24

Upfronts: Veronica Lives!! FOX, Not So Much

May 19, 2006 by Jim Connelly

I know, I know — we’ve all been reading for a few weeks now that the low-rated but critically-loved Veronica Mars was going to make the cut at the CW, but I wanted to wait until it was officially announced.

I’m so happy that I promise not to make fun of their name for at least a few months. Though I think, given all of the narrowly targeted shows that they offer — the aforementioned Veronica Mars, Smallville, Supernatural, 7th Heaven — their name stands for “Cultshow Watching.” OK, now I won’t make fun of their name.

It will be interesting to see where they go. More towards the WB than UPN, I should think. By the late 1990s, the WB pretty much took over the mantle from FOX as the network that would try just about anything. Yet anybody who actually watched their shows could see that there was much more going on than pretty white teenagers who happened to be aliens and/or superheroes.

Upfronts: I Was Lost And Now I Am Found

May 17, 2006 by Jim Connelly

ABC, who once was blind, now can see.

ABC has announced that Lost, a show that is either (take your pick):

intricately plotted by insidious masterminds
completely cobbled together by panic-stricken monkeys
both

will air next season with no repeats, the plethora of which this season has taken some of the wind from its sails.

Good! Of course, FOX has been doing this with 24 for a couple of seasons now. However, unlike 24 — which derives at least part of its adrenaline rush from the fact that the airing of its episodes is as relentless as the beep-boop! beep-boop! beep-boop! beep-boop! that powers it — next season of Lost will air in two disparate chunks.

Some people see that as a problem. I don’t.

Does TV Want to be Free?

March 1, 2006 by Jim Connelly

The L.A Times has an article today pointing out that TV execs are having a devil of a time convincing people that when they download a television show from, say, BitTorrent, that they are stealing that show. In a weird way, it’s a problem that the TV industry created itself: for over a half-century, we’ve been told that, unlike a song, or a film, or a book, or a videogame — that show you are watching is free.

You the consumer aren’t paying for it, but rather the advertiser(s) who sponsoring that show, hoping to get you to purchase their product(s). My guess is that this is a model that is rapidly becoming outdated, and we are lurching toward a totally new era, where how we consume TV will be more like how we consume other media products.