What's wrong with Television networks

May 17, 2007 | In Movies & TV | No Comments

I’ve spent a lot of the last few days thinking about the whole structure of how television networks make decisions as to what will be on the air and what won’t be.

In the last few week we have seen the shows Veronica Mars, Gilmore Girls and Jericho all canceled, two of them well before their time. Gilmore Girls came to an end at a time that worked, but it could have lived a few more years.

Now Veronica Mars, a show I love and Jericho, a show I have never really watched – died well before they deserved to die. I think I know the real reason they died. It’s the way television networks program their seasons in general.

Here’s the deal and I’ll generalize here, when the Fall season starts, you get a nice fresh look at shows – both new and old. They come on like a storm and run for a couple weeks. Then, maybe a month in the re-runs start up. Not the end of the world, after all the production cycle needs time to build up episodes to continue on.

Then it’s another month or two before more re-runs or at this point a show will hibernate for a couple months while the network tries out a crappy reality show that will get just enough viewers to guaranty profit. Of course this gives viewers of the original shows time to forget about them and move onto something else. By the time they return, the viewers are long gone and onto a different show that occupy the the time slot.

While a short break isn’t the end of the world for a show, a lengthy hiatus like the ones Veronica Mars (two months) and Jericho (a few months as well) encountered this season, there is no way viewers are coming back. Whatever momentum the shows had are gone.

Instead of setting shows up for this inevitable end, I think programmers should keep this thought in mind. Viewers aren’t stupid. They know when you don’t have faith in a show and they don’t want to end up latching onto something you’re going to shoot can anyway. They just don’t want to put up with it. Why watch something you’re not going to let find it’s natural end.

A better option to give shows a chance to flourish would be to let the Summer season fully develop and push the Fall season back. Split it 6 months even. Give producers the same amount of time to build their shows up, have enough episodes to run straight through the season with limited re-runs. Let the audience WATCH the shows. You have your web site to let people catch up on episodes the miss, or better yet, do what channels like Discovery do, play your shows a couple times throughout the week, that would free up some development cost and ensure you cash back into what you have.

People aren’t going to ONLY watch CBS or NBC or (and especially at this point) The CW all the time. You have my eyes for a couple hours a week and other networks have them for a couple hours a week.

I assert this will allow shows to find an audience faster and sustain them. You will get your return back because shows will have multiple time slots to play with – that way someone who watches The Office each week will have an equal time to watch Grey’s Anatomy or whatever CBS is trying to put up against those two awesome shows.

This would be a good way to tell your customers – we’ve got you in mind and I think will increase the quality of broadcast as we know it. No more throwing pasta against the wall and praying it sticks. Cook it till it’s done.

After all – Cheers, The X-Files and even The Office took their time to catch on. If you gave Veronica Mars an actual shot it would have taken off and if you gave Jericho a second time slot I would have watched it.

Good job TV executives. You showed just how little you know.