A solution to the "Save my Show!" problem

I don't think the government needs to be involved in any way, shape or form with television show line-ups and scheduling.

Just have folks vote with their bucks - do an "adopt a show" where you pay a buck or so for every new episode to be produced and delivered to your apple tv or whatever.

Ummmm, it already is that way, by law. The studios only "own" a small fraction of the shows they air now.

But now the forced-to-be independent producers want some security so they get contracts from the studios which lock the franchises up and sign away the freedom to move to alternate networks without great trouble. And since that right is signed away voluntarily, it is awful difficult to say a new new law will change anything, or should even be contemplated.

Are people really asking for Chuck to be saved?

You must not be a computer nerd that can imagine himself in Chuck's place.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2088803/mediaindex

Well yes - she's the best reason to watch the show. But she'd likely get picked up on another show anyway.

Not quite. Networks cannot own the production of the majority of their shows. I don't remember the specific threshold offhand.

An independent producer making a show in an independent production facility (or even contracting out network soundstage space), and then licensing the show long term to a particular broadcaster is not contradictory. It is how people on both sides of the issue, that have been in business for decades, deal with a particular law that separated the process from being all in-house. Nothing contradictory there at all, amusing it is though. So if the law can be so easily circumvented through completely legal means what makes you think a different law to do the same thing will have any other effect?

Your slave example is over the top and reactionary. Think professional athlete contract and you are back in business.

So do you want to turn down the rhetoric now? Leftist buzzword bingo is just so over.

If you want to keep watching a show that has non-standard viewer habits, either watch it in it's on-air time slot changing the viewer habits, or get Nielson to count DVR viewings in their ratings. The latter is far less invasive and likely far more effective than any additional production restriction laws. When the arm is bleeding, don't put the tourniquet on the leg.

"Life" got pulled.
/mourn

You want to eliminate contracts and the hold studios have over long-term production. How will a show ever get on the air then! We already know studios can only own a minority percentage of their shows and the rest are independently produced. If there can't be a contract how do you get the show on the air.

If you want to prevent multi-year contracts, how many producers and executive producers will finance anything other than derivative drivel? Multi-year contracts allow producers to take a bit more risk in a show because they get more up front to cover the start-up costs. No multi-year deals and I predict production values and show content drops off very noticeably. Not what any of us wants.

Pro-football players get cut all the time, they get non-guaranteed contracts that prevent them from going to a different team, but their team mostly has the right to terminate the contract whenever they want. Pretty much the same deal as the studios. Not all pro sports have non-guaranteed contracts, but they are moving that way due to economics of players who don't continue to produce, but suck significant portions of the payroll. Which sounds just like tired shows on the network.

Ratings, ratings, ratings. DVR viewings of shows do not count. BSG, TSCC and Chuck all have estimated DVR time-shifted viewership three plus times greater than those who watch the show in the scheduled time slot. Those viewers do not count towards advertising rates so a show gets cancelled because it only gets credited with 25% of it's viewership because the viewership is mainly technically savvy geeks who like to go out some evenings instead of sit at home watching the TV every night. Webcasts also aren't considered in a shows financial viability, they are strictly free money for the networks.

Fix the above antiquated ratings determination situation and the rest of the issue goes away because the shows would all be considered very poplar and rake in advertising revenues. Letting a show move to another network won't change the fact that by the old rules they have crappy ratings, no matter how popular they are in reality. Often the shows can move already, but what network, other than third tier cable portals who won't pay for production costs, want sloppy seconds of a Nielson-labeled dog? [It doesn't matter how wrong that label is]


It could under todays laws. But the producers (Warner Bros - NOT FOX) won't take the financial risk, probably because they already know those secondary revenue streams cannot cover production costs.

Doubtful. BSG almost got cancelled twice because non DVR viewership was so low. I don't think there are many people who think TSCC has more viewers than BSG.


The athletes don't get benched they get cut, without pay. Then other teams get a shot at signing them. But is the athlete was cut for poor performance he's done for the duration unless he goes to Canada. A show that's cancelled because it cannot pay for it's own production costs doesn't get a second chance on another network, why would the second network, on the Cable minor-leagues, think it can generate more revenue than a Big 3 network.

Nearly all the cable network programs have very low production costs, that's how they make it. BSG broke that mold and only survived because Air One in the UK chipped in the first two seasons. Just long enough to get viewership numbers to barely sustainable.



No, networks don't want to lose money. Very few shows are wildly popular. Networks make big money by having a couple hits and avoiding long term money losers. If a show can pay for itself in ad revenue it will have a long and distinguished run. I think that's the part you really don't get. As much as a lot of geeks (I are 1) think BSG, Chuck and TSCC are really popular, by the rest of societies measure they aren't. TSCC is losing money, the only thing that will save it is if Fox thinks there is some change they can make which will cause it to make money, with enough certainty that it isn't seen to be a significant gamble.

I found that I liked Chuck quite a bit. I didn't plan on it, but it grew on me. I thought the season (series?) finale was tremendously entertaining and even--dare I say it?--moving. I would love to see it back, but I'm not going to Subway for it...

I found Life entertaining the first season. For some reason I never hooked into this season. I don't know if the time changed or what, it just didn't happen. sorry...

I think the real solution is a healthy dose of "get a life" combined with a pinch of "who the fuck cares".

...says the guy who is trolling through random threads in a technology fan site.

You said it, I rarely watch TV and if I do it's from ovguide.com. Hey, I live in Switzerland no other option, anyway from a recomendation from my brother I watched both seasons over the weekend. My wife was in London with parents, OK! What a cool show, after reading this forum I'm really bumbed out now that there won't be anymore, damn I just got into it.

You killed Kenny, you bastards!