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A little musing about TV business and ratings from me again … (well, my interest for TV, film, fandoms goes beyond entertainment, social scientist talking, so, please bare with me)
To me it looks like even the authors on Huffingtonpost are getting only part of the point. How many people watch a show, how dedicated they are is not the main thing but what brings revenue and profit. The rating-system is only about measuring, getting numbers to predict if something is or will be profitable or not on TV. In question is not just the rating system but the whole TV business as we know it, and particular that is true for scripted TV shows.
How do TV companies make money? The big business, the big money for TV so far has been in advertising, meaning selling air time to other companies to advertise for their products. You can get somewhat different opinions on how important DVD sales are, but when looking at these numbers for The Simpsons, selling advertising is by far the bigger number, besides what is called merchandising (excluding DVD sales)… Now merchandising besides DVD sales is big business for some, but for many TV series it’s not bringing as much as for such shows as The Simpsons. For many popular procedural shows, mostly crime and medical dramas, the kind of merchandising a show like The Simpsons can do, is not possible. I mean, for example doubt that a figure set of CSI characters would sell that well.
For live event shows (sport events, show events like Amazing Race, American Idol, reality shows) the big money is still in advertising, what makes them TV companies’ darlings. Let’s simply say, revenue for live event shows is more predictable and clear, it’s still mostly advertising and maybe some merchandising. Measuring viewer numbers (and it’s not so hard to include internet live-stream viewers in these numbers) and buzz on social media sites is a rather good indicator for the success of these kind of shows. The old measurements and TV business models work still quite fine in this sector.
With scripted TV series things are a tad more complicate by now, there is a mix of things bringing revenue, and the mix can be quite different for different series. While one show might bring a little less in advertising revenue during first run, it might be a big selling hit in syndication, national or international, or it could do even better in DVD sales, or as competition to DVD sales nowadays online streaming and downloading (Hulu, Netflix, Itunes). Predicting that wasn’t easy before the social media boom, first run ratings aren’t always a good measure to predict it. Social media might now help with numbers for this, but so far it is rather unresearched how reliable any numbers drawn from social media buzz will be, can be, if they can tell more about potential for DVD sales, online streaming/downloads and merchandising than good old Nielsen Rating did.
Not to mention, profit begins only when your revenue is (on the long run) higher than the costs for production. So shows with small budgets can even with small audience and smaller sales make some money, while for big budget shows it has to be big audience, big sale. Remember, all things are relative.
Nielsen are changing their system, they are already running tests in collaboration with Twitter, and from Fall 2013 numbers for the “Nielsen Twitter TV Rating” will be available. It’s though only an enhancement of the classical TV viewer ratings, because it still is focused on live airing.
Numbers for DVD sales, online streaming and download are available, but there is no simple way to integrate it into the Nielsen Rating, TV ratings, quite simple because of different time frames – but that doesn’t mean those numbers aren’t looked at by those making decisions about picking up, reneweing or cancelling TV shows. Just because some TV critics and fandoms still make such a buzz about Nielsen Ratings it’s not like business takes only those ratings and only rating numbers into account.
TV business is changing, and we might see scripted TV shows go a very different way in the future than live TV events. One interesting question will be, if internet based series will be able to make enough revenue for example to attract more producers to this possibility and one day make classic TV a second choice as distribution channel for audio-visual fictional story telling of whatever kind. Will for example pay-per-view or video-on-demand be able to bring the money to refinance production costs and then even bring in profit? So far classical TV (broadcast and cable) is still bringing in the bigger deal, and that still means mostly revenue based on advertising, but the share of other distribution channels is increasing.
Nielsen TV Ratings are far from outdated for measuring impact on TV, but the future for the kind of story telling scripted TV series and TV movies present might be not on TV anymore.
@HappyEndings wrote:
You know what makes me mad is that the cater to everyone who is 49 and younger, what about older people we should count in fact there is more senior citizens that watch tv then the younger generation 👿
Well, marketing business has as much to do with myth as with numbers, and sometimes one can wonder if the myths are not more important. There is the idea, that younger people are more impressible for advertising, with age we become more stuck in habits and less open to change and buy new stuff 😉 So senior citizens might watch even more TV but they are still seen as less worth for selling advertising. The thing in TV business is not the cheer number here but what merit whoever is giving the money expect it to have.
There is hope, that even that might change though. see here
Can’t point it out often enough: the media buzz about Nielsen TV Ratings doesn’t equal (anymore) how business people look at the numbers. And: the free, public available numbers we have here are just a fraction of what Nielsen is putting together.
I know I won’t be able to talk anyone here ever out of paying attention to these public ratings numbers. Not saying they indicate nothing, only that what they mean is often overrated in many places.
So grab your towl, drink a cup of Earl Grey and … Don’t Panic! 😎
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Again, impressed by the work, Keb. Passion for details. b^.^d
Getting slightly tired of fanwanking, as much fun as I have straining my mind to come up with explanations and discussing them. Wonder if they have a concept of time on the show. (warning, this might get longer) :ugeek:
K&H stated there is no time travel on OUaT. Now the interesting question for me is, what do they define as time travel?
They were writers and producers and the TV series Lost. I know Lost was full of time traveling, but it was rather confusing at times (didn’t watch it regularly myself, but am a regular reader of sites/magazines discussing science fiction). They traveled physical in time and with their consciousness in Lost, not to mention there were flashbacks and flashforwards, which are no time travel for the characters, but one can say a form of time travel for the audience, to confuse things sometimes even more for them. Well, thinking about time can give one headaches any time (wrote my master thesis about time-use and time-perception of students, and have been fascinated by our concepts and ideas of time since).
Common definition is, that time travel means people going from a certain point in their time back or forth to another point of time, and I add, without using as much time for their journey as has passed or will pass in normal time between these two moments. Without this clarification, that less time has passed to get from time point A to B than has passed in surrounding time frame, all of our lives would be time travel, just the normal movement in time forward would be. Backward is another thing, hypothetical one could move backwards in time in the same time, and that would not necessarily be defined as time travel, just living a normal time line the other way around, but many would call it time travel as well. So coming to this definition: Time travel is moving in time faster than normal, slower than normal or in a direction, that usually in our linear, normal time frame doesn’t happen. That would only exclude the normal movement from present to future in normal time and pretty much declare every other movement in time as time travel.
In other words: If the difference in departure time and arrival time as measured in the surrounding world is not the same as the duration of the journey, we can talk of time travel. As well a movement in time which is not linear (not progressing in one, forward direction) or not according to our normal movements in time could be called time travel. Note: time travel always defines in relation to something, the surrounding world and/or other people. I might not notice that my movement in time is different from any outer time frame unless I compare it.
Not so sure if that is how K&H are seeing it. They said, there is no time travel and that time is linear, but works differently in different places. here
Time is linear has at first not much to do with physical definitions of time but with philosophical and religious views on time. Linear means progessing in one direction, what normally is defined as progressing from past to present to future, with a beginning and a possible end, different from the idea of cyclical time, where events repeat after a while, although maybe in variations. Linear time is our dominant Western view and concept of time. It all started with a big bang. Additional we see time as something which can be measured, can be broken down into even units independend of our own individual perceptions. Time in physics is not per se linear. It was in the Newton mechanincs, when it still was seen as an independend factor being everywhere the same, but since then things have changed. What brings us not to a cyclical view of time but a non-linear view of time. In physics we now work with the notion, that time is related with space, so some talk of Spacetime. It is hypothetical possible, that for someone in place A two hours went by, while for someone traveling from A to B and back only one hour went by. More so time in physics is in theory not imperatively progressing in one direction but can progress in different directions. We experience or see time progress only in one direction though, so the concept of the Arrow of time was developed to explain this.
Have I lost you in time by now? 😉
I am suspecting that K&H see time travel as merely what H.G. Wells’ time machine would do, to travel back and forth in time, despite that having worked on Lost should provide them with different ideas. The possibility of a charater skipping an amount of time while traversing a portal, the barriers of time and space might not quite count as time traveling in their view. That time works differently, go by differently in different places doesn’t cause any kind of time traveling in that view, when someone moves betweens the realms.
The important part is, that on OUaT time goes into one direction, no one can go back and forth, although time might pass with different pace in different places. Time in Neverland for example might actually pass faster, thus Wendy felt like she had been there like days while for Bae back in Victorian London only a few hours, a night has passed. To compensate for time passing faster in Neverland biological aging is suspended as long as you are there. Different the Enchanted Forest. There it seems like time moves at the same pace as in our world – although that still is giving me headaches, wondering if our fairy tales existed first and they just accidentally lived parts of them, or if the people of the Enchanted Forest are the models for our fairy tales. Anyway, time passed the same way in the Enchanted Forest, they just lived in a different society, which because of magic had no need to develop science and machines as we did. That would mean: The first years of Regina and Snow White, Snow Whites childhood unfolded in the Enchanted Forest while in our world events like Vietnam War, First Moon Landing, Watergate, Coup d’Etat in Chile, Oil crisis, Iranian revolution made headlines, aka the 70s, although most of what we’ve seen in flasback so far, the escalation of things up to the wedding happened while we were in the early 80s.
Possible that the Enchanted Forest was in a different time frame before the curse, and that only with the curse it synchronized with the time frame of our world, so that Snow and Emma didn’t experience any time difference while being there in Post-cursed Enchanted Forest.
If time in Neverland moves faster, like what Wendy said suggests, Bae in his own perception might have spend hundred of years there, while just a few decades might have gone by in our world. So possible that what Bae told Emma, he would be hundred of years old, is based on his own perception, experience of time while being in Neverland (or near to it). If he had come to our world and stayed here he would have been just some decades, maybe 120-150 years old. Quite likely Neal never went to school in our world, so safe to assume he actually has not much of an idea of how much time passed here between Victorian London an present time.
Have K&H ever said something about the overall time frame? I am just wondering. We assume Rumple is about 300 years old, and as far as I know that is only based on an interview of Robert Carleyle. Don’t think that Robert made it up out of the blue, but isn’t it possible, Rumple is younger? Maybe we should forget a while about how old Rumple is and just concentrated on bringing events into the right (linear) order.
That Regina was able to grab the apple she offered Snow White in past Enchanted Forest in present Storybrooke by using Jeffersons hat and magic pretty much contradicts that there is no time travel. Unless, unless … unless the apple accidentally or because of fate got stuck and preserved in some rabbit hole until Regina grabbed it and they just didn’t show it. Or unless Regina didn’t actually conjure that very apple but an exact copy of it including sleeping curse, because the hat is able to materialize something that the user thinks of besides that it offers traveling to different realms. (There is not much I can’t find an explanation for).
Still open, if Bae landed in historical Victorian London or a fictional London. Neal told Emma this world was not his first stop, but well, Neal could have meant, not this world now and here, at this time, in this exact place, people not always talk all precise. 🙄
Or: Despite all efforts to keep track, the timeline in the writers room has become an obscure mess and they simply lost it. 😈
edit: Very much ignoring here that any form of (fictional) time travel will make your head explode when you start thinking about it for longer. 😆
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@RumplesGirl wrote:
It bugs me that the timeline doesn’t add up….if Bae ended up in turn of the century London, there is at least a century or two unaccounted for! Are they actually in our world there or a fictional storybook version of London as has been suggested?
I believe the answer is that portals travel in time and space, much like Jefferson’s hat.
K&H said it just recently again, that there is no time travel in OUaT, time is linear, although it works differently in different lands source
That Regina with the help of Jefferson was able to use the hat to get a tiny object from the past into present Storybrooke kinda contradicts that. but, oh, well, maybe the apple got stuck in some rabbit hole for some years before it fell through the hat up into Regina’s hand. And the same happened to Bae. Or so. 🙄
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Just a few lines … 😉
Neal (to Tamara): Come back to bed. I’ll give you a workout.
(don’t want to explore that one, do we.) 😯Mr. Gold: You stared at her, and I know how you think. So kiss… My… Boots.
(someone has a boot fetish)Neal: Surprised you didn’t turn him into a snail
(so are we…) 😮(we’re getting a bit kinky here, dear writers, are we)
Neal: We’re getting married!
Mr. Gold: That’s never gonna last, not while you carry a torch for Emma.
Neal: You haven’t changed one bit.
(indeed)MM: There is only one person who could overpower Regina.
David: Gold.
(The butler did it! Of course. Not.)Tamara: I think the home office is gonna have a field day with everything we collected so far.
(like us crazy fans ;))Greg: Hook, would you mind lending me a hand? And preferably your good one.
(so the shiny one, right?)Hook: When you’re interested in killing Rumplestiltskin and not torturing the queen, find me.
(he is a man of principles)Bae: And your parents don’t suspect anything?
Wendy: They’re grown-ups. They can’t see anything that’s not right in front of them.
Mr. Darling: We can’t, can we?
(rule for teenagers: never underestimate your parents) 😛Neal: Maybe she just likes to run on the beach.
(maybe. or maybe not)Bae: Magic destroyed my family. I don’t want it to do the same to yours. If the shadow comes back, promise me you won’t go anywhere near it.
Wendy: All right, Bae, I promise.
(promises, promises…)Mary Margret: Regina is missing and we think she might be in danger.
Mr. Gold: Just the way I like her. Now, if you’ll excuse me…
(her missing or being in danger or both?)Mr. Gold: Never underestimate the power of a guilty conscience.
(you certainly know something about that)Mary Margret: Why do you have one of Regina’s tears?
(well, he is Rumple)Mr. Gold (to Mary Margaret): Well, just think of a dark moment, dearie, something bleak and hopeless. I know you have a few.
(you sure do know that, being involved in most of it)Mr. Gold: You will be connected to Regina, wherever she is. Whatever she sees, you’ll see. Whatever she feels, you’ll feel.
(…so, dearie, enjoy it while it lasts)Mr. Gold (to Lacey): I think you might wanna pour yourself another drink.
(cheers!)Wendy: It’s called Neverland, and there are no grown-ups there, and children never grow old. And we can do anything we want, even fly!
Bae: It’s a trick. Don’t go with him. You don’t need magic. You have a family right here. That’s the only thing that matters.
Wendy: This is what I’ve always dreamed of. You just don’t believe.
(some know magic, some just believe in it)Neal: So, uh, where do you think she’s hiding Regina, a sand castle?
(very funny, dude)Emma: What do you wanna hear, Neal? That it killed me you never came looking for me even once I was locked up? That it didn’t hurt that you found Tallahassee with someone else?
(what do you want to tell?)Neal: I wanted to go to jail for you.
(it’s easy to be wise after the event)Neal: I wanted to love you. I just… I was too afraid.
Emma: Of what?
Neal: That you would never forgive me, ’cause I never forgave myself. There hasn’t been a day that’s gone by that I don’t regret having left you. … I’m soryy Emma, for everything.
Emma: Me too.
(about time… but hey, wait, we can’t yet have a happy ending, this is just season two)Regina: You have no idea who you’re dealing with.
Greg: Actually, no, you have no idea who you’re dealing with.
Regina: A couple of fools in over their heads who go around stealing magic.
(agree with the couple of fools part)Greg: We’re not here to steal magic. We here to destroy it.
Tamara: Magic does not belong in this world. It’s unholy. We’re here to cleanse this land of it.
(crusaders against magic)Regina: They?
Greg: Believers. People that know that magic is real.
(uh, wait, where is Mulder?) 🙄Wendy: It’s an island, where there are no grown-ups to tell you what to do. But there are mermaids and fairies and all sort of mystical creatures.
(is there a Dharma thingy and some smoke monster too?)Mr. Gold: Because magic always comes with a price. Tends to drive away the people I care about most.
Lacey: Well, then you’ve been caring about the wrong people
(one way to see it)Mr. Gold: Immortal means to live forever. It doesn’t mean one can’t be killed.
(as the Highlander already teached us)Lacey: I thought you were a man who… who wouldn’t let anything stand in his way.
Mr. Gold: I am.
(true self)Neal: Emma, if Tamara is hiding Regina here in her evil lair by the docks, yeah, I got your back.
(but only if)Tamara: Time to go.
(yep, finally you got it)Regina: I buried his body at your campsite. I doubt he gets many visitors there.
(you had to say it, of course, the queen of the last words)Greg: Now you’re never gonna hurt anyone ever again.
(wishful thinking)Emma: Please, don’t let go. I need you. I love you.
Neal: I love you too.
(there, they said it)Hook: Get the sea out of your lungs.
(you don’t want to turn into a merman, do you)David (to Regina): You really think we’d let you die? Despite our differences, we’re family.
(what a family)Regina: You wanna discuss justification? You were going to abandon me.
(Evil Queen logic)Tamara: There’s only one way to get what we all want. We have to blow Storybrooke off the map.
(you know, for my part, I’d be fine to keep that little town around)¯\_(?????? ?)_/¯
If they erase Storybrooke, they will have to find a way to save most of its inhabitents, or otherwise they will have to do some explaining if they ever bring in any new fairy tale character in the future (unless they do that only in flashbacks from now on). Of course, possible we’re done with new fairy tale characters and going only to explore other magic storybook realms then, and if they hadn’t been effected by the Dark Curse, or if in different ways, it’s possible to find new characters there. Not saying it can’t work at all, but it has plenty of pitfalls for future story telling on OUaT. Though some writers like challenges.
They will have to find a very good way to evacuate the people of Storybrooke in time. The beans hardly will be the thing, with just three beans left. So leaves Rumple, Regina (if she gets her maigc back), Blue Fairy eventually and maybe Emma to do something extraordinary to save most. Hmmmmm. Maybe might be able to do that as team, but it would smell like big time contrived story plot no matter what. Although could possibly say the same about them saving Storybrooke.
I’m skeptical, that they should erase it, but they might do it. It’s like destroying the Enterprise (what has been done several times in the movies but in the series only as part of some wacko time travel/anomaly stories) or Sunnydale (what they did do at the end of the series). I’m no Lost expert, but as far as I know they never destroyed the island. The characters might come from the Enchanted Forest and other realms but Storybrooke was the focal point. It might be the right time for main characters to leave (for a while, happened in a way for the first half of this season already with Emma and Snow), maybe, but erasing Storybrooke would reduce future options for the show.
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@thelonebamf wrote:
But what is this group? Well, having it confirmed that Tamara’s name should be pronounced “Tomorrow” I started thinking. When I hear “Tomorrow” the first thing that comes to mind is the sort of B-Movie dialogue “Welcome to the worrrrld of tomorrrrowwwww!” Where might you hear such a thing?
Let’s keep it in the family, shall we?
I think they’re a part of the “Eradication of Potential Catastrophic Occult Threats”. XD
Edit: Um. I actually looked it up and EPCOT is an acronym for “Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow”. Hrm.
Maybe we should mention, that EPCOT was a project of Walt Disney himself, a community for people to live in, not just theme park but way more, at its core a city to develop new technology and living ways for the future. The existing Epcot theme park is what is left of it, sort of. There were far bigger plans for Disney World. Think some might not know 😉
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Look who we have here …
For all the fans of Graham: Jamie Dornan is going to be on a new BBC thriller called “The Fall”. The show star Gillian Anderson (some might remember her as Dana Scully from X-Files), and besides Jamie Dornan Archie Panjabi (The Good Wife) will be on it too.
But … Jamie is not going to play the nice guy here. 😈
The new series will start airing on BBC2 on May 13 and will be available on Netflix for the US and Latin America end of May. More info and a trailer here
Eion Bailey (August/Pinocchio) was recently in an episode of “Law&Order Special Victims Unit” (SVU) as PTSD suffering war veteran, who nevertheless helps to find those responsible for the mob rape of a young woman on a concert (episode Traumatic Wound, 14×21, aired May 1st).
Raphael Sbarge had been busy and been on a number of shows as guest. Played a Bigfoot expert on “Castle” (episode no 5×20), the brother of a fireman on “Chicago Fire” (ep. 1×19), he was on “The Good Wife” (ep. 4×14) and “Criminal Minds” (ep. 8×9).
And Giancarlo Esposito (Sidney Glass/ The Mirror/ Jinn) can be seen at the moment on “Revolution”.
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Possible the Duke wanted the war to go on. Possible the Duke asked the Dark One to make him win the war, but that was not doable even with the darkest powerful magic in this world, and only a truce was the way out, but that was something not coming to the mind of the Duke, so he never asked for it. Rumple as The Dark One didn’t care what the Duke wanted, so he ended the fightings by making a truce.
Wars are always coming with propaganda. Maybe the ogres originally were men, maybe not. One way or the other the common image, the image spread among humans about ogres was influenced by war propaganda. We know pretty much nothing about them, their way of living, their culture, their abilities, we know only what has been told by humans. Remember what has been said about the giants. Think the ogres could be the “savages” of the Enchanted Forest, no one knows much about them and no one knows how to communicate with them, but everybody fears them because they are physically stronger than humans. Or they are just bad guys like the trolls (although we only met these bridge trolls, bandits, who knows if all trolls are like that).
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@thelonebamf wrote:
I’m trying to imagine how Aurora might have been developed differently. (Also, pardon my confusion, but in early episodes Regina and Maleficent talk about how Phillip and Aurora overcame the sleeping curse. So why is Aurora asleep again at the beginning of season 2? I think my mind must have messed up somewhere.) Aurora in the animated film was a little sassy, had a lovely singing voice (par for princesses) and was raised by fairies? A bit of a curious streak. I’m trying to imagine where we could edge some fun character development in to that story.
A bit to the confusion of anyone who knows merely the Grimm and the Disney version of Sleeping Beauty: Aurora is not the original Sleeping Beauty. In the early version of Perault (which the Grimm version is based on, but they left some things out) Sleeping Beauty has two children, a son name Day (french Le Jour) and a daughter named Dawn (french L’Aurore – Dawn, like Buffy’s “sister”, what a coincedence). Regina and Malifecent are not talking about Phillip and Aurora, they are talking about Aurora’s mother. Aurora says in the first episode she appears, that Maleficent was first after her mother and then her.
I find the reactions to Aurora interesting, many who find the character annoying, boring, wasted. She is the one princess who kinda gets the typical princess treatment, she seems to be spoiled, hardly able to look after herself, the damsel in distress type. The interesting, rather amusing thing is, Aurora is treated like that on the show itself, not by the writers but by characters, treated like a child, the little one, a fragile unexperienced young woman. Phillip is annoyingly patronizing her after she woke up, Mulan sees in her just the princess she has to protect because she promised it to Phillip (she though starts to see more in her after a while), Snow is carying but not taking her serious on her own terms, and just Emma seems to not automatically assume that Aurora is in need of protection. If I were in Aurora’s shoes it would annoy the heck out of me – and she does react annoyed. She tells Phillip no to spare her, she follows Emma, Mulan and Snow, feeling that she had to take justice in her own hands, she resists Cora, something a lot of people wouldn’t have done. She is as much brave and strong as any of the other princesses and female heroes in the show, just in a different way. And she is sassy in my opinion. Seeing parallels to Belle here, who sometimes as well is taken as not as heroic as other of the female characters on the show.
@Maryrose D. wrote:
Phillip- he created the whole Aurora/ Mulan love triangle which bores me to death since those two are way better as friends than jealous kids. Also he has done nothing except get sucked by a wraith and kiss a girl in the entire show. I find he just caused massive problems and if he wasn’t so stupid certain problems or issues would have been revolved sooner.
Poor guy, so far he has been just a plot device, and that twice. And in both cases Phillip was the catalyst for a story of possible womance (female bromance, some call it girlcrush).
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@KFChimera wrote:
@Phee wrote:
It’s a little victory in that it’s official confirmation that Neal at least hasn’t moved on. This indicates that the SwanFire romance isn’t dead in the water, and that it’s a theme they intend to explore.
The key I think is that the show IS exploring things. I see the potential of both Swanfire and CaptainSwan.
So do I, although more physical tension in CaptainSwan than potential for romance, so have a bit of a hard time to see CaptainSwan as happy ending (endgame) of the show. Never saw SwanFire as dead in the water in the first place, after all major themes of this show are hope and love, and there were enough hints on the show so far, that Emma and Neal both still have feelings. But this is drama, and that means, be in for a ride, don’t expect a happy ending before the last season.
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