‘The Walking Dead’ Is An ‘Anomaly,’ Says NBC

According to the folks at NBC, AMC’s The Walking Dead is an “anomaly” in the world of cable television.

Network chairman Bob Greenblatt was on-hand at the Television Critics Association press tour in Beverly Hills on Saturday. When asked about the fierce competition broadcasters are currently facing, Greenblatt remarked that most cable shows would be canceled if they were on traditional networks.

He explained:

The bastard child is now broadcast television. Our peers in the industry don’t look at the work we do. They just look at the shiny new bulb in the cable world. It’s just a fact of life. I lost count of how many networks do original programming these days. I wish we could get more respect for the good work that we do.

He added that most cable shows wouldn’t last very long on network television due to the low numbers they generate. However, Greenblatt was quick to remark that The Walking Dead was an exception to this rule.

One reporter at the TCA press tour wanted to know what Greenblatt thought about networks getting shut out of the Emmys Outstanding Drama Series category this year. Instead of simply asking the chairman about the situation, the individual asked if networks were simply “incapable” of producing quality content.

“I don’t think there’s inferior product, or I wouldn’t have taken this job or wanted to work in this space,” he explained.

Greenblatt added, “Showtime can put on one show a year and trust me, if we could put on one show a year, it would be the best show you ever saw because we’d have 85 million people working on one show, handcrafting every word.”

The continued success of The Walking Dead may have prompted NBC’s decision to reboot a handful of horror properties for the small screen. The network is currently working on a version of Rosemary’s Baby and an adaptation of Stephen King’s The Tommyknockers.

Do you agree that The Walking Dead’s popularity is an anomaly in the world of cable television?

[Image via AMC]