2013-2014 TV Death Watch

[GagHalfrunt]

If a show isn't a hit right off the bat it gets cancelled. Just ridiculous. Big Bang Theory was slow to find an audience when it first came out, and that turned out well.

No it wasn't. BBT started out pretty well and by week 6 or 7 it was getting better ratings than for the opening. That's very rare and it's a guarantee that a show is going to last because word of mouth is strong. It was not the ratings juggernaut it is now, but it was never slow to find an audience.

Contrary to the rantings of pathetic fanboys who scream that the networks don't know what they're doing whenever a show they like gets cancelled, the networks almost always know what they're doing. They understand ratings trends, they know exactly what a show costs to produce and they know how much it can bring in at expected ratings. They rarely make mistakes and they never cancel shows that are making money or that are trending up in the ratings. If they axe a show it's because the show is not making money and that means people are not watching it. The VIEWERS determine which shows live and which ones die, not the suits.

 

[techs]

I wonder why the networks don't do more in show product placement? If someone's drinking a soda why can't it be from a coke or pepsi can? As long as they don't do it obnoxiously I don't see how it would take away from the show. In fact I find the dumb pseudo products they make up names for to be more distracting than how a real product would be.

 

[GagHalfrunt]

I wonder why the networks don't do more in show product placement? If someone's drinking a soda why can't it be from a coke or pepsi can? As long as they don't do it obnoxiously I don't see how it would take away from the show. In fact I find the dumb pseudo products they make up names for to be more distracting than how a real product would be.

In many cases a network doesn't own the shows they air, various studios and production companies do. They buy the rights to air the show and make money off the commercials sold. So even if product placement was used, it would be whoever owned the show that made the money, not the network. And the studios and producers that own the shows won't do a lot of product placement because that makes the show worth less to the network, so it's a wash. ABC can't sell ad time to Coke and Ford when they're airing a show that has the characters drinking Pepsi and driving Chevrolets. You do see a lot of product placement ads these days, but it's limited to shows owned by the network or done in conjunction with the network where the owner will accept lower fees up front in exchange for having some degree of product placement allowed.

Who owns a show is often a big factor in deciding what gets cancelled and what gets to stay. The networks show more leniency towards their own shows as they stand to recoup money on DVD sales down the road if it merely breaks even now. A show owned by an outside company would get axed for breaking even as the network doesn't have a financial stake in the DVD sales.

 

[lupi]

Community stricken from the cancelled list; 13 episodes approved to be aired on Yahoo.

 

[SunnyD]

Community stricken from the cancelled list; 13 episodes approved to be aired on Yahoo.

Yahoo is decidedly not "TV".

On a side note, is Under the Dome cancelled yet?

 

[lupi]

Saw a blurb that it had ginormous ratings for its new season premier, so probably not.

 

[bearxor]

Community stricken from the cancelled list; 13 episodes approved to be aired on Yahoo.

Seriously, isn't that just unbelievable?