'Fitting Network TV for a Toe Tag'

[ithildin]

Good article here on WIRED.

One of my favourite bits:

6. Don't break faith with your audience.

Broadcast networks routinely spend three months promoting a show that they then cancel after two airings. Or they get a few million viewers hooked on a serialized drama and then drop it midway through a season, leaving fans hanging. This simply never happens on cable, where if a series gets a 13-episode order, those 13 episodes are damn well going to air, even if it's just because there’s nothing else to take their place. Every time the networks reshuffle their grid in a spasm of quick-fix panic, they disenchant more viewers.

Amen!

Comments

[sinanju.livejournal.com]

...and the vicious cycle spirals out of control. The networks stiff the audience time and again--and eventually the audience wises up and refuses to become invested in the show until and unless it succeeds....