Flexi-Narrative from Hill Street to Holby City

Abstract

Whilst multi-narrative, multi-character television drama was common in soaps by the 1970s, the origins of flexi-narrative in series might be traced to the MTM (Mary Tyler Moore) stable in Los Angeles and to Hill Street Blues (1980) in particular.¹ The context of the production of Hill Street was influenced by a range of factors bearing out the appropriateness of the ecological approach in this study to TV drama. One factor — as declared by Grant Tinker, financial head of MTM, in the epigraph to this chapter — was a sense in 1970s America that the audience required a pacey television to sustain its attention. In addition, an early example of ‘demographic thinking’ about audience led NBC to take on the dominant CBS network not in terms of total numbers ratings but on the basis of maximising ‘quality audience’ — those sectors, that is, with highest disposable income (AB/C1’s). Together with liberalizing cultural developments arising from the ‘beat generation’ of the 1960s, the civil rights movement, and the feminist movement of the early 1970s, these influences led to a perceived need for sophisticated adult programming which could nevertheless hold the attention of an audience whose powers of concentration were diminished.

… by the 1970s the attention span of the viewers had shortened. They were spoiled. You had to come at them from all directions to keep their attention (Grant Tinker cited in Feuer et al., 1984: 80).