06-09-2013, 08:38 AM
If you don't want to watch it Friday not (or whatever nite), like most people do, you can record it and watch it later. Although waiting a couple of extra days to watch the most recent available episode is hard.
06-09-2013, 08:38 AM
If you don't want to watch it Friday not (or whatever nite), like most people do, you can record it and watch it later. Although waiting a couple of extra days to watch the most recent available episode is hard.
06-09-2013, 10:10 AM
(This post was last modified: 06-09-2013, 10:11 AM by HellJacket.)
(06-09-2013, 08:38 AM)Lou Wrote: If you don't want to watch it Friday not (or whatever nite), like most people do, you can record it and watch it later.Since I'm the only one bashing the Friday night move, I'll assume this post was directed at me (or if it wasn't, I'll do so anyway for argument sake). I, personally, do not care what night a new episode premieres. It could be at 3:00 am on Sunday morning for all I care. Though, conversely, it seems really dumb to me that so many fans are emotionally invested in the show being on Friday. My complaint against the move is based on simple utilitarian reasons. I have NO "emotional investment" in the show being on Friday. However, I AM emotionally invested in Grimm being on the air, as well as am curious at how Grimm would do with a better budget. Based on my understanding of ratings and tv schedules, having Grimm on Friday does not advance either of these goals, and likely hurts Grimm in the long run. However, this debate is now moot. If NBC was going to move Grimm permanently from Friday, it needed to do so by season 3. Now, for good or ill, Grimm's ratings will float or drown on Friday nights.
06-09-2013, 10:53 AM
Besides Grimm, I think the only show that I ever liked that was aired on Friday night was Firefly. It didn't even make it thru one season. A lot of the Firefly fans thought that Friday night contributed to its poor ratings.
06-09-2013, 11:31 AM
(06-09-2013, 10:53 AM)Lou Wrote: Besides Grimm, I think the only show that I ever liked that was aired on Friday night was Firefly. It didn't even make it thru one season. A lot of the Firefly fans thought that Friday night contributed to its poor ratings.I forgot that Firefly was on Fridays. While I'm pretty gung ho against the fact that Grimm has had any real benefit from being on Fridays (e.g., whiney fans blah blah less competition blah blah niche show blah blah if it's not broke, don't fix it blah balh), I really think the truth is somewhere in the middle. If a show fails on Friday, it will have failed on any night of the week. If a show succeeds on Friday, it will likely have succeeded on any night of the week. The problem with Friday is that there is a very small margin of error. Grimm premiered to a 2.1 18-49 demo. If Grimm had lost half of it's initial audience like most shows do, it would like have been cancelled after the first season. Funny enough, that didn't happen. In Firefly's case, the show went from a 4.9 rating to about a 3.0 at the time the show was cancelled, losing about 40% of the show's audience. Grimm is just the rare exception where a show can premiere on Fridays and survive.
06-11-2013, 12:19 AM
Grimm also has several advantages over Firefly that I've noticed as a layman:
- "Genre" shows are the it thing these days. - Not aired out of order. - DVRs and other methods of viewing are being taken into account along with live ratings (this isn't true of all networks, but it has been playing more of a factor these days). - Sci fi always seems a harder sell than fantasy. For most people, it's still stereotyped as lasers, robots, and green space women. - The Friday night "death slot" isn't what it used to be (related to point 3). - Grimm is based on the familiar cop show format; Firefly was based on the older Western themes that might have been unfamiliar or unpopular for younger viewers. - Modern setting. I'll concede to the cons of the Friday slot, however. Lower viewership and such. NBC is just insane when it comes to scheduling. Grimm has also had some bizarre lead-in shows too. (And I don't know wtf is going on with their advertising for shows sometimes. Or rather lack of advertising.) "I can feed the caterpillar, I can whisper through the chrysalis, but what hatches follows its own nature and is beyond me."
-- Hannibal (TV show)
06-11-2013, 04:03 PM
(06-11-2013, 12:19 AM)pale boy Wrote: - Grimm is based on the familiar cop show format; Firefly was based on the older Western themes that might have been unfamiliar or unpopular for younger viewers.You can sum up the reason why Firefly failed as "Firefly was a western pretending it was a science fiction show." Science fiction shows have a poor record on television, but "westerns" over the past 20 years have an even worse record. Westerns that failed include: 1) Brisco County Jr. 2.) Deadwood 3.) Hell on Wheels (well, not quite dead yet, but the ratings are pretty weak) Now that I think about it, I can't really recall many Westerns on broadcast television besides Brisco and Firefly, let alone any successes. The only success I can think of is Walker, Texas Ranger, and that's more of a police procedural (and more akin to a modern western, while Firefly was an old school western). Justified may be considered a success, but it's another police procedural like Walker (and has poor ratings as well). Maybe Dallas on TNT counts as a Western. I do think that one thing people fail to mention to Grimm's benefit is that, because overall broadcast ratings are so low, a show with a hardcore fan base is enough for a show to survive, when that wasn't the case 10 years ago. Renewal on broadcast television doesn't require "broad appeal" so much as dedicated fans who are willing to watch it live.
06-12-2013, 12:01 AM
(06-11-2013, 04:03 PM)HellJacket Wrote: I do think that one thing people fail to mention to Grimm's benefit is that, because overall broadcast ratings are so low, a show with a hardcore fan base is enough for a show to survive, when that wasn't the case 10 years ago. Renewal on broadcast television doesn't require "broad appeal" so much as dedicated fans who are willing to watch it live. Those are some interesting facts to know; I didn't realize that ratings were in that bad of a slump in general (since I tend to look up the ratings for shows I watch and nothing else). I wonder if there's any connection between the need for a dedicated fan base and the current spate of genre shows (lowered standards allowing niche shows to thrive with their typically smaller numbers) -- or if the fantasy wave is just an unrelated phenomenon. "I can feed the caterpillar, I can whisper through the chrysalis, but what hatches follows its own nature and is beyond me."
-- Hannibal (TV show)
06-12-2013, 08:54 AM
(06-12-2013, 12:01 AM)pale boy Wrote: Those are some interesting facts to know; I didn't realize that ratings were in that bad of a slump in general (since I tend to look up the ratings for shows I watch and nothing else).Ratings are always going down, but that's mostly due to the viewer fragmentation. It's not the 1960s when there were only three television channels. Most of the tv audience has flooded to cable. It's not necessarily because broadcast television is better or worse, but with more options (i.e., the many hundred channels now on cable), there's more competition. DVRing is also a major reason for ratings declines as well. (06-12-2013, 12:01 AM)pale boy Wrote: I wonder if there's any connection between the need for a dedicated fan base and the current spate of genre shows (lowered standards allowing niche shows to thrive with their typically smaller numbers) -- or if the fantasy wave is just an unrelated phenomenon.[/font][/size][/color]I wouldn't say there's a current fantasy wave as much as there definitely was a recent fairy tale wave. That's probably due to the success of Alice in Wonderland. Grimm and OUAT premiered a couple years ago, and now we're getting the Wonderland spinoff. In regard to science fiction at least, I would say the amount of shows has decreased. Though, the number of shows focused evil characters has skyrocket for reasons I don't know why (e.g., Hannibal, Bates Motel, American Horror Story, Dracula, etc.)
06-12-2013, 09:18 AM
(06-12-2013, 08:54 AM)HellJacket Wrote: I wouldn't say there's a current fantasy wave as much as there definitely was a recent fairy tale wave. That's probably due to the success of Alice in Wonderland. Grimm and OUAT premiered a couple years ago, and now we're getting the Wonderland spinoff. In regard to science fiction at least, I would say the amount of shows has decreased. Though, the number of shows focused evil characters has skyrocket for reasons I don't know why (e.g., Hannibal, Bates Motel, American Horror Story, Dracula, etc.) a general trend in TV/movies/books is the rule of the trend, when someone comes up with an idea and another network/production company/publisher see's a hit coming they jump on the band wagon, in some cases before the first new show/film/novel is even released. Most of the time only the first one or 2 incarnations of an idea are any good (3 if we're extremely lucky) because by the time there are 1 or 2 hits of a certain type the producers (or whoever) are so ravenous for more they start taking chances on anything they see that looks at all like what they want. After harry potter became big there were a bunch of other books in the same and similar genres published aimed at the same age group... Twilight being the most well known example (and, in my mind, an example of the publisher's tendency to buy up any trash that even slightly resembles the hits that came before).
06-12-2013, 10:19 AM
(06-12-2013, 09:18 AM)grimmfreak Wrote: Twilight being the most well known example (and, in my mind, an example of the publisher's tendency to buy up any trash that even slightly resembles the hits that came before). I would like to say that the first Twilight book is not a bad YA girl-coming-of-age novel, but it's a terrible vampire novel. But 95% of all vampire books suck, so I never understood the Twilight hate. I also don't understand how someone can say the Twilight books are terrible (I've only read the first one, so I don't know how the others turn out), but then go and say Anita Blake or the Sookie Stackhouse Novels are better. As vampire stories, they all suck equally (though Twilight is the most popular of the bunch). I personally liked the first Twilight Book more than any Anita Blake novel I've read. |
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