Internet TV has developed some bad habits over the past few years, mostly because of budget.
If you’ve been following me for a while, you know how sad I was that Blue Bloods was cancelled. The popular show’s high budget was the main reason it was axed, and it’s just a symptom of a growing problem.
Network television has been struggling financially for some time, and things have gotten worse since the writers and actors went on strike in 2023.
Cancellation is the worst aspect of this problem, but it’s always with us
When a popular show is canceled despite being watched by millions, that’s a problem.
Blue Bloods is probably the most famous example. The show was canceled before its 14th season, despite being a top-rated series that often won a hard-to-reach audience in its Friday night time slot.
Millions of fans signed petitions, and millions more threatened to stop watching CBS because the show was canceled, but it didn’t help that CBS just couldn’t do it for a variety of reasons. Make more Blue Bloods.
Its large cast and on-location filming in New York created budget woes, so CBS agreed to cut the final season short…and then the strike happened, making it harder for CBS to afford the show.
While this heartbreaking decision seems to indicate that CBS is indeed in trouble as it cannot afford its most popular shows, it’s important to remember that money-based cancellations have long been a part of the television industry.
This was a major reason why the original “Star Wars” was canceled in 1969 – even though, arguably, its ratings were nowhere near as high as “Blue Bloods” – and for shows like “Charmed,” which not only had special effects budgets, And the actors had to be paid, and ended up on the chopping block because of money.
Most recently, the unexpected cancellation of “NCIS: Hawaii” was related to the budget needed to continue production, and last season CBS also canceled the comedy “Bob <3 Abishola" despite it ranking in the ratings. Top five.
To make matters worse, NBC canceled another season of Magnum: PI after rescuing it from CBS’s cancellation, leaving fans of the show torn as the network can’t seem to find a way to make it fit within the budget. Heartbreak, because of money.
Obviously, if the network can’t find the money for the show, they’ll have to cancel the show or otherwise cut costs. If they ran out of money, there would be no internet.
Still, the thought of canceling a popular show hurts. It sends a message to fans that it doesn’t matter how many people eagerly tune in to watch each new episode; The network will cancel anyway.
The unintentional message being sent is that fan bases don’t matter, and networks making seemingly arbitrary decisions about renewing or canceling content isn’t a good business model, either, if the networks continue down this path , it’s hard to imagine how the network will continue.
A fate worse than cancellation: Small-budget versions of hit shows
Networks have to save money somehow, so if they’re not going to cancel popular shows, they may have to compromise and lower quality.
As a huge fan of police procedurals, I’m well aware of how badly this hurt Dick Wolf’s performance. All of his shows have recently adopted the “rotating cast” idea to save money
This compromise allowed the show to have a large cast on paper, but save money by only using half the cast on any given show.
The problem is that doing so often leads to unbelievable situations. Sometimes it’s nice to give an actor or character a break – Jubal’s suspension from the FBI, for example, is a logical explanation for his absence, and the storyline itself is rich.
But more often than not, TV shows have to make excuses for a character’s absence.
If done poorly, cast rotation can turn into a joke.
Days of the Peacock has a bad habit of using the same excuse every time its out-of-town characters have to leave the screen: Their flight was canceled due to mechanical issues.
It gets ridiculous when the same character appears 15 times in a row, and network television has a similar problem with cast rotation.
There are only so many times a character can leave to attend a meeting or have an off-screen family emergency without it becoming unbelievable.
Another option, of course, would be to pare down the cast and get rid of roles that would be too costly.
This isn’t a completely new problem either. For as long as I can remember, actors have been fired over pay disputes, often to the detriment of a show.
As with cast rotation, character exits can work well if they’re explained correctly and don’t seem gratuitous or random (and don’t involve killing people for no reason).
Long-running doctor shows like Grey’s Anatomy have the perfect excuse because it’s realistic for medical professionals to decide to change careers after working in a hospital for years.
As a result, the show was able to cut back on the cast to save money and keep other doctors in the loop without raising too many eyebrows.
However, in many cases, these decisions are made at the last minute. Given after they’ve already left, or the character left for random reasons that didn’t suit them.
Kelli Giddish’s performance as Amanda Rollins on Law & Order: SVU didn’t do her or the show any favors.
She had no previous interest in teaching, but became a teacher, then a consultant analyzing criminals (not something she was particularly good at as a police officer), and finally found a job in the intelligence service.
All of these changes make my head spin, and they all came about because there wasn’t the budget to keep Giddish in the full-time cast. Fan backlash over her elimination demanded that she be made a recurring character in some way.
These types of opt-outs don’t do the network any good, even if they do save money. Like seemingly random cancellations, they undermine audience trust and inflame viewers into not watching TV.
Conclusion: Can Internet TV survive in the brave new world of streaming?
Internet TV is unlikely to disappear anytime soon, but it needs to find better solutions to its budget problems.
Sadly, canceling popular shows is always going to be part of the problem.
Whenever a show is canceled for any reason, there is a boycott from disappointed fans, and this is even more pronounced if it’s a top-rated show.
Networks need to find ways to avoid this whenever possible. Also, if they do things like rotate actors or prune actors, they need to write the people down in a way that makes more sense.
Networks can still deliver high-quality programming within budget constraints. The key to making a change is to respect your audience.
Writing characters out of place (or reducing their exit to an afterthought) or letting them disappear for weeks without a reasonable explanation is disrespectful.
The idea of a spin-off of a super-popular show like Blue Bloods should have been explored before the show went off the air, rather than offered as a consolation prize, which might be the case when you already have millions of angry fans Or it might not happen.
By making these changes, networks can avoid damaging viewer trust, which will kill network television faster than any budget issues.
Over to you, TV fanatics.
What are your thoughts on the current state of online television?
Did the cancellations and cast changes make you want to give up? Would you still watch a network show even if you were heartbroken every time your favorite show was canceled?
Hit the comments with your thoughts.
