Why Is Government Subsidizing a Failed Soap Opera?

Why Is Government Subsidizing a Failed Soap Opera?

You might have been one of the few fans of the television show Nashville, a soapy drama on ABC following the lives of country music performers. Chances are you probably were not, though. The show was kind of a ratings dud, and it was canceled by ABC in May at the end of its fourth season.

And then it wasn’t. A benefactor has resurrected the show from the dead and has moved it to country music cable network CMT. CMT and Hulu will air a fifth season of the show, consisting of 22 episodes.

That benefactor? The taxpayers of the state of Tennessee. As part of the deal, the state of Tennessee will be providing $8.5 million in incentives, and the City of Nashville will provide another $1 million. This is actually an increase in incentives over the previous two seasons of the show. Failure has been good to Nashville, at least in terms of getting themselves subsidized. Based on The Tennessean’s calculations, the show has received about $57 million in subsidies and incentives after folding in this upcoming season.

As is typical, defenders of using public funds to subsidize entertainment empires defend their position on the basis of creating jobs. From The Tennessean:

Nashville Mayor Megan Barry said the salvaging of the show by CMT is great news for the city.

“Not only will hundreds of film production workers be keeping their jobs, we will also be keeping the greatest advertising tool for Music City that we have ever seen,” Barry said.

But why should taxpayers throughout the state have to pay for the salaries of people to produce a show that apparently people aren’t interested in watching? Wouldn’t it have been better for those television people to go work on shows that are actually successful? But then they wouldn’t be serving the City of Nashville’s goals of promoting its music culture. Call me deeply skeptical at the idea that the show actually serves as an advertising tool for Nashville. Given its poor ratings, it seems more likely that it’s the reverse: The show’s audience is probably made up of those who are already fans of the Nashville country music scene.

These entertainment subsides also have the whiff of the “Broken Windows” economic fallacy about them. When the government takes money from some people and gives it to other people and calls this job creation, it fails to account for what that money might have accomplished had the government not taken it and redirected it in the first place.

Mark Cunningham of the free market-promoting Beacon Center of Tennessee explained why the state’s citizens should have been jazzed about the show dying (before it was resurrected): (continue reading)

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