Pilots need to be created, regardless of network affiliation. Networks aren't just going to hand over $4-$10 million per week without first seeing the product, how actors relate, the writing, etc.

And I'm not sure why you're surprised at that number. A hit show that makes it to syndication will earn billions.

Yeah, shit doesn't work without the pilot. It may sound like a winner on paper but doesn't translate on TV.

The only change I can see is instead of showing the pilot as the first episode, they could possibly do like a season 1 overview and act out some scenes and get more of a story going, and then just start with the first episode.

Because we keep seeing good shows get cancelled. I don't know if it is because they are just on the wrong nights, wrong timeslots or what. I'm just sick of getting invested in something to watch it disappear. Another thing, this is more for the writers, don't write a ****ing cliffhanger if you haven't been ****ing renewed for another season. **** that!!!!

I going to watch this show because I know I am going to like it. I have no doubt that Fox is going to abandon it just like they do everything else too.

Programs are canceled due to lack of viewership. Networks can't afford to air shows that don't earn a profit or that lose money. Depending on the cost of a show, it might as many as five times the number of viewers of a network program versus a cable program.

I'll be the first to admit that America is full of stupid people. Why else would the airwaves be flooded with reality TV. I think that phase is starting to go away. At least a little bit. I still blame networks to a degree though because they have very short leashes for new shows yet hang on to shows that have worn out their welcome. If a show is thrown on Friday or Saturday you might as well just forget about watching it. They rarely survive.

Duck Dynasty debuted with almost 12 million viewers this week. On the hand, Game of Thrones biggest audience was 5.3 million.

It's not going away, and I certainly HOPE it doesn't go away or I'm ****ed. :(


It's all about ratings and ad buys. I was upset that Journeyman was cancelled a few years back but the numbers were awful. Meanwhile, Two and Half Men repeats last year were getting 20 million viewers a week.

Kind of hard to compare those two seeing as how GOT is on a premium channel that a lot of people are not going to spend the extra money for.

I didn't realize you were that big into it with your career. Is that becoming your primary money maker?

My point was directed at the fact that reality TV is not slipping or going away.

Sleepy Hollow, on Fox, had 10 million viewers last night. Duck Dynasty, on A&E, had nearly 12 million.

500 episodes alone this year to date. And I was just talking out loud, not trying to be a jerk. :)

Damn, I had no idea. Is it mostly cable stuff then? Anything on the networks at all?

Tons of cable, some premium channels, some trailers and some network, including the NFL on Fox. :D

Thats incredible man!!!! I wonder what I may have heard then.

I now see your point.

I've only heard a few, although it's cool when it happens.

I don't generally find out until nine months after airdate, so it's pure coincidence for the most part.

Game of Thrones viewership is a deceptive thing. Initial airing primetime finale numbers did cap at 5.4 million, but including all airings of each episode for the season, they're up to over 14.2 million viewers per (I'm not sure this includes DVR numbers or not, probably does). They're probably going to pass Sopranos viewership numbers next season. Show's turned into a real juggernaut as far as premium cable goes. It's also an incredibly expensive show.

In any case, Nielson ratings are still ****ed to all hell, but they're adjusting at least. So many of us now are streaming and dvr'ing. Which is great for us, but terrible for the networks because their advertisers all know what it means (we're not watching their ads).

Actually, it's not that expensive. It's about $3.5 to $4.0 million per episode. That's cheap.

Much better news than I expected. We'll see how many stick for week two:It replays on Friday night, too, so they can pick up some stragglers in the boonies who haven't figured out streaming or on demand.

It should also be noted that Alcatraz debuted with 10 million viewers as well...

I think that's only around half their budget per episode.

They have 10 episodes per year and spend anywhere from $35 million to $45 million per season, so it's not that expensive, especially compared to network shows in which the stars earn anywhere from $1-7 million per.

Not according to The Wall Street Journal:Now those are year-old figures, but unless they cut the budget in half for season 3, your numbers might be off...

Hence the comment about seeing how the viewership holds up.

It will drop. The question is how much.

I'm interested in seeing how many viewers Agents of SHIELD gets next week. They're trying to turn it into event TV, curious how that turns out.

Huh. Well, it's still inexpensive compared to many network dramas. $6 million per would barely cover one of the Friends paychecks.

Juliana Margulies was offered $13 million per to stay on that dopey ER and turned it down.

Well, when I say "it's incredibly expensive" the addendum "for premium television" was kind of assumed...



I'm taking 'huh' as a tacit admission that you were wrong about the GoT budget numbers. :)

The Avengers cartoon on Disney XD is surprising good. With the success of the Marvel films, I imagine that S.H.E.I.L.D. will have huge early numbers but without any real superheroes, it's difficult to predict whether or not it'll keep an audience.

It is pretty good, but it's nowhere near the quality of the Avengers cartoon that it replaced. Kind of a shame.

I'm actually enjoying Hulk and the Agents of SMASH, although it's about as dumb as the title would indicate. LMAO

Have you seen Beware the Batman on Cartoon Network? I've been really surprised at how good that one's been, after seeing how bad the new Teen Titans cartoon turned out. I'm not a big fan of the animation style, but the storytelling has been good so far.

No, I haven't seen it yet. The kids are too young. I'm lucky I got to watch the Phineas & Ferb/Avengers crossover this past weekend.

It's worth checking out. There's a new dynamic with Alfred being a former MI6 agent, and a new asian female sidekick named Katana, both of which make it feel a little bit fresher than it might otherwise. They're also pretty heavily involved with the League of Assassins (who are also showing up on Arrow this season). It's hard to make a Batman cartoon feel like something new, after god knows how many reboots in the last 20 years, but I think they've been successful so far.

Someone needs to kill this man.

I'm pretty sure 10 minutes of him talking could convince me to **** my dog for Jesus because global warming is killing the sand snakes in the Sahara...

I think my string of misses is busted on this one.

Oh, just shut the **** up.

And his premise if flawed.

Once you and everyone else in America pays $7.99 per month to watch Fox, CBS, ABC and NBC, things will change.

Until then, no.

The big 4 aren't what they used to be. The landscape has changed dramatically just in my/our lifetime, with the advent and explosion of cable and satellite and streaming, and I think it's a safe bet that it's going to continue to change over the next 40 years. Now, into what, I wouldn't venture a guess.

It just struck me that I actually remember a time when we had a television with rabbit ears that got (I think) ABC, NBC and PBS (I don't remember fox). I remember getting cable for the first time, and a VHS player (never had beta, eventually got DVD). And now I'm sitting 10 feet away from a flat screen TV with access to hundreds of channels, many of them in HD, along with a bluray player. And at a computer with access to youtube and hulu and hbo go. Near a Kindle with the same.

And I wonder why I get nothing done.

As long as the "Free" networks remain advertiser driven, pilot season will exist.

It's really easy to sit back and say "Netflix has a great model!" when Netflix is charging $7.99 a month for their service. They have money to spare and if House of Cards was a failure, they'd still be profitable.

Fox, CBS and NBC shell out a billion dollars a year for the NFL alone and barely break even. Those networks just can't put any old show on the air and expect to earn revenues.

Again, it's driven by advertisers, not by people willing to pay for their service.

I think that's what's going to change. Eventually.

You may not have seen my addition to my last post. Go back and look if you didn't. You'll probably mirror my recollection.

And that's how the landscape has changed, in a nutshell: we're overwhelmed with entertainment options and choices that I don't think we could have even imagined 35 years ago.

The NFL, to me, is their advertising budget for the year. Get people to sit through and see the commericals for their other shows.

LMAO

He'd make a damn good politician, wouldn't he?

Networks are showing they're willing to adjust, albeit slowly. You're already seeing an variety of program formats. A decade ago, who would have imagined 12-13 episode shows on major networks. NBC had Hannibal last year (and next year). Now CBS has, err, what's it called, Hostages, which is I think running 15 weeks? They're basically adapting the kinds of shows that have been and are succeeding on premium channels (something that as I recall people said would never happen a few years back), and audiences are responding to at least some of them. You're even seeing corroborations between NBC and foreign networks (Crossing Lines this summer). And serial dramas now seem almost the norm, where they barely existed a decade ago.

I realize this seems like a tangent but my point is that I think they're getting creative because they know they have to in order to stay competitive. In the same light, some programs in recent years have tried varying their advertising format (with varied degrees of success). I think the major networks realize they have to adjust if they want to keep being the major networks. There's just too much out there to draw viewers away from them.

There is still a large segment of our population that do not have basic cable, let alone premium cable, and an even larger segment that do have have Netflix or Amazon or any other streaming service.

Also, keep in mind that many of these other channels and options you speak of are owned by NBC/Universal, ABC/Disney, Fox and CBS/Paramount.

HBO, TNT, TBS, FX, FXX, Showtime, Cinemax, blah, blah, blah. These aren't independent entities. I think that the studios and programmers do a pretty damn good job of knowing what will work on Network vs. Cable.

If they're competing with anyone, it's themselves.

Furthermore, would Fox have been wise to put Justified or Sons of Anarchy on Fox?

The answer is a staunch "No".

Those show wouldn't last a season (if that long) but on Fx, they not only have advertisers but monthly fees that help diffuse the cost of the show, which means that they don't need as much income from advertisers to survive.

I don't have netflix or amazon myself.

(Well, actually I do have amazon prime, but I don't use it.)

As far as basic cable goes, I believe the last number I heard was that more than 90% of the country pays for it now, according to Nielsen.I think this is probably area an where pre-existing bias makes discussion somewhat...difficult for you. (Not a criticism, just a statement.)

Is Justified worth watching/catching up on?

I'm not sure what you're trying to get at here. I haven't said anything about putting Justified or Sons of Anarchy on Fox.

I would say that you can see the influence of those shows there, however.

Anyway, I need to get some sleep. I'm still up from Tuesday.

I think you'd love that show to death if you haven't seen it already. It starts out good and gets better season by season. Legitimately one of the best shows on any network. It's one of the few things I try to watch the night it airs.

I am a big fan of Olyphant. I just missed the beginning and after that didn't want to jump in watching and not know what was going on.

What's the show about?

Olyphant is a special agent that keeps smoking off perps. So they put him in bum **** nowhere where he is from to be a cop. Lots of crazy shit ensues. Pick it up. It's worth it.

He's a US Marshall who as the show begins is working in miami, but due to a series of events ends up returning to his home county in Kentucky and working with the Marshall's there. It's basically Olyphant playing a western in modern day Kentucky, as a real throwback, shoot-first-ask-questions-later cowboy Marshall. Somewhat reminiscent of his role on Deadwood, but quite a bit different at the same time (still some simmering anger in the Raylen Givens character, but a lot more humor in his role than with Seth Bullock). He's tremendous in the role, and he's surrounded by a lot of great actors in supporting roles (including Walton Goggins, who was Shane Vendrell if you watched the Shield, sort of Olyphant's foil on Justified). Tons of great characters, and great season-long story arcs. I really can't think of anything I don't like about the show (which is saying something for me....).

I think it's amazing. I watched the first three seasons on Amazon Prime, where it's free, in nine days.

I think you'd love it.

It has nothing to do with bias: Fox owns Fx, Time Warner owns TNT, TBS, HBO, Cinemax, the CW, Viacom owns CBS, Showtime, etc. and so on.

The main reason shows that are offered on those cable channels and not on "Free" network TV is that they only appeal to a certain demo and would not be profitable on Network.

A program like Dexter lasts eight seasons on Showtime but wouldn't last a season on network. That list isn't endless but it's quite long.

Okay, you've all sold me. I'll check out Justified.

It's on Amazon Prime.

Yes, do that. Fantastic show from the first. Like any show, it has its lags, but it gets better and better with time. Excellent writing and acting. Definitely one of my favorites going right now.

I thought season one had a few bumps but season two and three were insanely good. I haven't watched season four because its not on Prime yet and I missed the broadcast on Fx.

But the DVR is set when it's in repeats.

I thought season 4 continued the general uptick in quality that seasons 2 and 3 had.

My god, yes.

Yeah, you're in for a treat when you get there.

Good to know, because I'm a season behind as well.

Though the late Elmore Leonard professed to be in awe of what FX turned his story into, it really owes it's greatness to his style and the archetypes he creates.

The draw of Justified is in the small and large moments. Shit goes down but there's always time for hilarious or dryly droll banter. Storylines are creative but remain utterly credible, as do the characters. It's always keeping you on your toes by mixing action and suspense and humor and absurdity and wit and terror and asskicking and more, small turn by small turn.

While I wouldn't say the first season is the weakest, it is decidedly different in form from what it has become. It started trying to tell more case of the week procedurals, so the strength of each episode depended on the strength of that week's plot. Since then it has mixed in a good deal more season-long arcs, in the vein of The Wire, so you're gripped from episode to episode with the big showdowns surely to come along, and how the sides are picked and pitted.

I think that number is actually going down because there are a ton of cable cutters out there now due to the ever increasing costs of cable service.

I wasn't sure if you were joking or not. It just seems out of the realm of possibilities that someone that is on this site so much would even need to ask.

But as everyone has said, YES.

When I sense there's a show I might like but missed out on, I deliberately avoid references to it, so I don't screw myself up with any spoilers.

I finally got to watch this last night. It was interesting enough that I was willing to turn my brain off and just enjoy it. I like the supernatural aspect of it, though I'm a sucker for that kind of stuff

Makes sense. Justified has one of the best leads ever. Olyphant is perfect. And Coggins is absolutely brilliant.

Yeah, I like when shows are just off the wall sometimes. It lets me get out of my head for a little while.

The "agents of evil" that were shown in the preview for the season looked pretty cool.

A nice thing about Justified is that it isn't so much a show that you have to avoid spoilers for. Sure there are some things that it's nice to be surprised about, but the show's strength is in the performances more than plot twists.

Kind of like knowing that Michael joins the family business doesn't exactly 'spoil' The Godfather.

This makes things more interesting: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/liv...e-joins-633343

That's the guy that played the Steward in LOTR, right?

Yay. Walter the Witch.

I'm sorry but they're already losing me.

Goggins.......And hell yes he is lol.

On the third episode now. I love it. :rockon:

You're in a for a real treat. It's just flat out an awesome show.

Watching the episode now where Cameron from Ferris Bueller pulls the asshole's teeth out in the parking lot. LMAO

I had forgotten some of the greatness of season 4. (Do not watch this Dane and frazod. Seriously.)

LMAO

January can't get here soon enough.

Oh, by the way....Walton Goggins has a role on Community this season, for at least one episode, which sounds awesome.

LMAO

So, Ichabod is going to wear clothes from the 1770's throughout the program? And why the heavy handed music? And zombie witches?

LMAO

IMO, it really hits it's stride in season 2 and hasn't let up since. Great show.