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CBS pulls a... well, a CBS

LondosHair

Regular
CBS, in all its infinite wisdom (/sarcasm) has cancelled Century City after four (yes FOUR) airings.

I loved this show, and I think its cancellation will go down as one of the great network TV blunders. The show didn't have much of an audience, but it never really got a chance to GET one. CBS rarely advertised it.

It was one of the few shows left on network TV that was fresh, not stale, and it really made you think. The show was set 30 years in the future. Court cases dealt with things like cybernetic implants in professional sports players, human cloning -- things that we don't really worry about today, but WILL be in the future. It assumed a very logical natural progression of controversial topics and dealt with them head-on.

The sets and images of the future were nothing short of amazing. Much time and thought was put into every little prop, because let's face it, at the speed technology is developing now, our world is going to look VERY different from the way it looks today.

I wish they hadn't cancelled this show... I guess they figure they can use the time & money saved to seduce a couple more people to watch Survivor.
 
I read about this show on a gaming website and was wondering when it was going to be on because I wanted to check it out. I had no idea that it was not only on, but aired 4 times and was already cancelled! Goes to show you how much CBS advertised it. Then again, I really dont watch any shows on CBS so I suppose thats a problem eh? They moved JAG to Fridays which, Im never home to watch.
 
It should be noted that CBS isnt the only network to do this lately. NBC trumps them with their "air 2 episodes of the new season and then Cancel Boomtown" this fall. I was looking forward to the new season, but never even got to see it! Then again, as mentioned in my above post, they moved it to the graveyard Friday slot, so I was going to have to Tape it anyway.

FOX does this shit ALL THE TIME.

Basically, if a show isn't a "reality show" they dont think people are going to watch and pull the plug after a couple airings.

I weep for our culture because shows like "American Idol" and "The Bachelor/Bachlorette" dictate how networks operate these days and get all the ratings and timeslots.
 
It's been on Tuesdays at 9pm, which is a pretty respectable timeslot... I'm not sure if it's on this week or not.

The show's website is still up, for what it's worth...
 
If it was on at 9pm CST I could have watched it. I watch 24 every Tuesday at 8 CST. If it was on at 9 EST, then I watched 24 all the time so I never knew it was there. ;)
 
Basically, if a show isn't a "reality show" they dont think people are going to watch and pull the plug after a couple airings.

Now, to be fair, "Playing it Straight" was cancelled after three airings. It isn't just reality programs, any program that doesn't get the numbers gets canned.

I don't know, I wasn't impressed with Century City, just couldn't get into the show. Still, I agree that there was some interesting potential.
 
It's been on Tuesdays at 9pm

Oh, that's why I haven't seen it. Tuesday evenings is when I am in the EMU pool with the kayak club. I basically never see anything that is on Tuesdays (I got hooked on 24 *entirely* because of the encore showings on F/X, and now that those are gone I have missed enough of this season's eps that I'm not even trying to see any of them any more.)
 
Yeah, it sucks when a network pulls a show we like, but you have to understand that the fault is on the system really. Networks are dependent on advertisers, and if they can't get an audience then they can't get ads. Back in the late 60's/early 70's CBC did this with a bunch of shows that the older crowd loved, but advertisers wanted to appeal to the younger generation so CBS pulled a bunch of those older shows. So this is certainly nothing new.

These days, advertisers want results fast because the market is so flooded with hundreds of channels now. They just want to put their ads on the shows that hit it quick or else take their ads to something else.

Networks could allow shows time to get an audience back when it was just the Big 3 (CBS, NBC, and ABC respectively) and in the early days of cable, but because there are hundreds of cable/satellite broadcasters now, it's too expensive and risky to give shows a long time to get an audience.

You always have to remember that television is a business as well as a form of entertainment. It sucks for the audience sometimes, but oh well. Somtimes the broadcasters take risks with shows, but if those shows don't catch on it is in their interest to pull it even if it isn't in an audience's interest.
 
Basically, if a show isn't a "reality show" they dont think people are going to watch and pull the plug after a couple airings.

Now, to be fair, "Playing it Straight" was cancelled after three airings. It isn't just reality programs, any program that doesn't get the numbers gets canned.

I don't know, I wasn't impressed with Century City, just couldn't get into the show. Still, I agree that there was some interesting potential.


Yeah, but "Playing it Straight" will return for it's last three shows...although I find it hard to understand how with so many guys left how there could only be three or four more eps. It's supposed to maybe return this summer.
 

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