The networks obviously don’t, hence the ratings are pretty irrelavent. Can you name the last Friday HIT that played there for a decade?

If not for the money, Dollhouse would be a book because that is what is cheap enough for one writer to make without worrying about costs. No matter how fantastic, more than 95% of books published don’t sell more than three hundred copies. How’d you like Dollhouse to be in THAT business?

Why be sad? Over a million more people saw Dollhouse than if Joss Whedon were a novelist. If not for the hope of money that TV production demands, you probably never would have seen it. Don’t curse the need for revenue, thank it.

They should cancel it because it SUCKS.

S2 Episode 2 was a great improvement over the season 2 premiere. Even though the preview for it looked lame.

I don’t have any clue how they will get more viewers though. I know lots of Joss fans who don’t watch because the early Season 1 episodes put them off.

But I will keep watching, it’s the only TV show that I watch on a live broadcast basis, everything else I get the DVDs from Netflix. I wouldn’t watch a House rerun, but I don’t watch House anyway.

Just saying. You can use other programming, but you can’t use House in that slot..

No, scale is scale no matter where it is produced (as long as it is a WGA, DGA, SAG, etc production) but Canada and several states offer tax credits for film and TV productions. Which has been horrible for California’s economy, and has prompted California to offer tax credit as well, though it may be too little too late.

The Tax on TV actually pays for 4 TV channels, 1 HD TV Channel, numerous Radio stations, BBC website and all kinds of other stuff. You may not be aware that the BBC broadcasts without any advertisements and notwithstanding a small but very noisy minority who want it abolished the vast majority of the public love the ‘Beeb’.

I wouldn’t say outrageous for Dollhouse, an hour of quality Drama in the UK costs about £500k (so about $750k), however when I hear some shows cost around $3m per episode I fall about laughing. It just seems to me that there are huge ‘built in’ costs to TV production in the States. I remember reading Josh Friedmans diatribe when TSCC was shutdown and he said something like the production company was charging him $50k per month for a small on lot office.

No one of course can get any transparency regarding budget spent on actual programs and how much on ‘overhead’, it’s just the cost of doing business.

…basic FAQ here: http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/information/index.jsp

1. When you say totally free, does that mean there is no longer a tax on TV? A friend who grew up on London told me something about that, but I don’t know if it’s still in effect.

2. Since you can get such cheap programming over there, doesn’t the figure of £500 per episode of Dollhouse, to air on one of the cable or satellite channels (I’m not sure which Sci Fi is over there) seem outrageous?

and 3. I think the problem with your beef with NBC is that the DGA/WGA/SAG unions all have deals in place that make it impossible to get that cheap with scripted programming for primetime. Daytime soaps are produced around the price you’re talking about, but scale for daytime is lower than scale for broadcast primetime. While I do agree that NBC shouldn’t be throwing in the towel, I don’t think cheaper is the answer, because in the US, cheaper usually means unscripted.

The UK TV market has a definitive split that is similar but clearly different to the way the US market works.

At the moment TV is split into 5 simplistic delivery platforms.

1. Terrestrial Analogue – Due to be fully phased out by 2012. Consists of 5 Channels BB1, BBC2, ITV1, Channel 4, Five. Effectively 100% national reach. Totally Free.

2. Terrestrial Digital – Due to replace 1 above by 2012, currently rolling out nationwide in stages. In effect about 30 ‘proper’ TV Channels BBC1-4, ITV1-4, Channel 4 (+3 variants), Five (+2 variants), Virgin, Dave, History, and a few others and then about 30 Radio Stations (+assorted shopping and information channels). Totally Free.

3. Freesat – Same channels as 2 above + about another 20 TV and loads of radio stations. Currently the only way to get free HD in the UK. Totally Free.

4. Sky Satellite – 500+ Channels (many many are real dross), probably 100ish ‘real’ channels + 20 HD channels. Charges between $25 and $80 per month. Reach for Paid Sky is about 7m homes (I know Sky claim more but they include non subscribers in their numbers).

5. Virgin Cable – As per 4 above, about 100 ‘real’ channels. Same Charges as 4 roughly. Reach is about 1m homes.

In the UK many shows will get ‘first run’ on the Sky/Virgin platform because of the way the business model works here.

Sky collect all the revenue from their 7m customers then ‘pay’ channels (with assorted cross charges and clawbacks) to be on their delivery platform. Therefore in many instances the ‘first run’ of a program will be on a channel that pays a premium for that program to bump their profile as well as get their numbers up. 250k viewers on Sky would be a fairly decent viewing figure. However the same show, if popular, when shown later on terrestrial would likely get a much larger viewing audience.

That’s why in my post earlier I stated that US shows will in effect get two revenue streams from the UK, first run on Satellite then Broadcast at a later stage and most likely on a totally different channel (but you can’t think of it like syndication, it’s different here).

The main channels here (BBC1, BBC2, ITV1, Channel 4, Five) have a requirement to offer a mixed and diverse program selection but generally have much much larger audiences (although being eroded the same way as in the States).

The most consistently popular shows in the UK are two evening Soaps,on BBC1 Eastenders and on ITV1 Coronation Street. They are both much grittier and ‘real world’ then American soaps (although obviously have more excitement then you would find in most streets) and although both are transmitted 3 nights a week generally get about 9m viewers per episode IIRC. Now you have to keep in mind that’s 9m with population base roughly 1/5th of the States so it equates to a show getting a 45m audience 3 nights a week in the States.

To give you an example of how much the main 5 channels dominate here are a few random programmes that are likely familiar to you and their numbers….

Figures for week of Sep 14-20th

BBC1 – Antiques Roadshow 5.59m viewers – US equivalent 27.5m
BBC2 – University Challenge 3.03m (2nd most popular show of the week) – Us equivalent 15m – US version was called College Bowl.
ITV1 – Countrywise (series about rural and coastal life) 3.39m – Us equivalent 17m
Channel 4 – Location, Location, Location (program about doing up and selling house) 2.97m – Us equivalent 15m
Five – The Gadget Show (program about new consumer items from Fridges to Phones) 1.56m – Us equivalent 7.5m

Now the production budget for some of these shows will be unbelievably cheap, if University Challenge costs $100k per episode I’d be amazed and the Gadget Show probably around $200k at a guess but it shows you the strength of the ‘Main 5′ channels.

I’ve heard figures bandied around that the cost per 30 minute episode of one of the Soaps is about £170k ($260k), but you have to remember these shows air 52 weeks a year. A lead actor on Eastenders will make about £200k ($320k) PER YEAR (not per episode) from the show and plenty of extra from personal appearance money et al….

Can you imagine how happy any US network would be to be able to get programming for say $500k per hour and an audience equivalent of 45m people 3 nights a week!!

That’s one of the reasons I’ve been so vociferous about NBC throwing the towel in, the ‘Main 5′ channels in the UK are getting eroded the same way as the US Networks are, but good and popular programming can still be made cheaply if people are creative enough (although I don’t watch any of the Soaps myself). From a distance it’s just so patently clear that it’s the production structure that adds so much cost to US productions with little added value.

This is just one man’s view, hope you find it useful.

Ep.01 – 318k (2nd) + 111k (1st)
Ep.02 – No data
Ep.03 – 185k (2nd) + 101k (1st)
Ep.04 – 246k (2nd) + 086k (1st)
Ep.05 – 243k (2nd) + 094k (1st)
Ep.06 – 245k (2nd) + 100k (1st)
Ep.07 – 189k (2nd) + 146k (1st)
Ep.08 – 180k (2nd) + 082k (1st)
Ep.09 – 280k (2nd) + 076k (1st)
Ep.10 – 213k (2nd) + 089k (1st)
Ep.11 – 176k (2nd) + 085k (1st)
Ep.12 – 231k (2nd) + 067k (1st)
Ep.13 – 193k (4th) + 074k (1st)

These wouldn’t be the best ratings in the world obviously, but for the Sci-Fi channel (as it’s still called over here), they’re actually pretty decent; more than double most of their schedule in fact, a lot of which gets below 100k. These are roughly comparable to what most subscription only channels (barring Sky1) pull in.

But I think, you forget something small here: It’s not just the cost vs. House. Fox could probably play House five times a week, and someone would watch that ad infinitum.

When I watch Dollhouse, I can’t stop the feeling that Fox simply lets Joss do his thing, because they fear he could remember that he can really get into good characters and has that devout userbase. And there are some networks out there who could put probably $2m into each ep of something *different* than Dollhouse, add some A-Lister to it – and look how that works. For example *against* House .)

I have somehow the same feeling with JJ and Fringe (and had it much more with Alias). How in the earth they let him go with that show for such a long time? And why can Chris Carter (as its said officially) could do another X Files movie out of that bad last movies’ revenue?

It can’t be the franchise, it can’t be the numbers. They only reason I can see is: keep those wheel spinners happy. Because you know, if they are unhappy they *could* harm your ratings. They know how all of it works. And if those are hungry, they find a network who will finance their madness.

-Steven

The only thing is that FOX didnt air the remaining Season 3 episodes (There are 10 left). They should have burned them off in the summer.

“Boris — I meant renewed for a full season. Not a second year.”

If I hadn’t known what you meant, I wouldn’t have pointed out the peculiarity of your nomenclature.

tvbythenumbers.com will change name to dollhousebythenumbers.com

Story at 11

I’m considering going into the movie business!

What- are you kidding me? Because it’s in hollywood, the actors (almost all are unknown in this example) are getting several thousand dollars for showing up, there’s liabilities and prop costs- they musta bought the best bagles this nation has ever known!

Thanks for the price breakdown; it’s lightened my day, and put everything in to a checked reality.

8:00 House
9:00 24

and

8:00 Bones
9:00 Fringe

both should be left alone until May.

Doing well in the UK by itself probably wouldn’t make that much difference. But if it’s doing very well internationally in general (no data to suggest that is the case) and my estimates for international revenue are too low by a lot, it’s conceivable that FOX would stick with it even with its tiny ratings in the USA.

Even WITHOUT the international money, whether the show costs $1 million or $650K per episode it’s NOT losing money for FOX in the US. However, by airing it, FOX broadcast network loses the opportunity to air something else that could potentially make more ad revenue. See House example above.

Robert – Your right there. House/Bones/Glee/Lie to Me repeats would be good for fridays but hopefully they will find some programming that will actually work for the night. But Fifth Grader and Lyrics worked for thurdays and FOX moved that combo to fridays. The onbly reason I mentioned Saturday is because its a night with very little competition. I would never say for FOX to move House or Bones to fridays because they’re doing great on 2 very competitive nights.

Julia – Community could do horrible but it has good reviews and good retention out of The Office. I bet Community will turn out like The Office or 30 Rock by doing not so great its first year but then gradually gaining viewers. Its a definite. Melrose Place may get around 24 as well as Vampire Diaries. Melrose doesnt have ratings but it it does have the 90210 franchise helping it so I do see a nice 24 eps. Vampire Diaries will get 24 eps just because because its popular. I expect a NCIS: LA renewal soon, I could see that series on for years, and Flashforward because its doing much better than Ugly Betty did and because ABC’s other new dramas seem flat (Eastwick, Forgotten)

In other words, Dollhouse is tanking here but let’s say it’s doing okay by UK tv standards. Would that really be enough for Fox to salvage it for another season even when it loses them so much money in the US? Because that seems nonsensical to me.

“Boris, how old is that Dollhouse number? I did some research at Digital Spy UK and that was the number for the Dollhouse series premiere. Do you know how the second season is doing because I couldn’t find that info, nor could I find how well Heroes’s current season is doing.”

If the first season of Dollhouse premiered in the UK on May 19 of this year, I’d guess that the second season isn’t airing yet. No idea about Heroes.