USA! USA! USA!

For the third straight year in a row, USA network is the highest rated cable network on TV. In 2010, they even outranked the CW in ratings, the first time a cable network has ever beaten a broadcast network. They do crazy numbers in the all important 18-49 demographic, and while they might not be winning the awards of, say, HBO or AMC, they are doing well enough to have doubled their original programing in the last two years. Why?

Well, I'll tell you.

It's fun.

USA's battery of shows is, first and foremost, fun to watch. Look, life is hard. At the end of a long day, most of us just want to curl up in front of the TV in our comfy pants and veg. Do we want to watch intense dramas with complicated plotlines and miserable characters? If the ratings for The Event, V, or last year's FlashForward are any indication, no.

We want to watch fun stuff like Burn Notice, where they do funny accents for aliases and blow stuff up. We want to watch Shaun and Gus drop pop-culture references on Psych. We want to watch White Collar suave con artist Neal be charming and really, really hot.

Good television.

America loves procedurals. Hell, I love procedurals. I want to watch problems get fixed. It makes me feel better about my life. And USA has the best procedurals on TV. There's just enough of a continuing plotline through the season to keep everything cohesive and me invested, but there's one story per week where somebody takes out a bad guy, cures a disease, or solves a dispute. Procedurals can go wrong (Um, Chase, Law and Order: Los Angeles, The Whole Truth...) Procedurals suck if you aren't invested in the characters.

That's where USA got it right. I want to go have a drink with every single USA lead and most of the side characters as well. These are fully formed likeable characters, and we care what happens to them. I watched the premiere of Fairly Legal last week, and if you've read my Spring TV Preview, you know that I did not have particularly high hopes. Well, it's great. Because after one hour, I feel like I know these people, like they are my friends. I think, "Oh, poor pretty Kate Reid, I'm sorry your dad died and I really hope things get better for you!"

My new BFF Kate.

And then I change the channel and I don't think another thing about it. That's entertainment! It's not trying to make me think, or cry, or cringe. USA just wants me to tune in and have a good time.

I don't want to make it sound like here that I think these shows aren't incredibly well done, they are. They are well-written, well-acted, well-produced shows. It's just that I don't really care about that as much as I care about my really enjoyable hour of television.

It's just polished programming. It's funny characters who look good while fixing problems. What's not to like about that?