Odds and ends..

[shadowkat]

Am avoiding doing the quizzilla things which have apparently taken over my friends list - have they taken over live journal as well? Can't tell. Would have to hop around other's friend's lists to do that and who has the time or the energy? Anyhoo - don't expect to see any here - takes far too long for me to do them on this dial-up now, the test takes forever to process and the images download slowly...not mention the fact that I get disconnected from the internet at least twice while doing them. Just too aggravating. Much better to skip.

Time...ugh. Feel as if time is passing me by and far too quickly. Probably because I have a birthday coming that I sort of don't want to come. It's not that I don't want to celebrate it (don't mind that)so much as I just wish it would not come. I'm not ready to be 37, damn it. Along with my mother visiting, a brother's baby shower (which she's coming for), and well...this is going to be a very tough two weeks, we'll see if I get through them. Especially since my mother has decided to go on the South Beach diet - which means she can't have any bread or carb products. Which wouldn't be a problem, except I'm sort of living off pasta and crackers right now - because it's cheap. Plus I'm terrified she'll take one look at my apartment and how I live, actually she's staying with me for five days...so it doesn't have to be limited to one look, and think, okay that's it, we're moving you in with us until you find a job. (Like I'm going to have an easier time finding a frigging job in human resources management on Hilton Head Island, SC? Ugh! I'm too old for this nonsense. How many frigging jobs do I have to apply for and interview with to find one? A billion?)

I'm just grousing because I had yet another nightmare about the evil company. This time, I had been rehired by them on a part-time basis and was brought in to the evil boss's office where he derided me for not bringing in content. I still had 0 budget to bring in the content. But he didn't care.
And I was demoted or something. Lots of long hallways in this dream and cave-like offices. No wonder I'm loving Angel S5, I completely identify with the situation. Methinks my subconscious is reminding me that no matter how bad things get, quitting evil company was a good thing.

Oh a bit of humor for anyone following the whole Caveman vs. Astronaut debates on the fanboards. Origin of the cavemen vs. astronaute debate.
Apparently the debate originated with the Mutant Enemy writers specifically David Fury and Stephen De Knight, who mentioned it while doing the Comic-con 2003 Writers Panel and actually launched into the debate right there on stage. Apparently in real life the ME writers argued over this for an entire hour. (This according to a reviewer at Dark Horse who was there.) Now, what I want to know is which writer was arguing cave-men and which astronauts? My current guess? Fury was arguing for the cavemen and Deknight for the astronauts. I can just see Whedon explaining all this to JM and DB while directing them for this episode. Oh to be a fly on the wall during that one. Hmmm...so Deknight and Fury are fighting over it. Whedon comes in and asks the Wes question: "do they have weapons..." after Bell warns him to stay far away from it. (Anyone else really want Whedon to do commentary for Hole in The World for S5 ATS DVD?)
What's even funnier...is I can totally imagine this fight, and they probably had it around the time they were co-writing either Awakenings or Destiny. Possibly Destiny. Since they argued during the writing of Destiny about who should win the Angel/Spike fight. Pretty heatedly. Fury won that one. (Being co-showrunner does help.)


In other news? A shred of hope for us Angel fans, according to whedonesque 19 of WB's affiliates are as pissed off about the news concerning Angel's cancellation as we are. And they are major league ones - in big urban areas. Hee Hee.

Comments

Thanks!

[masqthephlsphr.livejournal.com]

I'm not really hip to the television industry and how it works, so that was very enlightening. People talk a lot about ratings and advertising revenue in discussions like the one's we're having around the cancellation of "Angel", when that's just one facet of a very large, complex business. In the age of pay-cable TV, it's not all about ratings and advertising anymore, is it?

I know it's probably very low-brow of me that the only thing I actually watch my cable for is to get decent reception of "Angel", thereby missing out on all those other cable offerings out there. But I really have become a DVD enthusiast, and I catch up on other shows (Smallville, Alias, etc) years after they've "aired" by watching DVDs.

That's another way television is changing, isn't it? Just because I don't tune into a show while it's "on the air" (an old-fashioned term, if there ever was one), doesn't mean I don't watch it and pay money to watch it.

Interesting.

You're welcome ;-)

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

The only reason I know so much about this is I considered pursuing a career on the business side of TV this past year. After a few interviews, research and a marketing class - I decided to go the human resources route instead. What I learned was Neilsen Ratings are just one of many gauges they use to figure out what show to promote and what show to cancel. It's a method of gauging the audience's reaction to things. And the reports they get from Neilsen's aren't just how many people in what demo watched what, they also find out what those people buy, whether they bought a new car this year, went on a vacation, etc. That's info the advertisers buy. Now all of this is great - if the viewers aren't paying for the show to be broadcast to them, don't have VHS to tape it, and don't have Tivo. Then advertisements matter. But if the viewer is someone who waits for DVD's to come out, only watches a taped version so they can fast-forward through commericials or has something like Replay or Tivo that can cut out commericals...then you have a whole new world and the Neilsen's don't tell you anything.

Another item, DVD, Tivo, VHS taping all effects is when the viewer watchs the program. So Levin wants to use Smallville to launch Lost in Space...and beat out The OC. Good luck. Today's viewer may not watch Smallville on Wed then whatever comes after it. With Tivo they can watch Smallville whenever they want. They can program Tivo to deliver Smallville, Enterprise, The OC and West Wing. And if they have Replay, they can cut all the extranous material including promos for Lost in Space. So Lost in Space could air any night of the week and do just as well. Of course not everyone can afford Tivo or Replay. But everyone can afford VHS and tape shows. They also have computers to download stuff.

Meanwhile cable stations like HBO are offering viewers an option to just pay to watch the show they want on HBO. HBO on demand - allows you to pick say Sex in The City and watch only it on HBO at any time you want. Then there's the idea HBO came up with and F/X is copying: the 13 episode tele-novel series shown all at once, each year. Sopranos is 13 episodes - shown each week, no reruns, complete season arc. Then goes on hiatus. You get the DVD's. Next year book two - 13 episodes. Same with Six Feet Under. F/X does it with The Sheild and Nip/Tuck -it's cheaper -because it's 13 episodes. They appear in an arc without breaks between. And then you sell a DVD right after the season airs. That's the new model and it's the one that WB/Fox/ABC/CBS/NBC have been too slow to figure out how to take advantage of. (Fox and F/X by the way may be part of the same parent company 20th Century Fox, but they don't talk to each other and do not share profits and really operate as two separate entities and networks. They might as well be Fox and CBS.) Fox had a perfect opportunity to try this new model with Firefly - Firefly was even set up for it. Do 13 episode arcs like Sopranos, sell DVD's. Perfect. But they were too busy focusing on the old model, and forecasted the cost of Firefly within that old model's formula, thus let the opportunity slip through their fingers. Dumb move. But typical of this industry. They don't understand the popularity of DVDs- they really don't. It astonished me when the guy I was interning with told me this. SMG once said:"Why spend money on DVD's when you can get them for free in reruns?" Which is a really stupid comment and shows how little she knows about television viewers. We do pay for the reruns-because we pay for cable. The DVD's aren't just episodes, they have commentary and are digitally enhanced. Also reruns don't last forever nor does tape. DVD lasts longer. But her comment is very typical of the network brass. Also television has changed so rapidly. DVD technology is relatively new. It was just introduced three years ago. So you can't blame these guys for being slow on the up-take. That said? As I learned this summer - being slow in the TV industry is the kiss-of-death. You have to be quick or someone else will grab that pot-of-gold opportunity.