Interview with SGU producer - contains SPOILERS

Richard Dower

http://blastr.com/2010/11/7-reasons-you-should-watc-1.php

Wright has a request for fans. "Please watch my show. ... I mean, 'I'm loving the show. I downloaded it,' ... that does not keep us on the air. Viewers have to watch our show live on the same day, otherwise our television show is going to go away," he said.

_Kaiser_

Richard Dower wrote: »

Wright has a request for fans. "Please watch my show. ... I mean, 'I'm loving the show. I downloaded it,' ... that does not keep us on the air. Viewers have to watch our show live on the same day, otherwise our television show is going to go away," he said.

Part of the problem is the rather outdated way they track the audience figures (in the same way as music charts were dictated by record/CD sales historically but now include downloads). They also rely on ad revenue by inserting commericial breaks 3/4 times over an hour long show.

The existing system isn't adequate to track the viewing habits of an increasingly tech savvy audience. As well as thousands of channels, you have DVDs, downloads (legal and otherwise), media-enabled phones etc etc.

Plus people are just generally busier these days so more and more watch programmes (even "live" shows) on a DVR that they can pause, fast-forward and rewind at will - if only to skip through all the ads a big show has (take X Factor here for example)

Also, as shows like SGU are sold and shown internationally only a few days (in some cases) after the US showings they need to be looking at ways to track this audience as well.

They need to find a way to allow people in their target markets (domestic and internationally) to watch and/or download the show at the same time (and quality) as it's being shown on TV - or within 12/24 hours anyway or people just won't wait and get them from torrents etc.

I'm sure there'd equally be a way to insert regional ads too (in the same way as theres "Irish" versions of Sky 1, Comedy Central etc)

Until the TV industry wakes up to this changed reality, good shows that don't have the mindless mass-market appeal of reality TV stuff like America's got Talent, America's Next Top Model etc will continue to lose out (and get cancelled) to these bigger pullers of viewing figures/ad revenues.


ANYWAY...

Some interesting stories ahead from the bit I read from the link (trying not to spoil it on myself!). Hopefully they'll get the chance to tell them

Conor108

Stick an on-demand HD version of the episode on a website, have a few ads (3-4 or something) play in the middle of it (Ideally before it) and make it international release none of this region locked annoyances!

That'd be grand! They'd get revenue for the ads, fans would watch it there because they'll want to support it and they've a simple way to track numbers.

Like what Channel 4 has done on Youtube

don ramo

Conor108 wrote: »

Stick an on-demand HD version of the episode on a website, have a few ads (3-4 or something) play in the middle of it (Ideally before it) and make it international release none of this region locked annoyances!

That'd be grand! They'd get revenue for the ads, fans would watch it there because they'll want to support it and they've a simple way to track numbers.

Like what Channel 4 has done on Youtube

great idea, and they can use that really annoying flash videos player that you cant seem to be able to skip forward or backwards,

the revenue they would generate would be unreal, guaranteed advertiseing to the world,

to bad itd never happen, with the bandwidth for traffic, and initial funding, think the advertising money wont come till after you air,

im surprised some lunatic hasnt attempted it yet, on a large scale, ive seen a few small scale shows like Sanctuary, IQ 147, and Riese, Sanctuary was picked up and became sucessfull on SYFY, never heard anything else from IQ147, and to my knowledge Riese is running on the SYFY website, still as small episodes, ive yet to hear of anyone going full scale on there own, would be cool for somone to kick it off, i feel its inevitable,

Conor108

Well theres Hulu but well its region locked to the US.

conor.hogan.2

In Ireland how can you even watch SGU?

What channel is it on?

But then again SG1 and alantis were shown on sky-one and I still watched it online - because I dont sit down in front of the TV for whenever they happened to be played and sometimes weeks later.

They have a website - they would be able to offer an ad supported stream of each episode or a HQ bit torrented download with as much ads in as a normal tv version which would cost them virtually nothing in distribution and piracy is negligible as people of shows like this would gladly get the proper version and bare with the 5 mins of ads.

Thor

Even if we were to sit in front of the tv and watch SGU on sky one a few days after its aired in the us. Its still pointless as they don't count the views over here.

Its a sci-fi show(Meaning generally tech savvy folk watching it!, Do they really expect people to still be governed by strict timelines on channels, Most people if not all people will prefer to download or dvr something, So they can control what they want to watch when they want to watch it!!

If i ever hear a producer or writer complain about people downloading a show running there ratings i will slap them in the FACE, Its not because its your fault for not offering better means of watching it and smarter ways of tracking those people!

If SGU gets cancelled because of bad ratings then its there own fault they have bad ratings, Its extremely hard to pull in new fans to a franchise that is over 10 years old when the first two shows were cancelled!! Not sure what they expected.