There's some weird law that limits the number of financial contributors. It would work if everybody gave money to a single entity created for money collection, and then that entity invested the money in the series. We went through all of this in fall '01 after Farscape was dropped.
In fact, during a tour I took of Kitt Peak the tour guide said they get more light pollution from Phoenix than from Tucson, even though it is more than twice as far away.
There is no goal set for the campaign. Those numbers on the ipetitions page are only examples. The goal is to get as much as possible. The best bet for this to work is for "The Viewer Consortium" to act as an additional investor in the series.
For example, the cost of the series averages to $1.5M per episode. Sci-Fi was picking up half of that, 750k. That's $16.5M for a 22 episode season. Assuming all the funding that was there still is, that is the only deficit to make up. (As an aside - Sci-Fi is paying up to 3 TIMES that much for "Taken")
Take 1M as the average weekly viewership in the US. If 10% of the people who watch Farscape in the US gave an average of $25 each, the cost per episode could be reduced by over $100k. That could go a long way to helping Henson and Sci-Fi, or any other network for that matter, reach an agreement. Money from all the viewers worldwide only makes the deal better.
Also, the number quoted as already donated is suspect. That ipetitions page is, I think, the original one from when the news first broke. It asked only hypothetically, "what would you give if you could save Farscape?". It needs to be restarted, asking "What WILL you give?", and a more definite payment system instead of "pledges" needs to be established.
They are also looking into direct sales to viewers - perhaps DVD sales, or even pay-per-view. The numbers for this are even more daunting, but not, in my opinion, completely impossible. With advertising getting more and more difficult to sell and the impact of tivo-like devices rendering ads useless, this may be a distribution model considered more often in the future. Instead of paying $50 a month to your cable Co. for a collection networks, in the future you might pay $50 a month only for the shows you want to watch. The cable companies have alot of installed bandwidth and are itching to find more uses for it, like video on demand. Farscape could be offered as a test case to see how well the idea is accepted.
But if they couldn't afford it, it would not have been renewed for seasons 4 and 5. The ratings from seasons 3 to 4 are unchanged, therefore they can still afford it - well, unless the weak economy and advertising market has depressed ad rates. SG-1 does have better ratings than Farscape on Sci-Fi, but it may not be cheaper - and the ratings per $ may not be much better. Farscape costs $1.5M per episode, of which Sci-Fi pays half. SG-1 did cost $1.3M, the next season will be higher. I don't know what portion Sci-Fi pays. The new Spielberg show "Taken" cost $40M for 20 hours of programming - $2M. I believe Sci-Fi is paying most of this, if not all. This doesn't strike me as network strapped for cash. Vivendi may be struggling, but the US entertainment division headed by Barry Diller is doing just fine.
The new people who assumed control of Sci-Fi in the last year or two are conciously moving the network away from "space and alien" shows, in favor of crap like John Edward and paranormal and conspiracy themed shows. They saw the chance to pick up SG-1 for their allotment of "space and alien". When they saw that it got better ratings for less money, they axed Farscape.
Instead of trying to build the network with good programming, they are taking the low road and filling their schedule with paranormal shows and B-grade horror schlock. So perhaps instead of doing good shows and having, perhaps, a 10% margin, they're spewing out crap and making a %20 margin. It makes sense in the short-term for some network exec who only looks at the bottom line, but all their shows are crap and it will, I hope, bite them in the ass someday.
Farscape still got the SECOND highest ratings of anything on Sci-Fi, behind SG1. Even with the unfavorable 10pm time slot and lack of promotion, the average ratings for the first half of season 4 were down only a tenth or two from season 3. If you compare the episodes of season 3 broadcast during the summer (when overall TV viewership is down) and the first eleven of season 4, also broadcast in the summer, the ratings are unchanged.
Sci-Fi made the decision to buy seasons 4 and 5 after season 3, so if the numbers from season 3 convinced them they could afford 4 and 5, and the ratings were nearly the same, then that can not be used as an excuse for the cancellation of the show.
SG-1 gets over 2 million viewers for the episodes in syndication. Obviosuly SG-1 has a larger fanbase than Farscape, so it will do better in the ratings. The decision to replace Farscape with SG-1 was made by the beancounters. SG-1 costs about the same to make, and gets slightly higher ratings.
What doesn't make any sense is why they couldn't do both. Farscape was still their second highest rated show. Why not try to build another night of good programing? Say, with SG-1 anchoring Friday night, Farscape anchoring some other night. That's how real networks build schedules and audiences. Not by killing their best shows. Imagine NBC cancelling Frasier because it finished second to Friends in the ratings.
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There's some weird law that limits the number of financial contributors. It would work if everybody gave money to a single entity created for money collection, and then that entity invested the money in the series. We went through all of this in fall '01 after Farscape was dropped.
In fact, during a tour I took of Kitt Peak the tour guide said they get more light pollution from Phoenix than from Tucson, even though it is more than twice as far away.
There is no goal set for the campaign. Those numbers on the ipetitions page are only examples. The goal is to get as much as possible. The best bet for this to work is for "The Viewer Consortium" to act as an additional investor in the series.
For example, the cost of the series averages to $1.5M per episode. Sci-Fi was picking up half of that, 750k. That's $16.5M for a 22 episode season. Assuming all the funding that was there still is, that is the only deficit to make up. (As an aside - Sci-Fi is paying up to 3 TIMES that much for "Taken")
Take 1M as the average weekly viewership in the US. If 10% of the people who watch Farscape in the US gave an average of $25 each, the cost per episode could be reduced by over $100k. That could go a long way to helping Henson and Sci-Fi, or any other network for that matter, reach an agreement. Money from all the viewers worldwide only makes the deal better.
Also, the number quoted as already donated is suspect. That ipetitions page is, I think, the original one from when the news first broke. It asked only hypothetically, "what would you give if you could save Farscape?". It needs to be restarted, asking "What WILL you give?", and a more definite payment system instead of "pledges" needs to be established.
They are also looking into direct sales to viewers - perhaps DVD sales, or even pay-per-view. The numbers for this are even more daunting, but not, in my opinion, completely impossible. With advertising getting more and more difficult to sell and the impact of tivo-like devices rendering ads useless, this may be a distribution model considered more often in the future. Instead of paying $50 a month to your cable Co. for a collection networks, in the future you might pay $50 a month only for the shows you want to watch. The cable companies have alot of installed bandwidth and are itching to find more uses for it, like video on demand. Farscape could be offered as a test case to see how well the idea is accepted.
But if they couldn't afford it, it would not have been renewed for seasons 4 and 5. The ratings from seasons 3 to 4 are unchanged, therefore they can still afford it - well, unless the weak economy and advertising market has depressed ad rates. SG-1 does have better ratings than Farscape on Sci-Fi, but it may not be cheaper - and the ratings per $ may not be much better. Farscape costs $1.5M per episode, of which Sci-Fi pays half. SG-1 did cost $1.3M, the next season will be higher. I don't know what portion Sci-Fi pays. The new Spielberg show "Taken" cost $40M for 20 hours of programming - $2M. I believe Sci-Fi is paying most of this, if not all. This doesn't strike me as network strapped for cash. Vivendi may be struggling, but the US entertainment division headed by Barry Diller is doing just fine.
The new people who assumed control of Sci-Fi in the last year or two are conciously moving the network away from "space and alien" shows, in favor of crap like John Edward and paranormal and conspiracy themed shows. They saw the chance to pick up SG-1 for their allotment of "space and alien". When they saw that it got better ratings for less money, they axed Farscape.
Instead of trying to build the network with good programming, they are taking the low road and filling their schedule with paranormal shows and B-grade horror schlock. So perhaps instead of doing good shows and having, perhaps, a 10% margin, they're spewing out crap and making a %20 margin. It makes sense in the short-term for some network exec who only looks at the bottom line, but all their shows are crap and it will, I hope, bite them in the ass someday.
Don't believe Sci-Fi's PR spin -
Farscape still got the SECOND highest ratings of anything on Sci-Fi, behind SG1. Even with the unfavorable 10pm time slot and lack of promotion, the average ratings for the first half of season 4 were down only a tenth or two from season 3. If you compare the episodes of season 3 broadcast during the summer (when overall TV viewership is down) and the first eleven of season 4, also broadcast in the summer, the ratings are unchanged.
Sci-Fi made the decision to buy seasons 4 and 5 after season 3, so if the numbers from season 3 convinced them they could afford 4 and 5, and the ratings were nearly the same, then that can not be used as an excuse for the cancellation of the show.
SG-1 gets over 2 million viewers for the episodes in syndication. Obviosuly SG-1 has a larger fanbase than Farscape, so it will do better in the ratings. The decision to replace Farscape with SG-1 was made by the beancounters. SG-1 costs about the same to make, and gets slightly higher ratings.
What doesn't make any sense is why they couldn't do both. Farscape was still their second highest rated show. Why not try to build another night of good programing? Say, with SG-1 anchoring Friday night, Farscape anchoring some other night. That's how real networks build schedules and audiences. Not by killing their best shows. Imagine NBC cancelling Frasier because it finished second to Friends in the ratings.