The only exception is if it’s greatly hyped or has a big celebrity guest star, but not everybody reads magazine/internet updates.

I know of no site that shows production costs. the estimates we hear regularly for one hour scripted dramas on broadcast seem to be in a wide range from $1.5 million to $4 million per episode.

Does anyone know where there is some sort of listing comparing production costs of shows? I know that a couple years ago Top Model was about 800k per show and apprentice was 2million. That might have changed by now, not sure. What is the cost of a scripted 1 hour show?

Oh, boy, marty. You’re gonna get it now. Don’t you know nobody on this site wants to hear reason?

Mostly it’s the viewing that matters. We don’t see the commercial viewing rankings but it’s safe to assume Ghost Whisperer makes more on advertising than Supernanny. Without the data, it’s not safe to assume that TSCC and Friday Night Lights charge higher rates simply as a function of higher production costs.

The networks have not yet learned how to create a limited premise program (such as “Prison Break” as well as “Parks and Recreation”), run it for 13 episodes or a season or maybe two and then let it go like they do on cable and in the UK. That is what really killed “Prison Break”.

Translation – Studio exec’s had people under contract and decided to do a “Make Work” series since they were getting paid anyway!

Lame. . .

Or you can deal with the “real” Internet where you have to deal with people who are not only forceful and forthright in their opinions but also sometimes downright hostile.

I respond as I’m treated. I don’t bend over when I’m insulted as some people seem to expect.

Summer one of the weaker actors? Well, to each their own, but she beats the pants off of Dekker, if not Lena. “Allison From Palmdale” should have gotten her an Emmy nomination for portraying not only a Terminator, AND a human, but also a Terminator CHANNELING a human! It was an amazing performance.

I think you’re experiencing the fact that her character was sidelined for most of the season, and thus what she was given to do was either comic relief or act as a pit bull for the Connors. Since she IS acting as a Terminator, which limits her expressiveness (although she does amazing things with a minor facial maneuver), it’s hard to describe what she does as “bad acting”. Even the critics recognize that.

The finale had enormous problems both from a story telling and a sci-fi perspective which I won’t go into here in detail. It had the right pace but a lousy concept. It had the feel of something rushed, crammed, and thrown under a bus in order to try to save the show at the last minute. Contrary to Brian Austin Green’s recent comments, the alternative time line concept they’ve been using is a recipe for story-telling and sci-fi conceptual disaster. Friedman admitted all that crap was his idea. And it’s a really BAD idea. Overusing time travel is a major mistake in sci-fi in almost all cases which is why Cameron never did it in the movies.

So scripted shows not doing too well for Fox on Fridays. Really it seems most of the reality shows do much better and are cheaper to produce. Does the amount of Reality shows in the lineup vs scripted shows effect the advertising prices? I would imagine that advertisers wouldn’t want to pay as high for advertisements on shows that they know are cheap to produce. Do advertisers pay to be put in specific timeslots (alligned with specific shows) or just to be on the network and the network places them anywhere?

Still, I’m talking only about this site. I’m used to the rules of conduct of boards such as TWOP.com so maybe I just find the attitude here a little shocking in comparison. I like coming here for the more indepth information about ratings but can’t really tolerate the attitude. I guess I have to toughen up a bit if I want to keep reading articles here.

Anyway, I enjoyed this season. I felt that the show is very much in line with Terminator 2 (ethics/family drama etc.). We obviously tune in for different things (I consider Summer to be one of the weaker actors on the show for example, yet love the idea of Cameron). Was very happy with the way the final turned out instead of that horrible fake spoiler. Ugh, now THAT was bad writing! I’m getting ready to pre-order the Season 2 BlueRay as soon as it becomes available on amazon.ca. Yes things could have improved in the story development but I doubt it would have saved it. Firefly had horrible ratings as well (I think they were actually worse!), and it is much better quality than terminator or dollhouse (IMO) and yet only survived half a season!

Maybe the other numbers about the show (DVD sales, iTunes sales, etc.) are enough to warrant a two hour wrap up TV Movie. But this isn’t the site to discuss it. Really this site should be called TVBYTHELIVERATINGS.com since all the other numbers don’t seem to matter. LOL.

Go to the Fox wiki and criticize the show. See how long you last without being subjected to very serious insults as I’ve indicated.

I’ve been banned from the Sarah Connor Society because they didn’t like my criticizing the show. The moderator of the Fox wiki had to shut down a thread devoted to insulting me and speculating that I was actually Lanie Grace (over the fake leaked last episode.)

Yes, some of these fans take their shows way too seriously and engage in the behavior I’ve outlined.

I take my favorite show very seriously, too – which is why I was ticked off when Friedman ruined it. But after you hear the same nonsense over and over and get insulted every time you point out that it’s nonsense, you start to get irritated with those people.

I get told over and over again by this people that I “hate” TSCC. I never hated the show. If I hated the show, I wouldn’t have downloaded the pilot (the first pilot, not the one that eventually aired) before the show even aired. I wouldn’t have watched all 31 episodes. I wouldn’t have devoted considerable time and effort to trying to point out where it was going wrong in order to make it better so it would stay on the air and I could keep enjoying it as I did all first season. Not to mention that I love Summer Glau!

So it irritates me when people who cheer led the show as it was going into the ground insult me. It may not be their fault that the show failed – it was Friedman’s – but they didn’t help by not recognizing where the faults were. And cussing me out doesn’t help the show and doesn’t help their case that the show was better than I think it was.

Now on THIS site the problem is that the fact of cancellation is considered almost a given, based on the ratings. Yet most of the fans who come here to comment recite the same reasons over and over why they think the show will be renewed, when those reasons have pretty much been debunked here numerous times. When Robert and Bill and some of us posters re-iterate the reasons, we get called “biased”, we “hate the show”, or in Robert and Bill’s case they’re accused of saying it just to get Web site hits.

It’s not a reasonable response.

The show is over (unless a Sugar Daddy picks up the check). One can argue whether the reason is the handling of the show by Fox, or the merits of the show itself, or that it simply never caught on. My opinion is that the show had faults – that the wider audience came seeking Terminator, saw, then left. And I think if the show comes back for a season 3 by some miracle, with Friedman at the helm, the ratings for the third season will be so abysmal it may set a new record. It will look like Prison Break’s ratings this past Friday…unless Friedman has been pressured to completely revamp the concept in a way that is acceptable to Terminator fans. And it would need one hell of a lot of new promotion to attract the viewers it lost in season 2.

I’ll watch it, though, just to see what happens with it – and because of Summer Glau, if she stays on – even as Allison Young, although I’m not that interested in her playing that part.

“Some people believe that if you criticize a show they like, you’re criticizing them by implication. And they react very violently to that. They accuse you of having a vendetta against their show, of being biased, of being a troll deliberating baiting them, etc.”

I see a lot more people here taking pot shots at the personality/mentality of these posters than these posters complaining about being trolled. Does my request that the pot shots stop classify me in this category? Anyway, I came to this site to see the ratings for T:TSCC and wonder what the options for the show were, despite the ratings (ie. if moving to another channel might save it). I realize the options are limited or non-existant but that doesn’t mean hoping there is a way out makes me a nut-case.

Anyway the back and forth between Alex and Robert put me over my limit.

Anything and everything but the fact that their show might actually have some problems in terms of itself – the premise, the focus, the pacing, the acting, the directing, the plots – or it simply never caught on for any of a million unknown social reasons.

Some people believe that if you criticize a show they like, you’re criticizing them by implication. And they react very violently to that. They accuse you of having a vendetta against their show, of being biased, of being a troll deliberating baiting them, etc. And like most disproportionate emotional reactions, it tends to both cause that exact behavior from them and also attracts that exact behavior from others who enjoy that sort of thing and see these people as vulnerable.

Not all fans of a show are like that. But some are. You can’t dismiss it.

People need to remember that not every show that’s “good” by some more or less “objective” measurement (if there are any) survives, and not every show that’s “bad” by those measurements gets canceled.

Broadcast television is Darwinian survival at its clearest. Do you match the environment, whatever it is? Maybe you’ll survive. If not, you won’t – regardless of how “good” you are in some other contexts.

Case in point:
…”the mentality is crazy. a well-adjust person would just say, “that sucks, it didn’t perform well” and move on. But I don’t think we’re talking about well-adjusted people. With some, it’s like they attach their own self-worth to the performances of their shows, and when those shows don’t perform well…”

I don’t see how that kind of conjecture is necessary. As for the “rejoicing” that another show bombed; I’m not seeing that. I assumed this was a talk about the numbers forum, either to be spun positive or negative, not a “let’s bash the fans and make jokes about their mental stability”.

So they’ve died? That’s what “giving up the ghost” means…

Yes i agree Fridays is a death trap for fox…i wold like to see American idol on Fridays just to see what happens….

………….R.I.P………….
…Cameron Phillips……
…….2029-2009……….
Of all the souls I have encountered in my travels,
hers was the least… human.”

I completely disagree with you on that, Richard. Just look at episode 14 Ability. That was a great episode. And the last two have pretty good too.

http://tvbythenumbers.com/2009/04/19/saturday-ratings-nascar-sprint-cup-beats-slow-field/

But what do I know, seeing as how things with viewership seem to work, it might have had huge ratings, and the network “uncancels” it as a result?! :0

Seriously, what a waste of concept…

Yes, I understand it’s just the viewers in the key demo, but it’s still looking at the total number of those viewers and then averaging them, right?

So a show that’s on Wednesdays, in 3rd place, with 3 million viewers in the demo will look better on the index than a show that’s on Fridays in 1st place with 2.5 million in the demo. Which is why Ghost Whisperer always using using using scores low on the Renew/Cancel index. Or am I confused?

Here’s an example. Ghost Whisperer vs Criminal Minds.
My understanding is that the Renew/Cancel index (which I find very helpful, btw), will consistently rank Criminal Minds as the stronger show. But I think this is one of the few situations where the day of the week does make a difference.

F CBS Ghost Whisperer 2.5/9 (1st)
W CBS Criminal Minds 3.4/8 (3rd)

The index itself says: “Friday night – Friday is quickly becoming an 18-49 wasteland, so these shows may be allowed a lower threshold for success than shows on other nights.”

I’m just suggesting that it would be interesting, particularly for Friday night shows, to at some point look at how they would rank if share were used instead of viewer count. But I know it would be a lot of work.

and Fox’s announcement that it will air it in repeats this summer is either another test or a sign of confidence, but in either case it’s a very different situation than Dollhouse.

Of course one of the interesting things is that one of the metrics where the day DOES hurt a show badly is the Renew/Cancel index, since it’s just looking at total viewers.

I know it would be twice as much work, so I don’t expect it to be done, but it would be interesting at least at the end of the season to see if doing the Renew/Cancel index based on share rather than viewers changed any of the predictions.

Because Lie to Me gets beautiful Share (which is a relative number, so the size of the total pie doesn’t affect it)–anywhere from 8 to 12, even on nights when it either airs before American Idol or Idol doesn’t air at all.

I don’t believe Dollhouse has ever had Share higher than 5 in any episode since the premiere. Certainly its average must be between 4 and 5.

Share doesn’t tell you how much money a show can make (it’s still generally more lucrative to have a smaller share and more eyeballs on a different night), but it does tell you how a show is doing against its competition from other networks. It gives you bragging rights and great press releases and helps a network’s branding. That doesn’t pay the bills, but it is an important part of the overall business plan.

The other issue with Dollhouse’s trends is that Whedon himself did the whole “the first 5 episodes were baby steps” campaign to relaunch the series with the-mythical-episode-6. New screeners were sent to critics in the hopes of building new buzz. The big conference call and a decent amount of press. Tons of internet chatter, for what that’s worth. So it was Whedon himself who asked that episodes 6+ be evaluated differently. And as a Parisian acquaintance says about fashion: “The trend, she was not friendly to him.”

When the weakest episodes are all the recent ones, it’s important. The series has trended down, and it doesn’t appear to be going up at all. If it does, you can start talking about season averages again, but for now the important thing is how it has consistently performed poorly in recent weeks.

Sigh. How many times are we going to have to listen to this argument? Unfortunately no matter how many times its made it doesn’t become true.

People who complain that the move to Friday killed Terminator tend to forget how horrible the show was performing on Monday. Terminator ended up on Friday for its back nine because it absolutely bombed on Mondays. Fans also forget that Terminator its two seasons bleeding viewers on an almost weekly basis. The move to Friday did not kill TSCC, it was dead long before it arrived on Friday nights. Anyone who believes that Fox is going to look at Prison Break’s numbers (another show that bombed on Monday and got put on Friday to wrap) and decide that Terminator was in fact a success is insane.

As far as Dollhouse goes I’d be prepared to listen to the arguments that it was the night killing the show if it hadn’t debuted with strong (for a Friday) numbers and then lost 30% of its audience. It scored a 2.0 for its debut, again I say if it stays there or close to that then we’re all talking about season two of Dollhouse right now the problem is that it didn’t. This theory that people don’t watch because its a Friday isn’t right – they did watch, didn’t like what they saw and turned off.

Friday is not killing these shows its the shows and if they were on any other night of the week they’d still be facing the axe.

“Considering that TSCC sometimes got better ratings than PB, it’s hard to figure that putting in PB as a lead in for DollHouse would make a difference.”

I’m really not convinced that’s true. Not this season at least.

It’s the same as you and Fringe. I wanted the show to be awesome, instead it went into the toilet.

So I’m pissed off. Can you comprehend that?

I also did not say the show should anything like you describe. That’s a completely different show that WOULD do better than the real TSCC. It’s not the Terminator show I want to see but it is one that would be better than what Friedman produced.

And then I see you making suggestion of how the show should be and you want a Hulk themed show with Cameron in the role of Bruce Banner or something? Don’t get me wrong , I adore Summer Glau and I think she has huge potential but come on! Are you crazy?

I think you should take your pills. Like the leaked script and now with PB ratings you once again shot your mouth off.

I know you’re gonna read this and react because you’re obsessed and you wanna read about TSCC and try to flame me but I don’t care.

About the ratings, PB did horribly. I expected it but it’s gonna hurt Dollhouse now. I hope that odesn’t happen as I kinda like that show.

Fringe is not what I expected it to be. I thought it was gonna be incredible because of Abrams but I’m not watching anymore. A waste of my time.