Gone are the long-ago “glorious” days of the Television Critics Association (TCA), who welcomed all traditional U.S. TV channels, as well as U.S. cable and independent TV outlets, to their press tours. The networks took three days each and always claimed they never had sufficient time to show off their wares — even though each network bill came in at around the $1 million mark, according to a network exec from back then.
In recent times, getting a full, single-day for any TV outlet was difficult, and while past tours were 21 days, more recent ones were no more than 10. TCA always staged two annual events: the winter and the summer tours held at the Langham Huntington Hotel in Pasadena, California.
Yes, TV has changed, but the association (officially formed in 1979) hasn’t. News that the upcoming TCA Press Tour has been called off (just like the last) comes as no surprise to many in the group. While other media reports will concentrate on the feedback from TV entities about the expenses necessary to attend, the real reason falls upon the TCA.
When blogging entered the social media universe, the TCA board looked down upon bloggers nearly as much as they had toward radio. However, when those same board members lost their jobs (as print outlets closed), they became bloggers themselves, and orchestrated membership for the previously undesirable faction. As of today, there’s only a small percentage of members actually working for legitimately accepted outlets. The rest are blogging!
From the start pure streaming entities saw through the TCA curtain. You could count on the fingers of one hand the collective number of times Netflix and Amazon attended TCA press tours, always preferring, instead, to run their own press events and never inviting TCA members.
However, PBS has always championed TCA and remains loyal, which has been a wonderful opportunity for them in getting coverage for their mission of still providing interesting, informative, entertaining, and rewarding content to viewers.
The COVID years were also a game-changer. TV outlets realized they could get their message across via Zoom, without losing production days, without moving staff from their offices, paying for any hotel rooms, or providing three meals a day to a couple of hundred people outside of their own. Once COVID restrictions were lifted the TCA board continued to let TV entities hold Zoom interviews, seeing that TCA would go along with proposals (including continuing to conduct interviews via Zoom and not in person) — even though they were holding lavish in-person media events for Critics Choice members.
Despite some board and organization members pushing for a televised awards show there has always been an elitist view within TCA boards that having a TCA awards show televised would cheapen the association, lessen its importance, or lead viewers to question its impartiality. The fact that the Motion Picture Academy (the Oscars), HFPA (the Golden Globes), and later the Critics Choice organization had televised award shows that didn’t lessen/cheapen their brand was continually brushed aside. Meanwhile, the TCA Awards show remains a farce, with winners notified prior to the event and no TV coverage. This is dictated by certain individuals who were also members of the Critics Choice organization, who gladly welcomed the televised awards show they held.
A few days after the recent tour cancellation announcement the TCA board called a Zoom meeting to address the situation, and according to some participants, the board insisted that everything was fine and the next tour would be happening — a repeat of what they said after the prior cancellation.
All in all, the TCA can be considered fortunate to have lasted this long.
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