgate their
ideology,” he said. “Whether
m u l t i c h a n n e l . c o m D E C E M B E R 3 - 1 0 , 2 0 1
8 M U L T I C H A N N E L N E W S 9
Bryan Cranston as Howard Beale and Tony Goldwyn as Max
Schumacher on set (top) and on
the town (center). At bottom, Tatiana Maslany as Diana
Christensen, Julian Elijah Martinez and
Network cast members in the UBS control room.
MCN1052.coverstory.indd 9 30/11/2018 21:21
-
1 0 M U L T I C H A N N E L N E W S D E C E M B E R 3 - 1 0 , 2
0 1 8 m u l t i c h a n n e l . c o m
COVER STORY
it’s liberal or conservative. It doesn’t matter, it’s out there.
And you listen to the people who agree with you for a§rmation, and
you listen to the other side so you can get angry and shout at
them.”
TV news today, Cranston added, is a “news-en-tertainment
program.”
Fittingly, oversight of Beale’s program gets shift-ed from the
news division to programming, with all the entertainment series. As
programming chief Diana Christensen discusses the show with news
president Max Schumacher, played by Tony Gold-wyn, who portrayed
the U.S. president on Scandal, she doesn’t think much of the
network’s news standards. Its newscasts are “straight tabloid,” she
says, mentioning a recent 1½-minute story about a naked lady riding
a bike through Central Park. “I don’t think I’ll listen to any
protestations of high standards of journalism,” Christensen scos.
“If you’re gonna hustle, at least do it right.”
Speaking of U.S. presidents, Beale might be prepared to leap —
rather than scream — out the window over a president who derides
stories that criticize him as “fake news,” and famously denied a
press pass to a CNN reporter he often clashed with. ( Jim Acosta’s
credentials were restored days later.) Just last week, President
Donald Trump took to Twitter to express his desire for a federal
news network, because, he said, CNN does not do a good job of
portraying the U.S. A “worldwide” network would “show the World the
way we really are, GREAT!” he said on Twitter.
e general public’s opinion of TV news isn’t a whole lot higher
than the president’s. Some 50% of U.S. adults get news regularly
from television, according to a study earlier this year from Pew
Research. at’s down from 57% a year before that.
Around 46% of Americans turn to local TV for news, ahead of the
31% who use cable news and 30% who turn to broadcast network
stu.
And 43% of Americans often get their news online, while Pew said
a whopping 93% of U.S.
adults get at least some news online. Plenty of online sources
are legit, with veteran reporters covering the basics of
journalism. In the coming weeks, CBSN Local premieres, marrying
CBS
News’s four-year-old streaming channel with its local news
outlets. WCBS New York is rst.
But countless other online news sources t the president’s fake
news description.
Remote Vote Christensen, Network’s network programming
chief, says TV networks have little responsibility
to deliver responsible, virtuous content. “We’re not in the
business of morality,” she tells news chief Schumacher. “We’re in
the business of business.”
Its TV network was just one aspect of the port-
folio belonging to Communications Corporation of America, the
ctional behemoth in Network. CCA presaged the corporate monoliths
con-trolling the media today.
Can we hold our news sources to higher stan-dards than
Christensen does? After all, the viewers are ultimately the ones
who decide if a news net-work thrives or dives. Might we take a
more active role, with remote or mouse or phone in hand, in
clicking o the outlets oering news that does not hit our
standards?
Howard Beale implores his viewers to take a stand against the
untruths he felt were streaming out of the tube back in the ’70s.
“Turn o your television sets!” he howls. “Put an end to this
mad-ness. Strike a blow for sanity. Right in the middle of this
show. Turn o your TVs and set yourself free, goddamnit!”
His bosses weren’t wild about that message from their ornery
host, but it didn’t end there. “Get up out of your chairs right
now, stick your heads out the window, and yell,” Beale memorably
exhorts, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not gonna take it anymore!” n
“We’re not in the business of morality. We’re in the business of
business.”
— Diana Christensen (Tatiana Maslany) in ‘Network’
Mic
hael M
alo
ne
The stage adaptation of Network is running at New York’s Belasco
Theater after a successful London engagement.
MCN1052.coverstory.indd 10 30/11/2018 21:21