h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The Mass Media Marketplace

Posted Sep 7, 1999

There are many things that I enjoy about living in the so-called "communication" era, among which is the Internet, and the broad range of information readily available by the advent thereof. However, being a child of the 80's, there is one subject that will forever remain close to my heart: television, or, to be more specific, the media. Yes, I am a media hound; while I am not so intrusive that I would stalk a celebrity, or post my own website glorifying the status of a favorite celebrity. I cannot help but watch television, greedily seeking out any tidbit of knowledge that I can find. However, I find that I have veered off onto a tangent here, so, to get back to the point: I love television.
In this "communication" era, there are literally hundreds of channels to watch, with only about 3% of them offering any viable sense of gratification from watching them. Which is fine, I can live with it. I have my remote; I can find something to watch if I look long enough. However, what really boils my bum (to use a Pythonian phrase), is the fact that television executives are constantly on the lookout for what's new and hip, blatantly disregarding their current "hits," either allowing them to fall into some black-hole timeframe (Monday nights at 9 and Friday (any time slot) are current favs) or canceling them outright, in favor of drawing in a new, i.e. fresher and hipper, age-group. Well, I have had enough. Over the years I have enjoyed many television series, almost 50% of which have been canceled not for the fact that the stars have lost interest, or their fans, but for the fact that the show wasn't drawing the right number of viewers, or they couldn't compromise a "hot" time spot, so they stuck the show on some ungodly timespot, at three in the morning. Who amongst us hasn't had our favorite show canceled? For me, Alf, the Smurfs, The Gummy Bears (I'm very sorry, but I think that is the biggest, most irrevocable mistake Disney has ever made), Nurses, Hollywood Squares (I'm sorry, Whoppi: your version just doesn't cut it), Another World (not really a favorite of mine, but thousands were upset by this cancellation, which occurred in July), and countless others have been canceled. Sure, some of the shows sucked, and deserved to disappear into oblivion, but for the most part, hundreds of shows have been canceled that had a strong fan-base. Take the television show Dinosaurs. You either loved it, or you hated it, but the fact remains that, when canceled in its 2nd year, the show had amassed a giant viewership and had made hundreds of thousands of dollars in multimedia sales and in the toymarket. Why was it canceled? ABC’s story was that the fans had lost base with the show and that it was no longer an interest. I wonder why? Could it be that every week it was on a different night? Sunday, right before the movie one-week, the next on Tuesday, right after Jeopardy. I mean, I wonder if these networks are at all interested in the viewer, or if they simply don’t give a rat’s ass what anybody thinks.
To make a long story short, in this new “communication” age, I think that television networks should pay more attention to individual “markets,” as they call them, rather than look at the demographics as a whole. The likes of those living on the West Coast are not the same as those of us living on the East Coast. By doing this, they would be able to easily change time slots for suffering, yet viewer-supported shows, while still being able to market newer series.

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Latest reply: Sep 7, 1999