Veronica Mars versus Lost

[takyris]

Please don't drag previous conflicts into new threads. If you don't get along with a user but are unwilling to Ignore-List him, either respond to him politely or simply ignore him - which one is completely up to you. But responding to a simple question, one implying disagreement or not, the way you did here is not okay.

Won't happen again. Mark, I apologize. I took offense at your question, which I suspected was either a lead-in for a personal attack or an attempt to derail the thread based on the fact that you had not participated in any other Veronica Mars threads but came in with the comment you did here. I responded inappropriately.

Flyspeck: I phrased it the way I did because when I fast-forward through the commercials for Kevin Hill and Veronica Mars, the shows I saw advertised were sitcoms aimed at African-American audiences, reality shows (or possibly just America's Next Top Model), whichever show I wasn't watching (either Kevin Hill or Veronica Mars), and the new show with Britney Spears and her husband (which is also a reality-show, I guess). I wasn't saying that sitcom specifically aimed at the African-American audience would do better. Unless their stated demographic has changed and the stuff I've been reading is totally out of date, they don't have any sitcoms except for the African-American-themed sitcoms.

 

[Mark]

Won't happen again. Mark, I apologize. I took offense at your question, which I suspected was either a lead-in for a personal attack or an attempt to derail the thread based on the fact that you had not participated in any other Veronica Mars threads but came in with the comment you did here. I responded inappropriately.

I think very highly of the Veronic Mars, though I do not watch it.

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?p=1783018

I don't watch Lost, either. I was beginning to give up on Lost when I recognized the repeating pattern of the shows flashback/red herring formula and the final straw was when the first dead guy came back to life. If I hear that they've changed their writing (they may become more seasoned and stop relying on such trickery), I may give it another chance in reruns.

Scheduling the shows against one another doesn't effect my watching from either point of view BUT I do think that quality television needs to be supported even if a show isn't to my particular taste and I opened your thread dreading that Veronic Mars was being given the short end of the programming stick.

That said, I feel you could have left your comment at "sitcom" only. Nevertheless, making an offensive remark doesn't brand someone as a racist. I did not call you a racist. Believe me, if and when I think someone is a racist, I deal with it on that level.

Your subsequent comments about me were purposeful and, as such, struck me on a more personal level. I'm saddened they were felt and further wish they had not been posted. It's easier to believe that someone has no opinion of you than it is to find that they personally dislike you.

Anyway, as long as you understand my position then I can accept your apology.

 

[takyris]

Saw this in Yahoo news this morning:

...Speaking of drama-laden, the Wednesday 9 p.m. slot is shaping up to be a six-show pileup, with each network fielding a drama and nobody thinking much about counterprograming. ABC is sure to be the network to beat in the hour, with "Lost" sliding back there from its 8 p.m. berth this season.

CBS and NBC are poised to duke it out with new high-end ensemblers: NBC's Pentagon-based "E-Ring" and CBS' FBI-themed "Criminal Minds." UPN and the WB would seem to be chasing the same young females, with the sophomore year of UPN's "Veronica Mars" going against the WB's freshman "Related," which revolves around the lives and loves of four sisters. Fox seems to be aiming somewhere in between the CBS-NBC and WB-UPN crowds with "Head Cases," starring Chris O'Donnell and Adam Goldberg as lawyers with distinctive personal problems...

So it's not just "Lost" versus "Veronica Mars." I only saw that because I watch both shows, and both shows have a strong geek following above and beyond their normal following. "E-Ring" and "Criminal Minds" seem to be competing with each other, and they both sound enough like procedurals that they're not really competing with "Lost" and only marginally with "Veronica Mars", which might be a mystery show but which I wouldn't call a procedural. "Related" sounds like it will hit "Veronica Mars" much more than "Lost", although possibly not here on the boards, since we are, generally speaking, the geek fans, not the young female fans that apparently are meant to make up most of the "Veronica Mars" audience. (I have no idea whether or not this is true.) "Head Cases" doesn't sound like a big problem for either of the shows I care about.

Operating under the theory that UPN was genuinely trying to help "Veronica Mars" by giving it the "America's Next Top Model" lead-in, which turned out to ram Veronica into "Lost", I can think of a few ways for UPN to help itself:

Possible timeslots:

Monday at 8: Veronica would compete against: "Fathom", the new NBC show about alien monsters coming out of the water in California, Antarctica, and the Gulf States; "The King of Queens" followed by "How I Met Your Mother", two sitcoms; "Wife Swap", a reality show; "Arrested Development" followed by "Kitchen Confidential", two sitcoms; and "7th Heaven". While I'd be bummed to have "Veronica Mars" opposite "Arrested Development", this seems like a pretty good slot for the show. "7th Heaven" is arguably a competitor, but it's a competitor on the WB, which means it might actually be winnable for UPN. "Fathom" could steal some geeks, but it's a Sci-Fi show on NBC, which has not been a good sign in the past few years. The sitcoms are not likely huge competitors (although I'd be bummed, as I said, about the competition with "Arrested Development"). The only bad part here is that Veronica wouldn't get any lead-in. Veronica would be displacing a pair of sitcoms that could easily handle Wednesday at 9, given that all the other shows in that area are hourlong dramas.

Monday at 9: "Las Vegas" on NBC, sitcoms on CBS, football for awhile on ABC, and a drama called "Prison Break" about a convicted man and his brother trying to get the convicted man out of prison on Fox, and an hourlong comedy-drama about a young lawyer called "Just Legal" on the WB. While I don't see "Las Vegas" as a strong competitor, I'd wager that either "Prison Break" or "Just Legal" are gonna be close enough to take away some viewers. I'd keep "Veronica Mars" out of this slot.

Monday at 10: Up against CSI and Medium. No.

Tuesday at 8: "Biggest Loser" on NBC, procedurals on CBS and Fox, sitcoms on ABC, and Gilmore Girls on WB. I suspect that Gilmore Girls is a competitor, but otherwise, this slot would be decent. Still no lead-in, though. Not that UPN has a ton to lead in with.

Tuesday at 9: Sitcoms on NBC, "Amazing Race" reality on CBS, hourlong female-president comedy-drama "Commander in Chief" on ABC, "House" on Fox, and "Supernatural" on the WB. If "Supernatural" pulls a "Tarzan" and "Commander in Chief" is as popular as other Geena Davis television shows, this would be a good soft place for "Veronica Mars" to be. I could see this as a potential midseason move if/when Veronica's numbers fall even lower than last season as a result of "Lost" stealing the geeks.

Tuesday at 10: "Law & Order: SVU", "Boston Legal", and a CBS criminal lawyer show. This looks ugly, but if Veronica moved here, she'd be the only non-lawyer-oriented show on television at that time, which could be nice.

Wednesday at 8: She can't go here, because "America's Next Top Model" is here, and that's her lead-in, which is the whole reason she's at 9. Ironically, all "America's Next Top Model" faces are "The Apprentice:Martha Stewart Edition", some sitcoms, and WB's "One Tree Hill." If "The Apprentice" pulls more viewers away from "America's Next Top Model" than "One Tree Hill" would pull from "Veronica Mars", swapping the slots might actually be a good idea. It will never happen, though.

Wednesday at 9: Lots o' dramas. Bad place for a quirky drama on a low-rated network to be.

Wednesday at 10: Two procedurals ("Law & Order" and "CSI: New York") and new SF series "Invasion". Probably not worth moving to.

Thursday at 8: Veronica has no chance against "Alias." It's just not going to happen, no matter how pregnant Jennifer Garner gets. Heck, even "The OC" would steal a lot of the "Veronica Mars" female audience, and the genre fans could also go for "Smallville" instead. (I imagine that somewhere, other geeks are unhappy about "Alias" competing with "Smallville.")

Thursday at 9: "CSI", "The Apprentice", a new Fox show called "Reunion", ABC's recreation of "The Night Stalker", and WB's "Everwood." Hard to say, here. It depends on how Kolchak fares, and I don't know enough about "Everwood" to know if it's a real competitor.

Thursday at 10: "ER", "Without a Trace", and "Primetime Live". This is actually a good slot for Veronica, especially if UPN's "Cuts" and "Love, Inc" build a decent audience.

Friday at 8: "Three Wishes", a reality show from NBC, "Ghost Whisperer", a medium-esque show on CBS, "Supernanny" on ABC, sitcoms on Fox and WB. Assuming that "Ghost Whisperer" doesn't turn out to be brilliant, this is a potential good slot for Veronica -- hey, it's Friday night, the timeslot of death. Any ratings she got would be good ratings --and if the Nielsen people got things figured out with Tivo, the strong geek audience for "Veronica Mars" would help here, since geeks are slightly more likely to have Tivo recorders and tape stuff to watch later.

Friday at 9: "Dateline" on NBC, "Threshold", a sci-fi alien invasion show on CBS, sitcoms on ABC and WB, "The Gate", a procedural on Fox. "Threshold" could steal viewers, and this is still the timeslot of death, generally speaking. Putting the show here is essentially admitting defeat, unless Tivo numbers make it suddenly look better and advertisers stop caring that people with Tivo fast-forward through commercials (except the Southwest commercials during football season -- those are awesome).

Friday at 10: Just cancel it now and save time.

Saturday: Just cancel it now and save time.

Sunday at 8: You'd be going against "The Simpsons", "West Wing", "Cold Case", "Extreme Makeover", and "Charmed". Between them, these shows have the potential to bleed away every viewer "Veronica Mars" has -- the geeks, the dialogue/writing lovers, the mystery lovers, the young-woman angst-lovers, and anyone who watches "Extreme Makeover". This would be a bad slot.

Sunday at 9: "Law & Order: Criminal Intent", a movie on CBS, "Desperate Housewives", "Family Guy", and "Blue Collar TV." Not as deadly as the 8 PM slot, but still a lot of competition in the geek arena. I don't know if "Desperate Housewives" has a strong following among young female viewers, but that could be competition, too.

Sunday at 10: "Crossing Jordan" and "Grey's Anatomy." Not a great place -- two hourlong dramas with strong female casts.

Anyway, that's what I think offhand, but that's all based on my knowledge of the other shows (often minimal) and my acceptance of the "Veronica Mars" audience as comprising mainly young women and geeks, based on other articles.

EDIT: Mark: Fair enough. I made the original comment after reading an old article about how UPN's sitcom numbers, while not great, did surprisingly well against very highly rated shows on other networks -- the articles concluded that because the sitcoms were primarily African-American-cast vehicles, they were keeping the African-American viewers who weren't getting much out of the (highly rated overall) shows on other networks. It was part of an article from a couple of years ago about how UPN was rebuilding its image by figuring out its audience (and noting that its audience-target was fragmented, consisting of young males with WWE and Star Trek and African-American viewers of all ages with its sitcom lineup, which was regularly beating the big three networks in terms of pulling in minority viewers). I also made the comment because those are the shows I see while fast-forwarding through the commercials -- although without the context of me knowing what I know, I can see saying "Oh, just send in some (insert ethnic group here) sitcom to face "Lost" instead" as an offensive-sounding comment. I really didn't intend it that way, but I can understand your read of it, based on how it came out.

 

[BrooklynKnight]

Very good insight there, however, Veronica Mars just isint a 10pm show.

You're forgetting that the 10pm shows are usually targetted to the more adult demographic.

"Prime Time" is considered 7pm - 11pm with the primary prime time at 8 and 9pm.

I get the "feeling" that the majority of the crowd that watches Veronica, drops off after 10pm. Either forced off TV by parents, or to go online before bed, or whatever else. Granted, teens typically do what they want, and watch anyway, but we need to remember that the Neilsons doesnt account for this, thus anyone from that age group really watching at 10pm wouldnt be accounted for.

8 and 9pm are the best times for Veronica Mars.

WB has some decent dramas too. One Tree Hill and Everwood. I'd not recommend putting VM against them because UPN and WB DO compete for the same AGE demographic, if not the same racial one.

Frankly, I feel VM would do better on CBS or WB. Viacom owns UPN and CBS, and I KNOW there is some sort of relationship at the corp level between Viacom, Disney and Fox (Due to some shared programming that jumped between Fox, ABC, and WB a few years ago, before the shows were syndicated, but those were cartoons.)

Anywho, VM would do much better on CBS or WB. I can definatly see VM trailing Everwood. You've got a Teen Family Melodrama (ala WB's preferred format, the "Dawson Creek Format" as i call it), followed by a Teen Mystery Drama.

With Veronica staying on UPN for the next season, and possibly 2 seasons, the best move would be to keep it on Tuesdays, and put it at 8pm, as a lead-in for Americas Top Model. Personally, I expect the "true" ratings of Veronica Mars to have already topped Top Model, but the Neilsons faulty system takes too long to catch up, and doesnt report things accuratly anyway. (have I mentioned my grudge against the current rating system before? )

As for my previous comments, What i said DOES make sense if you consider how Enterprise was treated at UPN. Just because UPN spent money to advertise VM for its season doesnt mean the guy in charge loves the show. Unfortunatly, personal issues OFTEN get mixed up in the upper levels of Broadcast Management. A General Manager or Program Manager with a grudge against a Producer or Sales Manager or against the show in general could affect his better judgement. And UPN is like a limp foot of Viacom/Paramount really. The companies dont pay much attention to it. If they did it would be a great network, but its not. Thus the man in charge plays around to get his way. And we (and the company at large) gets screwed.

Alternativly VM should just be placed up against any of the reality shows, INSTEAD of Americas Top Model. Although the show has been renewed it has ONLY been renewed because of its star Tyra Banks, who's apparently got some pull. According to one of my professors, who's got some friends at UPN, that show is on its last legs as its loosing viewers fast.

 

[BrooklynKnight]

Oh, btw. I just wanna note, I'm not talking out my rear end. I'm a Broadcast Student, and one of my classes this semester is Broadcast Managment. We go over lots of this stuff in class nearly every day.

 

[takyris]

Good point on 10pm -- I pretty much just skimmed the 10pm slots, because UPN doesn't even program network stuff at 10pm right now. It has two hours from 8 to 10, and that's it. And yeah, "Veronica Mars" would be a tough sell if it aired late enough that only the geeks were up to watch it.

 

[Welverin]

I didn't even know they had change the day, it would have concerned me if it was up against Alias, but since ABC clearly moved that, I don't much care.

 

[physicscarp]

So is Veronica Mars showing in reruns this summer? I wanted to watch it all last year, but my wife dominated the TiVo and I was to lazy to wire it for watching/recording separate channels. I haven't seen reruns listed on my TiVo guide though. Does anyone have info on this?

Yeah, right. People wrote in to save Manimal too.

ROFLMAO!!

Best argument-ender ever!!!

 

[takyris]

It's not showing in reruns in my area -- we get to see Kevin & Brittney's reality series, which I would suggest looked like cheaply made porn without the nudity, except that that would imply that I've ever seen that sort of thing, when everyone knows that all I watch are Joss Whedon shows and Nova.

And Veronica Mars.

And Kevin Hill. To the other three people in the nation who watched Kevin Hill -- dang, did you see that finale? Dang, man, that's just not cool! Evil Wayne Brady!

Ahem.

 

[Cthulhudrew]

So is Veronica Mars showing in reruns this summer? I wanted to watch it all last year, but my wife dominated the TiVo and I was to lazy to wire it for watching/recording separate channels. I haven't seen reruns listed on my TiVo guide though. Does anyone have info on this?

It's supposed to start re-airing beginning sometime mid-June on UPN. That's as much info as I've found.