Galactica news

[jdavis]

What Sci Fi needs is PR help, if they have a PR department they need to fire them all because they aren't very good at this. Even when they make a good decision they look stupid and instead of having any sort of credibility at all they are normally scorned and disbelieved regardless of what they say by the very fanbase their cater to. Leaks are going to happen, it's part of the industry but they are just as likely to come out with a statement that they didn't feel Galactica was not what they consider to be scifi programming material as to say, hey it's going to be expensive we can only risk so much here. Whether they are all retarded monkeys in buisness suits or not doesn't matter as much as the fact that they appear to be a channel run by retarded monkeys. It's showbuisness appearances are more important than reality, they need a Politician level PR man.

 

[Darrin Drader]

Well JDavis, it isn't that I don't agree with you (I do), but despite their PR ineptitude, they seem to be making more money now than ever before. Unfortunately the money they're making doesn't translate into programming that we necessarily like.

Personally, I liked both parts of Dune. I liked Farscape, and I liked about 1 out of every 5 episodes of Sliders. I also liked (and severely miss) MST3K. Aside from that, I think their original programming has been a failure and the channel is mainly useful for catching reruns of shows I haven't seen in ages.

Speaking of which, I did catch the Farscape marathon today and I was reminded of 3 things. 1) that it was a damn good show and deserved to get one more season, 2) that Juul was the most annoying character ever, and 3) that the show really did lose a lot when Zahn died. Whenever I catch a rerun without her holy blueness, I still miss her. I don't think the show really ever recovered.

Regardless of everything, most of my favorite episodes are still the first 10 they shot. I really can't wait for the miniseries, just so that there is finally closure to it.

 

[John Crichton]

Well JDavis, it isn't that I don't agree with you (I do), but despite their PR ineptitude, they seem to be making more money now than ever before. Unfortunately the money they're making doesn't translate into programming that we necessarily like.

Drives me nuts.

Personally, I liked both parts of Dune. I liked Farscape, and I liked about 1 out of every 5 episodes of Sliders. I also liked (and severely miss) MST3K. Aside from that, I think their original programming has been a failure and the channel is mainly useful for catching reruns of shows I haven't seen in ages.

Speaking of which, I did catch the Farscape marathon today and I was reminded of 3 things. 1) that it was a damn good show and deserved to get one more season, 2) that Juul was the most annoying character ever, and 3) that the show really did lose a lot when Zahn died. Whenever I catch a rerun without her holy blueness, I still miss her. I don't think the show really ever recovered.

Regardless of everything, most of my favorite episodes are still the first 10 they shot. I really can't wait for the miniseries, just so that there is finally closure to it.

On Farscape: I think the show did lose a little when Her Blueness left but it picked itself up midseason. Took about 8-10 episodes. I actually thought the the weakest point of the show was the beginning of season 4, where it seemed to flounder for a bit. I recall saying to a friend that this is the worst time for the show to not be putting out its best stuff. Also, it took FOREVER for that stuff to finally air. Season 4 was broken up over the course of more than a year IIRC (someone please tell me if I'm wrong).

Oh, and Juul = annoying.

On Galactica: When they canned Farscape, I vowed to boycott the SFC until it returned in some form. Well, the miniseries didn't happen yet but I did tape the first part of BSG when it re-ran, simply based on the 3 minutes I watched while passing by a TV. I really enjoyed it.

My fear with BSG is how they may treat it. Farscape was treated badly and handled even worse. From timeslot moves to NO RERUNS (which was a huge boo-boo) I could go on for hours. A show with that much continuity that is uber fast-paced needs some reruns. That's how I got into the show in the first place. During all those long breaks where the show wasn't airing they should have been showing them, in sequence at the typical time slot with the occassional marathons (like they did at the beginning of the show's life).

Very hard to get new viewers when you are in season 3 or 4 and you don't know much about what the characters have been through. I should stop before I get going on this... again.

 

[jdavis]

Well JDavis, it isn't that I don't agree with you (I do), but despite their PR ineptitude, they seem to be making more money now than ever before. Unfortunately the money they're making doesn't translate into programming that we necessarily like.

Personally, I liked both parts of Dune. I liked Farscape, and I liked about 1 out of every 5 episodes of Sliders. I also liked (and severely miss) MST3K. Aside from that, I think their original programming has been a failure and the channel is mainly useful for catching reruns of shows I haven't seen in ages.

Speaking of which, I did catch the Farscape marathon today and I was reminded of 3 things. 1) that it was a damn good show and deserved to get one more season, 2) that Juul was the most annoying character ever, and 3) that the show really did lose a lot when Zahn died. Whenever I catch a rerun without her holy blueness, I still miss her. I don't think the show really ever recovered.

Regardless of everything, most of my favorite episodes are still the first 10 they shot. I really can't wait for the miniseries, just so that there is finally closure to it.

I think that's what's so funny about the whole thing, they are doing better now than ever before, yet they consistantly put effort into driving away long term fans of the channel. Ratings are as good as they have ever been on a more consistant basis, they now have the largest budget they have ever had and they are making a profit. You would think this translates into them looking pretty good but to all outward appearances they look unnattached to their audience and in many cases downright hostile. It's like they are daring you to stop watching. I feel guilty every time I turn the channel on, as it is I only watch Stargate. As far as Farscape goes, I might of been more sympathetic to their reasons if it they could actualy keep their story straight, every time I read something on it they have a different reason why they cancelled it, how can I believe what they are saying when they don't seem to even know themselves. It's not just the fans who are scratching their heads they still can't get through a press conference without somebody from the media asking about it. I picture their main office looking like the TBS monkey shorts show where they would make old movies with all monkey cast.

 

[Umbran]

You would think this translates into them looking pretty good but to all outward appearances they look unnattached to their audience and in many cases downright hostile. It's like they are daring you to stop watching.

No, it isn't to all outward appearance. Only to some. It is an illusion based upon the indignation of a small, very vocal, set of fans.

The trick is to remember that for the most part the full national audience doesn't care what happened to Farscape or the Invisible Man. The Channel occasionally cheeses off the real fanatics, but they aren't the majority of viewers. Or at least not the majority of their Neilsen viewers.

 

[Ranger REG]

"Nielsen viewers" Bah! Still they rely on such antiquated system.

 

[jdavis]

No, it isn't to all outward appearance. Only to some. It is an illusion based upon the indignation of a small, very vocal, set of fans.

The trick is to remember that for the most part the full national audience doesn't care what happened to Farscape or the Invisible Man. The Channel occasionally cheeses off the real fanatics, but they aren't the majority of viewers. Or at least not the majority of their Neilsen viewers.

Done went the Neilsen's route but your statement shows what I am talking about. Calling your most dedicated audience "some fanatics" isn't really a good idea there, especially when you do it in interviews for national publications, how many times can you alienate a few hundred thousand fanatics here or there before it bites you in the ass? Your calling the people who actually like your programming unimportant fanatics it's like a politician telling you he doesn't give a rats ass about your unimportant vote, it doesn't matter if you do or not you don't say it. Lets face it the general National audience doesn't care about SciFi anyway, if it disappeared they wouldn't notice, it's niche programming channel (that's what happens when you title it SciFi or Cartoon Network or Comedy Central, etc....) and the niche they are focused on is people who like Science Fiction, who they are labeling as unimportant fanatics in large groups due to the fact that they actually had the nerve to like one of the channels shows. For years Farscape was their prime show, 3 months before they cancelled it they were talking about how important it was to them and how it was the channels flagship show, now all the people unhappy they cancelled it are unimportant fanatics? If NBC called everybody who was upset they were taking Fraiser off the air "unimportant fanatics who complain about everything" they would look like imbecils, why work so hard to make a show popular then tell the people it worked on they don't matter? Look whatever you think Sci Fi fans are the majority of their viewers, how many groups of several hundred thousand can they insult to their face before it hurts them? It's not like they get audiences of 10 million on a regualr basis, it's nore like one or 2 million, Around 200,000 people signed the Galactica petition for example, no telling how many did the same for Farscape, many of these people haven't written them off all the way but they keep chipping away at them, who's going to be watching after Stargate goes away? Heck what else do they have going for them? Do you think everybody who watched the Galactica miniseries will watch the tv show? I don't care how small the group they need every viewer they can get, every channel needs every viewer they can get, most channels fight for viewers Sci Fi is daring you not to watch and calling you a fanatic. I don't think most people were as mad about them cancelling Farscape as they were about how they went about doing it, that's a PR problem.

 

[Umbran]

Done went the Neilsen's route but your statement shows what I am talking about. Calling your most dedicated audience "some fanatics" isn't really a good idea there...

Well, it's true. The term "fan" is short for fanatic, you know.

And I'll note that the "most dedicated" audience is not necessarily the audience you care about. In many (perhaps most) economic senses, their dedication is meaningless unless it shows up in the Neilsens. Business-wise, there's something to be said for playing to a less-dedicated but larger casual audience.

Your calling the people who actually like your programming unimportant fanatics it's like a politician telling you he doesn't give a rats ass about your unimportant vote, it doesn't matter if you do or not you don't say it.

Yeah. And if the person doesn't get a vote the politician usually won't care what the person thinks, now will he? You're responding as if TV was akin to a well-represented democracy, where the voice of a minority can still matter. I'm not sure that's a good model for today's commercial TV.

I don't care how small the group they need every viewer they can get, every channel needs every viewer they can get...

Not necessarily every viewer. To be honest, I wouldn't at all be surprised if the fans that participated in the Save Farscape campaign (fans like me) were seen as more trouble than we are worth. The campaign certainly cost the channel in terms of time, money, and resources in handling the physical and electronic correspondance, if nothing else. If we're going to be so uppity as to cost them extra money, do they really need us?

If you can get as many (or more) passive viewers who generate equivalent or greater ratings without the threat of resource-consuming fan campaigns, then you don't need the more demanding fans.

 

[Darrin Drader]

Truth

And that's why we're currently living in a period where the scifi movies are doing well and the scifi on TV sucks. At least with movies, if you deliver the movie, the fans get a self contained package (assuming that it isn't part of a series), they give you their money, and it either does well or it doesn't. With TV yuo have to worry about things like the cost to make the show, the size of the audience, and the money you're pulling in through advertising. It would be so nice if science fiction were a subscription market, where the 500,000 fans that really like something can pay their $50 or $100 a year and get a season out of it. I know that I would gladly have ponied up the cash for Crusade and I would happily do it again for Battlestar Galactica.

Right now the only thing that matters is the ratings and the cost vs. profit. They are offering a product and if enough people don't buy, they remove the product from the market and work on a better product that more people will buy. In the process, the customers of the original product get all cheesed off at you, but you can't help that because it is your job to make profit. Those who will never buy your products again because of the bad experienec they had with you before are in the minority, especially since the product is free, so they don't need to worry as much about them.

 

[jdavis]

Well, it's true. The term "fan" is short for fanatic, you know.

And I'll note that the "most dedicated" audience is not necessarily the audience you care about. In many (perhaps most) economic senses, their dedication is meaningless unless it shows up in the Neilsens. Business-wise, there's something to be said for playing to a less-dedicated but larger casual audience.

Yes that's why big channels are not dedicated to one specific genre, they play to a wide audience. It's why Fox wasn't hurt as bad publicity wise by the Firefly thing. SciFi has been trying to widen it's market for a while now it's one of the things that makes them suck to a fan but it is pretty smart, the problem is that they can only broaden so much before they are the USA channel instead of SciFi (which will never be allowed to happen). Thing is it's when you have a programming lul, where you don't have anything standing out that the dedicated audience will be around but the casual one will be tuning out. Pro Wrestling is going through that right now, they lost the casual audience do to a lackluster product at present, yet they still generate enough numbers with the dedicated fans to stay on the air, they have dropped from getting 6's and 7's to getting 2's and 3's in the ratings. When this will hurt SciFi channel is if they don't get something decent on after Stargate SG1 ends to anchor their network. They are a one trick pony right now (10 hours of Stargate SG1 a week), what if Atlantis doesn't catch on? It's the fans that will keep you afloat when times get tough.

Yeah. And if the person doesn't get a vote the politician usually won't care what the person thinks, now will he? You're responding as if TV was akin to a well-represented democracy, where the voice of a minority can still matter. I'm not sure that's a good model for today's commercial TV.

No my point was that he would never come out and say he doesn't care about your vote. Look SciFi don't give a crap about the fans, it's a given in the entertainment industry, but you shouldn't tell the fans that. My point is that if you have good PR you don't catch near as much of this flack, they need to stop shooting themselves in the foot here. It's not the fans fault they are upset, it's SciFi coming out and basically saying "we cancelled Farscape because we really don't care about anything but saving some money, kiss our asses". With just a little bit of planning and some common sense they could of pulled off the Farscape cancellation thing and put it all back on Henson productions, they tried to pitifully and way to late anyway. Start with this statement: "We tried to run a half season but they said no, we had no other options available to us, maybe if you write them and get them to agree to the half season we can air it." Then stick to it no matter what, they can't even keep their story straight on what happened now. It really is that simple. No press campaign, no phonecalls and 100,000 e-mail floods, it's all "well at least they tried somehting to save it".

Not necessarily every viewer. To be honest, I wouldn't at all be surprised if the fans that participated in the Save Farscape campaign (fans like me) were seen as more trouble than we are worth. The campaign certainly cost the channel in terms of time, money, and resources in handling the physical and electronic correspondance, if nothing else. If we're going to be so uppity as to cost them extra money, do they really need us?

If you can get as many (or more) passive viewers who generate equivalent or greater ratings without the threat of resource-consuming fan campaigns, then you don't need the more demanding fans.

Well there was no reason they couldn't have both groups, that's my point. Look they got demanding fans whether they like it or not, if they can't cope with that then maybe they picked the wrong audience to cater to originally. See Science Fiction fans are going to keep bugging them and keep costing them money for years to come, (we really are fanatics about this stuff, more so than any other niche audience out there, except maybe the prowrestling fan who lives to gripe on the internet). Invisible Man then Farscape then Galactica what's next, your going to have the complaining but isn't it better to have them watching and griping rather than not watching and griping? The griping is just part of doing business in this genre (just ask the Star Trek producers).

What kind of idiots allow the star of their major event special of the year to ask more than 200,000 fans to tune out? He didn't even ask them to give it a chance he told them to just hate it sight unseen and get it over with. Maybe if they were nice to these people and maybe even pretended to actually care about their concerns more of them would of given it a chance? Just imagine if Matt LeBlanc released a statement like "If you loved Friends then the last thing you should ever do is watch my new show Joey, just watch Friends reruns and never give my show a chance, trust me if you like Friends you'll hate my spinoff of it." The NBC execs would kill him.

I'm not asking them to care about me or my concerns or even to listen to me, I'm asking them to stop insulting me and maybe to learn how to lie to me better, I don't have to take this kind of abuse from Cartoon Network. I don't think it's too much for me to ask for them to not actively rub their utter contempt for me in my face, just smile and pretend to like me and I'll watch your crappy shows why is that such a bad deal for them, it works for NBC.