Brad's Tiny World

Survival Of The Highest Ratings

Posted on 13. Apr, 2009 by katy in Television | Twitter: @ |

I come to you today as a fan, a fan of several shows that many critics and pundits are saying are “on the bubble”. This means they are in danger of cancellation. Usually by this time in the TV schedule networks have already said whether or not they have picked up shows for another season or whether those shows are in effect canceled. But strangely, I have not heard much about pick-ups from any of the networks.

A year after the debilitating writer’s strike are networks shying away from saying anything too soon? Have the ratings been that bad for so many of my (and critic’s) favorites? I admit it, I’m a television junkie. I have far too many shows that I love and I seem to pick up at least one or two more every season despite my best efforts. This year I had at least one show on every night of the week. This year, thanks to Fox rearranging it’s schedule and succumbing to the awesomeness that is How I Met Your Mother, Monday night’s are my busiest with five shows total, three of them in a competing time-slot. And thus a problem is created.

I watch quite a few shows online, via Hulu or the networks themselves. I’m not the only one, many people watch online or DVR shows when they have several favorites on in a night. This is the problem networks are facing, how to count those people, myself included, into the ratings game? Networks rely on advertising dollars to keep shows on the air and those advertisers rely on ratings numbers to know which shows to back. But in this day and age of the internet and DVR’s, the traditional ratings system is obsolete.

I’m not the first person to say this and I know I’m not the last. With cable TV and DVR’s, the old ratings system needs to go. Or at least rethought. With networks relying on this system, good shows are barely allowed to find an audience before they’re pulled from the schedule. It’s no wonder the viewing public is becoming apathetic and looking elsewhere for good quality entertainment. The kind of shows that people like to watch cost money. And the networks don’t want to spend it. They want to make cheap reality shows that bring in bigger bucks and have a quicker turn around time to produce.

So here I am, the lowly average viewer, waiting on the edge to hear if my favorite shows will be on next season. ABC, keep Castle on, Nathan Fillion deserves a good show. Fox, keep Fringe, JJ Abrams is doing great things with it. (I cannot comment on Dollhouse or The Sarah Connor Chronicles as I haven’t watched either but I hear they’re good too.) NBC, Heroes is getting better, please keep it. And Chuck, because you had faith enough in it’s second season to order an entire season (22 episodes) before the first episode even aired, where is that faith now?

Tags: ABC, advertisers, advertising dollars, Age, Angel, audience, awe, Awesome, BS, Cable TV, Chuck, debilitating writer, delibilitating writer, Dollhouse, faith, Heroes, House, How I Met Your Mother, love, Nathan Fillion, NBC, problem networks, schedule networks, Television, week, writer