Because it can now start SyFy Channel-Germany, SyFy Channel-India, SyFy Channel-Chile, plus 100. Same technique MTV used. Anybody can start a sci-fi channel or a music channel. If you license your brand, the real money comes in.
No, it was cancelled because the lead was Dabney Coleman, and the Universal Laws therefore decreed it.
This year alone, Eleventh Hour was cancelled despite being #22 and the show it replaced in that timeslot. Without a Trace, #20 the previous year, rose to #18 this year, and got cancelled. In both cases, I imagine it was all about the money.
Good point. I have the ratings right here. Madman of the People finished 12th overall in the ratings, with a 14.9. Seinfeld (the #1 show that season) had a 20.6. The show after Madman was ER (#2) with a 20.0 rating.
In other words, fully 25% of NBC viewers turned off the show even though CBS, ABC and Fox were all running hour-long shows in that time slot, which meant the viewers chose to tune in shows that were already half over!
By contrast, Frasier was up against Home Improvement – the #3 rated show on TV. Murphy Brown was competing against *Monday Night Football *and Party of Five.
On top of all that, MMOTP starred Dabney Coleman. Although hilarious in movies, Coleman had already bombed in 3 other sitcoms.
If I recall correctly, CSI (Las Vegas) was hardly a ratings powerhouse at first. It didn’t start hitting the top 10 of the Nielsens until the second season, much less consistently win the week.
Almost. It was the #10 show the first year, but yes, it really hit its stride with the second season.
…seriously. I have been waiting for the Sci Fi channel to come to New Zealand for years. Now, hopefully with the name change it might actually happen.
A lot of those shows that NBC tried airing on Thursday nights between Friends and Seinfeld or Seinfeld and ER never lasted more than a season or two. They got good ratings overall, usually in or near the top 10 shows for the week, but that was huge drop off from Seinfeld, Friends and ER which were all top 5. That and most of those shows just weren’t very good. “The Single Guy,” anyone?
Both Seinfeld and The Dick Van Dyke Show struggled with poor ratings at first, and both were nearly canceled.
Sampiro, you’re so right. What a suckular way to spell Sci-Fi. It does look like Siffy and it seems kind of simpy and PC, like spelling ‘women’ ‘wymyn’. Just the look of the word is ugly and looks like they want to back off the Sci-Fi label but what the hell are they thinking? Do they think it’s in some stupid weird way, cooler? Huh? I thought I was the only one who saw that and that my brain was deteriorating faster than I thought it was. While that may indeed be the case, I am not alone in wondering, what the fc!
Not sure where it was in the ratings, but The Ben Stiller Show was cancelled before their final show in their first season . . . then won the Emmy for best comedy writing.
Wasn’t Soap still pulling in high ratings at the end? Hilarious show at the time.
I can’t seem to find Nielsen ratings for Cop Rock, though I am sure it was a critics darling. I’m failing in my Google-Fu.
However, when I was in the can the other day I felched down to the bottom of the drawer and found a People magazine from 2000. It listed a few new series and the mag’s critics take on them. One of these reviews was of CSI, the original. The critic’s take was that it was not a well thought out show, it was too rout(sp?) and would never last.
Critics, sometime you love them, sometimes they’re stupid.
All this mentioning of shows and no one says Family Guy? I’ll justlet Peter explain it. . .
flip side: Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour was doing fine in the ratings when abruptly cancelled for inside political reasons in 1969.
The shows skewed older. They were getting good ratings, but they weren’t getting good ratings among the 18-34 age group.
The Rural Purge:
CBS cancelled the programs because they skewed rural or older in their audiences. Advertisers didn’t want those sorts of audiences and were willing to pay more for somewhat smaller but more urban and younger audiences. TV networks aren’t as interested in high ratings as in making more money.
Here in the UK, a sitcom called Only Fools & Horses got very poor ratings in its first season, but the BBC stuck with it and it went on to become the most popular TV show in the country - beloved characters, nationally-adopted catchphrases, guaranteed Christmas Specials every year, the works. As with Seinfeld, it simply took audiences a little while to get to know the characters and develop an enduring affection for them.
Actually, it was kept because NBC’s Head of Programming, Brandon Tartikoff, really liked it, just as he kept *Seinfeld *and Hill Street Blues. Brandon was a man who trusted his instincts, and was usually right.
Note this wasn’t in time to save Star Trek (also a CBS show), which did skew towards the desired subaudiences.
Star Trek was on NBC, which was the network least affected by the Rural Purge.