TCW (the CGI Clone Wars show) debuted in its second season with 2.58 million viewers.
Enterprise in its fourth season averaged 2.81 million viewers.
TCW's ratings are said to "kick ass", whereas Enterprise was shut down because of the low ratings.
I know, it's not a 100% fair comparison, and there are different network and other 'environment' factors (not to mention just more channels taking smaller and smaller bites out of the big pie of potential viewers), but it is ironic.
Enterprise in its fourth season averaged 2.81 million viewers.
TCW's ratings are said to "kick ass", whereas Enterprise was shut down because of the low ratings.
I know, it's not a 100% fair comparison, and there are different network and other 'environment' factors (not to mention just more channels taking smaller and smaller bites out of the big pie of potential viewers), but it is ironic.
5 comments:
It's probably because TCW doubtless costs alot less to produce, meaning they can afford to have smaller audiences than Enterprise had... That's probably why TAS remained on the air for more than a single episode (or even got green-lighted in the first place) as well...
Also notice the spiraling number of viewers for Enterprise. It was all downhill from day 1.
The problem is threefold. First, there are costs. Even at its height, TNG could not recoup its cost by first run, instead relying on reruns, video/DVD sales and -very important - merchandising - books, games, etc. around the 4th season of ENT, not only has the number of viewers shrunk, but those viewers became freeloaders - they watched it on network tv - usually on free TV, resulting in lowest money per customer, but did little else - no conventions, no books, no games, up to point where Activision sued Paramount for return of the money they payed for ST rights, claiming that those were worthless. As a result, ENT was deep in red. Surely a soap opera could only dream of such rating, but ST is ten times more costly to produce. The not absolutely modern TCW graphics allows it to be produced for far less money - and it keeps the franchise up.
Another reason is that ENT4 had low ratings at the beginning, where it counted - those are used by networks to negotiate over the price. Better ratings as the season progressed benefited them - but not the producers. They would benefit from it only in next season - and given it wouldn't be big benefit anyway, they weren't willing to wait.
Finally, psychology. By the time Coto started directing, the show was already slated for cancellation. Once such decision is made, it's very hard to reverse it - even if pure rational thinking would dictate otherwise. NOT canceling it would be a dare and whoever proposed and pushed for it would be punished if things went awry. Canceling by contrast was already the collective decision (i.e. the one for which nobody takes direct responsibility) - and for obvious reasons, nobody can tell how much the studio lost by this. To make past this, Coto had to make the show extraordinary successful, way above average, and this didn't happen. TCW, meanwhile, is still expected to increase.
Have you looked at TCW's CGI? It's turd. It's fast foodish. Yes, you can make profits when you tale shitty stories with lower budgets.
I agree, their CGI looks cheaper than the average video-game; it's pure GayStation-2. And the writing is clearly fanbois.
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