The TCA Press Tour, Explained

If you follow any television critics on social media, brace yourself for a non-stop flood of tweets and posts surrounding the Television Critics Association (TCA) Press Tour that officially kicks off with an evening reception Monday night. The tour pretty much goes non-stop through August 13, as a procession of broadcast, cable and streaming video outlets highlight some of their programs and executives to about 200 TV critics.

Most people have at least heard about the twice-a-year press tours and I'll assume that if you've read this far, you want to know more. Consider this the Press Tour Guide For Dummies.

What Is The TCA?

The group was founded in 1978 and at the time had two main purposes. They wanted to present a more professional face to the industry. And secondly, they organized two press tours with the networks - one in January and one in July. In the past decade or so, the membership ranks have shifted from almost entirely traditional print critics to the current mix of print, online and other. Nearly every TV critic and reporter is expected to fluent in several mediums and the membership reflects that. The TCA might have been slow to embrace the shift to online, but today it's a reasonably accurate reflection of the industry.

Currently, the TCA has about 220 members in the United States and Canada. Here is their mission statement, which basically says that membership requirements include being a full-time critic and being someone who would be served by the organization's primary mission: the press tours.

What Happens On The Press Tour?

In the early days, the television business looked very different and the TCA Press Tours reflected that reality. Before the Internet, nearly all of the TCA members worked as newspaper critics and the tour was primarily focused on broadcast television. But as the industry changed, so did the network representation. This year, parts of the tour are devoted to streaming video on demand (SVOD) platforms such as Netflix, Amazon, Hulu and Crackle.

As for what the tour looks like, the days are split up two ways. Some days are focused around a seemingly endless procession of panels featuring the stars, showrunners and producers from the highlighted shows. A few days focus on set visits and various dinners and parties are sprinkled through the tour. The goal is to provide fodder for the upcoming months with the panels and also provide some face-to-face time with network suits, the publicists and of course the cast and crew of the shows. And then of course, there are the TCA Awards, which this year take place on August 8.

Does The Press Tour Still Make Sense In Today's 24/7 Programming Environment?

The best answer is that it depends on who you talk to and how far they are into the press tour. For the most part, critics I've spoken with think the TCA tours are worth it overall, although I haven't spoken to anyone who isn't at least somewhat dissatisfied with the current set-up. Critics do get some important face time with execs and stars. And some actual news does come out of the TCA tours, although in recent years it's tended to be casting info and the random announcement of a new season order.

The arrival of social media has changed the atmosphere of the tour, according to many of the people I spoke with about it. The news that does come out of the tour is instantly tweeted out into the ether, as is every notable quip or comment from the panels. And the nature of the Internet has changed what critics can get from the panels. In its early years, a TV critic from Kansas City or Memphis or Denver could attend the press tour and have plenty of quotes for stories that would be published in the upcoming months. As far as their local readers were concerned, these quotes were unique and the material helped give the local critics an audience and a value to their local publication. Now a reader in Memphis can read not just their local critic's take on the panel, but similar ones from around the country. In an ironic way, the original purpose of the tour was to give even the smallest local critic access to the stars. But now these local critics are competiing head-to-head with online critics who have a national audience. And that's the challenge for the press tours moving forward: how to you change the format to make it a more unique experience for 220 competiting critics?

That's not to say that unique reporting isn't coming out of the press tour, although it's more of a consequence of the tour than a direct result. Critics have access to executives, showrunners and casts at parties and in the scrum after the end of the panels. And some critics have ongoing relationships that allow them to schedule one-on-one interviews during the tour. But overall, the news impact of the tour is overrated.

There is one last reason critics like the TCA Press Tour and it's the one they least like to admit publicly. It's fun hanging out with your peers, many of whom you only see in person during the press tour. You're tied to a hotel for two or three weeks, with the networks feeding you bacon and skittles and room dropping swag while you work. It's fun and as much as critics whine publicly about the length of the press tour, when you talk to them off the record, it's one of the reasons they keep coming back.

So What Do The Networks Think About The Press Tour?

Publicly? They're generally happy or at least they don't complain too much. But privately there is a crazy amount of dissatisfaction with the process and the costs of appearing at the press tour. Network executives always preface their complaints by talking about specific critics they enjoy seeing each year. But then they launch into rants about critics tweeting complaints about the food, many critics inattention to panels for shows they don't like and the problems that come from any process in which you are trying to get the best spin on shows that might not deserve it.

One irony is that the average critic and the typical network executive see the tour in very different ways. Critics are proud of the fact that they (or their publications) pay for the hotel rooms and travel. They see that as a way of not feeling beholden to the networks who would otherwise be covering the expenses. And the truth is that if the networks were footing all the bills, the tour would include 30 critics and not 220. But while network execs I've spoken with acknowledge that fact, they bristle at the amount of money they spend on snacks and swag and meals. More than a few executives and press managers I've spoken with have an almost contemputous attitude about the press tour's participants, although they will single out critics they think are "not that way."

The networks who are the unhappiest are often the smaller cable networks, who struggle to get attention from critics and put forth a lot of effort trying to get attention for shows that few critics really care about otherwise. One director of publicity I spoke with was still seething about a tour from several years ago, in which she felt that critics were doing everything but listening to the network's panels. Honestly, it was kind of amazing how mad she remained about the incident. There's no way of knowing how valid some of the criticisms might be, but the tone of the complaints runs just below the surface during the press tour.

Hey, You're Not A Member Of The TCA! What Do You Know About It? 

Yeah and I suppose sportwriters who have never played professional football can't write about the NFL. I've never been a member of the TCA, although I attended a few panels early in my career thanks to the networks. But the truth is that I've never worked for a publication that could justify the expense of sending me to a hotel in Southern California for weeks at a time and attending the tours is a primary reason to be in the TCA. And there's the larger point that while I'd enjoy the social aspects, I don't see a lot of value for me. Yes, it would be nice to have some face time with the people I cover. But the amount of original reporting and interviews I'd get from the process doesn't justify the expense. Plus. I'd feel pretty hypocritical participating in a process I think is fundanmentally flawed.

You're Probably Just Jealous!

Every time someone outside the TCA writes about the organization and the press tour, TCA members tend to get a bit defensive. Which is understandable, even if the criticisms aren't meant to be an attack. The typical critic response is usually similar to this piece The Hollywood Reporter's main TV critic Tim Goodman wrote in 2013:

There will always be a handful of columnists complaining that TCA is a pointless dog and pony show. Usually one of them works for Variety, a few others don’t even come because they just mail in their columns without much information anyway; a smattering are from people the TCA wouldn’t let in their ranks and the rest have been doing it for so long they hate everything in the entire world.

I admire Tim and think he's one of the best television critics working today. But he's wrong. I'm not going to rant on about all of the reasons I think he's mistaken. Truthfully, I don't care enough about it to argue the point.

So in the end I leave it up to you. Follow your favorite TV critics over the next three weeks and decide for yourself whether the press tour has much of an impact on what you watch and why.  And in the end, that's what really matters. Does the TCA press tour provide clarity for the viewers and give them more information that will help them determine what's worth watching and why?

My dear readers, I'll leave that up to you.