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On 06/12/2010 8:28 PM, Barry Margolin wrote:
> As Seamus has been told dozens of times in the past, when a show is
> preempted in the US, it's also preempted in Canada. You don't get the
> same replacements as us, but you still don't get an episode.

Does not make sense. It should be either the same replacements or a
rerun of the correct show (presuming there's no first-run episode for
the week). In this case, a rerun of House.

Furthermore, only last-minute things should pre-empt regularly
scheduled, scripted shows. The networks should set aside some time at a
fixed location in their schedule for potpourri like your precious
sing-off that can be planned for in advance. A two-hour block one
weeknight ought to suffice for putting in random specials and events; it
can be used for movies or random reruns in the weeks when there isn't a
first-run special or event to put there.

> Why do you feel the need to do this every time one of the shows you like
> is preempted?

Because it's time for someone to stand up to the big bullying networks
on behalf of the viewers and demand they pay us some more respect. It's
time, in fact, for a large number of television viewers to organize and
make a pact to boycott ANY programming that substitutes for a
regularly-scheduled show and isn't a last-minute piece of urgent
breaking news.

Go ahead and watch if there's another 9/11 or Pakistan nukes Mumbai or
something and they cut into The Event with late-breaking news. But if
they had weeks to plan some event like this sing-off thing, then they
had the time and could have had the preparedness to give it a time slot
that wouldn't interfere with regular programming. Punish them for being
jerks and/or lazy bastards by not watching the sing-off, or anything
else like it, or any other such non-last-minute substitutions.

When they discover that if they schedule a show like The Event or House
for a certain time slot, they get at least an 0.5 in A18-49 when they
air even a rerun of the correct show in that slot, but if they air
anything else at all they get less than 0.1, they'll quickly get the
message and create dedicated timeslots in their fall, winter, and spring
schedules to stuff their sing-offs and bake-offs and play-offs and other
such one-offs into. A ghetto where those who want to watch that sort of
**** can find it (and more easily than if it's scattered all over the
****ing place!) but where it can't bring down the tone of the
neighborhood for everyone else who wants to watch things like House and
Fringe.

Xposts added to get this important message out to a few more people.
It's time to wake up and smell the networks' slow but steady erosion of
service quality. You used to be able to depend on your shows being on
reliably: same Bat-time, same Bat-channel, week after week throughout a
semester, with big changes at, and only at, Christmas, June, and
September. If they didn't have a new episode they'd have a rerun. OF THE
SAME SHOW. If a show disappeared it had been canceled; if a show was not
canceled it did not disappear, and certainly not for mysteriously, for
weeks on end, without a hint of an explanation (let alone an apology)
from the networks. Nowadays they seemingly shuffle their schedules every
Tuesday and alternate Friday. Shows go off the air and on again and off
again like old, decaying fluorescent tubes even when they haven't been
canceled. (But their ratings suffer for it; unpredictability is a major
viewer turn-off. No-one wants to invest time in a show, especially a
serial like The Event, if they don't feel it's rock-solid reliable. If
it keeps flickering on and off like an almost-dead streetlight they will
subconsciously, if not consciously, consider it a high cancellation risk
and probably avoid becoming invested in it -- which will make it a high
cancellation risk.)

It's time this stopped, and the way to stop it is this: when the
networks deviate from their schedule, OTHER THAN for late-breaking news
or a game overrun, BOYCOTT THE SUBSTITUTE PROGRAMMING. So if, say, you
watch Glee, tune in to Glee's time slot on the Glee channel at the Glee
hour on the Glee day of the week, like clockwork. If Glee is on, watch
it (or at least leave it on in the background if, say, it's a rerun); if
it isn't, turn off the TV for that hour. Don't watch anything else,
unless it's your own DVDs or something -- no network television for that
hour. Each September, January, and June, when they're *supposed* to
shuffle the timetables, allow them to move Glee *once* and then stick to
the new timeslot until the next one of those three months. If Glee is
missing from it, no network TV for that hour. If they're airing first
run episodes in the wrong timeslot (or worse, on the wrong entire
channel), torrent or DVR them and watch later, but don't watch live.

This goes infinity-tuple if you have a Nielsen box or anything like
it!!! We want their ratings to send an unambiguous message to them AND
to their advertising partners: regular and reliable scheduling is
rewarded, and irregular and unpredictable scheduling is punished, right
in the pocketbook where it hurts even for a soulless megacorporation.

And spread the word!!!

That will be all, for now.

Derek Yancey wrote:
> And spread the word!!!
>
> That will be all, for now.

That will be all forever. Plonk.

--
Lew

On 07/12/2010 8:15 AM, Lew wrote:
> Derek Yancey wrote:
>> And spread the word!!!
>>
>> That will be all, for now.
>
> That will be all forever. Plonk.

Oh, ye of little faith.

"Lew" <> wrote in message
news:idlc05$p3s$...
> Derek Yancey wrote:
>> And spread the word!!!
>>
>> That will be all, for now.
>
> That will be all forever. Plonk.
>
> --
Hear hear...of course he'll have another nym in a minute.

On 07/12/2010 8:38 AM, Dano wrote:
> "Lew" <> wrote in message
> news:idlc05$p3s$...
>> Derek Yancey wrote:
>>> And spread the word!!!
>>>
>>> That will be all, for now.
>>
>> That will be all forever. Plonk.

Oh, ye of little faith.

> [implied insult and false accusation deleted]

Bite me, Danny-boy. Bite me.

Lew <> writes:

1> Newsgroups:
sci.physics,rec.arts.tv,comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp. lang.java.programmer,rec.games.roguelike.developme nt

1> That will be all forever. Plonk.

What does your plonk of Yancey have to do with OS/2, Lew?

Derek Yancey <> writes:

8> Newsgroups:
sci.physics,rec.arts.tv,comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp. lang.java.programmer,rec.games.roguelike.developme nt

8> Oh, ye of little faith.

What does Lew's limitation on faith have to do with OS/2, Yancey?

9> Newsgroups:
sci.physics,rec.arts.tv,comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp. lang.java.programmer,rec.games.roguelike.developme nt

8> Oh, ye of little faith.

What does Dano's limitation on faith have to do with OS/2, Yancey?

8> Bite me, Danny-boy. Bite me.

What does your request to be bitten have to do with OS/2, Yancey?

On 07-12-2010 16:50, wrote:
> Lew<> writes:
>
> 1> Newsgroups:
> sci.physics,rec.arts.tv,comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp. lang.java.programmer,rec.games.roguelike.developme nt
>
> 1> That will be all forever. Plonk.
>
> What does your plonk of Yancey have to do with OS/2, Lew?

There is a certain tradition for publicizing plonks.

I think it is a waste of time, but non the less then it
is common.

In this case it is extra much waste, but ...

Arne

On Mon, 06 Dec 2010 23:17:12 -0500, Derek Yancey wrote:

> On 06/12/2010 8:28 PM, Barry Margolin wrote:
>> As Seamus has been told dozens of times in the past, when a show is
>> preempted in the US, it's also preempted in Canada. You don't get the
>> same replacements as us, but you still don't get an episode.
>
> Does not make sense. It should be either the same replacements or a
> rerun of the correct show (presuming there's no first-run episode for
> the week). In this case, a rerun of House.

What the hell is this **** doing in comp.lang.java.programmer?

On 07/12/2010 11:52 PM, ClassCastException wrote:
> On Mon, 06 Dec 2010 23:17:12 -0500, Derek Yancey wrote:
>
>> On 06/12/2010 8:28 PM, Barry Margolin wrote:
>>> As Seamus has been told dozens of times in the past, when a show is
>>> preempted in the US, it's also preempted in Canada. You don't get the
>>> same replacements as us, but you still don't get an episode.
>>
>> Does not make sense. It should be either the same replacements or a
>> rerun of the correct show (presuming there's no first-run episode for
>> the week). In this case, a rerun of House.
>
> What the hell is this **** doing in comp.lang.java.programmer?

Can't you read? This "****", as you call it, is an attempt to start a
general boycott of unwanted substitutes for our television shows, as
collective action to incentivize the TV networks into returning to their
former "same Bat-time, same Bat-channel" scheduling policies wherein one
could rely on one's shows being regularly scheduled and not moving
around, disappearing for weeks at a time, and otherwise being
unpredictable -- things that hurt a show's ratings, understandably, and
result in good shows getting canceled if the schedulers jerk them around
too much.

We must act now! The sanctity of our television programming is at stake!
The Event is on the ropes because of this kind of nonsense. It was,
partly, this kind of nonsense from the networks that killed
Firefly and more recently has badly hurt Fringe's ratings. The networks
used to schedule shows predictably; they'd draw up a schedule in
September and stick to it until January, for instance, and set aside
some time in the schedule for specials and movies and other miscellany,
say 8-10pm on Fridays.

Now they draw up a schedule in September and then crumple it up and
throw it out a window at the proverbial drop of a hat. They preempt
shows not just for major, sudden news events and games going into
overtime but for things they knew about weeks in advance and should have
been able to schedule in a non-conflicting way. Not only does this knock
into a cocked hat all attempts to predict when the next episode of your
show will be on, it makes it look like shows have been canceled when
they sometimes haven't been and generates a general sense of
uncertainty. It also results in far fewer reruns of current-season
episodes, which in turn makes it harder to catch up if you miss an
episode. (The cynic in me wonders if that's intentional, to try to force
people to rent or buy expensive DVD sets or subscribe to expensive
On-Demand plans/Hulu+/etc. if they miss an episode; if so, the idiots
should know that will backfire when people instead resort to DVRs and
torrents to catch up, generating no revenue for them and skipping all
the ads.)

The only way to force the networks to return to the old,
reliable-scheduling ways seems to be to punish them in the ratings, and
thus ad revenues, from deviating from such scheduling. It's like
training Pavlov's dogs. When they air a show you're a fan of in its
usual time slot you tune in; if it's a rerun you don't really want to
re-watch you leave it on as background noise (or even mute it) if you
have a Nielsen box or are otherwise being tracked. When they air *any*
kind of substitute programming in one of your shows' time-slots that is
*not* either a new episode or a rerun of the correct show for that time
slot for that four-month "season", on the other hand, you tune in
something else or turn off the television for that hour. The exception
is for late-breaking news and, if you're watching it anyway, a game
going into overtime. Those the networks can't in all fairness be blamed for.

When their ratings for regularly-scheduled programming in its
regularly-scheduled time-slot are consistently much higher than for any
kind of non-last-minute substitutes, then they will stop making those
kinds of substitutions, the schedules for our shows will become stable,
and they will no longer lose viewers and eventually be canceled because
of moves and lengthy disappearances and other such nonsense that
alienates viewers.