Does the TV scifi paradigm need to change?

[WizarDru]

Well, actually you're supporting my point, so long as the different forms of "we" are kept straight.

There's we - the general American viewing public.

There's we - the hard-core geeks who want better shows.

Scifi seems to do reasonably well panding to the former. As you note, then there's not much point at going after the latter, which is a much smaller group.

Well, I guess you're thinking of a smaller subset of fandom, then, because last time I checked, there were still people out there writing "Manimal" and "Automan" fanfics and making Ewoks Flash movies. I guess I don't accept the 'blame Joe Six-Pack, not SF geeks' theory for the current state of SF. YMMV.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Well, I guess you're thinking of a smaller subset of fandom, then, because last time I checked, there were still people out there writing "Manimal" and "Automan" fanfics and making Ewoks Flash movies.

Automan!

They need to remake Automan.

-Hyp.

 

[jdavis]

Are those numbers adjusted for inflation? I know it wouldn't add much, but one thing that truly annoys me is when people compare numbers without accounting for it.

So my question is, why is the budget only 135 million? And that's apparently a total programming budget, otherwise stuff like mini-series and specials wouldn't be taken out of that fund. I just don't feel that it needs to be that low.

Any numbers on SFC's advertising budget?

That's the development budget so I will assume it is for the development of original Sci Fi productions, such as series, mini series, specials and original run movies. That budget has basically doubled in the last five years. I think they realized the network would fail if it continued to rely on reruns (there are only so many science fiction shows out there and only so many times you can sit through the same episode of Knight Rider before you pull your hair out). The question to ask is what is the new show budget for other cable channels? I mean how does their new show budget compare with say Cartoon Network or Comedy Central? I don't have a clue and I had a real hard time finding any information on what Sci Fi's budget was due to the fact that I am not in the industry and recieve buisness journals and such. The big thing here is that it shows just how much money they have to work on for their yearly budget (this came into play big time when they tried to pick up Crusade but had already allocated their budget for the year). It might also explain the hesitation on Galactica, they have Stargate Atlantis and a new season of SG1 comming up (the SG1 season wasn't originally planned), can they get the money to do three space shows together? I mean it's one of the reasons why they claimed to kill of Farscape, they couldn't afford two space shows can they now afford three fo them? There was rumor of them wanting to do a Dune series too, can they do four space shows? That's a lot of programming to budget for them. Scare Tactics got renewed not based on ratings but based on the ever important ratings vs cost ratio, it was cheap enough to offset it's lackluster ratings to give it a second season to develop, most Space Operas just don't have that option.

As for the show budget list those will vary due to script needs (as has already been mentioned). I remember reading a long time ago that set needs was one of the big reasons for the holodeck in Next Generation, if they were short on money they would just set a show on the holodeck and use whatever set was available out there or they would find a planet with a 60's style casino on it or such. They were vary consious of what sets on the lot weren't being used and I think they actually used some movie sets after that production ended so as to not have any of the budget go to set building and design. It's been a while since I read that but I think that was actually pretty common for space opera type shows. Lots of shows would use back lots sets to save money. A lot of shows now are done outside of Hollywood to save money so you don't see that as much anymore.

Another thing for comparison the average episode of Friends runs around 4 to 6 million depending on what figures you see. The original budget for Enterprise was around 5 million a episode and it doesn't do anything near Friends numbers. It's not episode cost it's episode cost vs ratings.

 

[jdavis]

Well, that leaves a question - how boneheaded are these decisions if they allow for an increase in budget every year? They can't be so bad that they're quickly sinking the channel. As I understand it, the Sci Fi Channel has been making a consistent profit for a number of years now, so they're decisions are obviously not completly imbecilic.

There is something we have to avoid here - the preconception that what we like and want is necessarily the best business move.

Let's face it - we are oddballs, fairly hard-core sci-fi and fantasy fans. We like Farscape and B5. But if ratings and past success are a measure, the rest of the world likes Jerry Springer, "Married with Children" and "reality TV". Our tastes are not run-of-the-mill, and pandering to our tastes may not be the way to greatest profits for the Sci Fi Channel.

Vivendi/Universal was in trouble with 13 billion in debt, thus the sell out to NBC (80/20 merger with Vivendi having the option to sell their 20% in 2006). Sci Fi channel was a very small fish in that bucket but there was a push for them to actually generate revenue and grow. When the parent company is in financial trouble then it does effect everything below it. There was a tremendous amount of pressure on Sci Fi to turn a profit and cut cost.

Some of the decisions I am talking about are that Sci Fi has killed almost every new show it has had in the last five years. Many of them in a very public and ugly showing. No reason to go into why they killed Farscape but the how they did it was PR nightmare, they are still being eaten up about it and it's hard for them to do a press conference without it coming up even now. Galactica was a PR nightmare for them, after years of fans trying to get a show made they finally decided to do it, then basically told all the fans that their opinions didn't matter. The fan drives and Richard hatch making his own trailer is what got the Galactica property remade, but Hatch was a victim of politics and Edward James Olmos basically came out and told fans of Battlestar Galactica to avoid the new show. Yes it got good ratings, but even in the midst of that sucess they took a big PR hit with the very core group of thier target audience, science fiction fans. B5 Crusade bit them in the ass, Invisible Man was a PR disaster and Bonnie Hammer has cone out looking like a complete political tyrant with no love for science fiction. I mean really when has a organization had such a negative image with with the very group they claim to champion? What would happen to Cartoon Network if they started acting like they didn't give a crap about what kids liked, what would happen at Comedy Central if the head of programming said they were going to take a new direction away from Comedy? Sci FI channel needs a really good PR man, there is only so long you can get away with insulting your core audience (wheter intentional or not) before it starts to really affect the bottom line. I'm sure the last thing they ever wanted was to look so bad on the Farscape issue but they can't even keep their own story straight, and just how hard would it to of kept even a cordial relationship with the Galactica fanbase (several hundred thousand people), I mean really it's one thing to do the reimagining and another thing to insult the people who are concerned about it. Instead of talking to these people and at least pretending to listen they basically called several hundred thousand raving science fiction fans nutjobs whose opinions didn't matter. Science Fiction does have a stigma associated with it but that shouldn't pop up on the freaking Sci Fi channel. What if Peter Jackson came out and told all the Tolken book purinst who had questions about the movie that their opinions didn't matter and they were just a unimportant fringe group? It would be a PR nightmare.

Yes we are not the normal viewing audience here but then again when you have a channel called Sci Fi that is supposed to cater to the science fiction fans but it doesn't then maybe they need to change their name to something else. Science Fiction is in a rut right now and it does have a stigma of not being considered mainstream, but gee isn't the title of this thread about science fiction? I mean really this thread is about what we like and want and how it could be a good buisness move. Everybody who is looking forward to the zany reality show raise their hands. Everybody who wants to see Science Fiction be replaced by Jerry Springer style shows raise their hand. Sci FI channel stays on the air because this niche audience is starved for entertainment, lets face it most of us will watch just about anything with a sci fi twist just to get our sci fi fix. I hated the new Galactica but I watched the first episode three times and the second night four times, why because at least it was some sort of science fiction. I was willing to suck it up just to watch something from the genre I love, heck I got in to Stargate basically because nothing else was on that grabbed my attention. I watched it for weeks not liking it before it started to grow on me. I'm sure a lot of Star Trek fans are the same way, they will stick with a show they don't care for just because it's Star Trek well until they eventually just burn out and tune out, which seems to be what is happening right now.

Basically what you are saying is that SCi FI channel should close up shop and start pandering to the masses just like all the others but in the cable market pandering to a target niche audience is a much safer bet, it's why TNN changed to Spike TV, to pander to a tighter demographic. Demographics are more important than general ratings anymore, and while science fiction fans might be a small market they are in the prime 18 to 31 male demographic for the most part. What we like and want in our programming should be important to people who are trying to sell into our demographic and our niche market. What happens to Sci FI channel if they loose their base audience of science fiction nuts?

 

[Umbran]

WizarDru: Whether you want to say it's Joe Six-Pack, or less disciminating sci-fi fans, or what - I expect most fo the folks in this thread are in a minority of viewers. We have rather high and exacting standards that have to be met before we call a thing "good". All that's required is that there be a lot of viewers who aren't as picky.

Some of the decisions I am talking about are that Sci Fi has killed almost every new show it has had in the last five years. Many of them in a very public and ugly showing.

Quite true. In terms of public relations, Sci Fi has done poorly, no doubt there. I think, though, that this can be attributed mostly to the pressure you note above. I find it terribly difficult that Bonnie Hammer, the woman who brought us Farscape in the first place, would have worked the way she did if she had a reasonable alternative. The only people keeping her from reasonable alternatives would have been the Vivendi folks. However, here we enter the land of speculation, because we don't know what went on behind those closed doors.

...Edward James Olmos basically came out and told fans of Battlestar Galactica to avoid the new show.

Now, let's not take that out of context. Olmos wasn't saying the show was bad. He said that the new show was going to be different enough that the old fans weren't going to like it. And he was probably right. Because the real rabid fans of any property are just plain intolerant. Richard Hatch is a fine enough gent, but it's not like he's the end-all, be-all, final word on BG. Honestly, his involvement in the whole thing struck me as... a bit egotistical.

Personally, I was a fan of the old BG. I didn't get to see all of the new one (screwed up setting my VCR). But what I saw I liked. On it's own merits, it was a good show, IMHO. Probably better potential for character and plot development than the old show ever had. But, fans are intolerant. If it doesn't fit their vision of what the show should have been, it won't fly.

Odd, really. Here, we say we're looking for good writing and originality. And when someone deviates from an old vision and old stilted writing style, we jump down their throats. "We" being fans in general, that is. Seems it happend with DS9 and Firefly, too. Give the fans something different, and they get all weird in the head.

I mean really when has a organization had such a negative image with with the very group they claim to champion?

I've never seen a SciFi ad saying, "Watch us, we are the champion of genre fans!" I don't think the channel has ever made any claims to being a champion of anything. They provide programming. They aren't defenders of the fannish cause, and never have been, and never said they were.

Basically what you are saying is that SCi FI channel should close up shop and start pandering to the masses just like all the others but in the cable market pandering to a target niche audience is a much safer bet, it's why TNN changed to Spike TV, to pander to a tighter demographic.

I'm not saying they should or shouldn't do anything. I'm saying they already seem to be doing so. Sometimes playing to a tighter audience is the thing to do. Sometimes the audience you're trying to play to is too tight, too small. Then, you have to broaden your base, rather than contract it.

We aren't in a position to do anything but guess about whether SciFi should broaden or tighten it's target. We don't have the market research data to know. I don't think Sci Fi has that data either. The Neilsen system doesn't give it to them, and hunting it down themselves would be costly. So, we all guess. They guess in a way that seems to get them more money than before...

 

[LightPhoenix]

Sci FI channel stays on the air because this niche audience is starved for entertainment, lets face it most of us will watch just about anything with a sci fi twist just to get our sci fi fix. I hated the new Galactica but I watched the first episode three times and the second night four times, why because at least it was some sort of science fiction. I was willing to suck it up just to watch something from the genre I love, heck I got in to Stargate basically because nothing else was on that grabbed my attention. I watched it for weeks not liking it before it started to grow on me. I'm sure a lot of Star Trek fans are the same way, they will stick with a show they don't care for just because it's Star Trek well until they eventually just burn out and tune out, which seems to be what is happening right now.

I just want to say, why? I've never understood why people would watch things they didn't like just because. I loved Andromeda before they decided to simplify things, when they did, I gave it a chance but ultimately stopped watching it. I didn't watch Enterprise until this season, because I knew what had come before. I never watched more than a few episodes Buffy, because despite everything I just wasn't a fan. If you don't like something, don't watch it, simple as that. So there's no Sci-Fi on TV, other genres do exist. It's unfortunate, and I would like to see more Sci-Fi on TV, but I'm not gonna watch crap to get some "fix."

I'm not saying they should or shouldn't do anything. I'm saying they already seem to be doing so. Sometimes playing to a tighter audience is the thing to do. Sometimes the audience you're trying to play to is too tight, too small. Then, you have to broaden your base, rather than contract it.

We aren't in a position to do anything but guess about whether SciFi should broaden or tighten it's target. We don't have the market research data to know. I don't think Sci Fi has that data either. The Neilsen system doesn't give it to them, and hunting it down themselves would be costly. So, we all guess. They guess in a way that seems to get them more money than before...

Both.

There's a place for stuff like John Edwards and Scare Tactics. It serves several useful functions - broadening your audience, making cheap money, and filling prime time with original stuff and not repeats.

There's also a place for stuff like Farscape and Firefly. They also serve useful functions. Catering to the higher-brow viewers, keeping your core fanbase, and perhaps making the next big Sci-Fi show.

And finally there's a place for stuff like B5 and MST3K. These can act as filler, grab the nostalgia viewers, nudge ratings, and are reasonably cheap.

Perhaps expecting SFC to take the riskier road and try and balance all three of these is just overly hopeful. After all, they do need money, they are a business above all else. I would rather have SFC than not have it, all things considered.

I will say this - I think the Thursday night line-up is great. Take those shows and put them together one night, leave "high science-fiction" for Friday. They get the best of both worlds this way. And Thursday is the perfect night - Tuesday you compete with Angel and the angsty-stuff, Wednesday you're competing with Enterprise. Monday your key demographic is watching football or wrestling. Out of the three days left, Thursday is by far the strongest.

 

[Staffan]

B5 Crusade bit them in the ass,

I'd just like to point out that Sci-fi channel is largely not responsible for what happened to Crusade. That was TNT. Sci-fi apparently had the option to pick up Crusade afterward, but decided it wasn't worth it - but the people screwing it over were TNT.

 

[Darrin Drader]

I'd just like to point out that Sci-fi channel is largely not responsible for what happened to Crusade. That was TNT. Sci-fi apparently had the option to pick up Crusade afterward, but decided it wasn't worth it - but the people screwing it over were TNT.

I agree. TNT killed Crusade before it ever had the chance to air because of their meddling with the series. JMS made the statement that the TNT suits wanted Crusade to be like WWF meets Baywatch in space, and he wasn't going to turn a Babylon 5 spinoff into that. Once things fell through with TNT, Scifi had the option to pick it up, but had already invested in all their original programming for the year and couldn't afford to pick it up. Every indication was that they actually really wanted to at that time. These days, who knows? I mean they got great ratings on a masterfully produced Battlestar Galactica miniseries and they're still sitting on the pot.

 

[jdavis]

WizarDru: Whether you want to say it's Joe Six-Pack, or less disciminating sci-fi fans, or what - I expect most fo the folks in this thread are in a minority of viewers. We have rather high and exacting standards that have to be met before we call a thing "good". All that's required is that there be a lot of viewers who aren't as picky.

I'm not looking for anything highbrow here at all, heck I'd be happy with a show called "TJ Hooker in Space" where space cops shoot it out with space bad guys. I'm a Star Wars guy not a Star Trek guy, I want shooting and explosions and nonstop action. I don't think I'm a less descriminating fan nor do I think that people who like shows where they talk about stuff in space settings are particularly high brow snooty types. I think that we are all fans of a genre of shows which is pretty wide and encompases a lot of ground. My problem is that I get more science fiction off of Cartoon Network than I get off of the SciFi channel. Their job is to make money and my job is to entertain me, I don't give a rats ass how much money they make or loose as long as I'm entertained, it's my perogative as a consumer. Yea I know there is much more to the buisness than making me happy but for me it starts at making me happy and ends at making me happy because if I'm not happy why should I care if they are making money. If the only way I can get some happiness out of Television is to turn it off and get on the computer to talk about it well then at least I'm happy. When I'm watching a show I prefer one where you can tell the cast is happy with it and the directors and writers are happy with it, too many shows compromise themselves for some percieved market share expanse and you can tell. Too many shows get compromised or focused grouped into some non offensive safe little ball where you can tell that the people doing it are not happy with it.

Quite true. In terms of public relations, Sci Fi has done poorly, no doubt there. I think, though, that this can be attributed mostly to the pressure you note above. I find it terribly difficult that Bonnie Hammer, the woman who brought us Farscape in the first place, would have worked the way she did if she had a reasonable alternative. The only people keeping her from reasonable alternatives would have been the Vivendi folks. However, here we enter the land of speculation, because we don't know what went on behind those closed doors.

Bonnie Hammer has done a smash up job of getting market share and growth out of the channel but she still comes off looking bad, moreso than any other network head out there. They have a real PR problem here and they shouldn't have one. Every good decision they make gets glossed over and every bad one gets blown out of proportion, they have people running their mouths and putting their feet in them all the time and they basically arespyralling out of control PR wise. Not to go into any reason why the cancelled Farscape but they can't even consistantly give a decent reason why. One person says this and another says that, people are leaking stuff and internal politics get made public way too often. You got to get some control going and get a lid on things, hire a spin doctor or a good PR firm to work on the image and get proactive before some of these problems crop up.

Now, let's not take that out of context. Olmos wasn't saying the show was bad. He said that the new show was going to be different enough that the old fans weren't going to like it. And he was probably right. Because the real rabid fans of any property are just plain intolerant. Richard Hatch is a fine enough gent, but it's not like he's the end-all, be-all, final word on BG. Honestly, his involvement in the whole thing struck me as... a bit egotistical.

"Don't Watch My Program," Advises Star

In one of the oddest promotional appearances ever before the TV Writers Summer Tour, Edward James Olmos, who is starring in a new Battlestar Galactica miniseries due to air on the Sci-Fi Channel, gave this advice to fans of the original Galactica series, which aired on ABC between 1978 and 1980: "Please don't watch this program," Olmos said. "Buy yourself the new DVDs that they're putting out of the old episodes, and whenever we come on, just put that one in. ... Trust me. Don't watch it. If you're a real, real staunch Battlestar Galactica person, please don't watch it."

http://us.imdb.com/SB?20030711#7

This is where a good PR person would of come in, see you said the same thing above "Because the real rabid fans of any property are just plain intolerant." Well isn't that painting with a very wide brush? Isn't that very insulting to say to somebody who is highly supporting of a show? Good grief Olmos put his foot in SciFi channels mouth up to his knee. Your talking about several hundred thousand people here. I'm a fan of the old show, I grew up with it and cried when it went off the air (I was 7 at the time) I bought the toys and read the comic books and wished that soemday somebody would bring the show back, so now I'm a intolerant ranting fan who just hates everything? He's not the only person who insutled the fan base here, heck his comment was actual pretty nice compared to a lot of the others. A lot of these "rabid good for nothing fans" are the core audience for the channel, what do you think they only like one show? How many of them do you think might of been Stargate fans? How many of them had been watching this channel for the last decade because they were the outlet for science fiction? Look If Edward James Olmos worked at McDonalds and told upset customers that they should just mosey on down to Burger King if they don't like Big Macs then he would of been fired. "there is a reason almost all buisnesses in America use the phrase "The customer is always right" and it's not because the customer is right, it's because the customer is the only reason you exist as a organization. Why would you come out and malign your own show like that, I mean really a statement like:

"I know this show may seem really different than the old one but I am very excited about it and the potential it has. Yes this mini series may not be to everyones taste but please give it a chance as it is a pilot for a series and we will be listening to the fans responses to fine tune the show. We really do care about the old shows fanbase"

Is it a lie? Well yea, obviously they hold the fans of Battlestar Galactica in contempt but instead of telling them that you now have included them and given them hope that the show might grow to be something they might actually like. Even if you don't embrace the fanbase freaking fake it, and most definatly never turn the thing into a national news event where it looks like you are against the fans. The tagline for this article was "Don't watch my program" advises star, man if that isn't a black eye regardless of what the actual article says I don't know what is.

As far as Richard Hatch goes, he bankrolled his own teaser to sell USA network on bringing Galactica back. The network told him no it wouldn't work so he maxed out his credit cards and mortgaged his house to make a Galactica teaser, went around getting fan support and proved to them that it was viable, then they basically kicked him to the curb (there are rumors of politics involved of course). At the same time Glen Larson was working on a Galactica movie. Then Universal started a project with Bryan Singer and Tom Desanto, Singer went on to do X2 the movie instead (good move on Singers part there) and so the show got passed down to a Ron Moore and David Eich and was pushed through to what we saw.

Hatch was basically moved by all the fan support he saw to give this a shot I don't know how egotistical he is but you got to respect the fact that he believed in the property enough to mortgage his house.

Here is the information on the many different versions and the basics of what went down: http://www.cylon.org/bsg/bsg1978-intro-01.html

Personally, I was a fan of the old BG. I didn't get to see all of the new one (screwed up setting my VCR). But what I saw I liked. On it's own merits, it was a good show, IMHO. Probably better potential for character and plot development than the old show ever had. But, fans are intolerant. If it doesn't fit their vision of what the show should have been, it won't fly.

Odd, really. Here, we say we're looking for good writing and originality. And when someone deviates from an old vision and old stilted writing style, we jump down their throats. "We" being fans in general, that is. Seems it happend with DS9 and Firefly, too. Give the fans something different, and they get all weird in the head.

I've never seen a SciFi ad saying, "Watch us, we are the champion of genre fans!" I don't think the channel has ever made any claims to being a champion of anything. They provide programming. They aren't defenders of the fannish cause, and never have been, and never said they were.

Their network slogan is "I am SciFi". If you went to Books a Million you would expect to find books, you wouldn't go there if you were looking for toilet paper and dog food. They are the network channel for Science Fiction, you would expect them to be big proponents of science fiction. Their website is one huge community for people who like science fiction. If they are not going to be showing science fiction then they are just the USA channel #2. No they are not champions of any cause or anything but you would expect them to be science fiction fans. They claim to be the network of Science Fiction. Just like Cartoon Network claims to be the network of cartoons and Comedy Central claims to be the network of comedy. They say watch us we show the genre you like, if they called it Cartoon Network and they only showed romance movies and old soap operas then it wouldn't make sense, you sort of expect to see cartoons as that is what is implied by the network title.

I'm not saying they should or shouldn't do anything. I'm saying they already seem to be doing so. Sometimes playing to a tighter audience is the thing to do. Sometimes the audience you're trying to play to is too tight, too small. Then, you have to broaden your base, rather than contract it.

We aren't in a position to do anything but guess about whether SciFi should broaden or tighten it's target. We don't have the market research data to know. I don't think Sci Fi has that data either. The Neilsen system doesn't give it to them, and hunting it down themselves would be costly. So, we all guess. They guess in a way that seems to get them more money than before...

Trust me they have the marketing data but sometimes you got to stick your neck out a little, you got to actually enjoy what you are producing. Sometimes I wonder if the execs there even like science fiction at all. Sci Fi channels biggest problem right now is a image problem and eventually they will alienate enough of their core audience that they will start to go the other way and loose market share, I mean they pretty much announced publicly to several hundred thousand people to not watch their product. Their upcomming schedule is not all that bad (well if your a Stargate Fan it isn't because that's what you will be getting tons and tons of Stargate), they are about two years too late on the reality show deal but I actually like the silly little Bryant Gumbel UFO specials of course I actually find myself feeling guilty for watching the channel because they just come off as really bad people. It gets harder and harder for them to get me to turn their channel on for anything but Stargate.

 

[jdavis]

I just want to say, why? I've never understood why people would watch things they didn't like just because. I loved Andromeda before they decided to simplify things, when they did, I gave it a chance but ultimately stopped watching it. I didn't watch Enterprise until this season, because I knew what had come before. I never watched more than a few episodes Buffy, because despite everything I just wasn't a fan. If you don't like something, don't watch it, simple as that. So there's no Sci-Fi on TV, other genres do exist. It's unfortunate, and I would like to see more Sci-Fi on TV, but I'm not gonna watch crap to get some "fix."

Some people are addicted to TV, my wife will sit for hours and just surf through the channels, heck we leave the TV on when we aren't hear for the Parrots to watch (my African Grey can whistle the Ed Edd and Eddy theme and he goes wild for Scooby Doo). I have a friend who actually watched every episode of Cop Rock, why well because it was on the tv. Myself I find that I am spending more time on the internet and less time watching tv. Even with 99 channels it's hard to find anything to watch but when the alternative is sitting there in the dark you will make do with what you can find for entertainment. Soemtimes you just sit through a show about the history of the Winchester rifle because it's the least crappy of everything on and sometimes you sit through a poor Battlestar Galactica mini series because you are hoping that you can find something worthwhile about it because you so desperatly want to like it. I don't watch a show because it's in a specific genre I just pick whats closest to what I can get into and when it's a stupid Mtv show or a Lifetime movie or a science fiction show I'll normally pick the SciFi show. What do you watch when there is nothing else on? If it was Buffy or the news which will you choose? There is also the hope that a certain show might get better, which is probably what keeps most Star Trek fans hanging on, better ok Star Trek than no Star Trek at all.