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Could Whitney Houston Have Been Saved?
- And other great mysteries of Hollywood, beheaded for your pleasure in our weekly podcast!
Does Uggie the Dog Ever Have to Work Again?
- And other great mysteries of Hollywood, beheaded for your pleasure in our weekly podcast!
Does Jim Carrey's Daughter Have an Edge on Idol?
- And other great mysteries of Hollywood, beheaded for your pleasure in our weekly podcast!
Could Brad Pitt Wear Jeans and a T-shirt to the Oscars?
- And other great mysteries of Hollywood, beheaded for your pleasure in our weekly podcast!
Ask A Question
Why do bad TV shows last so long?
—Chuck, Kokomo, Indiana
The B!tch Replies: Oh no, no, no. You did not just spit on Jim in the pages of my column. Sit down, my son.
The sitcom genre of Tedious Lardass with Inexplicably Hot Wife has a long and illustrious history in this country, and I will not abide your utterly un-American attacks upon it...not when King of Queens just got canceled, dammit.
Overstuffed American men just lost another aid in their pathetic fantasies of bagging a sylphlike babe. Let them mourn in dignity.
First of all, the answer is obviously ratings. I mean, jeez. Yes, in fairness, sometimes low ratings will not equal sudden demise—the shows Standoff and 'Til Death just got a reprieve from Fox even though they're on life support, so good for all of those people involved.
But then again, Fox has pretty much canceled the rest of its fall lineup because of bad ratings, so there. Anyway.
I’m not even gonna stoop to answer your foul question. I’ll let my minion, the B!tchling, do it. She covers television for this outlet, after all, so she should know something. She also has a name, Korbi Ghosh, but that is neither here nor there. According to B!tchling, quality has nothing to do with the success of a TV show. Ratings mean everything, and given the success of Mario Lopez, you should know that by now.
Korbi puts it thusly: “It all comes down to dollars and cents, see. If few people are watching the show, no one’s going to pay the network the big bucks to air commercials in that time period. And the network, like anything, is a business."
And ABC’s The Nine just wasn’t pulling in the viewers.
It averaged just over 4 million tortured audience members for its last episode. (Maybe instead of just asking “what happened in there,” the series writers should have just showed us what happened in there.)
Compare that with the 20 million McDreamy and his ilk draw every week, or the 16 million that Lost averaged this season—despite a distinct lack of polar bears or, in the case of Doctor Jack, a pulse—and you see the point.
Like the B!tchling puts it, “When close to 50 percent of Lost’s audience is changing the channel when The Nine begins, you know you’ve got a big problem."
And when you’re addicted to a show in which little happens except flashbacks to grifter Kate’s wig-filled past, you know you have a massive problem.
- SEE MY PREDICTIONS for the Golden Globes. They're so right on maybe I'll even win one.
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