Very little Scifi channel promotion

[**DONOTDELETE**]

Does it not seem odd how little promotion the scifi channel is giving this new series?

a) Their web-page is spartan, to say the least.

b) I understand they barely give the show a mention in their own advertising slots.

c) their own Sci-Fi Wire news service has provided about one article, versus dozens on the new Trek series!

It's almost as though they're ashamed or scared of it...

Little wonder that the mainstream media hasn't picked up on it.

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[**DONOTDELETE**]

It's still a bit far off, you can't give it all away now and expect people to stay interested for 6 months, you give a little away every once and awhile.

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"So I went to see Ambassador Londo, First he wants the Shadows, then he doesn't want the Shadows, first he's in the war, then he's not in the war..."

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Does it not seem odd how little promotion the scifi channel is giving this new series?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

What "new series"? Sci-Fi has not placed a series order with Warner Bros. From Bonnie Hammer's comments at the TV Critics Association press tour in Los Angeles last week, it sounds like they won't even make a decision on doing so until after the movie airs in January. In light of all that, I don't think there's anything wrong with their promotional efforts for a pilot film that won't air for another five months.

Regards,

Joe

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

 

[**DONOTDELETE**]

Yes! I agree with you Joe on the point that "Legend of the Rangers" isn't officially airing until January 2002...unless we here otherwise, this is quite a long time away to start promoting the hell out of this show! Many people keep comparing the "Star Trek" series and spin-offs..."Babylon 5" and "Star Trek" series are totally different kinds of shows and are with totally different kinds of networks! They can't be handled the same in terms of promotions...but of course, the biggest element is "Enterprise" is scheduled to air in September of this year -2001...They better be promoting this thing! Geeez!
As we come closer to the airing date of "Legend of the Rangers", we will see a hell of alot more info. More publicity...
I think that the Sci Fi Channel has done quite a good job in keeping alittle of the news coming out here and there...just a little so people don't forget! Remember how quickly the "teaser" came on the internet! I was shocked how quickly it came out...Then there was this little gathering at SFU in Vancouver...to promote the series...small gathering, but, a gathering none the lesss! The cast even signed autographs and no one even knows these actors yet!Well, we do now!
Anyways, I think that everything is being handled just right! No need for heavy promotions until a few months closer to the date!

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[Quagmire]

It's July.


If you start major hype now people will be tired of hearing about it by January.



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Bus
"The pink ones keep ya from screamin'." Grandpa

 

[sassy]

I WANT TO SEE RANGER ADS!!

YES!! and I can't believe they have the quantam leap dude staring in ENTERPRISE...hmm..what is up with that?? I mean HE IS NOT A STUDMUFFIN AT ALL...

course neither was Bruce, but he did have potential..maybe..

ANYWAY...I WANT TO SEE B5 LR ads!!

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War doesn't determine who is right, just who is left.

 

[Dekion]

Strangely enough, on Bruce, he has been considered a "sex symbol" most of his career, and now he has fallen into the "old sex symbol but still good looking for an older man" category, like Sean Connery and the like. Back when How the West Was Won and later Scarecrow and Mrs. King was on he was all the rage. My wife thinks he is a very attractive "mature" man. I, personally, think he is Captain Sheridan and leave it at that.

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[GKarsEye]

I'm not someone who really chases entertainment news or tries to get the "inside scoop," so I think I have the "average man" perspective on the advertising.

I haven't seen much, if anything, on the new Star Trek show. I don't remember any TV ads, or seeing it on the cover of any magazines at the supermarket. People don't talk about it. It seems like only people who care actually know about the new series.
I'm sure there's lots of stuff on the internet, but most people don't click around the computer looking for Star Trek news.

The new Trek is starting this fall (I think). The B5LR is:
1) Just a movie, not a series (yet)
2) very far away
3) not nearly as big as Trek

Given all of that, how can you expect more than what you've seen already?

Besides, you know it's going to be on, why do you care about how it's promoted?

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

 

[Dekion]

I think we have received a good bit of promotion under the circumstances. Oh, and why people want it to be promoted well is because if it is not non-B5 fans will not know about it, and therefore will not watch. Also, TNT did a piss poor job of promoting Crusade. Many people agree that if Crusade were on at a 9 pm slot, and has had the promotion that Witchblade has had, its rating would be similar. This is based on other shows in similar circumstances.


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[hypatia]

I admit I have not been to the scifi website for the Rangers tv-movie other than the first time when I heard about it. But if people are thinking about scifi.com's daily news (or whatever that is called), then I think something has been forgotten. scifi.com is NOT in the business of promoting scifi channel material. It reports "sci-fi related news" doesn't it? I would thinkg they would actually be careful about not over-promoting thier own series (the way NBC does on the Today show, etc, etc).

I've also read other criticisms about scifi.com not having enough articles about "Farscape" (which is their most popular original series, isn't it?)

I'd say this shows an attempt at neutrality on scifi.com's part.

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"I do not believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense,
reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use."-- Galileo

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Also, TNT did a piss poor job of promoting Crusade. Many people agree that if Crusade were on at a 9 pm slot, and has had the promotion that Witchblade has had, its rating would be similar.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Those "many people" must not know much about the TV biz. Witchblade is a cop show with supernatural overtones. Much closer to mainstream entertainment than a space-based SF show, and therefore almost certain to draw higher ratings.

Also the ratings had nothing to do with Crusade's fate, so I'm not sure what the point of this comparison is. We have a chicken and egg problem here. TNT didn't do a bad job of promoting Crusade and then cancel it because the show drew bad ratings. TNT cancelled Crusade and then did a bad job of promoting it because it made no sense to spend big bucks promoting a show it had already cancelled. The ratings were, in fact, pretty good by TNT's then-standards.

Crusade was a special case that has absolutely no relevance to the current discussion.

Regards,

Joe

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

 

[PsionTen]

The sci-fi people are obvious buffons. The fact that they would air Black Scorpion proves that much. Frankly, I don't know how much stock I can put into a cable channel that would air crap like Jules Vern. I've said all along that all this talk about a series was very premature. I say that not because I think LOTR won't be good (I think it will rock) but because I don't put anything past these idiots -- heck, they're sinking more money into the whole Dune series again, when it is universally recognized that is sucked. Frankly, I won't accept any kind of talk about an on-going series until I read it in TV Guide... and so far, there ain't been no announcement in tv guide.

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"Even I am not a Marxist" —— Karl Marx.

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>heck, they're sinking more money into the whole Dune series again, when it is universally recognized that is sucked.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Dune was the highest-rated single program that The Sci-Fi Channel has ever aired, so your personal opinion that it "sucked" is hardly "universal." While it had its flaws I, for one, thought it was a better adaptation of the book than the self-indulgent, incoherent mess of a feature film that so many people seem to think was a masterpiece.

Black Scorpion was a bit of camp fluff that the channel paid very little for and which it therefore saw as a way of generating some quick profits. It didn't work out that way and it was cancelled. Jules Verne was another pre-packaged "off-the-shelf" show, not one developed internally at Sci-Fi, and which could also be purchased at a lower cost per episode than a home-grown original series. So both were low-risk experiments that would be very profitable if successful and could be dumped with minimal loss if not.

TV is a business and decisions are made for financial reasons. Sometimes you have to experiment a bit to find out what you're audience will respond to (or to see if you can broaden your audience a bit, and make yourself more attractive to advertisers.) Given some of the crap that draws big ratings on other networks, I'm not surprised that Sci-Fi sometimes dips into the gutter a bit. The problem, in this case, is not the networks, it is us, the audience. If people didn't tune-in to the likes of Big Brother and John Edwards (which, as "reality" shows, are also comparitively cheap to produce) the shows wouldn't remain on the air and wouldn't inspire hordes of imitators. By and large we get the television we collectively ask for, and which we deserve.

Regards,

Joe

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

 

[PsionTen]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Dune was the highest-rated single program that The Sci-Fi Channel has ever aired, so your personal opinion that it "sucked" is hardly "universal." <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I never said that it didn't get high ratings. It damn well should have, given the heavy promotion that they gave it -- they even had trailers in feature films. And actually, I wasn't just going by my own opinion that it sucked. I was there on the sci-fi boards when the series aired, I read the reviews, asked for opinions and had my own review of it published in a daily colege newspaper. It is universally dissed, and you know it. There is a small minority of people that liked it, but they are the minority. Most people hated it.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Black Scorpion was a bit of camp fluff that the channel paid very little for and which it therefore saw as a way of generating some quick profits. It didn't work out that way and it was cancelled. Jules Verne was another pre-packaged "off-the-shelf" show, not one developed internally at Sci-Fi, and which could also be purchased at a lower cost per episode than a home-grown original series. So both were low-risk experiments that would be very profitable if successful and could be dumped with minimal loss if not.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>


I don't know what you just said about Black Scorpion, but if it was anything other than "it sucked" then what you just said was wrong. If you want to make excuses for the sci-fi channel for airing shows of poor quality and even poorer writing, then go ahead. I said nothing about the profitability or the risk factor of airing any of those shows .... I just said that they sucked ... and they did.

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"Even I am not a Marxist" —— Karl Marx.

 

[PsionTen]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>If people didn't tune-in to the likes of Big Brother and John Edwards (which, as "reality" shows, are also comparitively cheap to produce) the shows wouldn't remain on the air and wouldn't inspire hordes of imitators. By and large we get the television we collectively ask for, and which we deserve.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Actually, I think that the reason these shows are on the air is because a select group of people collectively tune-in to them. They're called Nielson families and they are the ones to blame.

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"Even I am not a Marxist" —— Karl Marx.

 

[drakh]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by PsionTen:
I said nothing about the profitability or the risk factor of airing any of those shows .... I just said that they sucked ... and they did.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>And you used that opinion to support your claim that the SciFi people are possibly too stupid to
commission the Rangers series. Joe pointed out that your claim was false since the disiction would be based on expected profits, and that quality (or lack there of) is largely irrelevant.

And I for one belive that they will come to the conclusion that a Rangers series will be profitable.

 

[Dekion]

What I meant by the "no promotion" thing was that TNT did make that mistake, and the ratings did suffer for it. Although it did not cancelled for that reason, ratings are going to be a factor this time around, and SciFi should learn from TNT's mistake. Also, the part about the ratings was broken down like this

Crusade averaged a 1.3 at 10 pm on a Wednesday
Witchblade has averaged a 2.4 on a Tuesday at 9

Shows on at a 9 oclock weekly timeslot usually get about .5 higher in ratings than shows at 10. ( I saw this in a Nielson pamphlet once). This would make the difference only .6, and the extra promotion would virtually guarantee an increase of at least .2 to .4, so that puts them close. If SciFi does the same thing, which TNT did not do for Crusade and does do for Witchblade, the ratings could be impressive. If TNT had done it for Crusade they would have even more obviously looked like idiots than they already did.
And the reason we want the promotion for Rangers is so it will have good ratings. So it is relevent to the discussion, since the discussion is about promoting the movie. It is just relevent in an obscure way, which is no crime.

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[GKarsEye]

Joe, you're so right about the state of entertainment.

I may bitch about Hollywood, but it is our fault. We don't have to watch "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" (with special celebrity guest, Gene Simmons!), or the 5th spinoff of 90210. Sometimes I get the feeling that people don't realise they have the option of the turning the television off.

There's a Simpsons ep where giant advertising creatures were destroying the city. The way to destroy them was to not watch them. We must do the same thing with TV.

One of the problems with feature films is that people first decide to see a movie, then decide which to see, thus being forced to select the best of a few evils. Folks, don't go to the movies. It is our way of telling them to shape up.

As far as the whole promotion thing goes, let me use an extreme example to illustrate my earlier point:
Star Wars ep 1 was promoted and talked about for years before it came out. The hype machine went nuts. When I had first heard about it, I was pretty excited. By the time I went to see it, I was already sick of the movie, before even seeing. I, and many other people, only went to see it because it was Star Wars.

B5 doesn't have that clout. If people get sick of the advertising (which they would have right to) they will not watch it. It's that simple.

We have too much advertising in this country. Concert tours, internet sites, even public schools are packed with corporate marketing sludge. This doesn't mean something we like has to throw itself in with the rest of them.

By the time the movie airs, all those who'd want to watch it will; those who don't, won't.

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

 

[gkarfan]

Joe DM, you are so right! If people didn't want to watch mindless junk, they wouldn't produce it. I see the same thing happening with music--radio-stations are no longer adventurous. And people seem to *like* these lousy stations! As for me, I have hardly listened to the radio in ten years, & I'm not a huge fan of TV, either. But I'm in the minority, I guess. (sigh)

Tammy

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[gkarfan]

G'Kar's Eye, I hardly go to the movies, either. The movies are being marketed to teenagers, & I'm just not interested. Also, going to the movies is too expensive, & I am *not* going to pay almost $10.00 to see a bad movie!

Tammy

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