'Terra Nova' Renewal Could Depend On Mid-Season Flop
- Thread starter Snick27
- Start date
What this showcases is a very big problem for sci-fi shows and fans.
Sci-fi show has 20 million viewers but costs 3 million per episode.
Celebrity half-witted gardening tips has 10 million viewers but costs 1 million per episode.
Even a successful sci-fi show (with lots of viewers and a half decent merchandising revenue) has to essentially over perform to even stand a chance of staying on air. IF by some miracle it does, the studio execs instinct is to drag the thing out – never resolving the story and pissing a section of the fans off – until the profit return ain’t enough and cancel on the spot. We’re basically screwed. ; (
Farscape and Firefly are rare examples of a studio doing the “right thing” to tie up the story threads. It was borderline miraculous that BSG and B5 got to the end.
Sci-fi show has 20 million viewers but costs 3 million per episode.
Celebrity half-witted gardening tips has 10 million viewers but costs 1 million per episode.
Even a successful sci-fi show (with lots of viewers and a half decent merchandising revenue) has to essentially over perform to even stand a chance of staying on air. IF by some miracle it does, the studio execs instinct is to drag the thing out – never resolving the story and pissing a section of the fans off – until the profit return ain’t enough and cancel on the spot. We’re basically screwed. ; (
Farscape and Firefly are rare examples of a studio doing the “right thing” to tie up the story threads. It was borderline miraculous that BSG and B5 got to the end.
Bummer. Not upsetting at all, but I was curious to see where season 2 would have gone.
It is officially cancelled by the network FOX. 20th Century Fox Television which produced the show is shopping the show to other networks. It's unlikely another network will pick up an expensive under performing show, and it's doubtful that a cable network could even afford it. But it's possible something could be worked out. Of course 99% of the time no other network picks up the show and it's cancelled for good.
What sci fi show in recent years got 20 million viewers? That would be AMAZING numbers...
Edited to add: did Lost ever hit 20 million? Don't remember. It might be the one exception.
20M would be an incredible number for any scripted TV show nowadays or even the halfwitted reality shows!
Terra Nova's finale ratings were 2.2/6, 7.180M. The demo rating is the more important one. A show with 7M viewers (which ain't great) could get a better demo than that, so the fact that the show is "family friendly" is not a benefit. It drags the demo down. (It also makes the show suck due to teen angst, but that's a different issue entirely.) Advertisers want 18-49, but a pricey show is going to have to manage more than 7M viewers even with an ideal audience.
Deadline says it may be shopped to other networks.
Well I've heard that song and dance before, that approach usually goes nowhere, and this isn't a particularly hopeful case. No other broadcast channel will touch it; ABC and NBC would have no reason to believe they'd get better ratings, and they have a big lineup of sf/f pilots already for next season. It wouldn't fit CBS or the CW. It might work on cable, but they'd have to made major changes, for starters, get mostly a new cast, because the current one is simply too weak overall. Also new writers. Fire the humans, keep the dinos.
Yah...
Though, to be fair, on the internet, hyperbole is the language of the people. So, it's hard to do for effect.
Also, a little research will easily turn up the correct number. That's not hyperbole, it's laziness. 
Also, a little research will easily turn up the correct number. That's not hyperbole, it's laziness.
But Temis, are they mutually exclusive?
-Jamman
Ah well. I'm surprised to discover this news actually disappoints me somewhat. I won't deny it was a pretty bad show, but it did have a certain charm to it that made it worth watching. But the news doesn't really surpirse me either. At least it has a proper finale and a better ending than most shows. Even shows that actually know they're ending.
Yes, several times actually. When season two started, they had a string of seven episodes over 20 mio (the highest among these hit 23,47 mio).
Wow. Probably the only sci fi show ... ever...? to get that many viewers. Of course, that's when they kept telling everyone it wasn't sci fi.
Can't say I'm surprised that it's been cancelled. It was a fairly average show. Though I believe it performed very well on Sky One in the UK. Pulling in viewing figures of 1.3m (6m if you allow for difference in population size between the UK and the US) and on a subscription channel.
So it could be argued in the UK it was out performing.
So it could be argued in the UK it was out performing.
I don't know, did Star Trek: The Next Generation ever top the 20 million mark?
(Not to mention all of the science fiction programming in the three Network era of the 1960s and 1970s).
Yea, I think TNG started above 20 Million, but, lost half of it by the end.
TNG might have reached twenty million on one episode, somewhere, but I doubt it - can't find any record of that. Its best rating was apparently for the finale, about seventeen million. Its best season saw ratings around ten to twelve million.
That seems like a million years ago. The highest rated broadcast show right now gets 18M and for the most part, the hit shows are clumped around 10-12M. That's the world any new broadcast show has to live in.
In the days when everyone had only three choices, of course any show would have gotten what would look like heart-attack ratings now. The proliferation of choices is what's driving the ratings for any given show down. The ratings get outdated for current comparisons very quickly, and anything from even a few years ago is meaningless.
Wikipedia says its average was 20 million viewers, citing this book (although the page in question, 124, isn't available as part of the preview, so you can only see a snippet).
The Wikipedia article is completely mistaken. The figures on the page I linked to are accurate. I compiled some graphs of this type myself, years ago, based on the available Nielsen data, and the "madmind" figures are correct.
It's possible that the Wikipedia writer confused figures for TNG with TOS - the original series probably did reach twenty million viewers at one time or another (this was not considered a huge audience for a network show in the late 1960s).
It's possible that the Wikipedia writer confused figures for TNG with TOS - the original series probably did reach twenty million viewers at one time or another (this was not considered a huge audience for a network show in the late 1960s).
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