Fellow B5 fans: I am optimistic dammit!!! And, I hope you start feeling more of the same.
I've never seen a demographics/psychographics breakdown of B5. Shooting from the hip, I'd say that it is very male-dominated. I don't mean to offend women by saying this. At the risk of sounding still more sexist, I believe that men are considerably more prone to watch NFL football. Further, in the weeks prior to the 19th, I was commenting on several occassions how I was disappointed that I hadn't seen a football game this season with a lot of snow in it.
Such games harken back to when we were kids/teenagers, playing tackle football in the snow. For me, this brings up terrific memories, such as a snow fall of 26 inches with thunder. We played an exhausting game and didn't feel the cold until the slow walk home from the football field.
While flipping back to the game during B5LR commercial breaks, I was EXTREMELY tempted to watch this game. If I hadn't been recording B5LR for my grandmother, I would have recorded the game...an AWESOME GAME!!!
Anyway, this game nailed the B5LR demographic/psychographic where it hurts!!! I SUSPECT that the other cable shows that faired better than B5LR derived their ratings because that is where most of the women that didn't want to watch football or anything SciFi went. Again, I don't mean to insult the women among us by implying that they are in the minority with respect to their gender's viewing habits. As far as I am concerned, this makes them more special and interesting. My last girlfriend hated SciFi and that was a problem.
Also, the over forty-something crowd, particularly married, probably made their selections as a matter of compromise between what he wants and what she wants. I'm fairly confident those compromises would not involve football and most assuredly no Sci-Fi.
So, the bottom line is this, the football game snowed-out any semblance of normalized ratings inferences. They're all skewed.
Actually, Sci-Fi's new owners might be considering a bigger question. Can sci-fi ever go head to head with major prime time events? The 19th suggests that it cannot.
Sci-fi may have been trying to grow its niche market with B5LR, given the extraordinary promotions. So, while the ratings for B5LR may disappoint SciFi with respect to B5LR, from now on, going to head-to-head with such events will give the sponsors pause, which will surely give the executives pause. This means that the SciFi channel may keep its powder dry during major prime time events; better to fight another day.
Consider two SciFi Channel pieces of content. One that would generate relatively great ratings and one that would generate ho hum ratings (pull out an old stock of some movie from who knows when and where)! If you air the 'great' one against a major prime time event and the stock film another time versus airing the stock film against the major prime time event and the 'great' one another time, the second approach would yield a much greater sum of ratings.
So does this experience spell the doom for a B5LR series? Hell no!!!
Look at some of the other SciFi channel shows that have come and gone and even some of those that are hanging on. You see, this is the real competition, can B5LR do better than what the SciFi channel has done and is doing with respect to the other series? Of course it can!!! In fact, I'd say Farscape is the only real competitor. If you were a SciFi channel executive, would you like to invest in Farscape and a series (B5LR) that will do as good or better than Farscape? Or, would you invest in Farscape and something completely different, untested, unknown, and in the context of quite a few ho hum shows that Sci Fi channel has invested in the past and presently?
Chin up folks, we're going to get a B5LR series. The $$$ will work in our favor.
The greatest danger is that they may provide a smaller budget in the early episodes if their current (based on the 19th) net present value estimates aren't fat enough. This could yield a lesser showing and hence yield a shorter run for B5LR. But, I have faith in JMS compensating for this by placing less emphasis on CGI and maybe having fewer guest actors (perhaps some of the regulars might be asked to put on alien costumes in lieu of guest actors). JMS can make it work.
I'm excited!!! I hope you feel it too. Let's storm the halls of the influencers and decision-makers with our letters ablaze.
Faith manages!!!
Cheers,
Eirik
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It never ends; it only changes!
[This message has been edited by eirik (edited January 25, 2002).]
