Written by: R.A. Porter (Used by written permission – PopCritics)
Yesterday morning we heard that The SciFi Channel is moving Charlie Jade to a new day and time. Starting next week, it’ll be taking over the coveted Monday 3am slot.
I can’t be too upset by this. Clearly the show was underperforming on Friday nights and the programming wizards at SciFi needed to move it. What impresses me is the depth of analysis they performed to figure out its new home. Who knew Charlie Jade did so well with insomniacs and people who buy Flowbies?
Taking its place on Fridays will be a repeat of the prior week’s episode of Doctor Who. I can’t say anything bad about the great British import other than asking how he keeps his neck warm without a proper muffler.
SciFi made several errors with Charlie Jade, some of them specific to this show and some of them indicative of systemic flaws. I figured I’d use this opportunity not just to look at the ways they went wrong, but also to discuss the future of science fiction television.
Self-fulfilling Programming Prophesy
I watch the SciFi channel for two hours a week. One, now that BSG is done for the summer. But that’s more than enough time for me to have seen dozens of promos for Scare Tactics and Ghost Hunters. I believe I can repeat verbatim the voice overs from the ads for both those shows. The former is a retread of a show from a few years back that no one watched, hoping to garner ratings by riding Tracy Morgan’s coattails. The latter is one of SciFi’s biggest performers. I mean, bigger than Doctor Who. Bigger than BSG some weeks.
I’m not going to take this opportunity to bash Ghost Hunters. If you enjoy watching retards chase moths and fluttering leaves, that’s fine by me. I am going to bash the SciFi promotions department for failing to advertise or promote Charlie Jade in any way. How many ads for Charlie Jade do you suppose SciFi showed during episodes of top-rated Ghost Hunters?
Then again, why should the network have used up valuable ad space promoting a show that had no chance of performing? That doesn’t make fiscal sense. A dark, brooding mystery where the protagonist is an amoral anti-hero, one of your principals is a terrorist, and another a murderous sociopath is NOT going to do well at 8pm on Friday nights. Particularly not when it is taking over the spot of a show targeted at the under-12 set.
The Sarah Jane Adventures, for those who don’t have young children or extreme nostalgia for the Jon Pertwee/Tom Baker era of Doctor Who, is a spinoff of DW featuring the popular companion and a bunch of kids solving mysteries. I suspect when CJ premiered, not a few children tuned in thinking they were going to see their pal Sarah and instead were traumatized for life by Charlie’s stubble, not to mention 01 Boxer’s… unique ways of dealing with conflict.
SciFi had no expectation that Charlie Jade would succeed, so they spent little money promoting it and stuck it in a time slot where it was doomed for failure. But *because* they spent so little and stuck it in an inappropriate slot, they virtually guaranteed its failure.
18To34Tv
SciFi used to be a niche cable channel. We’ve still got one or two of those: FoodTV and… um… QVC? Over the past few years, SciFi has slowly and subtly been repositioning itself, like several other cable properties. Their clear goal is to target the rich demographic bracket of 18-34 year-old males. That demo spends a lot of money on entertainment and big ticket items, and is much prized by advertisers.
Think I’m exaggerating? What does the ECW have to do with science fiction? Or Tracy Morgan’s down-market version of Punk’d? Or Ghost Hunters? I know an argument can be made for the latter, but anyone so doing would have to admit to being one of the retarded fans of the retarded “paranormal investigators”. (Huh, guess I am going to bash that show. A lot.)
Why doesn’t NBC Universal just build a new cable channel from the ground up to attract that demo? Because it’s *hard* to launch a new cable channel. The lineups of cable and satellite providers don’t change very often, and convincing them to add a new feed can take years. If no one offers it, the channel has no viewers, and that in turn makes it hard to convince the providers to offer it. If you think that sounds familiar to the promotion problem I outlined about Charlie Jade, you’re correct. These selection biases abound in entertainment.
Some of you probably have seen the network Spike. I watch it from time to time. It is a network that unabashedly targets that 18-34 male demo. I applaud them for their honesty and marketing savvy. Spike TV has only been with us since 2003, which might seem to shoot holes in my “hard to launch” theory — except of course that Spike used to be TNN, The Nashville Network. It was easier for Viacom to completely re-brand and reposition an existing property in its portfolio than launch one from scratch.
I expect in another year, after BSG has ended its run, NBC Universal will accelerate the niche-drift on SciFi and complete its transformation into a new network Aimed at Men. Then they can compete head-to-head with Spike for dominance: MMA vs ECW, reruns of Star Trek vs reruns of Enterprise. I’ll even offer them the name 18To34, royalty-free.
Science Fiction Mainstream
I find it interesting that the programming and promotions departments at ABC Family have a better idea how to schedule and market science fiction than the folks at SciFi. The Middleman and Kyle XY are both heavily promoted lynchpins in the network’s schedule. Both are as different in tone from each other as they are from Charlie Jade, but ABC Family finds a way to make room for them. And it’s not just on ABC Family. Across the dial you can find science fiction shows.
I’m tempted to argue the time might be past where we even need a niche channel devoted to science fiction. In the last year, the broadcast networks aired Lost, Heroes, Journeyman, Bionic Woman, and Chuck. Some are hits, some bombs. Clearly SF has become more mainstream. Still, there are certain types of SF that just don’t do well with general audiences.
During the WGA strike, NBC aired BSG to fill schedule holes. It got slaughtered. I want to blame NBC’s promotions department for doing as piss-poor a job as their corporate siblings at SciFi; however, only a small part of the blame can be placed on their shoulders. BSG *looks* like science fiction – unlike the castaways on Lost, or the polite nerd on Chuck – and that is a very hard sell. Science fiction, for all its mainstream acceptance, is still fundamentally a ghetto genre.
Just ask the Nobel committee. They, along with some uptight literary critics, had to invent “magic realism” in order to give Gabriel GarcÃa Márquez the Nobel Prize for Literature.
(No joke. Read “One Hundred Years of Solitude”. Then watch the episode “Cause and Effect” of Star Trek: The Next Generation. I’m not arguing that a piece of pop culture can compare to one of the greatest novels of the 20th century in terms of quality. But in terms of story?)
The Future for the Niche
I believe there is actually room for a true SF channel, one that can attract original voices and give them a chance to create innovative shows. But it’s far too late to do that on cable and satellite. We’ve already seen the lengths Viacom had to go in order to break through the calcification of the lineups. The providers already offered TNN, so Viacom just changed the name and every single show on it in order to create a “new” channel. Unless someone out there has a broadly distributed channel they would be willing to convert, that is not the way. The way lies with New Media.
There are already dozens of niche offerings out there, but no one has tried to create a single forum, a single broadcast channel in which to consolidate them. I’d imagine we’ll see some headway on that front in the next few years. Hell, all we need is for FOX to axe Dollhouse, Fringe, and Virtuality all in the first season and it might happen next year. Think of the possibilities of an Internet-based network founded by Joss Whedon, J.J. Abrams, and Ronald Moore, dedicated to developing and promoting innovative, cutting-edge science fiction.
I almost hope FOX does cancel all three shows, just to see that happen right before our eyes.
What of poor Charlie?
Charlie Jade *is* still scheduled on SciFi. They haven’t canceled it, just buried it. Since I imagine most people are time-shifting with DVRs anyway, it’s really not that big a deal for existing viewers. New viewers, of course, are off the table. No one is going to “discover” this little gem of a show at 3am.
Of course if SciFi decides they need that primo 3am Monday slot to sell Cortislim or “Hip Hop Abs”, then I guess I’ll give it up.
I agree with you. Sci-Fi is slowly turning into a Spike TV clone. I only watch the network once a week when there are scripted shows and pretty much ignore it when there’s
wrestling and stupid reality shows. I can get there elsewhere and there’s much better sci-fi elsewhere on the dial anyway. The Sci-Fi Channel has become suprfulous.
Looks like someone has a bit of a mad-on against “Ghost Hunters”…LOL…
Too bad about “Charlie Jade”, but I was stunned that SFC even gave it a chance at all, given their track record.
That’s too bad. But as you say I DVR it anyway since I never watch TV on Friday nights so in that respect I don’t care what time of day it’s on. But please…please show all 22 episodes or I’m going to be pissed big time.
Haven’t ever bothered to comment on a story before, but I have an alternative theory of why Charlie Jade didn’t do well on Sci Fi…..It sucks. I’m willing to concede that all the other points you make about Sci Fi channel marketing and lineup are true, but that still doesn’t change the fact that CJ was boring and confusing. CJ isn’t “good” Donnie Darko type confusing either. It feels like they can’t be bothered to explain the little that is going on…or maybe I’m looking for something more than the show has to offer. It seems to think it is the spiritual successor to Blade Runner, but I think its more like the 3rd season of Sliders (now you can take my opinion seriously as I’ve clearly established my nerd cred).
You know, in watching BSG and Dr. Who these last few weeks, I can’t think of a single instance of a Charlie Jade commercial. Had it not been mentioned on Slice, I wouldn’t have known about it period, much less that it was coming to SciFi.
The only time I saw ads for it was during the Firefly episodes aired Friday morning, on June 6… the same day the first episode was slated to air. Otherwise, I don’t know if they advertised the show or not, and I wouldn’t have caught those airings if I hadn’t have had Firefly on as background noise while I was working that morning.
As for “Troll”‘s comments about it sucking, have you seen the entire series yet, or just the first two episodes? It’s one of those shows where the setup takes more than half of the first episode (more like 3-4), then when everything starts to connect, you yell, and want to go back and rewatch what you thought you weren’t understanding.
There were moments like that in the new BSG, and a lot of people started out not liking that one, too.
If you still don’t like it after a few more episodes, then we can just agree to disagree, but I know I’m not alone in liking this show, and the type of storytelling it represents.
I just hope this time slot move doesn’t mean the US DVD set will take longer to materialize.
Wow, I can’t agree more. It’s pretty clear that SciFi had no interest in getting viewers for Charlie Jade, which is a shame because it seems interesting. What I don’t understand is why they bothered to put it in the Friday lineup at all, since it seems unlikely that Sarah Jane fans would immediately take to it given its darker tone. Meanwhile they have been promoting the Tracy Morgan Scares People show ad nauseum, and have a night where they show nothing but the guys-with-gadgets-spooking-each-other show. But as an older-than-34 year old female, my opinion doesn’t apparently have much value anyway.
I didn’t want to admit it before but, yes, SciFi is airing less and less science fiction. I was fine with it when they branched out into fantasy and supernatural programming, since the three genres overlap in certain ways. I was thrilled when they picked up The Dresden Files (though less so when they gave it the Firefly treatment). I could even understand Who Wants to be a Superhero? (even though I didn’t watch it) ’cause, hey, Stan Lee and superheroes. Reruns of X-Files and Stargate and the various Star Trek series? Great. Weekday marathons of short-lived and imported series… awesome. I’d almost forgotten about Jake 2.0 until I saw it on their schedule and remembered how much I’d enjoyed it when it originally aired.
But now they are going the way of Spike, and that makes me mad. Spike exists. We don’t need another one, thank you. The fact that the entire ratings system is skewed toward that demographic is bad enough. And the fact that programming executives don’t believe audiences will watch shows with complex plot arcs is a sad statement on our society in general.
If the author’s prediction of a Whedon-Abrams-Moore channel comes to pass, I am so there. Hell, I’d buy stock in it.
I like the idea of an internet channel for scifi shows. I would gladly pay a subscription fee to any such channel to support the endeavor. But looking at the failure of Sanctuary and how they had to go to the scifi channel to save the show I don’t think it would succeed. Personally I think their pricing structure is what did them in. I bought the first 4 episodes but paid $8 for little over an hour of content.
I never understood the give four or five ep thing. The first two had everything from body part snatching to hot babes to other ‘verses to creepy sissors guy.
As a major fan of CJ, I can tell you that it is essential that you record the shows and keep the first 4 handy. You’ll want to go back and re watch the first eps again once #5 comes along. That is when the real OMG! moment happens and you need to go back and see what you missed.
In this vein, that may be why it is difficult to put the show on any network. Fans have to pay close attention to the detailed and winding story arc.
Now… that is not to say it can’t be done. But it requires a knowledge and love of the source material that SFC has demonstrated time and time again they don’t care to deal with.
The Charlie Jade Podcast that is on the way soon, will be a valuable asset in getting the story complexities. Check out CharlieJade.net and get ready for answers. 😉 (Sorry… had to plug our own stuff for a moment.)
Um, does anyone remember Illusion TV? You know, that on-demand sci-fi channel where all the good stuff is supposed to be going?
Also, do keep in mind that this show was brought in to be extra content for Sci-Fi Channel. It’s a time filler, a lot like shows like “Special Unit 2”, “Level 9”, “Jake 2.0” and “John Doe.” They were just trying to fill up some time until another of their prime shows comes back. There never was any agreement to produce more, no matter what the producer said in his interview on this fine podcast. So, therefore, why would they want to overly promote it? It’s just a one-and-done time filler.
Also keep in mind, that this show was cancelled in South Africa…SOUTH AFRICA! A country hardly known for it’s cinematic prowess; be it TV or big screen. And you’re expecting it to come up to what could conceivably be called “the Big Leagues” and do any better? Granted, it’s great storytelling, what I’ve seen of it (it’s still on my DVR. I’ve only watched the first half of the first episode, because my wife and I usually watch our sci-fi together and she was getting bored with it and it was late and I needed to get up in the morning.), but that hardly means anything. This is the same country whose small screen geniuses cancelled “Firefy” and I don’t see any more of those coming anytime soon.
As for the GH haters, you obviously have never watched the show, just the commercials. Don’t feel bad. I used to feel the same way before I started watching. I used to think, “There’s no way they could be getting this lucky and finding this much stuff all the time.” They’ve said on their show many times that 80% of the stuff they investigate has a rational, real-world explanation. And many times they do just that, show that what the client thinks is paranormal is really something very normal. As to the other 20%, the stuff they have caught is truly extrordinary. St. Petersburg Lighthouse, Eastern State Peniteniry; I have no rational explination for those things they got on tape.
Now if you’ve watched an episode where they didn’t catch anything or what they did catch was less than impressive, all I have to say is: You’ll have that. Ghost hunting is a lot like storm chasing (which I’ve personally done). You could go out 100 times and 99 of those times you get nothing or next to nothing. You could be in just the right place at just the right time and still not get anything. But that one time, when you do get lucky, could be one of the most amazing, mind-blowing things you will ever see in your life. And isn’t that why we’re into science fiction in the first place?
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not one of these card-carrying, true believers out to try and prove ghosts exsists just to vindicate my own belief system. I carry a healthy dose of skepticism while I’m watching and if they catch something that doesn’t sound to me like something other-worldly, I don’t hesitate to throw up the BS flag. All I’m saying is don’t make rash generalizations based on advertisements and a light perusal of the subject matter.
End rant
You may now go back to your normal lives. 😉
Speaking of BSG when the BSG mini-series first ran so many people complained about it that I was put off starting to watch BSG. Then people said the first series was fantastic in spite of the mini-series. Anyway, I finally watched it and thought it was brilliant. What exactly was the problem with the mini-series? Was it because it wasn’t the original? Oh well, a couple of years down the track we’ve finally got to the point where we’re at. It is still the best show on BT airlines but now we have to wait till next year. Dammit!
And Ghost Hunters. Hmmm. 80% rational explanations and 20% we have to pretend there isn’t a rational explanation or make some crap up and pretend we have something paranormal because nobody would watch “Ghosts don’t exist so let’s just sit in the dark and pretend we heard/saw something spooky”.
To Lee in WV:
This show never wasn’t cancelled in South Africa or anywhere else.
Production was stopped not because Charlie Jade had low ratings (as a matter of fact, it experienced tremendous success), but because Industrial Development Corporation of South Africa Ltd wanted to know for sure that they were gonna get a certain percent of their investment from US market, but the US market didn’t respond. IDC was quite disappointed, and they cut them off.
To be honest, IDC wanted a guaranteed gain.
They do (done) massive projects, like bridge projects, buildings, dams, airports, they said that there’s not enough money in this for them, and the risk it’s too high.
So, producers waited with a second season till picking it up by US broadcaster.
For your information, Charlie Jade has experienced tremendous success, airing on the A-Channel Network in Japan, the United Kingdom, Central Europe, Canada and South Africa.
This reminds me of when Max Headroom was cancelled by ABC in the ’80s. Another intelligent show that couldn’t make it because American viewers didn’t want to use their brains. Don’t get me wrong–I absolutely love the new Doctor Who & don’t mind shows that just entertain you. I just wish that the more intelligent shows could survive, too.
Exactly !
@Dragomatz: “…looking at the failure of Sanctuary and how they had to go to the scifi channel to save the show…”
First of all, Sanctuary didn’t fail. Production was suspended while Amanda Tapping (its star and executive producer) was filming season four of Stargate Atlantis, but the cast and crew were always planning to pick back up once she was available again. The fact that SciFi saw an innovative property and offered to finance it was certainly beneficial for the show since Tapping and her co-execs had put up their own money for the first eight chapters. But even if that deal hadn’t been struck I’m sure they would’ve found a way to make it profitable.
@Lee in WV: “It’s a time filler, a lot like shows like “Special Unit 2″, “Level 9″, “Jake 2.0″ and “John Doe.†They were just trying to fill up some time until another of their prime shows comes back.”
If that’s the case, then why aren’t they letting it fill that time slot? As much as I love Doctor Who (and I do love it a lot, have since I was a kid), I don’t think it can hold down the Friday night fort all by itself. BSG is on mid-season hiatus until who-knows-when, and SGA doesn’t start up again for three more weeks. It’s the perfect time to get people to give a new show a chance.
Plus, even a diehard SG-1 fan like myself can only watch the repeats so many times, especially the second-run edits with commercials. I mean, that’s why I own all 10 seasons on DVD. If and when Charlie Jade is made available on DVD over here, I will be among the first in line to buy it, too, even after seeing just two episodes, but I have a feeling that most other people wouldn’t put such faith in a series they haven’t seen if SciFi refuses to air more in a more watchable time slot.
I am so glad I have a dvr, now.
Skiffy has been acting like a scifi playa, running through shows like ex-girlfriends while waiting for the coveted ‘trophy’ wife in the form of the 18-34 demographic. I only dvr two shows from them: BSG and CJ. As soon as those two are done, in whatever attention-deprived slot they are begrudgingly given, I will be kicking SFC to the curb! I only dvr them to share with the hub- there’s Hulu, after all… and other ways…
I am definitely not sitting on the couch, waiting by the virtual phone for a channel that doesn’t even know what it really wants- just thinks it should be pursuing the hot, young male demo.
That’s fine. I agree with Sam that New Media is here. That is where I and many of Skiffy’s coveted viewers are going. Yeah, that delicious 18-34 demo. They are New Media savvy. The wheels at Skiffy are turning too slow to keep up.
/rant
All the above said- I really dug SFC in the early years, when they really knew what they were about.
Adolescence set in, and they cancelled Farscape.
They botched a few more things, and the college years set in…
…and the rest is history…
guess that rant really wasn’t over…? ;^)
Seriously, there are enough hours in the day to air the shows that they have aired one or two episodes of lately and just quit. You do realize what is going to eventually happen here right? SciFi will create the next BSG or Doctor Who and no one will watch it because they won’t know if it will go past two episodes or not. I’m sure the 8hour rotations in the morning deliver worst ratings then Charlie Jade, Wolf Lake, Kindred, and many more.
Charlie Jade is a lot of things (apparently including as many have said, too complex for the mainstream American audience), but it is most definitely NOT “filler”. (I’m not just basing that on the few bits that Sci-Fi has aired so far.) It is some of the best writing and production I’ve seen in a long time. I don’t care if it was made in South Africa..if anything that just means it hasn’t been tainted by the Hollywood machine and pushed into one of the couple of standard molds that we keep seeing re-hashed again and again.
I love Star Trek and Doctor Who as much as anyone, but this show is something completely different. You definitely have to dig a little bit to see the genius in it though. If people can’t do that, then I feel sorry for them. They’re never going to get it. Hope they enjoy wrestling and Ghost Chaser (or whatever the hell that is).
While I absolutely agree with the article, I thought that CJ was a mess. It seems to me to have a really interesting story with some really interesting characters but visually and aurally it is an absolute wreck. I am not at all surprised that it is being moved.
What I dont understand is burying it. Surely they have a better viewed spot than 3am they could put it in. Is there a reason to kill it? I mean contractually? Does Scifi not want to run CJ but they have to so they are going to find the least viewed hour in their pallete to run it? Is the rest of their programming just pulling in SO many more viewers that they just cant afford to run CJ in any of their time slots?
Its funny to me that the none genre networks are doing a better job of genre programming than Scifi is.
Whatever. I’m going to watch StrangerThings.tv . ding.
Charlie Jade is a fascinating show – a sort of Flash Gordon meets Blade Runner. It’s a shame that the SciFi Channel suits have such a low opinion of their viewers. Thank goodness for recording devices. As I am not a member of their favored demographic, phooey on them!
There’s another self fulfilling prophesy at work – network TV (not just SciFi channel) treats their audience like morons and so only morons will watch network TV.
It’s been said here more than once that US viewers are not bright; – I think the US has some of the brightest – its just that they’re not watching network TV any more.
I’ll buy the direct-to-‘DVD’ Blu-ray of Stargate Continuum (already have Ark); I’ll buy lots of shows on iTunes – including Heroes, Eureka, Numb3rs, and lots of others. .. but each time I try to watch network TV I feel like I’m being insulted.
Yep, if network TV continues to die, I (and many others like me, I think) won’t shed a tear.
It’s these 6 media companies that own everything. These companies have a crap agenda and it will never change. Never. Those at the top of these companies think of us as POS.
In the near future support internet TV channels. The time has not come but will soon enough and the face of network TV will self-destruct.
Then you can watch 10 seasons of firefly or dresden, and so on. The ad revenue structure doesn’t have to change, only the mode of delivery.
That is if these evil bastards don’t buy up all the trunk lines and enforce another monopoly on us. Possible.
It think its time for science fiction to jump into the next step and create an internet only channel. Seeing as internet can be accessed anywhere and you don’t have to pay for 100 channels to get the 4-5 shows you WANT to watch this seems to be a perfect way to get this type of programming to those who want it.
I’m sick and tired of seeing shows like Firefly, Earth Two, Threshold, Invasion, etc get the shaft because of poor broadcasting decisions and lack of promotion. Again internet TV would solve this problem and allow a single distribution platform with release for the entire world. It would cut out a lot of middle man issues that add cost to producing shows like this and make them much more financially viable without having to have a hundred million viewers.
One thing television is going to have to realize is that the sci-fi crowd does not watch TV for the ads, hell we would prefer with they were not there at all, but any ad directed toward these above average in intelligence people needs to be direct, to the point and short. All the hype and BS associated with television advertising is wasted on this group. We are too smart to fall for the herd like behavior that promoters have relied on for to long to create a never ending profit storm.
Television is more about all about entertainment for the viewer, we could care less if corporations get rich!
We all disagree on which shows are good and which are bad, to date, I have not seen a bad sic-fi show in the past 10 years. There were a couple of losers back in the mid 90’s I’ve discovered but other than that the quality has always been better than what the majority of people get with shows like Survivor and America’s Top anorexia candidate….err Model.
I doubt even one of the broadcasting executives reads this but if you do, you better start doing some hard thinking because due to your ignorance of the new generation you are loosing the customer base you had to online games and other social activities. If you want them back you need to cut out the billion dollar bonuses and the multi-million dollar jets and start producing quality entertainment again.
4-5 years on… let’s get some decent thoughtful, almost Eastern orientated SCI-FI on TV. Lost, was well…. the same script as Jacob’s Ladder, but scripted years later on, perhaps it ought to have been more Angel Heart, that would have been a little more surprising. The only good sci-fi is sadly coming from Asia. That is to say that the west STILL imitates the east. There’s fairly few sci-fi directors / writers who are pushing the edge. I say get Cronenberg, Warren Ellis and Tarintino and maybe Alan Moore in on a script. You might then be up for something interesting.
We have a Blakes 7 bodge up on the way. Let’s hope that there’s someone who can actually imagine a dark future like Terry Nation did.
Bring back this series.. it was one of the few western scifi progs with a difference.