CNN.com is reporting that CBS is cancelling Smith , it’s cops & robbers show that emulates a lot of Michael Mann’s Heat. I blogged about this show less than four days ago. Talk about a quick hook.
But the real travesty here isn’t that this show got cancelled; it’s that it exposes television executives for the morons they really are.
What I didn’t realize until I read the CNN.com article was that Smith was also going head-to-head against NBC’s Law & Order: SVU and ABC’s Boston Legal in the same Tuesday night time slot. I didn’t realize it because I own a TiVo and a satellite dish, which means I don’t have to choose; I can record competing shows by setting my TiVo to record one show on an east coast feed, another on a mountain timezone feed, and another on a pacific timezone feed.
But while I can do that, not everyone else can, which shows how stupid television executives are. For some reason they think there’s only one or two good hours a week to air their stuff, so they all stick their shows on the same nights at the same time. Thursday, for whatever reason statisticians have come up with, appears to be a huge night, with Survivor, Grey’s Anatomy, CSI and ER all jammed into a couple of hours of competitive television. If I didn’t have a TiVo I’d be downright upset about this.
Newsflash for the mentally handicapped in the television industry: there’s 7 days in the week. According to the Wikipedia, prime time television is considered to be a three-hour block, Monday through Saturday (although anyone watching television knows Sunday counts too, otherwise shows like Grey’s Anatomy, X-Files, Desperate Housewives and The Amazing Race wouldn’t be there).
Let’s do some math. Seven nights a week times three hours per night equals… 21 hours of television. Which means there no flippin’ reason you stupid bastards have to put all the good shows on at the same time, scratching and clawing for the same viewers.
Did any of you dummies watch A Beautiful Mind? Did you not learn anything from the Nash equillibrium? Let me spell it out for you in simple terms: when you try and win everything, you shaft everyone, including yourself.
There’s 21 hours of primetime television, yet all of you doofuses stick the same types of shows on during the same timeslots. You pit your dramas against each other, and your comedies against each other, and your news shows against each other. Did you ever stop to think you might make a killing on a good drama if it’s not going head-to-head against the other network’s great dramas? Why weaken your viewership by putting your show in a position of competition?
Bottom line: You’re screwing viewers over. This is why on-demand is going to kill you. Because you’re too stupid to recognize that viewers don’t want to be forced to make a choice between two shows they like. You think because you “won” a given timeslot that you’re doing the right thing, but in the end you’re just alienating viewers. Eventually it’s going to come back and bite you.
Finally: Memo to HBO - pick up Smith and retool it please. Good actors, good premise… And it’s about 100 times better than the lame Lucky Louie…