Every time a low rated shows gets axed people bring up other revenue sources for reasons it shouldnt be axed. Its just whistling past the graveyard. If TSCC was getting 6-8 million viewers, then other sources of revenues might help it. But it wasnt even close. Networks just cant afford to keep expensive money losing shows on the air.

How do you know TSCC doesn’t profit from additional revenue? You don’t know what Hulu is bringing in or paying out. Nor do you know what Fox charges for add space for their streaming – or how many times TSCC was downloaded from their site.

Do you know how much they charged Dodge for the add space or where their general P&L figures break even?

That’s not to say the ratings are down. Live viewership is down. That’s the only thing I see you able to back up.

Everything else is guesswork. And since no actual DVD sales figures are released, it’s pretty interesting to see you say those are poor.

It didn’t top the chart, but could have been steady, like Firefly. You don’t know.

Anyway, I really think this site could do a lot more to present a better argument. Or refrain from using arguments that you can’t prove to support another.

Now there are multiple revenue streams, and us schlubs can see only one.

My case for TSCC having a potential for renewal is not [fennish squeal]“oooohhh, i just luv that show!” [/fennish squeal]. I do love the show but that’s not it. To me, TSCC is a really nice model of what the future of determining television show profitability will look like, not too long from now and at least for a while. (“A while” being however long it takes to move the whole shebang to the family computer.)

Are you able to show actual numbers or revenue for shows streamed on Hulu?

And if you don’t know, why do you keep mentioning them?

For a “fact based” site, you seem to be doing a lot of guessing.

Fridays is pretty much a wasteland.

Most shows on tv cant get that today, so I doubt Dollhouse would. It would be lucky to get a 2.0 demo again.

There are several comments in there where he basically says outright, “I didn’t know where I was going with this” – and it seems he still doesn’t.

He tossed in the “Haunting” stand alone which in my view was a mistake and he acknowledges it’s going to be considered a mistake. I don’t know why show runners can’t seem to grasp the notion of “momentum”. Do not start something interesting, then interrupt it! Do these guys all have problems with coitus interruptus at home or something?

His acknowledgment that originally the Dollhouse would be a spinoff of a corporation that was doing good works with research being funded by this “naughty” operation was changed by Fox into the organization being part of something more sinister. I can certainly see that as an improvement. Making the Dollhouse part of a big conspiracy is far more interesting than limiting it to the single Dollhouse which appears to have been Joss’ original conception. But it also shows how much Whedon really didn’t know where to go with the show.

He also argues that it’s not right to blame Fox for the initial stand alone episodes entirely, that Fox had some good reasons for asking for them. Personally I think the problem was they didn’t alternate the stand alone episodes with the mythology shows, and/or they didn’t integrate them quite as much as, say, Fringe does.

At this point, I think there’s enough issues with the initial season that have sealed its fate. I can’t see Fox trying another 13 episodes on the off chance it will really pick up even if they did make money on this season via the Remote Free. If the show had done just a bit better, they might have.

Dollhouse’s chances of survival may be one in a million, its only hope is that Fox’s fall llneups are usually pretty thin until the midseason.

http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/entertainment_tv/2009/04/dollhouse-joss-whedon-fox-eliza-dushku.html

that’s the full article. check it out.

I however, do NOT respect Robert Seidman or his personal cheerleader Alex, who instead of only reporting the ratings FACTS, like this site claims to do, make it their personal business to take cheap shots and jabs at shows they don’t care for. All that was needed is to post the numbers, and say if it was either better or worse than last week.

Then again, they know that by doing their routine, they are getting people on their site, if nothing else to voice their disapproval with how they are talking about the shows, and that is more important I guess.

As it stands, TSCC is still not canceled, and there’s still a chance for something to happen. That is 100% fact. Is the current outlook very bleak? Yes it is, and I am ready to accept it not returning.

Just do me a favor okay, and try to be more neutral when reporting ratings news here. If you have something to say of your own, please say “In my opinion”. You have a right to your opinion, just try to remember to keep it separate from the actual facts.

I bet Chuck misses TSCC on Mondays now, one show it could actually beat on the ratings.

It seems easy to keep predicting a PB/DH drop, one show is a goner so it won’t build an audience. It’s safer bet than saying PB will premiere on Fridays with a 1.6. Right?

However, I will repeat my history with TSCC. I downloaded the original pilot, not the pilot that aired, even before the show came on the air. I was very interested in the show and discussed it with other people and followed every bit of the story in season one, reasoning out where it might go. I really like the show. It is only in retrospect that I see the high school stuff as being a problem, especially since they really didn’t overdo it in season one.

I have watched every single episode of this show. Most of the episodes I enjoyed to the degree that they weren’t horrible – and most of them weren’t horrible (with the possible exception of “Alpine Fields” and first three episodes after the hiatus. But by that time, the problems were becoming extremely noticeable. Season two was very little like season one.

You can claim that just because I’m critical that I always disliked the show all you want, you’re just totally wrong about that. I was VERY invested in this show which is why I’m pissed that it went into the toilet. I’ve said that over and over everywhere, but people would rather believe I never liked the show just because I was never an uncritical simpering “fan” who applauded as it went into the toilet.

This is what pisses me off about the TSCC fans. If they’d been a little more critical, maybe Friedman would have listened and changed course. Unlikely I know, but it would have been better than cheerleading it to death.

I attribute the season premiere drop precisely to the fact that many viewers just didn’t know when the show would be back on. That’s not surprising. What that doesn’t explain is the continual bleed thereafter on Mondays and then additional bleed on Fridays. There is no other explanation except the problems with the show. All this stuff about scheduling and competition is irrelevant because every show has to deal with that. You either succeed in being compelling or you don’t.

Nick C: I predict next week’s Dollhouse will drop some more, despite it being the first episode with the rogue Doll in it. What will you say then? I predict you’ll STILL argue that it could be renewed.

You have some investment in this, and I suspect it’s because you’re reporting from Fox “insiders” and you don’t want that information to be considered suspect. So they have to be “considering renewal” right up to the moment when they cancel. Which is precisely what they may be doing – as usual. That doesn’t mean Dollhouse is “on the bubble” any more than TSCC is – it just means they haven’t announced cancellation and may never do so.

You keep saying the Fox execs are “considering renewal” but never say WHY. “It’s profitable”? If that’s true, why are we talking about Dollhouse at all? Can we really believe Fox will bring back a show that is likely to trend down or remain at very low numbers at best just because they made a buck on it this season because of another factor like Remote Free rather than the show itself? I doubt it.

Considering its success, how come we aren’t seeing copy cat shows of Ghost Whisperer?

Dollhouse would be LUCKY to pull in more than 5 million total, 2.0 to 2.3 in the demo (using rough math of 0.40-0.45 times total viewers = 18/49 demo, as that calculation seems to hold up for Dollhouse). The viewing public, quite frankly, is not particularly interested in this series.

How did Dollhouse do in the panels – you know, the ones that spell doom and gloom for Fringe ?

I think they will try something new next fall. However considering Flashpoint is cheap and its seasons are short anyway, they may consider renewing it for midseason to use it as a filler if the new series fails (and if it isn’t, use it in the summer)

6.5 million to 8 million is quite low for FOX.

If FOX is bringing it back for another night of the week, they’re going to get that nights advert premium boost, and the ability to claim the show averaged 4th place for the night of Friday for the season in C3 ratings. No one has any idea how the show would do on another night (I’d say 6M viewers if the lead in for FOX, and anywhere from 6.5M to 8M depending on the show it followed). The show is profitable, and if it remains as cheap as it is that makes it appealing in that regard.

The show needed to trend up last night, it didn’t. We’re talking a bubble show that didn’t trend up, but everything dropped. So it remains on the bubble. I don’t think the bubble burst, but since it didn’t trend up like I said it needed to, it’s not safe for renewal. It’s in limbo.

Personally, I wouldn’t renew it unless I wanted a Friday show to air for 13 episodes during a certain time of the season. If it fit for that (knowing the show is profitable) to add some profits to the bottom line then you go for it.

It’s all about money in the end. It’s profitable, so a short run during otherwise down times might not be a bad business decision.

Desperate Housewives does not have horrid ratings. Now if you are talking about Dollhouse, then yes it does. Remember people, DH is Desperate Housewives as it has been since it premiered.

“I never watched a full installment of a reality show, ever, but they are paying for network TV, and allowing networks to experiment and take risks on the scripted side. I don’t begrudge them, or the people that watch them. I fail to see the appeal, but I don’t see them as competition, more as an income source that can be tapped to make better scripted TV.”

I agree totally. Other than the things pertaining to football and the occasional episode of America’s Funniest Videos I’ve never seen a single episode of anything listed on the unscripted Renew/Cancel list. But its hard to deny that some of the more popular reality programs can help give a boost to new scripted programs and help them to find an audience.

“Just ignore Alex and richardstevenhacks all their facts are 90% wrong and they are just haters.”

I agree with this statement except for the 90% wrong bit. I’ve been ignoring Alex’s (both here and on the Monday threads discussing Chuck)and RSH’s comments for weeks now. Not because I think their conclusions are necessarily wrong, but after you read their first ten or fifteen posts you don’t need to read the next 200+ rehashes (even if some of the words have been changed).

I find I can read the comments in half the time just by ignoring these two commenters. LOL!

I guess if I thought about it a little bit more I wouldn’t call myself a fan of it. I watch it religiously, but if it did get cancelled I wouldn’t be so bothered because so many of the international versions are so much better. I’m also not an ardent admirere of it, though quite enthusiastic. If GNTM was to be cancelled or replaced Heidi Klum with someone else I would be extremely bummed, so I’m probably more a fan of that show.

I think I just went through some circular reasoning there and ended up back where I started. Anyway, just coming to understand how you can not be a fan of the show but feel invested at the same time.

I can see this going one of two ways. The unlikely way is that Fox actually manages to convince some advertisers that the Nielsen ratings are a poor indicator of the viewership of a niche show like Dollhouse, and that the iTunes, Hulu, and DVD numbers are a better indication. I doubt that would fly, but (independently of Dollhouse’s fate) I do think that the Nielsen system needs to be replaced.

The likely way is that Dollhouse gets canceled. Joss abandons television as a whole in favor of the Internet as a broadcast medium. The entire world marvels at his extraordinary success, and more eyeballs become unglued from the TV long enough to glue themselves to the computer screen. Network television slowly plummets into oblivion, and we see the dawning of a new, more enlightened model for entertainment distribution. Yes, I’d say that’s likely indeed.

PS: Network TV, this is what you get for over-emphasizing the immediate bottom line (reality TV) at the expense of shows which will earn you a reputation for serving the viewers what they want, earning you long-term benefits of loyal viewership. Of course, this is all just speculation from a thrice-burned Fox viewer (Firefly, Wonderfalls, and now Dollhouse).

For example I don’t really like anything that plays on Thursdays, so the only thing I look for on Friday when it comes online is Germany’s Next Top Model! (In german too, and no, I don’t speak German though I have learned a phrase or two. Like: Ich bin ein Top Model! I used to type it as Ich bein ein Top Model! Which I just learned means: I leg top model!).

ABC is all unscripted, and has almost all been renewed anyway.

NBC, Dateline is for sure safe. For some reason I have a recollection that Howie Do It was renewed, but if it wasn’t, I would guess it’s gone.

CW is dumping its half hour sitcoms, so they are both dead.

The initial and biggest bleed in viewers was for the season premiere which dropped 2 million from the previous season. So either the season 1 finale was horrible or people didn’t know the show was coming back on or something, but it looks like people were already gone before the season started, so the season arc itself can’t be faulted alone for the drop.

And let’s be honest, you’re not a fan. A FAN is defined as “An ardent devotee; an enthusiast” and “One who ardently admires”. I just bring this up because people mention that your view of the show holds more weight for them because you are a “fan”. You have been very obvious about your dislike for the show in every forum I’ve come across. I would be more sympathetic if you WERE a fan of the first season and then were rightly dissappointed with the second season but even that you consider was only “not bad”. Hardly enthusiastic or ardent admiration. I’m sorry it didn’t fit your concept of a Terminator show, as you do seem to be a fan of the franchise and have good ideas for a show based on that franchise. It fit mine so I guess I was lucky.

Considering the majority of shows that are produced, I’ve been pretty lucky that I did get T:TSCC and Firefly and Castle, even if they were short lived. If all shows just went for the highest ratings I would probably be reading a lot more books! I get some limited run excellent seasons, and I guess I’m lucky to get even that. I read the fan fiction to see how people would have taken the shows in other directions to make up for the lack of new material. Guess I’ll be going to find some good T:TSCC stuff now.

“The holes in it are legion. It absolutely made no sense whatsoever.”

Amen.

You HAVE to reboot the show. Nobody, i.e., the wider audience that tuned in and left, is going to watch what it is now. And you can’t go anywhere from where they left it – they nailed too much down, deliberately I think just to shaft the show.

A show set in a future where John Connor is not known is just too unlikely to work – it’s completely outside the framework of the franchise. It’s hubris for Friedman to think he can re-write the franchise. The franchise could be expanded but not re-written.

Not to mention that the whole “alternate time line” concept is just a nightmare from a sci-fi and storytelling aspect. They really jumped the shark with that finale. The holes in it are legion. It absolutely made no sense whatsoever. It was on a par with Battlestar Galactica’s “God did it” finale, apparently, considering some of the BSG fans complaints.

The show should have been working with the two main elements of the franchise: 1) dodging Terminators trying to kill John Connor, and 2) stopping Skynet, with an emphasis on the latter since the former would get old fairly quick on a weekly basis, if not a seasonal basis.

The primary focus of the show should be on the relationship between humans and AIs, not merely an antagonistic one but also a positive one via John and Cameron, as it was in T-2 and T-3. But also expand that to explore actual comparisons between the sort of consciousness an AI has versus the sort of consciousness a human has, the logical vs emotional conflict that was well represented by Kirk and Spock in the old Star Trek series. In short, a more Transhumanist view which could be compared to the neo-Luddite view of Sarah Connor. The conflict of those two world views, as well the Christian world view as represented by agent Ellison, would have been valuable.

Cameron should have been a totally independent AI, due to some accident of programming, no longer under the control of either Skynet or Connor. That would have allowed her to have her own motivations and goals which could be woven into the story, allowing for both cooperation and conflict with the Connors and rich character exploration and character development of both her and John.

It never made any sense that Cameron was trying to seduce John in “Vic’s Chip”season one and in “Mr. Ferguson” in season two unless she had her own goals. Friedman never developed that track because he was intent on minimizing Cameron’s importance vs that of Sarah Connor. He BS’d everybody at WonderCon with the idea that both Sarah and Cameron were “alpha” characters and couldn’t both be worked well, which was nonsense. Bouncing two alphas off each other would have been terrific story telling. He was just obsessed with Sarah Connor as a “symbol of mortality” to the detriment of everything else.

Brian Austin Green in his latest interview was saying that if John Connor was already bad-ass that there would be no room for the character to grow. I say it’s a matter of degree. Connor should have been represented as more adult than he was, instead of first being a whiny emo boy in season one, then an idiot in season two.

BAG also said that if everybody just ran and shot the show would be boring. Nobody ever said that was the alternative, so it’s a straw man. And even if it was, it was have had better ratings than what Friedman managed to produce.

There’s just too much about the show as it is that simply can’t be made to work in a resurrected version, and if they try a season 3 with that stuff it will tank faster than season 2 – if it even gets initial ratings above season 2, which is unlikely. I don’t think anybody at Fox or WB sees the point of seeing how low the show can go. Can it go under two million viewers? Can it go under one million viewers? What’s the point? It’s not going to trend up by any stretch of the imagination.