Netflix became the past year's best performer on the S&P 500.

Quote: AZDuffman

I can't believe they even use the term "Premiere Week" seriously anymore.

They don't start all the show's season openers at once, but there is still a lot of them this week. It is true that they only get 33-34 million people to watch all five networks, when the big hit shows like Cosby or Seinfeld used to get that many watching one show.

21
The Big Bang Theory (CBS)
Gotham (FOX)
The Voice (NBC)
Life in Pieces (CBS)
Minority Report (FOX)
Scorpion (CBS)
Blindspot (NBC)
NCIS: Los Angeles (CBS)
Castle (ABC)

22
NCIS (CBS)
The Voice (NBC)
The Muppets (ABC)
Scream Queens (FOX)
Fresh off the Boat (ABC)
NCIS: New Orleans (CBS)
Limitless (CBS)

23
The Middle (ABC)
Survivor (CBS)
The Mysteries of Laura (NBC)
Rosewood (FOX)
The Goldbergs (ABC)
Empire (FOX)
Modern Family (ABC)
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (NBC)
blackish (ABC)
Nashville (ABC)

24
Grey's Anatomy (ABC)
Heroes Reborn (NBC)
Scandal (ABC)
The Player (NBC)
How to Get Away with Murder (ABC)

25
The Amazing Race 26 (CBS)
Last Man Standing (ABC)
Hawaii Five-0 (CBS)
Shark Tank (ABC)
Blue Bloods (CBS)

26
48 Hours (CBS)

27
60 Minutes (CBS)
Bob's Burgers (FOX)
Once Upon a Time (ABC)
The Simpsons (FOX)
Brooklyn Nine-Nine (FOX)
Family Guy (FOX)
Blood & Oil (ABC)
The Last Man on Earth (FOX)
Quantico (ABC)

Quote: Evenbob

Too bad 80% of what they produce is unwatchable crap. I watch 3 shows by Nflix, Bloodline, H of C, and Grace and Frankie. H of C had such an awful
3rd season I might be done with it.

Netflix CEO has announced that half of the $5 billion content budget will be spent on original programming. That is a considerable budget. I doubt that ABC , NBC, or FOX spends $2.5 billion on scripted programming in a year.

Disney broadcasting (i.e. ABC) is chosen because they don't have major sports. Last year they had revenue of $6.042 billion and an operating income of $854 million. They have reality shows like Shark Tank, Americas funniest home videos. It's a good guess that ABC doesn't spend more than $2.5 billion on scripted television.

For ABC, the series Lost at $4 million an episode, was probably their most expensive show ever mainly due to its large cast, which started out with 70 adults and one dog, in addition to shooting on location in Oahu, Hawaii. Netflix is spending $4 million per episode for their prison drama, Orange is the New Black.

Quote: Pacomartin

Netflix CEO has announced that half of the $5 billion content budget will be spent on original programming.

Writing is everything, and money does
not pull good writing out of the air like
magic. It's very hit and miss. Nflix thinks
it can air crap and people will flock to it.

They won't, unless it's good.

Quote: Evenbob

Writing is everything, and money does not pull good writing out of the air like magic.

It's also difficult to quantify. You can quantify by awards which is why Netflix is so eager to have "Beasts of No Nation" eligible for an Oscar. "House of Cards," got a lot of Emmy nominations, but didn't win any of the acting, directing or writing awards.



But producing shows for awards can be risky. All the movie studios do it. Sometimes terrible movies result as "oscar baiting" goes full force. You get overwrought dramas featuring nazis and the illiterate seeking redemption. Many award winning movies are almost unheard of by the general public.

You can go by ratings. But there is very little advantage to releasing ratings information unless you are trying to be renewed. HBO released a lot of ratings for "The Sopranos" but then they were under pressure to keep releasing ratings data and their ordinary shows started to look bad.

Hit shows on premium networks like Sex and the City eventually sell heavily censored versions to basic cable networks like TNT. Hit shows on basic cable like The Walking Dead are resold to local TV stations. Eventually we may see Netflix series resold to old fashioned TV stations.

Right now Netflix is measuring the popularity of it's shows by continued subscriber growth. But eventually that will hit some kind of plateau.

The networks long ago learned that they had to have a mix of expensive shows and cheap shows that still drew the ratings.

Lost in Space: $140,000 per episode (close to a million dollars today)
The Outer Limits: $120,000 an episode (close to a million dollars today)
Episodes of reality television: $100,000 and $500,000

British and Australian shows sometimes have very low budgets
Dr Who costs about $1.5 million per hour episode today, and originally they were making monsters out of egg crates and plungers. Star Trek often used inexpensive military equipment. One of it's best known plot devices, being "beamed" to the planet surface was simply a way to reduce the special effects budgets by not having to stage landings. Later, the landing craft was introduced to bring more dramatic potential.

Quote: Pacomartin

Disney broadcasting (i.e. ABC) is chosen because they don't have major sports. Last year they had revenue of $6.042 billion and an operating income of $854 million.

In comparison HBO generated $1.8 billion in operating income based on revenue of $4.9 billion. It's a good comparison. ABC has to produce shows to fill the hours, and it generates about half the operating income on roughly the same revenue as HBO. Yet HBO makes fewer shows but some of them (like Game of Thrones) are incredibly expensive.

Also ABC probably pays a lot more superstar salaries than HBO. I am sure that HBO has some well paid actors, but the Sofia Vergara, Ed ONeill, Julie Bowen salaries in excess of $10 million are probably very few.

Quote: Pacomartin

One of it's best known plot devices, being "beamed" to the planet surface was simply a way to reduce the special effects budgets by not having to stage landings. .

On Person of Interest, the main characters
are two giant computers that we never see
or hear. They are mentioned in every scene,
we see the effects of what they do, but the
computers themselves are just a plot device.
It's brilliant, saves the network untold
millions in special FX.

We all know that network TV is dropping every year, but now it seems that the rate of decay is accelerating. Maybe they will give TBBT stars another half million to stay one more year.

Out of 50 returning scripted shows on network TV, how many are doing better than last year? Exactly 4.

Yr-over-yr	7th week of season	Network	(mil)
11.29%	Bones	FOX	5.98
5.38%	Grey's Anatomy	ABC	8.66
4.18%	Chicago Fire	NBC	7.73
1.78%	Empire	FOX	13.20
-0.99%	NCIS	CBS	17.09
-1.45%	The Middle	ABC	7.51
-2.20%	The Goldbergs	ABC	6.89
-2.62%	Last Man Standing	ABC	6.67
-3.07%	Big Bang Theory	CBS	15.65
-3.55%	Law & Order: SVU	NBC	7.05
-3.90%	Bob's Burgers	FOX	2.48
-6.28%	Scandal	ABC	8.61
-6.55%	The Mysteries of Laura	NBC	6.96
-6.90%	Blue Bloods	CBS	10.51
-7.11%	The Flash	CW	3.57
-7.12%	Arrow	CW	2.56
-7.51%	Hawaii Five-0	CBS	8.77
-8.28%	The Simpsons	FOX	4.42
-8.83%	Marvel's Agents of SHIELD	ABC	4.08
-10.23%	Supernatural	CW	1.81
-10.32%	Chicago PD	NBC	6.39
-10.96%	Modern Family	ABC	8.37
-11.46%	Madam Secretary	CBS	10.47
-11.89%	Scorpion	CBS	9.66
-12.19%	Nashville	ABC	4.53
-12.38%	Reign	CW	0.95
-12.64%	NCIS: Los Angeles	CBS	8.11
-12.91%	The Good Wife	CBS	8.47
-13.57%	NCIS: New Orleans	CBS	13.19
-13.77%	Black-ish	ABC	6.12
-15.00%	The Vampire Diaries	CW	1.31
-15.71%	Criminal Minds	CBS	8.69
-17.95%	Brooklyn Nine-Nine	FOX	3.27
-18.00%	Jane The Virgin	CW	0.98
-18.51%	Fresh Off the Boat	ABC	4.69
-18.65%	Grimm	NBC	3.91
-20.31%	Castle	ABC	6.75
-20.88%	Once Upon a Time	ABC	5.19
-20.89%	iZombie	CW	1.39
-23.66%	The Originals	CW	1.00
-24.76%	Elementary	CBS	5.58
-26.33%	Sleepy Hollow	FOX	3.37
-26.64%	The Blacklist	NBC	6.98
-26.69%	CSI: Cyber	CBS	5.95
-27.14%	Mom	CBS	7.28
-27.26%	The Last Man on Earth	FOX	2.90
-27.33%	How to Get Away with Murder	ABC	7.09
-28.58%	Gotham	FOX	4.36
-33.53%	Family Guy	FOX	3.13
-43.84%	Undateable	NBC	2.67

Out of 20 new scripted show, only one has over 10 million viewers. And with 3 episodes, Supergirl lost 33% of it's audience the 2nd week, and another 22% it's first week.

(mil)
10.91	Supergirl	CBS
8.85	Life in Pieces	CBS
8.71	Blindspot	NBC
8.63	Limitless	CBS
6.98	Code Black	CBS
5.89	Dr. Ken	ABC
5.81	Rosewood	FOX
5.53	Quantico	ABC
5.48	The Muppets	ABC
5.18	Best Time Ever w NP Harris	NBC
4.67	Heroes Reborn	NBC
4.21	Blood & Oil	ABC
4.16	The Player	NBC
3.78	Grandfathered	FOX
3.21	The Grinder	FOX
3.13	Scream Queens	FOX
2.85	Wicked City	ABC
2.29	Truth Be Told	NBC
2.18	Minority Report	FOX
0.83	Crazy Ex-Girlfriend	CW

I can't believe Bones and Grey's are still on.
I don't like shows about medicine, or
forensics, or doctors. It's nothing like real
life. Those jobs in real life are boring as
hell, being a cop is boring as hell. Being
a doctor is doubly boring. Every single
doctor I ever had in my cab, I asked if
they would do it again, and every single
on of them said no. It's too boring and
too stressful.

Quote: Evenbob

I can't believe Bones and Grey's are still on.

And Bones is still on with an average of 6 million viewers. Mayim Bialik used to get as many as 25 million viewers to watch her as a teenager star in her own NBC show in 1993. Now she is a approaching age 40 and is becoming a multimillionaire as a minor character in a sitcom that plays to 15 million viewers because no other sitcom can attract over 10 million viewers.

Maym acted when she was age 12 as a young version of Better Midler in Beaches. At the age of 14 she starred in the pilot of a TV show named after her character, and finished at age 19 and went to get a PhD.

Quote: Pacomartin

Out of 20 new scripted show, only one has over 10 million viewers. And with 3 episodes, Supergirl lost 33% of it's audience the 2nd week, and another 22% it's first week.

Quote: AZDuffman

I would expect any "Supergirl" franchise to fail and fail hard. Why? Because it is nothing but a chick knockoff of the real thing. It is simply lazy work on the part of producers and writers. For the same reason, nobody other than a few feminists likes "Batgirl" as a character.

Why don't they make a female superhero who is original? "Wonder Woman" worked fairly well. Why can't the creative departments actually create?

I will only add that I have nothing to add.