LightPhoenix said:
"Alright people, here's our plan! We're gonna make it seem like our show sucks!"
More like "Some people are going to say that they think the show sucks no matter what we do, so we're going to make them say it before they see the show and have to rescind what they have said after viewing it. This will change the minds of some of the loudest, long-term negative fans and make the rest of the loudest, long-term naysayers look like they don't really know what they're talking about..."
LightPhoenix said:
"I'd take the opposite stance if this were being done purposefully, which I doubt. It's an incredibly dumb stance to make the first impression of your show a bad one. That translates to less people watching your show overall per episode, and very few people actually starting to watch the show. Meanwhile you're still losing viewers (as most shows normally do over the course of a season), but you have less of a chance of getting them back. No, I think clever is exactly the wrong word to use for a strategy like that.
I disagree. It's only a bad impression to some of the old guard, really. I don't think the promos are bothering completely new viewers at all. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if they gain viewers using a ploy like that. Besides, claiming someone is going to die always translate to higher ratings...regardless of the show and regardless of whether they actually do die (by trick or in truth). It's a ploy to get people to tune in and once they have, then you have to impress them or distract them from how you got them there.
There's a segment of the old guard that loves nothing more than to have something about which to complain (not round here, of course

). When folks have made up their minds in advance about a show (and many had before the pilot episode) the only way to change their minds is to constantly challenge their position no matter if it is based on fact or assumption. The more they can get people to say they thought they were going to hate it but didn't, the less often those same people are saying they hoped they were going to like it but didn't. The promo ploy (purposeful or not) is turning a negative spin into a positive spin which translates to better buzz and higher ratings.
The biggest obstacle to gaining completely new viewers is the ST long time fan base (myself included, mind you). There's a general perception about what a "Trekkie" and/or "Trekker" is. One facet of that perception is that the fanbase is inflexible and opinionated, and that perception is affirmed in some minds each and every week. If the current leadership of the franchise can get the ST fanbase to mellow out, no matter how, it can mean more new fans will come to the show...and with an open, untainted mind.
LightPhoenix said:
And before someone mentions it, word of mouth isn't usually strong enough to get people watching a show at all. Otherwise there'd be a lot of better shows still on the air.
True. It isn't the vocal segment of the fanbase keeping ST on the air, it's the long term investment and unwillingness to believe the franchise could not be succesful. If word of mouth had anything to do with the possibility of Enterprise, ST would have died sometime during the run of Voyager.
