Re: I don't get it Dan..please explain

[danspector@xxxxxxxxx]

Re: UPN and costs:

UPN's $2.2 million per ep price tag is a figure the WB said could never
be profitable. (The WB had been paying $1 million, and were willing to
go to $1.6 million, if I remember correctly.)

UPN's counterargument was that even if the ratings didn't rise high
enough to justify the ep costs (a dubious proposition given that there
are many places, like your own Austin, and Kris's corner of Indiana,
that get WB but not UPN) the show would still be beneficial.

Buffy's enormous amount of mainstream pub would qualify as free
publicity for the network. Adding such a critically-acclaimed show
would change its image from "the WWF Smackdown! network" and bring in
the young female viewers who had been staying away, benefiting other UPN
shows besides Buffy. The ratings would go up for the 9pm slot, which
would be filled with much cheaper programming (first "Roswell" and now
the new comedies). Production studios would be more willing to shop
their pilots to UPN instead of it always being the network of last
resort. If they can just beat the WB in some major categories
(currently viewers 18-49, for example, if not overall), they could start
to shed their image as the "last-place" network. Et cetera, et cetera.

Perhaps some stations would change and become UPN affiliates, as they
did when the "Star Trek" shows went to UPN (they were formerly in
syndication). In any event, "Buffy" was never intended to be strictly
profitable in a ratings-advertisers-dollars'n'cents sort of way; UPN
has always been interested in the collateral benefits.

Would UPN trade a couple of ratings points and a few bucks for magazine
cover stories about Buffy's lesbian romance and an Emmy or two? In a
heartbeat, and you might be able to get them to sacrifice children if it
would help the cause.

(Has UPN ever won an Emmy? Don't think so.)

Besides, I don't know that this would hurt the ratings. "Ellen" saw its
ratings skyrocket, remember. They crashed the following season, when
every ep was gay-themed and the novelty was gone, but they had a
mid-American audience that Buffy doesn't have. "Will & Grace" is top 10
stuff every year--why couldn't Buffy pull just HALF of that audience?
Ellen's been gay from day one of her new show--it hasn't seemed to
hurt.

IMO, anyone tremendously offended by lesbianism probably isn't watching
Buffy hump undead murderers, anyway.

First US broadcast drama with a gay lead--that's history, Joss.
Something they can never take away--you'd always be the first. :)

Well, I'm OT now. But there's more to the UPN/Buffy axis than just the
ratings, that's my point.

Hope I made sense,

Dan