What Makes A Sci-Fi Genre Show A Survivor?
With advertisers now less willing than ever to risk their money on anything other than sure-fire hits, science fiction is fighting harder for its very survival today than it has done for years. Good, steady, audience figures mean higher advertising rates, which mean more profits for the TV companies and in turn more episodes / seasons should follow. So what makes a genre show a survivor?
The current financial climate has touched on many facets of modern life. Not even our beloved Sci-Fi shows are missing out on the implications. Success and failure are matters that are tied to the advertising dollar. Sufficient audience numbers, especially ‘on the night’, help to keep the wolves of cancellation from the door.
Is it something as simple as a good story line, mixed with episodic themes and long-arc structures that promise a decent pay-off for the time invested? Is it something unique that keeps the audiences attention? Is it the right time-slot on the right day? Exactly what constitutes a winning formula is something that many a producer wishes he knew instinctively. Even the god-father of the genre, Joss Whedon, doesn’t have the formula in his back pocket. After his successes with Buffy and Angel, he seemed to hit with a sure-fire hit with Firefly, only for it to be cancelled. The reasons why aren’t too hard to see. Poor scheduling and a re-shuffled episode order robbed Firefly of any longevity (of which, in my humble opinion, it was cruelly robbed). Firefly is my personal grudge against the television networks. The bungled handling of the show was borderline criminal, but that is just my humble opinion.
Shows must balance off scene-setting episodes or sections with audience pleasing action. Too much of the former, which please the hardcore audience with the attention to detail that they respect and demand, tend to be a turn-off for the passing trade. Too much action, without a balance of substance and there is not enough narrative to keep more than the true die-hard fans appleased.
Shows must also have a cast-iron identity. Change direction of a show without due cause and your audience levels will suffer.
If we look at the top network genre shows for 2008-2009 & 2009-2010 here, it is possible to see a clear picture of what works and what doesn’t.
What has become apparent is that audiences for this year are dwindling, as compared to last year to a alarming degree. Viewing figures are down on average 17.1 per cent. So what can we, the viewing public do to help the genre shows that we love? The obvious answer is to be trite and say “watch them!”, but this only helps keep the viewing figures at their current levels. What any sci-fi fan should want is their shows of choice flourishing, not struggling to survive.
Tell everyone who cares to listen what it is about your favorite shows that make them not-missable events. Post your affiliation on Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, or any other social networking site you care to mention. Buy the DVD/Bluray specials and the series as they become released on DVD/Bluray or even on digital medium such as iTunes, Email the production companies concerned and tell them what they are doing right. Everyone likes positive criticism, even if it comes with some caveats. Engage the shows websites and watch any webisodes, join the forums and make your position clear. If you feel strongly that a show has been wrongly set up to compete with some monolith of a show along the lines of “America has talent on ice, with a smattering of Factor X”, then make sure you make your views heard! Email the TV company, the production company, the actors, the directors and even the sponsors. But please please please, be polite and make your points succinctly. Don’t waffle and don’t be rude. Rudeness gets you ignored. Waffling makes people turn off.
What ever you do, don’t sit back and cross your fingers as doing nothing will be just as bad as condoning the cancellation of the shows ourselves. We have all witnessed past favorite shows whither away and end up cancelled Campaigning to get shows put back on tend to fall on deaf ears, Jericho aside (and even that was only for a short respite). If there are shows out there that pique your interest, but just haven’t managed to hit that magical formula, then please tell the producers why not. Feedback is what keeps them on-track and able to continue producing the product that you want to watch!
Advertisers aren’t too interested in audience figures that include shows viewed on Tivo or other recorded systems. It’s too easy to fast-forward past the advert breaks. Advertisers want potential customers to sit through them. People viewing shows live are a captive audience, without the facility to fast-forward through adverts. While some reluctant acceptance is filtering through for same-day or 7 day viewing figures, nothing beats the live audience levels to the advertising companies. We all need to remember that all commercial television shows are run as a business and need to bring in suffient revenue to return a profit. Losing the TV company advertising, i.e. potential profits, is a sure-fire route to premature cancellation.
Sci-fi is a rich and rewarding genre to enjoy. Fans of the medium enjoy much much more than just the shows themselves. Sci-fi conventions occur all over the world to rejoice in the genre. For many, sci-fi is something that they hold dearly, a way of life. Now that sci-fi has a toe-hold in the mainstream TV schedule and a sheen of mainstream acceptance, let’s not let it all slip away.
Anyway, I’m off to rejoin my browncoat brethren!
jason: 
Paul: 
Coijo e tal: 
VinceC: 
beth: 
sasss: 
November 30th, 2009 at 12:54 pm
Part of the viewership drop is simply because more and more people are viewing content online and using time-shifting devices. If companies don’t accept this then they will continue to loose viewers they consider important. TV advertising as it is now is doom anyway. Its almost completely untargeted, rather relying on large numbers to make up for the lack of targeting.
As more and more of us switch to time-shifting devices or online viewing, the number of people watching live tv will continue to go down. The new 5 million plus is 3.5 million because the others are watching on Tivo or Hulu or Netflix.
Also people have more things to do now than they did in the heyday of television even a decade ago. Networks who are unhappy with 1.5 million+ viewers are crazy in today’s world. 1.5 million people is a goldmine to those who know how to market it. what networks need to do is learn what people who watch these types of shows want and market products to them in a way that is non-offensive.
Lets face it. Those of us who time-shift and view TV online are not going to set through 5 minutes of ads. If your going to make money off your ads your going to have to charge money for them. Big money. If companies still want to market to those of us who are using new technology that is becoming a standard of living for this generation then they will have to pay for that privilege. Internet content providers should not undervalue themselves nor allow themselves to be taken advantage of by companies demanding low prices because of lower performance.
This generation is not ad friendly and advertisers are just going to have to learn to live with that fact. The more you push your product on us the less likely we are to even consider it at a later date. Your best bet is to go with a sponsor ad before and after the show with a maximum of two different ads promoting two different but similar themed products that would appeal to the type of people who watch particular content.
Nothing makes me angrier than having to set through the same ad 20 times in one week. It drives me crazy and makes me hate the product more and more each time I see it, and I share those feeling of dissatisfaction with anyone who will listen.
Anyway, enough about ads.
Another thing that annoys me is this new way of doing TV by breaking the season up. Most of the series are on break until late January or early February of next year. This drives me crazy and its causing a loss of viewers who just can’t keep track of these involved series over such a long period of time. TV worked well when they showed the offerings twice during the year completely and had fewer specials and interruptions in the initial offering. Save the specials for summer when more people are doing outside things rather than in the winter when people are more likely to be inside watching TV, and for God’s sake don’t forget or ignore the timeshifters and online viewers. Your going to have to deal with us eventually as broadband becomes more available and more and more people only watch TV online.
It was only a few years ago when I first started watching TV series on DVD that I realized I enjoyed and was more involved in the series being able to watch the entire season over a week or two rather than waiting 22 weeks broken up by a couple of months break time for crap I never seem to want to watch. Things I missed in previous viewings now make sense since I can view them as I would read a book rather than as a bite-sized bit of content created to make a small group of people more money than the average person makes in an entire lifetime!
Now to answer your main question:
What makes a genre show last? First off it takes a network and content producer who is willing to look at realistic results. When you are showing genre shows you normally have people watching your network that would not ordinarily visit your channel or site. Look at these shows as a chance to create good feelings in these viewers by showing that you care about their likes and dislikes and they may find something else of interest to watch. Canceling a beloved show because its not getting #1-#3 positions is not going to gain you any brownie points with these viewers who will go where ever they can to find the content they want to watch.
Your genre show has got to treat the topic at hand is serious. Zena and Hercules were decent shows and sometimes even extraordinary shows, however, for the most part they were comedies. I like the fantasy and sci-fi genres and I would prefer more adult shows.
Some good examples of shows I think are currently fitting that bill and presenting challenging and unique work are:
Flash Forward, V, Legend of the Seeker, Torchwood, Doctor Who, Fringe, Dollhouse, Sanctuary, SGU and Primeval. I like Warehouse 13 but cut down on the humor and go to the serious makes you think type of theme. Humor is good, but weave it in with the show in a more natural way.
Some previous shows that showed this quality were: Firefly ( what idiot decided to cancel this unique show, he should be fired! ), Jeremiah, The 4400, Earth2, Babylon 5,Threshold ( what a real bummer this has the potential to be huge! ), Invasion, and Surface.
Legend of the Seeker, Sanctuary, Fringe, Flash Forward, V, and Torchwood along with Dollhouse and SGU are all going in the right direction to keep this sci-fi and fantasy exclusive viewer happy but I’m concerned about getting into watching some of them considering the nature of network TV.
Shows that invest in the character development that will hold a viewers attention takes time and the first season is rarely a good gauge of their overall performance over time. LotS was just average at best during its first season, however the second season is some of the best fantasy TV I have ever seen and coming from a semi professional critic of the genre that is saying a lot.
This sites article entitled Legend of the Seeker – The Most Under rated series is correct. This is some serious drama and acting if you can get over the fact its in a fantasy setting.
Primeval is a gem many of you have never heard of or probably judged by its first season. Season’s two and three were spectacular and managed to keep its humor without taking away from the story line.
SGU worries me. This series has so much potential and yet something is missing. What that something is, I don’t know yet. But they could learn from LotS because I keep comparing the two in my head for some reason I have not identified yet. SGU is moving to slow as a plot even if the shows are reasonably paced.
Fringe is one of those shows that should focus more on their main story line and quit moving away from it. Its a great show, but needs tighter focus and less flaky humor. The good doctor should get his right mind back and start becoming a serious force of science to deal with rather than a dottering old man who saves the day each week.
As you can see from the length of this comment I am serious about the genre and well versed in its lore. I love sci-fi and fantasy and don’t watch anything else. If TV withdraws its support of the genres then I’ll just go back to reading those stories I love.
December 1st, 2009 at 7:50 am
The result, though, of “realistic results” will be that advertisers will spend their money somewhere else and content providers will have less money for the shows, which for is a gut shot for SF/F, unless we want to go back to 1970 for our special effects.