whidbey: They could probably start by cutting back on their executives' salaries and actually hiring some marketing people who actually know how to sell advertising.

It's not from lack of trying in the marketing or sales department, I'm sure. In a bad economy, advertising budgets are the first thing a company looks at to cut from the bottom line. I used to sell Verizon Yellow Pages and was incredibly successful--until the economy began to go under. Then I could barely tread water. Left in 2004 before it REALLY got bad & Verizon sold off their Yellow Page business to a 3rd party.

Verizon had this great spiel about how advantageous it was for a company to advertise in a down economy--as your competitors pull out, you can advertise bigger & you'll get their customers! Nice bit of talk, until someone points out that Verizon Yellow Pages itself hasn't advertised on TV since 2001.

I wonder how much longer the TV, movie and music companies will keep trying to fight progress and protect dying business models?

HappyFarker: Fox said it was cutting advertising to 5 Minutes on two shows (Fringe and another one). Boosting ad costs to cover and that is their pilot program for next year. If its a success, Fox will only have 5 minutes of ads per show half of what is now). Most hour shows average 11-14 minutes of ads.

Go Fox!

Love Fringe

Yeah, but every episode's going to have 15-20 minutes of product placement.
Jack Bauer: "Wow, we outran those Chinese spies and drove all the way back to CTU on half a tank of gas. this Toyota Tundra sure is fuel efficient!"
Tony Alameda: "Yeah, and durable! You can barely see the gunshots! We'd better stop at this Chevron station and fill up on the only fuel with Techron. There's a Burger King next door too. I know how much Chloe likes her Flamin Hot Hollerin Jalapeno Chicken Sandwich(tm). Maybe it will be so tasty that she won't turn out to be a mole this season."
Jack: "Hey, get me a milkshake while you're there."
Tony: "Oh, you should try their new Ice Cold Extreme Vanilla Pancake Shake Latte(tm)."
Jack: "Hold on, I'm getting a call on my 16GB Apple iPhone 3G (available in black and white)"
--Clock counting down as scene transitions. Timex logo clearly visible at corner of clock--

jimmy2x: Ok - I'll be the one to ask - what is HULU?

And Life is the best show on TV.

http://www.hulu.com Kinda self-explanatory once you get there. Like YouTube, but for full episodes. Totally legal too, funded by the TV networks. Usually post a show the next day after it airs.

"Forget it Jack, we're not going to become corporate shills."
"Wow, this Diet Snapple tastes just like regular Snapple!"
"I know, right?"
"I only date guys that drink Snapple."

Here's a good way to save an hour of unwatchable garbage for NBC.


FIRE JIMMY FALLON NOW!!!

bberg: serial_crusher: Chuck is good (although a little shark jumpy this season). Heroes is total fail, but still brings in viewers. Other than that, I don't give an ass about NBC. Saturday night live stopped being funny about 15 years ago.

I find your lack of "The Office" disturbing.

You're right about that one. Should have been on list (although Steve Corel has clearly never worked in an office before and plays his part far goofier than he should. I like it more for the ancillary characters like Stanley)

If NBC really wanted to do better as a network, they would move all of the First Run shows from USA and Sci-Fi, like Monk, Psych, L&O:CI, BSG, and Stargate to NBC and only do the reruns on the other networks.

I stoped watching TV 2 1/2 years ago (to pay off all my debt).....I missed it first....now I don't. Most of the time when I do TV shows, they all sucked (except for NINJAWARRIOR!! & Olivia but that is another story). Don't miss it at all.

On another note TV stations used to 'sign-off' at night, show the flag and play the star-spangle banner, why not go back to that to save money?

ferretman: I stoped watching TV 2 1/2 years ago (to pay off all my debt).....I missed it first....now I don't. Most of the time when I do TV shows, they all sucked (except for NINJAWARRIOR!! & Olivia but that is another story). Don't miss it at all.

On another note TV stations used to 'sign-off' at night, show the flag and play the star-spangle banner, why not go back to that to save money?

Also my spelling and engrish is bad.

While I am in no way upset in the slow death of an ancient and outdated business model I must lament for the shows cut in the crossfire.

Pushing Daisies will forever remain a delightful mix of sweet and morbid in my memory. I cannot for the life of me fathom how Fuller can choose to go to Heroes over this wonderful creation of his.

Dead Like Me, Wonderfalls, Pushing Daisies. The guy is brilliant but under-appreciated.

ferretman: On another note TV stations used to 'sign-off' at night, show the flag and play the star-spangle banner, why not go back to that to save money?

As dumb as it might be, think of all the infomercials that have popped up in the night. They're essentially filling out those four hours with infomercials because it brings in ad revenue, albeit for ads that will never be seen by any normal human. So to answer the question, I'm sure there's some equation as to why it's infomercials instead of off-air time.

I'm not watching much TV when it airs because the ads are getting to be too much. Last week I was watching "The Incredibles" on NBC, and I swear they'd run five minutes of the show, and then three minutes of ads, then five more minutes of the show, and they kept that pattern up all night. It got very frustrating.

For regular series, the same issue arises. I envy the British model of having a show run about 47 minutes, and then wedging in adverts later. Of course, they need to pay for a license to own a TV, but still-- I'd rather do that than watch the same Geico, Nissan, and AT&T ads over and over fifty times during a single show.

I try to watch Terminator the Sarah Connor Chronicles, but sometimes it's a chore. They advance the story for ten minutes, then it's time for me to get up and get a sandwich or do something else because they're playing the same ads I just saw ten minutes ago. And they do this every ten minutes. Same ads. Over and over. Subliminal advertising isn't legal, but apparently repeating something until it's stuck in your head is perfectly fine.

DiscoInferiorityComplex: imgod2u: Pushing Daisies will forever remain a delightful mix of sweet and morbid in my memory. I cannot for the life of me fathom how Fuller can choose to go to Heroes over this wonderful creation of his.


Ummm....You make it sound as if the show was canceled because he decided to go do Heroes instead.

From all that I've read (and granted, that doesn't give me great insight into the inner workings of ABC), it didn't seem like he put up much of a fight. At the very least he could've gone to the other networks to try to get them to pick it up.

It wasn't meant for network though. I would've preferred it on Showtime or HBO.