How to get Star Trek and Sci fi shows back on TV

[Temis the Vorta]

The thing that jumped out at me about that story was CBS putting its name out there as an international brand. To me, this means that they want to leverage the popularity of their show brands to build the CBS brand everywhere.

CBS as a brand is built on the "sub brands" of famous TV shows it owns. That means CSI et al but also Star Trek. How many CBS TV brands are having top ten movies made about them right now?

The details of how or when they show Star Trek is less important than what this signals about their future plans. if they want to build the CBS brand internationally, a brand like Star Trek that is famous globally and actively being produced for a global audience now, fits right in.

So if a future Star Trek series is aired on CBS UK, I'm sure they'll call it the premiere of that series, because that's what's significant to the audience. they won't care if it was previously shown in every other country on earth, because they don't get those channels. They get CBS UK. (Ignoring any impact of piracy here.)

 

[C.E. Evans]

Which is why whatever a new channel wants to market it as doesn't matter. They can acquire TOS and call it a premiere if it makes them happy. Doesn't change it from being a show from 1966 though.

As far as marketing Trek internationally, that's something that has been going on for decades now. It didn't stop when CBS acquired Trek, but such things are done between CBS and various international markets (the most visual indication is Trek continuing to be run outside of the US).

 

[Temis the Vorta]

I think at this point, we're discussing two different things. I'm not as interested in the mechanics of how or why CBS markets anything as much as what this might signal for their overall brand building strategy in the future. it shows they are ambitious and that makes it more likely that they'd draw on all their resources to fulfill those ambitions, and one of those resources is Star Trek. It's certainly not a bad sign.

 

[RB_Kandy]

Star Trek, or pretty much any sci fi, is expensive due to costumes and cgi. However, reality shows and cop dramas are much cheaper. Why spend the money on Sci fi if a reality show about nuns with gambling addictions can bring in the same revenue for a cheaper cost?

Our problem is that TV is watched by millions of very stupid people who are as easily amused as a small child enjoying the look and sound of someone rattling their car keys.

There is hardly anything worth watching on TV anymore as a result of TV addiction. People will plop themselves down in front of TV all day long no matter what's on the TV.

As for joint relations with CBS and other companies, I doubt this would be a good thing. Too many chefs spoil the stew, or something like that. One company will say "we won't air this episode because it's sexist" the other company says "because its racist" the other company says "because it's too sexy" the other says "because it has too much violence" "too homophobic" "too pro gay" "seems anti-communist" "too shocking and scary" and every company in every country and culture will slap its own brand of censorship on it until you are left with an extremely watered down and boring show that is incapable of ruffling any feathers.

If there ever is a new trek, I hope it comes out on something like HBO, where even the advertisers won't get their hands on it and neuter it.

I am done with TV, I think it is a medium that has to die before any enjoyable show is able to be financed and produced.

 

[MacLeod]

Co-production can work, you just have to get companies that have similar philosphies.

 

[C.E. Evans]

I think at this point, we're discussing two different things. I'm not as interested in the mechanics of how or why CBS markets anything as much as what this might signal for their overall brand building strategy in the future. it shows they are ambitious and that makes it more likely that they'd draw on all their resources to fulfill those ambitions, and one of those resources is Star Trek. It's certainly not a bad sign.

Or just business as usual, with the only thing changing being that CBS shows are being sold as part of a branded block of network programming rather than as individual shows.

I think the situation will be quite similar to the one between the BBC and BBC America and will operate almost the same way.

 

[BillJ]

I think at this point, we're discussing two different things. I'm not as interested in the mechanics of how or why CBS markets anything as much as what this might signal for their overall brand building strategy in the future. it shows they are ambitious and that makes it more likely that they'd draw on all their resources to fulfill those ambitions, and one of those resources is Star Trek. It's certainly not a bad sign.

Or just business as usual, with the only thing changing being that CBS shows are being sold as part of a branded block of network programming rather than as individual shows.

I think the situation will be quite similar to the one between the BBC and BBC America and will operate almost the same way.

Yep.

 

[EmoBorg]

The question now days is how to get more folks interested in sci fi shows. Reality shows are so cheap to produce and they do have audiences. Sci fi shows are so obliviously expensive to make but if we can get more folks interested in sci fi shows, that would certainly encourage broadcasters to consider making space based sci fi shows again.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Trying to get people interested in something they're not interested in isn't worth the effort. A better approach is to accept that space opera or any genre has an audience of X size, which is smaller nowadays than 20 years ago because all niche audiences are smaller, and create something that will work with an audience of X size.

And I wouldn't assume we can judge the space opera fan audience by recent shows. Give people something that, say, is a throwback to TOS - straightforward fun adventure with some smart writing thrown in - and you might just see a sudden increase in interest.

 

[RB_Kandy]

Trying to get people interested in something they're not interested in isn't worth the effort. A better approach is to accept that space opera or any genre has an audience of X size, which is smaller nowadays than 20 years ago because all niche audiences are smaller, and create something that will work with an audience of X size.

And I wouldn't assume we can judge the space opera fan audience by recent shows. Give people something that, say, is a throwback to TOS - straightforward fun adventure with some smart writing thrown in - and you might just see a sudden increase in interest.

Excellent point!
And I think it goes along with my earlier post, that if you just write a really good show.
I think a day will come when people are sick to death of sports, day time soaps, game shows, cop dramas, and reality shows, and actually crave something new. When they do, a well written sci fi show might really catch on.
There wasn't a huge market for a zombie survival drama, then came the Walking Dead.

 

[C.E. Evans]

Trying to get people interested in something they're not interested in isn't worth the effort. A better approach is to accept that space opera or any genre has an audience of X size, which is smaller nowadays than 20 years ago because all niche audiences are smaller, and create something that will work with an audience of X size.

And I wouldn't assume we can judge the space opera fan audience by recent shows. Give people something that, say, is a throwback to TOS - straightforward fun adventure with some smart writing thrown in - and you might just see a sudden increase in interest.

Excellent point!
And I think it goes along with my earlier post, that if you just write a really good show.
I think a day will come when people are sick to death of sports, day time soaps, game shows, cop dramas, and reality shows, and actually crave something new.

There's always going to be a big audience for sports (especially on the weekends), and reality shows are here to stay like infomercials because of how inexpensive they are to produce compared to scripted dramas and comedies. Mainstream audiences never seem to tire of cop dramas, but daytime soaps are nearly extinct already because of the aforementioned reality shows (in the form of talk and infotainment shows) giving networks more bang for their bucks ratings-wise.

There wasn't a huge market for a zombie survival drama, then came the Walking Dead.

I don't think one show qualifies for a huge market, but then zombies have been popular on and off ever since Night of the Living Dead. But if we start seeing a surge of zombie shows on TV, though...

 

[Greg Cox]

I don't think one show qualifies for a huge market, but then zombies have been popular on and off ever since Night of the Living Dead. But if we start seeing a surge of zombie shows on TV, though...

Well, there's also Death Valley on MTV . . . .

 

[C.E. Evans]

I don't think one show qualifies for a huge market, but then zombies have been popular on and off ever since Night of the Living Dead. But if we start seeing a surge of zombie shows on TV, though...

Well, there's also Death Valley on MTV . . . .

Wasn't that show cancelled after only twelve episodes?

 

[Greg Cox]

I don't think one show qualifies for a huge market, but then zombies have been popular on and off ever since Night of the Living Dead. But if we start seeing a surge of zombie shows on TV, though...

Well, there's also Death Valley on MTV . . . .

Wasn't that show cancelled after only twelve episodes?

I thought it was coming back, but I could be wrong.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

The success of "surprises" like The Walking Dead and Hatfields & McCoys isn't so much due to quality (there has been lots of bitching about the quality of TWD) but that they uncovered an unmet need - for tense, exciting, bloody action, and in the case of Hatfields & McCoys, probably some interests in Westerns although it wasn't really a Western.

The moral of that story is, Hollywood churns out too many me-too shows, and there are probably a lot of unmet needs all over the place that will never be discovered because no shows are even being contemplated that might meet those needs.

Instead, the same narrow set of needs are met over and over again - for funny dysfunctional families, for tragically flawed investigators, for the hi jinx of pseudo-celebrities - and those shows of course compete with each other for the same audience, cannibalizing each others ratings, while a bigger and bigger chunk of the potential audience gives up on TV altogether, finding nothing to watch.

But a quality show doesn't guarantee that it will meet some unmet need. Take Awake, for instance. That was a well made show, but it featured an invesitgator in a tragic situation, something that is extremely common on TV. That element no doubt helped it get greenlit, but it also put it in competition with a lot of other shows of that type that didn't have the confusing sci fi angle. No wonder audiences rejected it.

Quality isn't enough. you've got to stand out in a crowd, and pray that the way in which your show stands out is meeting some unmet need, something that is hard to predict until you go to all the expense of producing a show and seeing the results. But Hollywood is allergic to the kind of risk, and rarely even tries it, thus guaranteeing that TV ratings will continue their downwards spiral.