Country Music Television Launches Country Cop Shows

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Country Music Television (CMT) is taking aim at another obsession of “country” culture: Law-enforcement. Sheriffs and bounty hunters are joining the ranks of Stetson-wearing crooners in a pair of new shows, set to begin debuting late this year.

But you know how the tastes of the mainstream run: They like the same old shit, just a bit different. CMT will oblige.

The three main stars of the upcoming line-up will be faces all-too-familiar to the self-parody that country culture has become. Give a guess – it ain’t that hard.

Did you say Larry the Cable Guy, Jeff Foxworthy and Bill Engvall? Well congratulations, you just stated the obvious, and you’re damn right. The voices for the animated series, creatively called Bounty Hunters, are redneck comedy’s top talents.

Bounty Hunters will premiere in 2013. I don’t know the plot, but it doesn’t take a media guru to figure it out. Mark my words now: Jeff will be the straight guy – the Moe, if you will – to the two stooges, Larry and Bill. CMT’s artistic geniuses have thrown in a crass, angry fat woman to further stir the pot of laughs.

You can tell I’m on the edge of my seat over this one, can’t you? Well, if you really can’t wait for CMT to air some narrative, Trinity 911 – an upcoming reality TV show about the cops of Trinity, Texas – has you squared away. It debuts “later this year.”

I could just be cynical, but this seems another outgrowth of a sorry trend. Cable channels like MTV and AMC are no longer about, well, what their names declare them to be about – Music Television and American Movie Classics. The History Channel is no longer about history; even most of its “history” shows are just speculation.

It all comes down to the same principle that guarantees our flip-flops will come from China: The profit margin just isn’t there. It’s cheaper to cobble together an outlandish reality TV show or C-grade celebrity series, then shoehorn it into the basic demographic of the channel. So MTV becomes less about teen music and more about teen moms, History Channel is less about history nerds and more about, well, kind of nerdy topics in general.

And now Country Music Television is just plain country television. Not surprisingly, its aiming square for the lowest denominator of its demographic. No Louvin Brothers or Carter Family documentaries here; no, sir. Not when goofy stereotypes are proven to put more asses in the seats.