With their epic storylines, expansive casts and exploding production budgets, there’s nothing mini about the modern TV miniseries.
These days, extravagant multi-night specials have established themselves as crucial for networks eager to lure fickle viewers and define their channel as a home for unique programming, say producers and broadcasters competing for attention.
Recent spectacles like Steven Spielberg’s war epic The Pacific — which reportedly cost $200 million — and the upcoming $50-million Canadian co-production The Pillars of the Earth, stem from ongoing efforts to break through an increasingly tough entertainment landscape, say those in the business.
“A couple of years ago we were all on the search for the ‘event two-hour movie,”’ says Christina Jennings of the Toronto-based Shaftesbury Films, which produced the eight-part miniseries, Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures for HBO Canada.
“We’ve moved off event movies and we’re now into event miniseries.”
By “event” she means marketing dramatic series as one-time only, special airings — something usually reserved for big sporting events or news.
And nothing says “event” like over-the-top effects, budgets and casts.
The eight-part The Pillars of the Earth — headed to The Movie Network and Movie Central on Friday — cost “way above” previous homegrown ventures, says Montreal producer Michael Prupas, whose company Muse Entertainment shares most of the tab with German partners.
Like the recent Spartacus: Blood and Sand and Rome, Pillars is a sprawling costume drama set centuries back.
It’s based on the bestselling Ken Follett book about a magnificent cathedral built against a backdrop of religious and political strife in Kingsbridge, England.
The ensemble cast includes Ian McShane, Donald Sutherland, Rufus Sewell, Gordon Pinsent and Alison Pill.
“It’s about giving premium quality programming to the audiences,” Prupas says of over-the-top visual extravaganzas that have taken over the dial.
“There’s a certain spectacle advantage to that . . . The pay services, they need to have programming that is not available and that is different from your run-of-the-mill programming. They have to take things a notch above.”
Such multi-night ventures are less often seen on conventional networks, but they have found success there.
Earlier this year, CBC-TV anchored its winter schedule with the eight-part miniseries, Kids In the Hall: Death Comes to Town, scoring well with audiences and critics.
“It’s kind of how we’ve all been dealing with the challenge of online, PVRs, and the many different outlets for people to get entertained nowadays,” says CBC-TV general manager Kirstine Stewart, referring to studies that suggest viewers are more likely to commit to a miniseries with a defined end rather than a long-running regular series.
“You’re not going to necessarily wait for the DVD to come out because it’s a special event and you want to be involved as it’s unfolding and talk about it with your friends and be involved in it more tactically.
“It just creates an opportunity to kind of break through and not be considered to be just part of that mass of content that’s streaming by everybody.”
Still, the main broadcast networks are especially wary of taking on any miniseries that spans more than a few hours, says Prupas.
Aside from the cost, it’s tough to maintain viewer interest and often means preempting regular programming.
Stewart says it comes down to a basic advertising dilemma — it’s hard to sell ads on a never-before-seen TV event when it’s impossible to predict how viewers will respond.
“It is a harder sell. And it’s a harder sell to an audience because you have to tell them all about something and it’s over in eight weeks. But it’s better than being over in one night,” says Stewart, who will bring “Pillars” to the CBC in January 2011 after it debuts on The Movie Network and Movie Central.
Such ad concerns are not an issue for premium pay channels, which are bolstered by subscription rates and have the freedom to create projects deemed risky or non-conventional, notes Kevin Wright of Astral Media, which runs The Movie Network.
In many ways, the more unconventional the better, adds Canwest programmer Daniel Eves, since programming is all about marketing a channel’s brand and getting people talking about your service.
“Your ultimate goal is to bring in subscribers and you’re going to do that through getting buzz and being heard about and having people want to make sure they subscribe,” says Eves, who is bringing the $30-million co-production “The Kennedys,” to History Television.
“If you really want to get people to know you for that genre, it’s about making a big splash and those miniseries can do that.”
The eight-part drama, “The Kennedys,” will be the specialty channel’s first scripted limited series when it debuts in 2011. Eves says it’s expected to help broaden the channel’s appeal to women and younger viewers.
Wright says “The Pacific” was one of HBO Canada’s highest rated programs of all time but couldn’t say whether it boosted subscribers.
“It’s hard to directly attribute a subscribers’ continued subscription or new subscription to a specific show but we have seen continued growth, especially since the launch of HBO Canada, so we think it’s a strategy that works and ’Pillars’ is the latest example of it,” he says.