David Kronke was appointed Mayor of Television after a bloodless coup in 2000. Since then, he has improved infrastructure, championed greater educational opportunities and fought for reforms that have utterly erased corruption and incompetence from the television industry. Since Mr. Kronke has ascended to power, Television is a far better place. Was it a mistake to air new shows during the strike?
Once the writers strike became general knowledge, viewers learned pretty quickly to tune out. The networks vowed to keep the lights on, but viewers already knew no one was home.
So should the networks have just bitten the bullet and held on to their original scripted episodes once the sharp level of viewer attrition was clear?
Consider the ratings for original episodes in the past week. “Brothers & Sisters” and “Boston Legal,” which are still dribbling out original episodes, aired to ratings that were near series lows. “October Road” returned during the strike to great chasms of yawns. (Of course, nothing really could’ve helped “October Road.”)
Part of the problem, of course, is that viewers aren’t interested in wading through the schedule to figure out what is and isn’t in reruns. And 10 p.m. shows – like “B&S” and “BL” – are hurt by weak lead-ins like repeats.
Launches of new series during the strike have been pretty abysmal, as well. “Cashmere Mafia” and “Lipstick Jungle” are on the fast track to pink slips. Response to “Welcome to the Captain” has been lackluster. “Eli Stone’s” lone saving grace is that it follows “Lost.” “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles” may be the biggest disappointment: Enjoying decent sampling in its debut, it now hovers somewhere around 8 or 9 million viewers, which is not nearly enough for a show that expensive. Worse, it’s routinely pummeled by “Deal or No Deal,” a show that probably costs per episode about a sixth of what an episode of “T:TSCC” costs.
The only successful launches during the strike were of “Lost,” which was already a hit and further benefited from the lack of competition; “American Gladiators,” a property that was well-known and –hyped enough to engender some excitement; and “Moment of Truth,” which came on after “American Idol” and reveled in its ostensibly lurid nature.
Did viewers somehow equate launches during the strike with launches of shows during the summer – that is, just assume that this was material that was just being burned off, that wasn’t really all that good in the first place?
If so, in most cases, who’s to say that they were wrong?