The Jan. 6 Hearings Did a Great Service, by Making Great TV

The hearings gave us both the tragedy of Jan. 6 and the absurdity, the terror and the irony, the blood and the ketchup.

Word of mouth

The strongest story in the world means nothing if no one is paying attention. The hearings were made — and, unusually for a congressional broadcast, promoted — with a keen instinct for how audiences today become interested in TV and how they talk about it.

The committee and its members posted teaser video clips on social media to spike interest. They offered recaps and previews, like the “Previously” and “Next week on” trailers that bracket prime-time dramas. They promised video that was “never before seen,” three magic words to excite media interest.

And the proceedings were stacked with clips and anecdotes perfect for late-show monologues and social media sharing, which generate a secondary audience and free advertising. Within minutes of the Hawley clips’ airing, social accounts screen-grabbed them for jokes and scored them to “Yakety Sax” and the “Chariots of Fire” theme. (The images aired just before a break, as if, as the pop-culture critic Linda Holmes noted on Twitter, to give the internet time to go to work.)

To paraphrase Carl von Clausewitz, it was the continuation of politics by other memes.

Trust in the audience

Ultimately, the hearings had the same job as that of any ambitious TV drama: to make a complex story coherent. But they also needed to tell a complete story in detail — Thursday’s broadcast, like many a season finale, ran longer than usual — and have faith that, given signposts and a strong voice, viewers would stick it out.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/22/arts/television/jan-6-hearings-tv.html