Reality tv is a fad that’ll pass.
The problem tv is facing is what to do with all the hours of programming it needs to fill. New channels pop up every day, getting more and more fragmented. A travel channel is not narrow enough anymore, pretty soon there’s gonna be an (a?) RV channel (for those who want to vacation like that), a National Park channel (for that crowd) and a RV channel for retired people. If things keep going the way they are, pretty soon, we’ll have a choice of programming, that’s so specialized that there will be more people producing the shows, than there are potential viewers (yes, hyperbole).
At this point, one has to stop and think about where the money’s gonna come from.
Sweden (my country) has a diminutive population of 9 million. We have five movie channels on cable/dish 24/7, 4-5 sports networks, about 10 national ordinary networks with a variety of programming, ppv, and a lot of international channel that are everywhere (Discovery, Disney, Animal Planet, National Geographic ASF.) Someone needs to pay for all of this, and cable fees are not enough. Neither are ads.
So who’s gonna tune in and watch tv? With no viewers, networks are going to have a hard time selling ads. Subscribers are only willing to pay some money, but not infinite. As ISPs are getting better at providing high speed connections, more and more people will download. I just got the latest ep of Joan of Arcadia today at about 6pm est and it took me about 1 hour to download. The show isn’t even on the air or on cable over here. I got 10 MBs down and 2 MBs up for about $60/mo. from VDSL (through old copper wires from the 50’s), so why should I get cable for the same amount?
Piracy (which I do engage in) is somewhat the issue, but more importantly, tv needs to figure out how to distribute and cash in on the shows that are produced. Reality tv, while not needing a script writer, still costs money to produce, and someone needs to pay the bills.
So no, Thea, I don’t think there is even a small conspiracy at Thewb. I do think they’re afraid of what the future might bring and that they have a feeling (which I partially share) that the Buffyverse has run its course. They want to find a new show, that might save them from a future that’s very uncertain and a franchise which is eight years old and newer got them top ratings is not going to do that.
So they, and the other networks, keep shuffling shows around, trying old fool proof concepts (and failing more often than not), trying to reinvent the wheel, trying to find something to hold on to, because they have no idea what the future will bring.
Reality tv gave tv as a media a rejuvenating boost, but it won’t last. The market is getting saturated. Over here, our attitude towards nudity is more relaxed, but Big Brother has shown live sex and guys doing the ‘helicopter’ and people are simply not very excited or upset. No one really cares except the headline writers of the tabloids.
Angel was doomed a long time ago. Not because the show is bad or because its ratings aren’t spectacular (nothing on thewb gets good ratings) or because the audience isn’t smart enough to tune in to intelligent tv, but because the execs are desperately trying to come up with the next big thing that’ll buy them time and let the network keep coasting. And clearly Angel isn’t it.