In a world where TV shows can garner massive cult followings, where their franchise lives well beyond the show itself and the fans are genuinely ‘die-hards,’ you might think the risk of hiatus isn’t there.
You might think that if a show manages to pull in millions of viewers then it’s sitting pretty.
You’d be wrong.
All of that still isn’t enough for network television; they’re obsessed with ratings and if a show doesn’t satisfy its targets then it’s living on borrowed time. Just think of Body of Proof, which enjoyed a total of 7.4 million viewers for the season finale but still suffered the cut. Shows on networks don’t need to be anything but massive seat fillers, crowd pleasers.
Somewhere along the way, a show that’s worried about ratings will lose its artistic beauty as it’s forced to focus on survival rather than entertainment.
But cable can serve as a safe house for shows killed on one of the big five networks. It can provide a place for the shows that were treated unfairly, for the shows that didn’t get to where they wanted to go creatively because they didn’t get the right number of eyeballs to look at them.
Futurama had a bumpier transition to cable than others. Originally on Fox’s comedy block in 1999, it was canceled in 2003. In 2006, Comedy Central acquired the rights and created a series of new movies and in 2010, decided to bring it back to full series, which débuted last night.
The simple fact is that network television is a tougher market to succeed in because they’re more reliant on advertising revenues. Not only do you need millions of viewers to tune in every week, you also need to churn out as many as 24 episodes a year. The two demands place an immense stress on even the most talented of writing staffs.
The complicated jigsaw puzzle of network programming isn’t new; shows have been jumping from network to network since the days of Leave it to Beaver and Get Smart. However, finding new life on cable is a growing trend–if not in actuality, then hypothetically, thanks to the blogosphere and Internet. There are comment sections that exist purely for viewers to muse over which network shows would perform best on cable channels.
Among the most notable moves was Cougar Town, shifting from ABC to TBS in early 2013. Compared to ABC’s demand for high ratings, its performance on TBS was robust enough for it to be considered an accomplished transition. Despite its strong promotional campaign, the show’s numbers dipped slightly on TBS, but not enough to hamper its perceived success.
Not all shows can be resurrected on cable, though. This past season, ABC’s Happy Endings was clearly going to get the chop, and when it did, all eyes were on USA Network – would they pick it up? Would TBS? It’s starting to become a ‘well if a network cancels it, it’d be perfect on this cable station’ situation. Unfortunately, USA passed on the show, as did its parent network, NBC.
Networks, particularly NBC, have fallen on hard times recently. As Josef Adalian say’s in his Vulture article, “many smart… executives have tried to cure the Peacock patient over the last decade, and so far, they’ve all failed.”
In 2008, the cop drama Southland premiered and like so many dramas that came before it, ratings were low and the audience wasn’t there. It was canceled after the first season. Enter TNT: a cable channel that knows its audience and swooped in to save the drama. Southland went on to air for four more seasons, enjoying steady growth in ratings and viewers throughout that time.
Networks can still house some fantastic comedy - 30 Rock, The Simpsons, Parks & Recreation, How I Met Your Mother–however, cable offers a reprieve from the cut-throat world of trying to launch a comedy on a network. With a larger offering for a more diverse demographic, viewers can definitely find a show that appeals to them on their cable stations, more so than on a network.