From: seanc130@hotmail.com   
      
    wrote   
      
   > Well you said it yourself in one of your posts when Fringe premiered it   
   > had over 9 million viewers. Now it is averaging around 6 milion. Between   
   > the first season and now the show lost 3 million viewers! This is not   
   > good for Fox, or the businessess that buy air time from Fox to sell   
   > their products. If Fox promised them a certain amount of viewers, and   
   > they do not get that amount they have to refund or compensate those   
   > companies in some way to make up for the short fall. That hurts the   
   > bottom line of both Fox, and the companies that buy time on Fox.   
      
   Fuck Fox. They're the ones who *caused* the ratings to plummet in the first   
   place by moving the show to Thursday, as I discussed in my last post. It's   
   *their fault*. Fox should be compensating the people on 'Fringe', not the   
   other way around.   
      
   > Now I   
   > know you hate the rating system but that is all they have right now to   
   > go by, and they treat it like it is the "Bible", or something. If the   
   > ratings come up short the Networks, and the companies all act   
   > accordingly.   
      
   All of this is true, but it doesn't make any of it right or fair. First of   
   all, they're idiots for treating the biased and unreliable ratings system as   
   a 'Bible' in the first place. Second of all, Fox in fact is NOT treating   
   'Fringe' like they treat other shows that 'come up short' -- in fact,   
   they're continuing to advertise it pretty heavily, and seem to be giving it   
   a chance to weather this ratings drop that could easily just be temporary.   
      
   Third of all, these companies and their management are already plenty rich   
   as it is, and it wouldn't kill them to actually choose whether a show should   
   be cancelled or not based on *rational* factors, instead of the fact that --   
   with only 4 or 5 major networks, depending on whether you count the CW -- a   
   show happens to make less money than only *two or three* other shows. That's   
   not failure; it's being in the Top Five. If they cancelled every show that   
   isn't number one or two in its timeslot, they'd cancel the overwhelming   
   majority of shows. There's no shame in being third or fourth best -- the   
   fact that you're better and more successful than hundreds of shows, on all   
   the other channels and in all the other timeslots, should be what matters,   
   not the incidental and random fact that there happen to be two or three   
   other shows on at the same time that get more viewers. And there's *no damn   
   reason* that shows need to be judged based on such rabid, cutthroat   
   competition against such a tiny number of other shows. Why can't they just   
   be evaluated on their merits as creative works? This is all a perfect   
   example of how unfair and corrupted any sort of even quasi-artistic   
   endeavour becomes when it's yoked to the cruel and harsh slavemaster of   
   capitalism, where everything's about worshipping ephemeral trends, and one   
   big corporation's bottom-line profit being slightly higher than another's,   
   instead of about providing a broad, diverse choice of quality entertainment.   
   Why can't they allow a show to have a numerically smaller but devoted   
   fanbase, instead of immediately cancelling it if it drops below the level of   
   a megamultimillionaire cash cow for even a second? Why can't they try to   
   build brand loyalty by being human beings, and respecting the shows they   
   air, instead of running everything based on mindless, ruthless calculations   
   by accountants where a show's entire worth is reduced to a single simplistic   
   number? Why must they be so obsessed with ranking every show on a stupid-ass   
   list, precisely and rabidly comparing the meaningless numbers they've   
   attached to them, always looking for an excuse to pander to the lowest   
   common denominator and destroy anything that falls below a certain arbitrary   
   number on their list?   
      
   When you recognise that all this is going on, but you simply shrug your   
   shoulders and say, 'That's the way it is', you're being complicit in an   
   atrocious disease that is ruining the television industry, and giving the   
   finger to any group of fans who dare to like a show based on its quality,   
   instead of its ratings.   
      
   > Now to make matters even worse the lead in show to Fringe,   
   > Bones is now averaging 9 million viewers an episode. So right after that   
   > show airs 3 million Bones watchers switch the channel. Probably to CSI.   
      
   And 6 million -- twice as many -- don't.   
      
   Of course, that totally ignores the many, many people who record all three   
   shows -- Bones, Fringe, and CSI -- and watch them all later, when they can   
   fast-forward through the commercials, when other activities they might be   
   engaged in that are more important than TV aren't a factor, and when they're   
   not tied down by the vagaries of arbitrary network scheduling and forced to   
   watch the shows when the *network executives* want them to, like little   
   zombie sheep. This, in fact, is exactly what *I* do.   
      
   --   
   --Sean   
   http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/profile.php?id=1062439264&ref=profile   
   http://spclsd223.livejournal.com   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)