One of my newest favorite TV shows, Chuck, is "on the bubble". I didn't know what that phrase meant until 10 minutes ago.
A couple of days ago, I read on the Hulu discussion boards for the show that Chuck might be cancelled for next season. Since then, and especially tonight for the last hour or so, (now that I've seen the season finale, HOLY CRAP!) I have been Googling and researching about the grassroots Save Chuck Subway Campaign, and TV ratings and viewer numbers, and what determines if a show is renewed for the next season, if spending money on an advertising sponsor of the show is enough to save a show, or if it's still all about the ratings. Because I had previously learned at the An Actor Works seminar is that it's all about making money, making the show a success so that the advertisers have an audience to sell to so they can make money, this is why the show must go on - no show, no audience to sell to. And obviously the ratings are a tool to measure the popularity of a show, higher ratings = bigger audience = more sales for the advertisers. But if the advertisers can make money in spite of ratings that aren't up to the standards that usually determine if a show will be renewed, will they still cancel the show? (Seems like this is a much more effective protest plan than sending hundreds of boxes of Rice-A-Roni or Mars bars or sunflower seeds to the network offices.)
I've been reading and learning and cramming so much about all of this in such a short amount of time, I feel like I'm the Intersect, and I've just flashed.
"On the bubble" means that a show's fate sits in the balance, it has not been determined by the networks yet if it will renew the show or cancel it.
I found an blog article from TimeMagazine.com that supports the Save Chuck Subway Campaign theory:
"...network TV is still largely an advertising game. Plead as lyrically as you want; you ultimately keep a show on the air by assuring the network it will make money. And it does that by assuring its advertisers that they will make money—that an ad or placement on Chuck will result in real people spending real cash dollars. As Alan Sepinwall smartly points out in his own open letter to save Chuck, the show, being set in a big-box electronics store—in a wonderful fantasy world where Americans still purchase home electronics—is a haven for product placement. You want to get NBC to listen, make those product placements pay off, at least symbolically."
--James Poniewozik, Saving Chuck: Don't Applaud, Throw Money
http://tunedin.blogs.time.com/2009/04/23/saving-chuck-dont-applaud-throw-money/
So, I posted that on the Hulu discussion board, followed by "Save Chuck, go eat at Subway!" and got this response:
"Sorry, that's not the way it works... The idea that throwing money at Subway will save Chuck really does not make sense. Advertising dollars are tied to ratings. The higher the # of viewers the more money an advertiser pays. They could have a 5000% spike in sub sales at Subway, but they won't pay a penny more to NBC if the ratings don't go up. Plus they aren't necessarily paying those dollars to produce Chuck -- any show will do. If Chuck is canceled they'll just find something else to put their product in."
Now, I don't know if the person who wrote that reply actually has a working knowledge of how ratings and advertising in TV work, or if they only think they know how it works but really have no clue.
So that's what got me started on this search in the first place; I suddenly realized I don't know how ratings and advertising fit together and affect TV shows being renewed or cancelled and how the networks and advertisers make money.
I found a lot of discussion of the ratings on various discussion boards, so maybe it is all about the ratings. Or maybe that is just the commonly believed myth. I don't know yet.
One of the hardest things for me is finding sources of information. I'll read stuff on discussion boards, like this show has this many viewers (where did they get the numbers from??) or this actor re-wrote the script of that movie... I don't know where to find that stuff. I'm supposing these people in the know might have a subscription to Variety or The Hollywood Reporter, but I can't afford $200 a year for a subscription. Beyond those two sources, I have no clue where to look for legitimate business info & news. I'll read some of the news articles on IMDb, but it seems a lot of those sources are meant for the general public, therefore geared towards entertaining the readers, as opposed to offering real business news. I don't know, maybe I'm just not looking hard enough.
But, I did finally find through my research a website/blog that appears to get legitimate viewer/rating info directly from Neilson: www.TVbyTheNumbers.com
And while my primary motivation for all this research is to find out if Chuck can be saved by the fan campaign, or if it will be cancelled -- please, if anyone from NBC is reading this post, please please please don't cancel Chuck! -- my secondary motivation is so that I can be a more professional actor. Another thing I learned at An Actor Works, is a professional actor works as part of the team to help the show, the network, and the advertisers make money. So, learning how that process works will help me be more professional, plus I've been rolling the idea around in my head of becoming a producer, and wondering how to make money with an independent project.
It's all a huge learning opportunity.
Post Script: I've just discovered that this post was picked up by TV.com for one of the "Latest News: Blog Spotlight" slots -- So, hello all of you coming from TV.com, thanks for stopping by and reading! =D
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