Some of network TV's top producers criticized the broadcast TV restrictions on content not faced by their cable counterparts.
At a Hollywood Radio and Television Society lunch on Thursday, NYPD Blue producer Steven Bochco said he was jealous of cable producers and said restrictions at the broadcast networks have gotten tighter in the eight years NYPD Blue has been on the air.
"I suppose in a political climate dominated by conservatism and the religious right, and [adding in] the fact that we are an advertiser-driven medium, what we do in TV is inexorably constricted a little bit more every year because of fear. The economics of our industry and the conservatism of these giant corporate entities is really a collar that I certainly feel."
John Wells (E.R., West Wing), concurred. "The more that cable has done, the more constricted we have felt on network TV because people don't distinguish between the two. It just comes into your house."
- Joe Schlosser
