KoshN
Super Moderator
JMS wrote:
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I don't think the Farscape situation much impacts my stuff with SFC one way or another. I suspect there were a number of factors, including the cost of the show (which was the highest on the network, from what I've heard, but that's second-hand and may not be accurate) combined with the fact that SFC (via their parent company USA Networks) didn't own the show.
Lemme splain....
If a network owns the show they air, they can reap long-term profits from syndication of the program. More and more, USA Network (and other cable outlets) is under pressure to own what they produce, otherwise they're paying huge sums of money to produce shows that they air a few times, then the money goes to the studio that did the actual production. The higher the cost, the iffier the proposition.
So that may have been an issue here. They needed Farscape to help build their audience, but now that this seems to be coming together for them, the logical (for a network) thing would be to start paring away what they don't own, and
which is costly, to replace it with their own stuff.
One of the things you can never allow yourself to forget is that TV is a business designed around making a profit, and determining who owns what long-term revenue streams.
Doesn't affect Polaris one way or another, since if that goes, it would be under the aegis of the network.
jms
(jmsatb5@aol.com)
(all message content (c) 2002 by synthetic worlds, ltd.,
permission to reprint specifically denied to SFX Magazine
and don't send me story ideas)
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So I asked:
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>So shouldn't the studio that owns a show be giving Sci-Fi a better deal to
>offset that, and get a studio's show on the air? That way, everybody can
>win.
That's the logical thing, but logic and show business rarely dine at the same table.
Most studios would rather own 100% of nothing than 50% of something. That sounds outrageous, but it's all a part of that all-or-nothing profit thing that they ALL have going. And they're all in competition with one another.
This came into play on the Rangers situation, where WB was reluctant to let SFC own a part of the show, since SFC is owned by Universal Vivendi, and WB is in competition with Universal.
So it's a real balancing act. If Rangers had gotten a higher rating (had it not been killed on the East Coast by the biggest football playoff in the last decade), even though it was owned by WB, they would almost certainly have committed to a series, since that rating would balance out not owning the show...on the flip side, had Rangers been owned by SFC/Universal, and gotten the same rating that it actually got, they would've been able to say "Okay, let it grow, because we own it and we're willing to take the risk and we're losing less money in license fees since we're paying them to ourselves in any event and we can get the merchandising revenues," which only the studio gets.
Studio logic is kind of like looking at the gorgon...too close and you're turned to stone.
jms
(jmsatb5@aol.com)
(all message content (c) 2002 by synthetic worlds, ltd.,
permission to reprint specifically denied to SFX Magazine
and don't send me story ideas)
**************************************************
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I don't think the Farscape situation much impacts my stuff with SFC one way or another. I suspect there were a number of factors, including the cost of the show (which was the highest on the network, from what I've heard, but that's second-hand and may not be accurate) combined with the fact that SFC (via their parent company USA Networks) didn't own the show.
Lemme splain....
If a network owns the show they air, they can reap long-term profits from syndication of the program. More and more, USA Network (and other cable outlets) is under pressure to own what they produce, otherwise they're paying huge sums of money to produce shows that they air a few times, then the money goes to the studio that did the actual production. The higher the cost, the iffier the proposition.
So that may have been an issue here. They needed Farscape to help build their audience, but now that this seems to be coming together for them, the logical (for a network) thing would be to start paring away what they don't own, and
which is costly, to replace it with their own stuff.
One of the things you can never allow yourself to forget is that TV is a business designed around making a profit, and determining who owns what long-term revenue streams.
Doesn't affect Polaris one way or another, since if that goes, it would be under the aegis of the network.
jms
(jmsatb5@aol.com)
(all message content (c) 2002 by synthetic worlds, ltd.,
permission to reprint specifically denied to SFX Magazine
and don't send me story ideas)
**************************************************
So I asked:
**************************************************
>So shouldn't the studio that owns a show be giving Sci-Fi a better deal to
>offset that, and get a studio's show on the air? That way, everybody can
>win.
That's the logical thing, but logic and show business rarely dine at the same table.
Most studios would rather own 100% of nothing than 50% of something. That sounds outrageous, but it's all a part of that all-or-nothing profit thing that they ALL have going. And they're all in competition with one another.
This came into play on the Rangers situation, where WB was reluctant to let SFC own a part of the show, since SFC is owned by Universal Vivendi, and WB is in competition with Universal.
So it's a real balancing act. If Rangers had gotten a higher rating (had it not been killed on the East Coast by the biggest football playoff in the last decade), even though it was owned by WB, they would almost certainly have committed to a series, since that rating would balance out not owning the show...on the flip side, had Rangers been owned by SFC/Universal, and gotten the same rating that it actually got, they would've been able to say "Okay, let it grow, because we own it and we're willing to take the risk and we're losing less money in license fees since we're paying them to ourselves in any event and we can get the merchandising revenues," which only the studio gets.
Studio logic is kind of like looking at the gorgon...too close and you're turned to stone.
jms
(jmsatb5@aol.com)
(all message content (c) 2002 by synthetic worlds, ltd.,
permission to reprint specifically denied to SFX Magazine
and don't send me story ideas)
**************************************************
