Paranoid speculation....

[**DONOTDELETE**]

I've been thinking, which is always dangerous. It seems very contradictary to have been so pumped up about the show, advertised it so much, put so much effort in... then just blatently let it die by sticking it up against a ratings beast. I don't think Sci-fi is stupid, the opposite in fact, I think they're quite smart. But the problem with B5 is that Warner Bros. owns it, and sci-fi obviously wants the show... so they wish to own it too. So they get an idea of getting the show.

The owner of this supercar is quite proud, and wants to show it off, so get's a driver to race it. The driver loves this car even more, wants it more than anything. So he decides to put it in a race against a bigger, faster car. The driver pretends to give it their best but in the end loses big time. The owner is now not so proud, doesn't think this car is too super anymore. But as luck would have it, the driver although acting upset offers to take this piece of junk off the owners hands for a moderate sum of money. The owner thinks it is cutting it's losses short, and is happy to turn over the keys. So the new owner races his car against cars it's level and stamps all over them, every time... making the new owner rich and happy.

Hmmm... I think I need to stop grasping at straws.

I hope it's true though.

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Marc Cosgrove

"From chaos, order came. As was inevitable." -Summoning light

 

[bakana]

Well, the Flaw in that little scenario is that Sci Fi didn't Know there was going to be a "race" when they scheduled.
The Babylon 5 date was set well Before the Football game got going.
And since they'd already spent a lot of money advertising the date & time, they were stuck.


If it had been a different pair of teams or a different city, they would probably have had an Earlier time slot for the game.
Those two teams in That city felt that a later start time would work for them.


If football games were Common on Saturday Night, Sci Fi would probably have gone for a different night.



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Do not ascribe your own motivations to others:
At best, it will break your heart.
At worst, it will get you dead."

 

[GaribaldisHair]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>The owner of this supercar is quite proud, and wants to show it off ...<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I have to say that I am not convinced of this.

Sure, B5 has made steady profits for WB from the US and overseas markets, but if it was really so proud of B5 we would surely not have had to wait so long to see it on DVD (and then only a tentative "let's see how one double-sided disk in crappy packing and with no extras sells before we release any more"!).

My own feeling is that, as far as WB are concerned, they look on B5 as just a fairly profitable show - not something special, and given how many shows they have on their books this is something that should neither surprise or upset us.

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DaveC
"Let me be the first to say that this is the nuttiest idea you've ever had."

 

[GKarsEye]

bakana, I don't think the cities or the teams had anything to do with when the game was aired. They're just experimenting with holding primetime playoff games on Saturdays. They did the same thing the week before.

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"You do not make history. You can only hope to survive it."

 

[PsionTen]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>They're just experimenting with holding primetime playoff games on Saturdays. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

If so, then the NFL has been doing if for the past couple of years. As I recall, the Jaguars eliminated the Dolphins from the playoffs during the year that the Rams won the superbowl (against the Titans). That was some two years ago. If anyone at the sci fi channel knew anything about sports, they would have known that there was a good chance a playoff game would be scheduled in mid-Jan. Heck, I knew that there would be one and I'm not even in the business of needing to know such things.

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"Dawn's in trouble? Must be Tuesday." -- Buffy Summers, "Once More With Feeling."

 

[Chris Springob]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by PsionTen:
If so, then the NFL has been doing if for the past couple of years. As I recall, the Jaguars eliminated the Dolphins from the playoffs during the year that the Rams won the superbowl (against the Titans).
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

But that game was held in the middle of the afternoon. We're talking about putting playoff games in primetime, and this is the first year that the NFL has done that.

However, GKarseye is correct in that the teams that are playing had nothing to do with the timing of the game. The fact that there would be a primetime game on January 19th had been known since either late September or early October (can't remember which), after September 11th forced the NFL to rearrange its playoff schedule.


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[PsionTen]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR> But that game was held in the middle of the afternoon. We're talking about putting playoff games in primetime, and this is the first year that the NFL has done that.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Are you certain about that? That particular game was, of course, held in the afternoon, but I recall two games being played on Saturdays during the early playoff rounds... one AFC game, then one NFC game -- the latter game always going into primetime (At least primetime where I live.) Then you'd have an NFC and AFC game on Sunday. Maybe I'm wrong.



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"Dawn's in trouble? Must be Tuesday." -- Buffy Summers, "Once More With Feeling."

 

[Chris Springob]

The first game would usually start around 12 or 12:30, and the second game would start around 4 or 4:30, usually going until 8 at the latest (all times Eastern). (They still do this for the Sunday games, but the Saturday games this year had starting times of 4:30 and 8.) In the Eastern timezone I don't think primetime technically starts until 8pm.


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[RW7427]

Yes, this is the first year that the NFL has put playoff games on at 8pm EST on Saturdays. There was no way the Scifi channel could know that they were going to do that, because as someone else here has said, most of the playoff games were on at 12:30pm and 4:30pm.

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Dulann: You don't solve your problems by hitting them.
David Martel: Yeah, well, it made me feel better.

 

[PsionTen]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR> Yes, this is the first year that the NFL has put playoff games on at 8pm EST on Saturdays <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Oh, the game started at that time. I wasn't watching that one, since I don't care about the Raiders or the Patriots. Yeah, that sucks alright.

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"Dawn's in trouble? Must be Tuesday." -- Buffy Summers, "Once More With Feeling."

 

[GKarsEye]

Chris is absolutely correct. The schedule was set for the rest of the year by early November. I'm also pretty sure this was the first year they're putting games at prime time. It could have something to do with FOX and their crazy ways, but that last bit was just me guessing.

This all begs the question: why didn't Sci-Fi move the movie? Possibilities:

1. They didn't think of the possiblity.
Though in retrospect we can look at the game as a major factor in the dissappointing ratings, they could not have foreseen that months ago. When you schedule something, can you really run around cross checking everything that everyone airs at the same time to avoid competition? There will always be competition.

I don't like this possibility. A big event for the sci-fi channel is a small event for TV in general. They should have been damn sure to not put up against anything like a major awards ceremony, a popular sporting event, a season premiere/finale of a huge show like Survivor, etc. Especially when the rating of one broadcast directly effect the future of the channel's programming.

Besides, I always figured that there is always competition for any show broadcast on Saturday night: Saturday night! I mean, most people aren't home at 9 - 11 pm on Saturdays.

2. They underestimated the cross-over audience for football and Rangers.
I made this mistake myself. I've made numerous posts about it. I was dead wrong. Then again, I don't work for a TV network- don't they have demos and Nielsons and stats and other such things to tell them about this stuff?

3. They were aware of the "football threat," but couldn't change the air time.
This one doesn't work for me either. They didn't start marketing heavily for the movie until after the revised football schedule was finalised.


I dunno, it just seems like they could have foreseen this, unless I'm missing something.

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"You do not make history. You can only hope to survive it."

 

[bakana]

The part I feel the Teams & City played in the decision about the Time the game was played relate to things like

How many people will buy tickets to a Night Game vs a Day game.

Will the Fans spend more money in the Concessions later?

Will the fans spend more money in the Outlying Businesses later in the Day?
(Tailgate vs Restaurant meal, etc.)

Where will the Fans go to spend their Celebration Money After the game?

Is the Stadium better for Day or Night games?

How will Traffic flow in and out of the stadium affect the surrounding community & Businesses - Day vs Night?


The teams & city will work to maximize their Profits.
The TV time is already a done deal.
They Know the game will be broadcast and how much they are going to get, no matter When the game is scheduled.

But, every city has a different pattern of Peripheral considerations as listed above for maximizing Profits from the game.

And don't believe they don't sit down and talk about them before they set the kickoff time.



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Do not ascribe your own motivations to others:
At best, it will break your heart.
At worst, it will get you dead."

 

[Talathanar]

I can't say if this is true for TV land but let's just think that it is for a moment.

Perhaps WB wouldn't let SciFi change the time slot? Let us relate this to PC software. When a software devel nears product release (lets say 1 month and Sci-fi) sometimes the publisher (WB) get's kinda cranky and says "Release it now." Now the devels being smart as they are say Woah..wait a sec we're not done, our competition is too tough, etc. Where Pubs come back with I don't care, release it now.

In this scenrio you get Tribes 2. A great idea made into a good game but buggy as hell because the publishers didn't listen to the people working on it.

The impression I'm under is Scifi was really big in pushing for another B5 series but WB wasn't very willing to listen to them.

To sum this up, maybe Sci-fi did know about the game. Maybe they went as far as to say Hey WB, you know this monster game is on right? How about we move the times? To which WB responded No way we launce as advertised.

Just my .02.

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[Joseph DeMartino]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Saturday night! I mean, most people aren't home at 9 - 11 pm on Saturdays.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Actually, "most people" probably are home on Saturday nights: a lot of people 40 or over, regardless of marital status, most senior citizens, most parents with small children. While overall viewership is lower on Saturdays, those who are home tend to be watching TV, and tend to belong to demographics with disposable income.

As for the football game: Don't forget that this one got unexpectedly high ratings - the best in five years. The Sci-Fi programming people may very well have looked at the game time (they had no way of knowing which teams would be involved, of course), and the last couple of year's ratings and decided, "this won't be much of a threat." If the game had been the kind of play-off blowout that has been commmon in recent years, where one team has a 20 point lead before the end of the first half, they would likely have been right. A lot of people would have been flipping the channel away from the game in search of something interesting to watch. Based on the best available evidence at the time, this may have been a much more rational decision than people seem to think.

Regards,

Joe

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Joseph DeMartino
Sigh Corps
Pat Tallman Division
joseph-demartino@att.net

 

[Dave Thomer]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by bakana:
The part I feel the Teams & City played in the decision about the Time the game was played relate to things like <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

The kickoff times were set before anyone knew which teams would be in the playoffs, let alone which game would be which. It's been known since October that there would be football games Saturday at 4:30, Saturday at 8, Sunday at 1 and Sunday at 4:30 PM. It was just a question of which of the four games would go in that slot -- but there was going to be a game Saturday at 8, regardless of who played in it.

One might think that logistical questions such as the ones you suggest would be involved in determining which game went in which slot, but then you have to wonder why the only game that was being played in a dome (Rams-Packers) was on Sunday afternoon instead of Saturday evening.

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Dave Thomer
This Is Not News