Few Viewers and Network Executives Scratch Their Heads (Great Article!)
 

Bill Carter
New York Times
October 22, 2003

Read the full article here

This article has proved what writer Alvin Toffler wrote some 24 years ago in The Third Wave: as communications technology improves, the hammerlock of the major TV networks on television viewership has effectively been broken--a concept Toffer calls de-massifying the media.

Between cable TV systems offering 60-plus channels, direct-broadcast satellite TV systems offering 200-plus channels, the rise of home video systems (starting with videocassette recorders in the early 1980's to today's DVD players), videogames being very popular, and people being drawn away by the commercial Internet (especially the increasingly available broadband Internet access for the home), the day of the major TV networks getting less than 50% of the total TV viewership will be coming very soon, if it has not happened already.

Mr. TV Executives:

No one is watching your programs because the quality of your programs suck.

Okay, now where's my 7 figure salary?!

Get a clue guys!
Good writing=good show=better chance of success. This ain't rocket science, boys and girls!

Ahhh, just what I was thinking: Friends is losing viewers because it isn't nearly as good as it once was.

Amen! Give me quality shows (and don't cancel them mid-season) and I'll continue to watch. Otherwise I have a stack of unwatched DVDs I'd rather deal with than put up with the crap networks keep trying to pass off as must see TV.

I haven't gotten into a single new show this fall other than Karen Sisco(and I missed 2 episodes because of the playoffs)but I'd much rather watch a movie on cable or on dvd than watch the latest Friends ripoff/spinoff. If tv is this bad, then it can only get better, right?

:thumbsup:

I don't know why they are :hscratch: over the drop in viewership for ER and Friends. Both shows are shells of their former selves. I haven't watched ER since about 1998 and I haven't consistently watched Friends for at least 3 years.

TV Networks ignoring alternatives.
 

Folks,

I think the major TV networks are finally figuring out what has happened: Americans have much more choice of what they can watch ON TV.

Cable TV and Direct-Broadcast Satellite TV have such a huge choice of programming that they have effectively changed American viewing habits, especially since these new channels are tailored for a much more niche audience. The rise of videocassette recorders has pretty much killed the concept of prime time since the middle 1980's, and how with DVD players rapidly dropping in price people are now increasingly interested in spending the evening watching movies or other shows now available on DVD.

Especially hard-hitting is the rapid rise of the commercial Internet since the middle 1990's. Americans who have Internet access are actually watching less regular TV, since they tend to prefer to spend time online with the much more interactive Internet than watch the idiot box.

My advice to the Networks:

If you keep tinkering with shows to try to get a show that EVERYBODY likes, you'll only wind up with shows that NOBODY likes. Don't be afraid to market to a smaller core audience.

Also, by definition, only ten shows can be in the top 10 ratings. Don't be shocked when all 25 shows on your network don't get ER/CSI type numbers. Give shows more than 3 episodes before you call them a failure and cancel them. It's almost getting to the point that I don't want to take a chance getting attached to a new show, because I don't want to be disappointed when it gets pulled off the air after two months with no resolution to the storyline.

And speaking of storylines, if you always insist that every plot point be wrapped up in a tight 44 minute story, you’re missing out of something that makes great TV great- story arcs. I want to be rewarded for sticking with a show an entire season or more. Have characters grow and change, have the story be leading somewhere- then I’ll feel the NEED to watch the show every week.

But, Networks, don’t worry too much if you don’t follow this advice. It won’t bother me too much, since I’ve got web surfing, PC games, DVDs, books to read, and real life events that I could be doing instead if I prefer.

That's partly true - I only watch a handful of shows, and I don't think any of them would be considered shows for "young men" - Smallville, West Wing, Newlyweds, and Gilmore Girls are pretty much the only new shows I watch, and they're all "girls" shows.

I must be uber-sensitive :banana:

Edited to add Alias, another "chick" show

So amusing. We know what's been going on and have been bitching about it for years. It's what happens when you put stupid people in charge.

1) Nielsen is statistically inaccurate and has been for quite some time. This statistical imbalance has always benefited the big networks, so they don't complain about it. Now that they're no longer getting that benefit (which in their minds looks like a dropoff), they're bitching about it. Tough shit.

2) You **** over your audience enough times, and they will finally get fed up and leave. Network executives have been banking on the belief that people would just keep coming back no matter how many times you piss them off. For the most part, that's been true, but now there's a little thing called competition, and crap smells a lot worse. Everything can't be a huge hit in the first episode. Show some freakin' patience.

3) Bonnie Hammer ... the face of evil. You need look no further than her to understand what's going on. She took a wonderful niche channel and turned it into a generic nightmare, killing everything even remotely original that got in her path. This mentality is everywhere, from entire channels to single shows. Everybody wants to be everything to everyone. Can't happen. As <b>Mr. T.</b> points out above, this process soon leaves you being nothing to no one.

4) No matter how much you promote something, if it sucks, people aren't going to watch it. When will this get through to them?

5) Every show isn't a "New SMASH HIT." Each time you call something a SMASH HIT when it isn't, the phrase loses meaning. Each time you tell people "this is the episode you CAN'T MISS" and then it sucks, the phrase loses meaning. It's a "boy who cried wolf" thing. Even the dumbest viewers can only be manipulated for so long. By promoting every show as the greatest thing in the history of television, no show stands out as special.

While the argument can be made, I don't buy into all the complaining from the networks. TV is still a dominant medium. Say what you want about DVDs and the Internet, but people <i>will</i> stay home and watch primetime programming if you give them a consistent and good product. However, every time you cancel half your primetime schedule to cash in on a <i>Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?</i> fad, you push them further away. Everytime you promote the hell out of a show and then cancel it after 2 episodes, you push them further away.

The networks can bitch and moan all they want about whatever bullshit helps them justify their insanely bloated executive management teams, but they have no one to blame but themselves. They've been digging this hole for years: ABC shot themselves in the foot in the mid-late 90s with the gameshow craze and is just now realizing how stupid that was and trying to fix it; NBC's schedule has become an ever unstable house of cards with each passing year just waiting for the crash when <I>er</i> and <i>Friends</i> and <i>Frasier</i> and <i>Will & Grace</i> finally do the world a favor and die; and Fox has angered so many people cancelling damn near everything they get their hands on, it's no wonder no one gives a shit anymore; CBS and WB seem to have figured this out and given their shows a chance to become hits, but even so, how many <i>C.S.I.</i> and <i>Buffy</i> clones can we take? And who cares about UPN.

We've been heading for this point for a while now, and it's finally catching up with them. Time to face the consequences. Perhaps they can push their denial phase as far as the RIAA has and find a way to sue their viewers. I can see it now: lawsuits for not paying attention of changing the channel during a commercial break.

The only way out of this is to make quality shows and stick with them. People will come back, but it will take time to rebuild trust. And with all the competition, you'll never reach the same numbers, so don't kill a show for not being #1. A fundamental practice in the stock market is to buy stock in companies with solid business practices. Their stock my go down for a time, but if the company is solid, they'll rebound in the long run. It's the same with quality shows. If the shows are good, and you give them time, people will find them. Aside from a few unique cases, the most popular shows in the history of television started very small and grew over time. Even today's biggest long-running hits are that way. No one watched the first season of <i>Friends</i> and everyone certainly didn't love the first season of <i>Raymond</i>, but they caught on. Get back to basics, and stop trying to catch lighting in a bottle in the first 2 episodes of every freakin' show ... and give us back the Sci-Fi Channel dammit! ;)

das

<i>Edit: Hmm ... that's kinda long ... best not to read it.</i>

Quote:

---

Originally posted by das Monkey
5) Every show isn't a "New SMASH HIT." Each time you call something a SMASH HIT when it isn't, the phrase loses meaning. Each time you tell people "this is the episode you CAN'T MISS" and then it sucks, the phrase loses meaning. It's a "boy who cried wolf" thing. Even the dumbest viewers can only be manipulated for so long. By promoting every show as the greatest thing in the history of television, no show stands out as special.

---

You forgot the "Don't Miss the Last 5 Minutes" promos or any one that promotes a "ending SO shocking" or "a twist that only **** can deliver"... or any variation...

I would say that the 4 primary shows out there for the 18-25 market right now are West Wing (for those of us who aren't idiots and like to use our brain when watching TV), Ed, Scrubs, and Alias. All of these shows have good writing and provide a reason to come back week in and week out.


Those are really the only 3 shows I ever hear about from any of my friends. There's just other stuff to be doing than trying to find on TV which downward-spiralling show is now featuring Tiffanni Amber Theassin.

There are also other formats out there that interest us more - ie, PTI, probably the coolest idea for a show ever.

It couldn't possibly be that the 2 shows they're basing their conclusions on are fringe shows, could it? Just by the title alone, "Skin" could be alienating to a lot of Middle America, and JM2- I think so many people felt cheated and dirty watching the first one that they didn't bother with the new one.

And as far as Friends and ER, I watched half the first episode of Friends and got rid of it in my Replay- snorefest. ER- well, who wants to watch a show that has NONE of the original cast on it, and I won't even watch it on principle, because of the dumb 9:59 start time.

Of course, that's not to say that I watch no TV this season- I'm actually watching more shows than I have in years- CSI (both), Gilmore Girls, Queer Eye, What Not to Wear, LA Dragnet, Coupling (BBC), Joan of Arcadia, Grounded For Life...

They neglect to mention that a huge advertising push for a crap show still makes it a crap show....

-jason

"You can't explain a 12 percent decline in men 18 to 34 or close to 20 percent in men 18 to 24 by saying they're playing a lot more video games," said David F. Poltrack, the executive vice president for research at CBS.

Uhhhh...I know I've found myself doing such this past fall - anyone else?

Cannot much of this decline be attributed to the baseball playoffs?

<BLOCKQUOTE> • Quoth Rogue588 •<HR SIZE=1>You forgot the "Don't Miss the Last 5 Minutes" promos or any one that promotes a "ending SO shocking" or "a twist that only **** can deliver"... or any variation... <HR SIZE=1></BLOCKQUOTE>
This phenomenon should be known as "Crying Dick Wolf".

das

And I'm so tired of "Ripped from the Headlines"

Why you try ripping the story line from your own brain instead of depending on the news for your content? I swear, Tom Brokaw is going to be a producer for L&O soon so that every week they can act out whatever we saw on the news that previous week.

I'm personally waiting for the ADA Serena Southerlyn gets run over by a steamroller suprise-twist-ending. Until that happens, there will never ever be an appropriate payoff. ;)

I don't have a problem with ripped-from-the-headlines stories. Some of the best L&Os are ones that were ripped-from-the-headlines (although they were never promoted as such by NBC back in the day when L&O was virtually ignored by NBC).

I agree that for the most part they are good episodes, but I just enjoyed the purity of it when they didn't point out that they were doing it. It just seemed so much more authentic and original before they announced it as such.

They're loosing to new technology. I haven't seen a single episode of any new show this season. It's a chore to keep up with some of the show I've been faithful to for years. And some shows we've just given up on. Why?

1) The wife and I have been catching up on Buffy and Angel on DVD. We've never seen the shows before and would much rather pop in a new (to us) episode of Angel than try out some new show. When we finally get through season two of Angel, Buffy should almost be out. Until then, we still have Babylon 5 season 3 to finish watching. And I'd love to try out 24 and a few others.

2) TiVo. We just got DirecTV and a DirecTivo a couple weeks back. Why try a new show when I can watch an old favorite that TiVo picked up at 2am on some odd channel? Sure we could have taped it in the past, but now I come home to a whole list of shows that I'm interested in just waiting to be watched with almost no effort. And if it doesn't find anything I've asked it to record, it tries to find things I might like. But I very rarely reach the point where I run out of things I've asked for and when I do, I reach for a DVD.

3) With DVD and TiVo, I've seen almost no commercials in the past several months. I've never even heard of most of these new shows.

Live TV? With commercials? With someone else dictating when I have to watch and when I can take a break? No thank you!!! When I get to that point, I'll go play a video game, play with my kids, get out for the evening, etc. It's my entertainment time and the networks are no longer going to tell me how I'll spend it.

<BLOCKQUOTE> • Quoth MEJHarrison •<HR SIZE=1>Until then, we still have Babylon 5 season 3 to finish watching.<HR SIZE=1></BLOCKQUOTE>
*screeeeeeeeeech* Go back ... you're saying you have episodes of season 3 left to watch, and you're able to function without having seen them? Mods, this man is either an alien invader or a robot; please take appropriate action. Thanks!

das

I havent been able to watch Smallville/One Tree Hill/Everwood since the stupid playoffs have been on. I dont suppose these same executives can do anything about my UPN/WB being on FOX and ACN after the monkeys go to sleep and change it back to normal times and channels? Probably not.

Great Point. They are very rapidly losing to technology and should be spending their money on trying to harness technology and use it to their advantage (Would you pay for a channel like NBC On-Demand) rather than dropping millions in crappy attempts at sitcoms.

I for one am hooked to On-Demand technology and it's not like there isn't a lot of selection for it - almost every major cable channel on TWC is now available via On-Demand.

Quote: "Gail Berman, the president of Fox Entertainment, acknowledged that the network was disappointed, though she said "Joe Millionaire" might grow as it goes along. She also pledged to run "Skin" in other time periods to build an audience for it."

I love the second sentence. Do they actually think this works?