The Ratings Conundrum

Stop Canceling Good TV Shows!
Ratings only tell part of the story

So i was trying to decide what i should write on my blog - I'm slowly realizing that the time it takes to watch an entire season of ANYTHING with my schedule means that there will be less than 15 blog entries a month, if that's all that i write about.   I have plenty of TV shows that I haven't watched, but it takes me a good week or two to watch an entire season.

I'm currently watching Ugly Betty, Season 4.  This show caught my attention almost by accident.  It's based on a Colombian telenovela,  Yo Soy Betty, La Fea (I am Betty, the Ugly - go HS Spanish!!).  This show was so funny and interesting the first three seasons, but in the third season there was a dramatic drop in viewership.  This led to ABC moving it around to Fridays (which is the one of the WORST days for network television) and after fan backlash, was again moved to Wednesdays at 10 pm.

Now I wasn't watching this show on TV, I had been following it on DVD, but i knew that it had been moved to Wednesdays at 10 pm.  The reason I knew this was that one of my favorite TV shows of last television season, Eastwick, was canceled after just 13 episodes (I think only 12 aired) and Ugly Betty took its time slot.

While i loved Eastwick, and i especially loved the three characters playing Joanna, Kat and Roxanne (Gotta love Rebecca Romijn - I mean she was both married to Uncle Jessie from Full House AND played Mystique in X-men and X2 in practically nothing but blue body paint), I always hated the time slot.  I personally hate watching television at 10 pm on any night of the week.  I have to be up around 7ish in the morning for work, and that means if i fall asleep at 11, that gives me a solid 8 hours of sleep.  More often than not, I would fall asleep watching Eastwick.

I know i wasn't the target audience for this show (it was probably women in their 20-30s) but I enjoyed it.  It was reminiscent of Charmed, and certainly could have gone places if given a fair shot.  Putting any show at 10 pm on a night when people have to work is really asking an awful lot of them.  I know people have DVR and Tivo, but not everyone does, and I think if a show like this was put in an earlier time slot, it would have done much better.

Does anyone think that the networks aren't even giving television shows a chance to find their audience anymore?  It used to be that shows that had potential were shifted around and/or retooled and given another season before the network called it quits, but it seems these days if a show doesn't capture huge ratings to begin with, it is canceled. 

For example, in addition to Eastwick, ABC also canceled FlashForward, another show I liked (a bit convoluted, but far better than V, a much better cast and with similar ratings).   Other great shows that were cancelled due to low ratings were Joss Whedon's Dollhouse (great show) and Heroes (an all time favorite show of mine).

The networks need to find different ways of capturing revenue.  The television landscape is not what it used to be.  It is reported (here, by associated content.com and here by the New York post ) that TV viewership is down.  This makes sense - I watch live television probably once a week, and yet I have between 3-5 shows being recorded on my DVR weekly.  I then fast forward through the commercials.  The one show i watch live, TrueBlood, has had no commercials this season since the first episode.  There's also watching television online, thought both official and unofficial website.  Each network has their own website with streaming television episodes that can be watched anytime.  In addition there are things like Youtube and Hulu.

The largrst drop though, has got to be due to DVD sales.  When television shows were not released on home video format in entire seasons, the shows were watched much more readily.  It was an event, because it was on once and once only (not including repeats and syndication) and then it was on to the next episode.  With DVD and Bluray TV Shows you can watch it all at once, without having to wait until the next episode is on.  I can tell you that i might only watch 3-5 shows a week (mostly to support them, I'd prefer to wait for the DVD) but i watch WAYYY more than that every season on DVD.

The shows I'm currently following on DVD are Chuck, Supernatural, Smallville, Psych, V, Vampire Diaries, Dexter, Fringe, Glee, How I Met Your Mother, Big Bang Theory..The only shows I'm planning on watching live next TV season are new shows No Ordinary Family, The Cape, returning shows Weeds, and possibly Smallville because it's the last season.  I'm not sure about the Event, it seems fairly mysterious, but perhaps too much so.


The point is, I watch way more DVD TV then live TV, and if the networks found a way to make more money off of DVD's, they wouldn't need to make as much off the live shows, the ratings wouldn't be the only factor keeping a show on the air, and good shows wouldn't get canceled so quickly.  Obviously raising the prices of the DVDs isn't the solution, it all comes down to advertising!  The networks need to find better, "new media" methods of advertising such as product placement. 


So that's my rant for the week...STOP CANCELING GOOD TV SHOWS!!


Night