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Anatoly_Vorobey comments on The Classic Literature Workshop - Less Wrong
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No, this isn't stating the obvious, it's cheap, unthinking cynicism. In reality, TV shows compete against each other very aggressively, and having more complex, interesting, realistic characters can and does bring a huge competitive advantage to one show over another. That depends on the genre, in the more lowbrow sitcoms you may want a very stereotypical character instead, but those do not capture all the market or even most of it. What you're saying is easily falsified just by reading a few articles on which shows get cancelled and speculations as to why.
TV shows die due to bad writing all the time (Heroes is a particularly striking recent example where a show was off to a great start and fizzled out due to bad writing and characters the viewers couldn't care about in the later seasons). Unless the show is particularly formulaic, the producers have all the incentive to organize better characters, and in fact the networks interfere in the shows' character development and plot arcs all the time, demanding this or that change because they're convinced their audience will like it better. Every major TV show has a huge amount of attention devoted to characters.
TV shows do compete aggressively, but having complex and realistic characters is only a good investment for the small minority of shows that are highly serialized and oriented around complex characters (Mad Men and Breaking Bad are good examples). There is a market for shows like this, but it is small and not terribly profitable.
The big money comes from shows with simple cardboard characters and one-off storylines like The Big Bang Theory (which set a record for biggest per-episode syndication deal ever) and Baywatch, which was syndicated in 142 countries. They have mass appeal and--most importantly--are easy to sell into syndication, where they become permanent cash cows.
Not too long ago, the highest rated TV show in the U.S. was serial drama The Walking Dead...
Nope. To check this I just looked at the average ratings of The Big Bang Theory and compared it to The Walking Dead. TBBT had higher average ratings all three seasons The Walking Dead has aired. A quick check confirms that Two and a Half Men also had more viewers.
Really?
That's only 18-49. Wikipedia sources TV By the Numbers, which includes people not in the 18-49 demographic.
To be fair, TTBT episodes are short and easy to watch. It's the fiction equivalent of candy, or of a casual game. Could you have a look at the DVD sales?
Thank you. That does make sense- you might have found some cached knowledge of mine. I would like to point out that there are quite a few painfully crappy shows that people enjoy, but now that I think about it, they tend to go off the air in a couple seasons.
My father watches Revenge. He acknowledges that the writing is terrible and says he watches it to see what kind of moronic and unbelievable plot twist they're going to come up with next.