Prayer Ratings - FarScape Remains Ahead!
 

07PM DEAD ZONE 0.5
08PM FARSCAPE 1.1
09PM STARGATE SG-1 1.5
10PM TRACKER 1.0
11PM STARGATE SG-1 1.0
12AM FARSCAPE 0.6

Straight from http://www.watchfarscape.com

Farscape isn't a head.

Stargate is ahead, Farscape only beat tracker...by one tenth of a share.

What does it prove?

But there is less of a spread between Farscape and SG1.

It's ahead of Tracker... 110% of Tracker. For cable, a .1 matters a lot.

Farscape will never be ahead of SG1... it simply has a larger preestablished audience.

The important thing is, the seasonal average for Farscape has gone up.

It's ahead of tracker, but SciFi doesn't pay money to produce Tracker, it's syndicated. Or it was, I don't know about now, that it's been picked up by SciFi. But for a show that they didn't have to pay for, 1.0 is very good.

But... how is that relevant?

It's relevant in the fact that they pay to produce farscape...a 1.1 isn't enough to cover their costs, so we ain't gonna see new episodes anytime soon.

Tracker comes to them at a fraction of the cost, and even though it's complete shazbot, they get much more of a return on it. Which means that the chances of getting more syndicated crap on SciFI instead of original series are higher.

SFC has been a lost cause for a while now.

All that really matters for Farscape are its absolute numbers, not its numbers relative to another SFC show.

Ideally, we want UPN to look at Farscape, say "hey, that show is getting almost the same ratings that some of our shows get on cable... maybe it'll get even higher ratings on a network!" and go for it. Or something like that.

UPN spends enough money with Buffy and Enterprise. Chances are if buffy isn't renewed for another season we'll get Moisha: The Next Generation and The Parkers Squared in it's place.

UPN also has been going through a lot of new shows over the past few years and hasn't been able to gain a footing with any of them.

On the other hand, Buffy did great for them.. they purchased a show with a preestablish audience and transplanted them over with relatively great results.

And Farscape is a lot cheaper then either Enterprise or Buffy.

Anyway, I don't think you or I or anyone here is really in a position to make determinations on how decisions will be made at UPN or any other potential buyer... all we can do is hope for the best and at least try to remain positive :)

Unfortunately without the rights to the past episodes the series is not as marketable. O'Bannon made it clear that scifi was not going to release their hold on them early so it will be 2 years before anyone is going to think seriously about purchasing it.

Not necessarily... UPN bought the aforementioned Buffy without rerun rights. So who knows?

I hadn't thought about that, I guess there is hope.

Buffy turned out to be a failure for UPN, the show was very expensive and ratings were terrible. They will probably be much more skiddish after they were burned by the failed Buffy venture. And to be honest, if UPN was interested they would have already jumped on it.

Remember what I reported previously, though: O'Bannon told other studios to wait until after FarScape's initial 88 became available before they jumped on it. I suspect there would've been some takers by now had he not said that.

I didn't know he had recommended such a course. But in order for the reruns to be relevent, you have to have an entire network at your disposale to run them. You need a whole lot of time to burn to have room for 88 hours of reruns. That certainly insn't UPN which only broadcast 13 hours out of the week.

I had also heard the interview that OBannon said that networks should wait. He possibly feels that they could get a better price for the whole show than trying to sell it without the previous episodes.??
As to what Mike said, I thought that if a network, such as UPN, bought a series, then the local affiliates could show it whenever they wanted to fit it in. At one hour a weekday, non-primetime, it would take 4.4 months to show all the past episodes.

I wonder how many affiliate stations, should such a fantastic scenario happen, would give up Star Trek reruns for Farscape reruns. And would Paramount want to diminish their important Star Trek property for Farscape? I don't know how many UPN affiliates around the country are still repeating Star Trek, but my Detroit affiliate no longer does. So it's possible that there is room for Farscape without impacting the profitable syndication of Star Trek.

Why would they have to give up Trek reruns?

Exactly. While trek is a flogged-to-death version of itself, its still a major cash cow because of all the die-hards out there.

Arrghy, since stations make their own syndication schedule, it stands to reason that some may see Farscape as something that could replace the constant repeating of Star Trek. They are very similar shows with similar audiences, stations could assume that they can replace Star Trek with Farscape and the audience will follow. There really isn't enough room in the syndication market for two expensive sci-fi dramas and if the trend in Detroit is any indication, stations are abandoning Star Trek(and related genre) for a glut of syndicated sitcoms.

Now you're talking about two different things... syndication and affiliate programming.

Affiliate programming is something like reruns of The Simpsons on FOX. At home I get two FOX affiliates, both of which showed it twice a day... but at different times (which was great, I got four Simpsons epiosdes a day when I was in high school ;)). This is something that only FOX affiliates can show, but they can put it anywhere they like in their schedule.

Syndication, on the other hand, is something different. With syndication, local affiliates buy the rights to air the show directly which is why I get Stargate on both FOX and UPN locals.

If Farscape was syndicated, then any local station could buy the rights to air it and show it whenever they wanted.

If a network bought the rights to air new episodes of Farscape only, say UPN, then it would be on the same time every week on every affiliate in the country, baring local events preempting it (such as sports).

If UPN bought the rights to air both new and old epiosdes of Farscape, they would most likely do something like The Simpsons... the new episodes get worked into the global schedule and the old ones each affiliate can throw in whenever they want.

As to the syndication market... isn't Mutant X and Andromeda still going on? Both of those can be considered scifi dramas. I don't believe that Star Trek is even syndicated anymore... TNN bought the exclusive rights to air all the series once the current syndication deals run out, and I assume that's why the local FOX channel that was running DS9 stopped showing it at the end of the year and why I haven't seen TNG on anything but TNN for a while now.

Now, if local stations see Farscape as something to replace Trek repeats... well, I don't think they'd look at it that way in the first place. But if they did, thats great. But if any station was able to pick up rerun rights or even new rights for Farscape, they wouldn't be under any obligation to give up Trek reruns besides losing the contract in the first place...

Sci-fi backed out of their 5-year contract, they should back out of the syndication chokehold too :no:

While they're making changes, they should rename themselves to "B-Movie Horror" channel or something more appropriate. They're not sci-fi anymore.

As much as I dislike them holding on to the 'scape rerun rights, I don't really blame them... after all, they did pay for them.

In retrospect, Henson should have added in a clause in the escape part of the contract that forced SFC to give up the rerun rights if they backed out of the contract... but of course, no one would have thought that SFC would have backed out like that...

Well, apparently the "backout" wasn't quite as bad as everyone made it out to be. Sci-Fi did try to offer a 13-episode Season 5, but there was something about it that turned Henson off to the idea. They were negotiating about that right up until Sci-Fi pulled the plug.

Right, but AFAIK, they offered the 13 episode deal at the lower price that they wanted for the entier season at first... and Henson/EMTV simply couldn't afford that.

Ahh, okay.

They won't because that means that another station would be able to pick it up without BUYING the rights from them. Interplay did the same exact thing with Descent and Freespace.

I think they should have done the 13 episodes, because if 'Scape got a lot of viewers for Season 5, SciFi might have extended the Season to more episodes.

Farscape is getting better at the end of Season 4, so this could have been a possibility. But then again, if Henson couldn't afford it, then...

KILL HENSON!!! :D

Naw, it wasn't Henson's fault, it was EMTV's fault! KILL EMTV!!! ;)