1. I doubt they seriously researched anything. 2. Even if they did, I doubt that they could interpret the numbers any better than the average chimpanzee.
And what, exactly would lead you to believe that? The fact that your own preconceptions have no apparent connection to reality?
If there's anybody who has no connection to reality, it's the idiots running The Sci-Fi Channel.
Otherwise, Dream Team, Scare Tactics, and Tremors: The Series would never have seen the light of day, and if those ideas had been brought up at a meeting, the response would have been
"Are you f*king nuts?!?!?"
Or do you have sources of information you're not telling us about, other than inventing things out your imagination?
And here I was tempted to ask ElScorcho not to be snippy towards you.
What leads me to believe that?
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[*] Their current choices for new shows. The series that they do put into production are either so horrendous that they drive away the traditional sci-fi audience (Dream Team, Scare Tactics), and/or they're painfully cheap (Scare Tactics, Tremors: The Series).
[*] All this "reimagination" of BSG (a really lame show to begin with and the reimagined one will surely be even worse). It seems like the only space sci-fi they'll do is lame, laughable space sci-fi. Great, just what the genre needs, reinforcement that space sci-fi is silly stuff that would only be of interest to stereotypical nerds!
[*] Their placing greater importance on miniseries than series. That's like saying that you're going to cut your meat, potatoes & vegetables budget down to almost nothing just so you can binge on dessert. They go in for these big money miniseries that spike the ratings momentarily and then have no money left for series (which have to cover the majority of the year). The result is that you have a few weeks of interesting stuff (if you're lucky) followed by months and months of drought.
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They do research. Lots of it. They spend lots of money on research tools and data and on people to do the research.
Maybe they have people gather the data, but it sure looks like they can't interpret it. Either that or they're zeroing in on the demographic that appears in Jay Leno's "Jay Walking" and "Point" segments.
In fact, the common complaint throughout the industry is that programmers do too much research and follow the results too slavishly, meaning that they're much less willing to try new things and take risks than they were before.
That's where
interpreting the numbers comes in.
Why did they spend any money on:
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[*] Dream Team ? (lame idea, belongs on Lifetime, Oxygen, or daytime TV if anywhere)
[*] Scare Tactics ? (so phony it's laughable, extreme bad taste, looks like it was made by inbred trailer park people who never graduated high school and don't even have all their teeth)
[*] Tremors: The Series ? (An idea that was worn out by the end of the first movie, stretched to cover four movies and a series??? Gees, does it sound like they're "reaching" here, like they're out of ideas, to you?)
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Why do they pass up things like Crusade and Brimstone (which couldn't have cost much. JMS is known for doing B5 on a tight budget. Brimstone had few effects and a very small cast.)? These are
UNfinished and would be a natural fit on a Sci-Fi Channel.
If they'd expect Farscape viewers to stay tuned in to watch stuff like Dream Team, Scare Tactics and Tremors: The Series, they'd be greatly disappointed.
Yes! Exactly!
Are you feeling alright? You just agreed with me.
Note the use of the word
"expect" in my sentence above. What
brain-damaged people would
expect Farscape fans to stay tuned in for Dream Team, Scare Tactics and Tremors: The Series?
For instance, I watch the CSI reruns (Season 1 & 2) on TNN. Wrestling precedes the CSI reruns. How much of wrestling do you think I watch before "DVD recording" CSI? Answer:
As little as possible! I'd timer record except that wrestling almost never ends on time (11:05PM Eastern, usually varies from 11:02 to 11:10).
Which is probably one of the reasons they're no longer showing Farscape. Because it was easier to change that piece than to change all of the pieces around it.
So, if you have a good, respectable show that hasn't wrapped up, one that even the critics like, you throw
it out and keep the garbage that was around it? Doesn't it make more sense to throw out the garbage?
That's like cutting the fat off a steak, eating the fat and throwing the good meat away.
What I think they're discounting is the damage it's doing to the reputation of the channel.
Damage to the reputation of the channel? There's no damage going on to the reputation that matters to them -- the reputation for delivering audiences to the advertisers.
More like the reputation for delivering idiots to "Idiot TV."
They're damaging the sci-fi genre. They're reinforcing the stereotypes. They're causing long term harm to the genre. This is happening at a time when the genre is at a low ebb, on life support as it is. They're kicking it while it's down. The very least they could do is to take "Sci-Fi" out of the channel's name.
You seem to be forgetting the most important point here. The Sci-Fi Channel does not exist to show quality programming. The Sci-Fi Channel exists to make money. The Sci-Fi Channel makes money by selling the viewing time of audiences to their advertisers.
Any argument that doesn't consider that fact is an absurd irrelevancy.
If they show quality programming, they can make money. They just need to know how to air the quality programming.
<ul type="square">[*] Air it like other networks normally do, show a block of new episodes, and then rerun those episodes
in order, or show a new episode and show it's rerun later in the week. The key is to be
predictable. The goal is
not to fake-out the audience.
[*] Do not bookend the quality programming with schlock. That pisses off the fans of the quality programming.
[*] Instead of spending tons of money on miniseries a couple times a year, go more for quality series that cover most of the year. Sprinkle in a few good movies, old, inexpensive theatricals and "Sci-Fi Productions" movies. Fill the rest of the schedule with reruns of good stuff, in steady,
predictable timeslots, not these "Daytime Rotations" which seem to have no rhyme or reason.
[*] Don't step all over your programming with damned popup ads. Don't put popup ads. for CRAP all over your quality programming.
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True. The only possible exception would be if they lost a person in a favored demo. and gained two in an unfavored demo.
Yes. But that apparently hasn't been happening.
Possible Conclusions:
<ul type="square">[*] Sci-Fi isn't really getting any data, and is just winging it. Putting on the cheapest stuff they can find, in the theory that if they get it for next to nothing, they ought to be able to make a profit on it.
[*] Sci-Fi is misinterpreting the data.
[*] The vast majority of the available audience is from the shallowest part the gene pool, IQ: ~60.
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Tremors: The Series and Scare Tactics ratings have been going down, not up.
Which is why they've been repeatedly preempted and are likely to disappear if that pattern continues.
Shouldn't this communicate something to Sci-Fi?
Hint: Maybe people really don't like cheap schlock. 
