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What Has Fox Got Against Its Own Sci-Fi Shows?
brumgrunt writes "Dollhouse. The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Fringe. Three science fiction shows that Fox commissioned, put on the air, and — in the case of at least one of them — has won rave reviews. But why does it seem that Fox is trying to kill some of its own shows with crazy scheduling decisions? How can Fringe survive after being pulled for two months, and what hope is there for Sarah Connor and Dollhouse on a Friday night?"
The same thing happened in 1979 with Battlestar Galactica. The network green lighted the show. Heavily promoted it and it was doing well. The demographics were great. Show with the most college graduates watching had the under 35 crowd going for it. So why did it have to die?
In a word, production costs. An hour of Galactica could cost 1 million dollars which would bring in 2 million dollars. Thus a 1 million dollar profit. On the other hand 30 minutes of Happy Days and 30 minutes of Mork and Mindy would cost the network a total of $250,000. But it would bring in 2.5 million.
So do the math. Decent sci-fi show 1 dollar out for every dollar in. Cheap but good rated comedy gives us 2.25 dollars out for every dollar in.
The network starts looking at that time slot and sees that it can put in 2 sitcoms, or a Law and Order, or a CSI and make twice as much money. At that point the show has to die.
In the case of classic Glactica they put the show in hiatus. Then brought it back without advertising, they changed what time it was on. They changed what night it was on. The fans were to loyal. They would hunt the show out and find it each time. The ratings were not dropping fast enough. They had to convert the show into "Galictica 1981" (shudder) to finally kill the thing.
As with most business decisions. Follow the money.
vi +
Fox is like Circuit City. They cut their good stuff and bring in new and inexperienced stuff because it's cheaper. Every time a show becomes more popular, with each renewal, writers, actors and others negotiate for higher pay. Fox does not look for viewer loyalty and clearly does not see this as important to their bottom line. They, instead, seem to be focused on short-term gains and returns. They are the most capitalistic of the networks and the results speak for themselves.
It doesn't matter to them that viewers who care about the long term enjoyment of a series will often avoid getting hooked into a show because it is run by Fox as there are plenty of people who are willing to watch and their numbers are sufficient and their advertisers don't seem to care either, which leads me to the next point. If you would like to teach Fox to behave and keep their best series, you have to complain to the ADVERTISERS, not to Fox. Fox will not listen to viewers -- they are short-sighted to the point that they take viewers for granted.