It's clear to me now that the accountants* have taken the reigns at the broadcast TV networks. While broadcast networks used to try and drive profits by pretty much exclusively focusing on increasing ratings, the boys with the green eye-shades are now in control and are trying to drive profits by driving down costs or emphasizing other non-ratings related revenue streams.
The evidence:
1. Shows renewed last spring with bad ratings, but extraordinary financial situations:
'Til Death (practically free to Fox), Ugly Betty (syndication), Scrubs (syndication), New Adventures of Old Christine (syndication), Friday Night Lights (3rd party subsidy), Flashpoint (shared development cost), Dollhouse (drastically reduced costs).
2. The Jay Leno Show
Yes, it also kept Jay away from ABC, but it was substantially a cost cutting move at the expense of ratings.
3. Only one show (The Beautiful Life) removed from broadcast primetime so far this season.
It's not like broadcasters are reveling in extraordinary success, ABC, NBC (and really CW) are getting crushed. But only one ratings loser has been removed from a line up so far. I think the accountants have stepped in and decreed that for the most part they're not going to throw new money at the timeslots of failed shows until all (or at least more of) the episodes are aired. They've paid for 13 episodes of these losers and by damn, even if their ratings stink, they're not going to spend another penny on something else to fill the airtime until the episodes have aired. Sunk costs be damned! That's almost certainly is at the expense of ratings, but it's lower cost!
* no slight on accountants, it's probably the CFOs anyway, but there's not as good a headline & graphic for that.
Kurt Sutter was way ahead of you:
“All those savvy executives have been replaced with accounting personnel.”
Certain predictive theories suggest that posts like these indicate the trend has peaked and is now swinging back in the other direction!
Hmmm, I’m going short accountants right now!
So you don’t count Southland as canceled?
Julia, I was wondering how long that would take. Longer than I thought!
To be fair to point 3, hasn’t this been growing from the 07/08 season on, when the strike forced them to air all available inventory, ratings be damned?
Sure, the ratings go in the toilet, but would the makegoods really cost more than the replacement series will?
And I’m not sure how much I’d complain about point 1: Almost all of these air in Friday slots, that the networks could (and arguably should) turn into repeats / news shows, just like they did Saturday. Which would cost less (and probably result in better ratings)…
I can’t see how leaving Trauma or Eastwick on is cheaper than the alternative. Those shows cost a bundle.
Well, the X Files had disastrous ratings it’s 1st season and it was renewed.
I am glad that these show are sticking around longer, even though the ratings are poor. I gave up tv mostly because I got tired of new series disappearing after one or two episodes, making me feel I have so wasted my time. I almost don’t watch any series anymore unless it is in the third season. As bad as anything is, there are always some people that are really attached to a show.
I did make an exception for Chuck.
Michael, in the case of Trauma, what would be NBC’s alternative? I know there are rumors of Chuck coming back early, but that’s they’re only option.
Michael, I think the point is that in the cases of both, a financial commitment to making 13 episodes has been made. They can cut a few episodes, but there will still be some costs (likely not quite as much) for the unmade episodes.
There’s also the fact that FOX is still burning off Sit Down, Shut Up after a Ferenstein repeat on Saturday nights.
Plus, NBC is supposedly bringing back SNL Thursday in mid-season.
Is Hank on ABC’s sweeps calendar?
J.R. Comcast’s schedule has Hank listed with a new episode for 11/4, but I’m sure that could change.
Plus, NBC is supposedly bringing back SNL Thursday in mid-season.
Why would they do that? To make Community look good?
The Accountants’ Revenge will backfire because what all of the bean-counting is not doing is driving viewers, especially new ones, to the broadcast networks. The networks have to give viewers a reason to watch them, not hope that they’ll still watch the shows they keep renewing that nobody watched to begin with just because the networks got a good deal on them. It’s backward thinking they’ve fallen on at its exemplary best.
As an accountant, Bill, I would resent that headline…
…except that things would be much better at NBC and CW if they actually had good accountants at, say, boardroom level – say, the ones from PriceWaterhouseCoopers that hand out the envelopes at the Academy Awards
Or, better yet, producers and actors are going to have to take significant pay cuts to work on television, and the studios also need to take a haircut, since the networks need to increase their bottom line somehow, and increasing ad revenue isn’t happening…
…and, since they’re both going to have to take significant pay cuts in movies soon, they’ll all have to cut costs, by having to live in a Cooper Mini Mansion – with only 3,000 square feet of space…
…or else we’ll wind up with that East German cat-and-mouse cartoon, instead of the Simpsons, Dancing With Celebrity Bones, and Til Your Body Rots
…wait a minute – the BBC would love that…
…that would mean more B-list, and maybe an A-list celebrity, would be willing to appear on Dancing With The Stars…
…yes, I said the BBC, as they actually own the show – ABC merely licences it (don’t cry for Disney – they have made plenty of $$££¥¥ on the show)…
…but the BBC had to agree to let Tom Bergeron host it, rather than anyone really good, so the “stars” would look more like stars than they really are
I’m going to give my accountant a BIG bonus and tell him to give it to FOX’s accountant, because I’m pretty sure all accountants know each other, right?! Yay for accountants!
Dollhouse! Dollhouse! Dollhouse rules! FOX’s accountant rules! “True Blood” drools! Dollhouse!
It’s late October. What were we expecting, 20 new shows to be yanked already? The cancellation notices will start rolling in next month — be patient!
That was one of the good after-effects of the strike and the collapsed economy. Longer leashes for bad-performing shows to do badly. Not too many network robots seem to realize it, but more harm than good comes from yanking a show (that isn’t a disaster behind the scenes) off the air after 2 weeks. Every show — even ones like “TBL” that got, like, a 1 share — has people who are watching it. How likely are those people going to be to give another one of a networks’ shows a chance when the network shows them that they’re not willing to give their own shows a chance? Let’s just say I don’t personally believe it was entirely what cable was putting on that caused a lot of viewers to jump ship from broadcast as it was how long cable was leaving what they were putting on.
Flashpoint is included on that list? IIRC, it can pull around 9 million viewers and around a 2.0 demo on a Friday night. Compared to the other shows listed, thats not too bad.
ABC had Kelsey Grammer do a “Hank” bumper to air in front of the Peanuts special tonight to tell viewers it’s back on next week. (which was more promotion than I saw for last week’s episode). I kind of doubt ABC would go to that trouble if they weren’t planning on running it during November.