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I guess I just don't understand the demographic that watches the most TV. However, I am very disappointed in an American public that continues to flock in droves to shows targeted to the lowest common denominator, while quality programming is largely ignored. The dumbing down of America is nearly complete.
I don't know enough about the way the business arrangements work to understand why it seems so difficult at times for broadcast shows with smaller but dedicated fan groups to find profitable homes somewhere.
I'll chalk it up to the inertia of business being done the way it was in the past, but I really have nothing to back that up.
BUT, from talking to people about the show, there really is a cap to how many viewers it can pull in each week.
Lost's potential viewers can be pooled into 4 groups:
1. Diehards - will watch every week - probably 10 million people.
2. In-and-Outs - watch occasionally but do not plan their schedule around seeing the show - watch every other week or so - probably 3-7 million people.
3. Flakes - people who started out watching but got confused or frustrated and stopped watching - probably another 5-10 million people who are not watching anymore.
4. Ignorants - people who never gave it a chance and have never seen it - the rest of the population.
Lost's problem is that it has so much depth that it's hard to pick it up after one episode in the 4th season. In order for anyone to start watching the show, they need to start from the beginning with DVDs.
ABC needs to seriously consider putting the first 3 seasons into syndication. This would allow the 4th group of people to start watching the show without having to spend $200+ for the DVDs.
Look at any of our Top 20 Syndicated shows. Just 2 hour long dramas, and neither of them really has any back story requirement to understand what's going on.
How much does a 1/2 hour of programming cost to buy or put on the air vs. how much advertising money can it bring in p/hh.
If a show cost $4 million per 1/2 hour and I sell $6m in advertising, I've made $2m for the 30 minutes. If I can get one hour for only $3m and I sell only $8m for the hour, I've made $2.5m per 30 minutes.
That's why 'According to Jim' can stay on when another, better show might get cancelled. Does everyone remember when the six "Friends" wanted $1m each per episode. That had to have cost NBC $8-10m for a half hour show. But the advertisers were on board (although, not for long).
AmIdol doesn't cost that much to make (although Crowell prob makes a mint... he's in a very nimble negotiating position because he has next to no 'talent' to pay). Popular ensemble-cast shows have their cost go up every year (through contract renegotiations) until they finally become to expensive to produce and there is no room for the network to make money.
Cost per half hour vs. revenue per half hour - Deal or No Deal.
So yea, who cares. Other shows ratings are interesting because their lives depend on it. But that is not the case with LOST.
What I don't understand is why a borderline successful show, like Jericho, Cane, Friday Night Lights, Journeyman typically simply disappears if it is unable to make its economics work on broadcast TV.
Why aren't shows like that *routinely* dropped down to a cable channel, with their costs trimmed at the same time?
That's my understanding of what happened to Law & Order: CI's move to USA. NBC didn't want to pay Dick Wolf the "broadcast" price, but they'd pay him the "USA Cable" price, which was obviously more than the "cancelled" price.
Why doesn't that happen more often?
I think the main reason is that there is not enough profit room for big production-cost shows that you mentioned to make money on cable... yet. If the networks keep losing share to cable that may change things.
Greedy producers are once again the problem. To get 'good' talent, you have to pay. To have a 'good' show you have to have talent.
Most producers would rather try another, new premise than continue on with a marginally profitable older show that hasn't shown that snap, crackle, pop they were hoping for. They all want that 'Next, Big Thing'. Also, no one is building new studios in Hollywood. You need a 'big' hit to keep your square footage.
The whole landscape needs to change... and that just might happen with these new Guild contracts, the ratings on Reality, Net-to-TV (and vice-versa), cable-viewer inroads, etc. It's gonna be a new age for TV, shortly and I'm not sure I'm gonna like it if 'only' profit-margin is still the number one driver.
The season premiere of New Lost might have sparked some positive reviews but the fact is that people are watching it on their own time. That means that some Tivo it, or download and watch it later, or even watch it online. These shows can be watched later when we have all these internet to watch it with COMMERCIAL free.
There are other shows like American Idol, Survivor: Fans vs Favorites which are consistent or doing better week to week.
However, diminishing viewers are indicative of what will likely be diminishing advertising rates and that's fair game for us to look at.
It will be interesting to see what happens when the show moves to 10pm. While I have no doubt it will win the timeslot and the 18-49 demo, I'm curious about how many more viewers, if any, will bleed away.
Let me reaffirm my love of LOST. Last Thursday's episode was one of the best hours (43 minutes) of episodic television I've ever seen.
and lost doesnt have to worry about its life on the air, it'll play out as intended and we'll get the all the episodes that the producers wanted to make (even with the strike, they said they will give us those extra 3 episodes at some point).
its more interesting to focus on jericho and fnl because they live and die week to week with these numbers. lost doesnt. so kind of worrying about if they are up or down or whatever is more or less irrelevant to the tv fan.