Dear Entertainment Weekly,
I read your latest issue and really enjoyed the article by Jeff Jensen "Are you killing TV?" He really did a good job at presenting the reasons the Television Industry thinks that the ratings are going downhill.
As an avid tv watcher, I would like to throw my two cents in as well. I think that there are three major problems that the industry is failing to take into account.
First, Technology. Yes we have come a long way baby... and it doesn't look like we will be slowing down anytime soon. DVR's and DVD's are the way of the future. I wont even watch live tv anymore because of all the commercials. I know it is how they make their money, but I think that it might be time to catch up to the changing technology. Time to be more inventive, try something new. For example, if people are only tuning in for the show and fast forwarding through the commercials, why not scrap the commercials all together and get your advertisers to do product placement. Take the futuristic example given in "The Truman Show", they never cut to commercial, but everything on the show is product placement.
Second, Hiatuses, breaks and reruns. Yeah, got it, you need them, the actors need them and all that... But you will continue to lose viewers. The networks need to come up with a new system
for this. Especially when it comes to the long breaks. Sorry, no matter how you explain it, 12 weeks is too long. The networks are stuck in this archaic system that says we only watch our favorite tv shows at certain points during the year. It's crap, we all know it. I watch tv all year round so it begs the question: Why wouldn't you do year round programming? You leave the summer months to repeats and bad reality tv and take 12 week breaks in the middle of a season. That is why cable networks consistently beat out public access networks with programming. If they were serious about fixing ratings slumps, why would they wait to introduce 18 new shows in the fall? You already have a fall line up, put something new and original on during the summer.
Third, Consistency. I have been watching tv since I can remember. And the one thing that has been missing for at least the last decade is consistency. Let me explain; when I was growing up, I knew when all my favorite shows were on. I didn't have to go searching for them. They didn't change every season. They were at the same time, every year, and you know what... I watched them. Every week. The networks are trying everything they can to figure out why viewership has been on a slow decline for years, well maybe we are tired of all your changes. I used to watch Greys Anatomy every Sunday, but now I only watch it on tivo because, like most of America, I have things to do on weekday evenings.
Stop moving things around and stop giving shows half a season to make it or break it. An easy solution for them is to give up the idea that a tv season has to cover a certain period of time. The only reason I can think of that they need to spread one show out from September to June is because of the sweeps races. Which were created by who? Advertisers? Put a show on in September, let it run it's 22 episode course without repeats and when it is over put on another 22 episode show. That takes care of 10 months of programming. Then with the last two months put out some shorter series like Bravo's "30 Days" whose first season was only 8 episodes.
That is the long and short of it... The networks don't give shows a real chance, they rely too much on ratings (which is a defunct system that I wont go into now), bowing to the whim of advertisers and instant gratification (it must be a success in the first 5 episodes or it's canceled). If they want people to tune it, than they need to keep things regular. Put a show on, keep it on for a few years and stop moving it around.
Well, I know this letter wont be published because of length, but I just had to voice my thoughts. Keep up all the good work you guys at EW do. And keep my bible coming!!!
I read your latest issue and really enjoyed the article by Jeff Jensen "Are you killing TV?" He really did a good job at presenting the reasons the Television Industry thinks that the ratings are going downhill.
As an avid tv watcher, I would like to throw my two cents in as well. I think that there are three major problems that the industry is failing to take into account.
First, Technology. Yes we have come a long way baby... and it doesn't look like we will be slowing down anytime soon. DVR's and DVD's are the way of the future. I wont even watch live tv anymore because of all the commercials. I know it is how they make their money, but I think that it might be time to catch up to the changing technology. Time to be more inventive, try something new. For example, if people are only tuning in for the show and fast forwarding through the commercials, why not scrap the commercials all together and get your advertisers to do product placement. Take the futuristic example given in "The Truman Show", they never cut to commercial, but everything on the show is product placement.
Second, Hiatuses, breaks and reruns. Yeah, got it, you need them, the actors need them and all that... But you will continue to lose viewers. The networks need to come up with a new system
for this. Especially when it comes to the long breaks. Sorry, no matter how you explain it, 12 weeks is too long. The networks are stuck in this archaic system that says we only watch our favorite tv shows at certain points during the year. It's crap, we all know it. I watch tv all year round so it begs the question: Why wouldn't you do year round programming? You leave the summer months to repeats and bad reality tv and take 12 week breaks in the middle of a season. That is why cable networks consistently beat out public access networks with programming. If they were serious about fixing ratings slumps, why would they wait to introduce 18 new shows in the fall? You already have a fall line up, put something new and original on during the summer.
Third, Consistency. I have been watching tv since I can remember. And the one thing that has been missing for at least the last decade is consistency. Let me explain; when I was growing up, I knew when all my favorite shows were on. I didn't have to go searching for them. They didn't change every season. They were at the same time, every year, and you know what... I watched them. Every week. The networks are trying everything they can to figure out why viewership has been on a slow decline for years, well maybe we are tired of all your changes. I used to watch Greys Anatomy every Sunday, but now I only watch it on tivo because, like most of America, I have things to do on weekday evenings.
Stop moving things around and stop giving shows half a season to make it or break it. An easy solution for them is to give up the idea that a tv season has to cover a certain period of time. The only reason I can think of that they need to spread one show out from September to June is because of the sweeps races. Which were created by who? Advertisers? Put a show on in September, let it run it's 22 episode course without repeats and when it is over put on another 22 episode show. That takes care of 10 months of programming. Then with the last two months put out some shorter series like Bravo's "30 Days" whose first season was only 8 episodes.
That is the long and short of it... The networks don't give shows a real chance, they rely too much on ratings (which is a defunct system that I wont go into now), bowing to the whim of advertisers and instant gratification (it must be a success in the first 5 episodes or it's canceled). If they want people to tune it, than they need to keep things regular. Put a show on, keep it on for a few years and stop moving it around.
Well, I know this letter wont be published because of length, but I just had to voice my thoughts. Keep up all the good work you guys at EW do. And keep my bible coming!!!
Yours,
Shane Kroll
Shane Kroll
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