Why is the original series has bin canceled?

A question 45 years deferred . . .

 

No but one can fairly assume. ST is an amazing phenomenon that has survived 50 years almost solely at the insistence of its fanbase.

 

I don't understand the point you're trying to make.

The franchise has, overall, been very profitable. That's why it keeps being made. The fanbase certainly helps illustrate that there is a market for the material, but if the shows had a record of unprofitability Paramount wouldn't have ground out so much of it.

They may not make Star Wars type profits, but in general the movies and series (up to a point) had to be in the black enough or the studio simply would have cut their losses. The only reason Paramount picked up TNG for a 7th season (requiring all the actor contracts to be renegotiated, as they were only for 6 seasons) when they could have "stripped" the show for syndication even after 5 seasons, indicates the show was making more than enough money in first-run syndication for them to go to the extra expense. Likewise, if DS9 was not making money, they'd not have let it run as long as it did.

Other than TFF all the TOS cast movies turned a profit in theaters. In the case of TVH the film grossed domestic rentals several times its budget, so it was very profitable.

If that's "insistance of the fanbase" it means the fanbase largely "insists" by doing a Fry "Take my money!" thing.

 

Well, if we make the assumption that Next Generation On Network TV would have gotten about the same ratings as it did in syndication --- which is a very questionable assumption; surely it helped Trek in some markets that whatever station was airing it could find when it was most popular in that market, rather than be (essentially) confined to whatever network scheduling dictated; on the other hand, generally, network affiliates are the more important TV stations in any market and have more watchers, so being on Channel 62 hurt it in some markets --- then drawing on Greg Fuller's data from http://www.trektoday.com/articles/ratings_history.shtml …

For 1987-88, Next Generation drew somewhere around 8.5 million viewers. According to the Classic TV Database, for 1987-88 the 30th most popular network show (Head of the Class) drew 14 and a third million. So, think of how popular Head of the Class was, and picture a show about two-thirds as popular.

For 1988-89, Next Generation increased to a bit over nine million viewers, but that still leaves it below the #30 network show, Dallas, although not by as much as before: that had just a touch under 14 million viewers.

Next Generation's biggest season was 1991-92, with eleven and a half million viewers, and that does put it within shooting range of the twelve million watching The Golden Girls, the #30 network show for that year.

Would that last? I'm inclined to say no, mostly because network TV hasn't really been good for space science fiction shows --- I think the Original Trek and Lost In Space might have been the last ones to run past a second season before UPN's founding --- partly because they're expensive, partly because they tend to draw mediocre ratings (at least for the expense).

(I could also argue they tend to be a bit silly, which is a more value-laden judgement, admittedly. But I don't think you could really hold up Next Generation's first season as a mature TV show. Of course a network would put up with an embarrassing show if it were drawing top-five audiences regularly, but I can't picture Next Generation managing.)

 

^Its all a rather semantical argument, don't you think? My original point was simply to express amazement that a series that has almost never enjoyed in-the-moment success has endured to become a worldwide phenomenon beloved by millions of people (including me) some 45 years after the original series was canceled.

 

If by "a series" you mean the original 1966-69 program then yes, what happened next was remarkable.

If you're talking about the franchise afterwards, several posters above have ably explained that much of it was an "in the moment success."

 

This pretty much explains everything:

Star Trek: The Real Reason Why NBC Cancelled The Original Series Revealed?
http://whatculture.com/tv/star-trek-real-reason-nbc-cancelled-original-series-revealed.php

Added:

I personally think it was a lot more than just the above of time slots.

Ratings didn't seem to be much of an issue for the show until the time slots were shuffled around. As the above link shows, it was doing very well.

But what I think was the real reason why it was eventually cancelled was due to controversy. There have been a number of episodes that were banned in the UK for a number of years and Star Trek was basically one of the only shows back then that tried to address controversial and relevant issues of the time. Shows back then were meant to entertain, not make you think.

Here's something else that supports this idea:
10 Things You Probably Didn't Know About the Original Star Trek
http://io9.com/5827581/10-things-you-probably-didnt-know-about-the-original-star-trek

".... Later, after Trek was on the air, the producers used the network's concerns about sexuality to their advantage — they would deliberately put sexy stuff into episodes for the network to freak out about, so the censors wouldn't notice other things. For example, in the episode "A Private Little War," the producers deliberately put in a scene of Kirk having an open-mouth kiss with a half-naked woman, so the network could throw a fit about that — and not notice the blatant Vietnam allegory...."

After a while, I imagine the Network would have tried to find any way to drop the show while still trying to look like the hapless good guys who somehow didn't realize what they were doing to the show.

Back then, there wasn't any internet for people to vent their disgust and outrage over things they find offensive, so they resorted to piles of mail and all 5 of your building's phone lines being used by people crapping over the show they saw the night before and how it offends their religious, bigoted, racist views.

Why deal with that stuff when you can gradually cancel out the problem show and replace it with some goodie goodie sitcom?

 

It is really sad though
i wish things went different for the show
it was good - fun - funny - interesting - teach us Important lessons about many things and good characters

 

Uh oh.

 

The Fugitive was an exception, since a 2-part conclusion was planned, while Leave it to Beaver's producers designed a clip show series conclusion.

 

Since Marc Cushman is the source for that I will just say not so fast:

http://startrekfactcheck.blogspot.com/2014/07/the-truth-about-star-trek-and-ratings.html?m=1

Also this:

http://www.tvobscurities.com/articles/star_trek_look/

 

This strikes me as complete nonsense.

 

Well I read through that long-winded "Opinion" which is no better than the original "Opinion" I supplied.

He spends way too much time trying to set the scene of his argument by explaining everything about all the different processes. He could simply have just said "There were Four Processes" then name them and the reader could easily look into further detail of those if they choose to do so.

Regardless, even if there were four rating services in play at the time, Marc Cushman was using what the above link states as "the largest ratings service at that time" thus one would assume it was the largest used because it was decently accurate.

Marc seems to have been using his own memory or merely simplifying when making his claims because he was writing a book and not a statistical study report to bore his readers.... and the writer in your above link is merely jumping on every possible flaw in his claims to discredit what he is saying without actually refuting his claims with actual ratings information on the subject in question.

Beyond that, the author of the above link is missing the point.

The link I provided didn't state Star Trek as a whole series had great ratings. It stated that it started off in season one with some great ratings by then those ratings plummeted due to changing time slots and other factors.

The Author in your link seems to have the argument that Marc was referencing that the entire Star Trek series had great ratings all the way through, which was never the claim in the first place, therefore he discredits himself and wastes a lot of time writing all of that up by not understanding what he is attacking from the very start.

"The views expressed in These Are The Voyages about Star Trek's ratings performance are, needless to say, irreconcilable with previous accounts. Either the series was a ratings failure -- as has been so often understood -- or it was, as Cushman argues, a ratings success..."

He never directly said the "Series" was a ratings success. His claim was that it was a success for a specific period of time and then went downhill. He never claimed that they were great through the entire series, but makes the claim that although they dropped in ratings as time slots moved around, they didn't drop as much as most would believe.

A lot of the retorts presented in the above link seem to mis-quote Marc and rephrase his claims with other words, causing different meanings to argue against.

After reading through all the fluff and side-arguments, he finally gets to the actual point:

"Speaking broadly, Cushman is absolutely right – “The Man Trap” debuted to monster ratings. If Star Trek had been able to maintain these numbers, it would have finished squarely in the middle of the top ten for the 1966-67 broadcast season."

So he agrees with him on what he was claiming, yet still follows on the notion that he was claiming it was like this through the entire series, which was never the claim.

Then he goes on to try and deflate the claim he agrees to by pointing out the competition the show was against (Man Trap Episode)..... but the point remains: It had good ratings, regardless of the factors surrounding it.

Then he goes on to show the "Downward Trend" of the ratings for following episodes..... which looking at the numbers is irrelevant as the show was still beating out the other three noted shows it was against.

He only shows two sets of numbers and admits that additional records could not be found..... But then creates his own assumption based on two sets of ratings that the show spiralled into oblivion to the point of sucking and thus, cancellation.

He goes on about how Marc bases his views on flawed information or limited information, yet he does the exact same thing

The other factor nobody is really mentioning is viewer's "Real Lives" outside of watching TV. Ratings will drop for any show when there is a holiday, special event, etc. happening and people decide to do those things rather than sit home and watch a show.

To simply sum up increases and decreases in ratings of a show based on another show being better or worse is also short sighted.

To sum up, the views noted by Marc and the views noted in your above link are mere opinions conflicting with each other with no silver bullet to prove one argument or the other. It's a He Said / She Said situation where the 3rd party (Us) just have to use our own judgement on what we think really happened.

The Author in your link doesn't say "This Didn't Happen, This Is What Happened." He even tosses out even more speculation on what happened with even more assumptions.

Again, it's up to the reader to determine for themselves what makes sense.

-----

I think I wrote enough at this point for now. I will address the second link later on.

Either way, I presented my "Theory" on what may have happened. I never said this is exactly what happened.

I don't think anybody will ever truly know what the real reasons were.

I accept the claim of "Low Ratings" but it's the "Why" that interests me.

 

^^ The author of the link you're discussing is the same as the poster who provided the link, Harvey.

 

Either way, my position remains the same.

 

I have my own pet theory as to why TOS wasn't getting traction with the broader general audience beyond the core demographic the show was aimed at. TOS might have been a bit too beyond what the broader audience expected from science fiction on television at the time. For most, at the time, television sci-fi was more like Lost In Space, Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea, Time Tunnel and the like as well as outright silliness like My Favourite Martian. In other words something a lot more lightweight in terms of how the subject matter was approached.

TOS had much more in common with earlier anthology series like The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits, shows that treated science fiction and the fantastic in a much more straightforward manner. And at times Star Trek went beyond those. TOS also had more in common with the better science fiction films of the era like The Day The Earth Stood Still and Forbidden Planet. SF in film was also more of the sci-fi absurdity variety than of the straightforward kind.

I don't think TOS was actually ahead of its time--it was an ideal show for the times--but the broader audience mightn't have known what to make of it. But with the greater exposure it got in syndication it begin to click with more and more viewers and helped pave the way for more straightforward science fiction to be accepted on television.

The shows we got later with TNG, Stargate, Babylon 5 and others owe part of their existence to TOS blazing the trail.

Anyway that's my own take on it.


With that said I'm also inclined to believe the Friday time slots didn't help either. That in addition to NBC wanting to be rid of Roddenberry. There were also Desilu and then Paramount suits who were always less than enamoured with the show as it was costing them money.

TOS deserved a better fate yet just the right things came together to inevitably strangle the series. And Roddenberry himself had a hand in it by going out of his way to alienate people he should have been trying to win over.

 

I'm generally skeptical of theories that involve audience perplexion as a key component for why a show isn't popular. That viewpoint suggests that the audience isn't hip enough to get something, when the explanation could be far more straightforward.

For example, perhaps some people at that time considered a serious tone to be inappropriate for something that was obviously made up and could never happen. Or, perhaps some people didn't find it entertaining to have been challenged about their world outlook. Both of those alternatives would have involved the audience not connecting with the show, but they would have also involved people understanding what it was they are looking at and rejecting it, which is a different thing from not knowing what to make of it.

I also don't think that it can be forgotten that, culturally, the audience of the 1970s watching the show in syndication was not the same audience that watched the show first run in the mid-to-late 1960s. The audience of the 1970s was strictly a post-Moon landing audience. Not a single episode of the first run aired before the Apollo 11 Moon landing. Generally speaking, I suspect that men really having walked on another world shifted people's attitudes about what constituted appropriate levels of verisimilitude in science fiction, by which I mean whether they thought it was warranted to take itself so seriously. Some of that may have contributed to post-original run acceptance of Star Trek.

 

^^ I hesitated to mention the Moon landing in my post, but I do wonder if it has something to do with shifting the mindset. Mankind had actually walked on another world and made space travel a reality.

I don't think the rest of your point is really that different from mine. The broader audience was rejecting the show because it didn't fit with what they were prepared to accept, whether they "got it" or not.

 

I'm not sure it would have been remembered as fondly if it had ended up with 125 or 150 episodes. That there are only 79 episodes, I think left the audience wanting more. It felt incomplete which allowed fandom to take over the universe.

 

I love your attitude.