OK, folks, Farscape will be shown ONCE a week starting June 29th!

[CosmicTheorist]

Farscape will only be shown at midnight EST on SUNDAYS starting on June 29th. The July schedule pushes John Edwards and the Twilight Zone to 1 am, drops Farscape and Stargate, and replaces the 11 pm to 1 am timeslot with a movie on Mondays through Thursdays as of June 30th.

I was hoping Skiffy'd burn right thru their rerun rights before the end of this year. Wasn't that what they had intended? Why else show the season 4 episodes at 5 am on Saturday's? Right up through May 2002, Farscape's reruns could deliver ratings of 0.6 - 1.0 in prime time. I've been collecting old Skiffy Top 10 lists; I've seen that range for Farscape's reruns throughout Farscape's history. Recently, in April an episode of Roar made it into the Top 10 with a rating of 0.6; Tremor's last rating was rumored to be 0.6 for a brand new episode. A 0.6 rating in prime time is common enough for Skiffy that they should not be so cavalier about Farscape's reruns. So why throw away Farscape's reruns at midnight and 5 am Saturday UNLESS you were burning through them? And why stop NOW?

If they'd kept showing Farscape 5 nights a week, they would have HAD to restart the episodes from the beginning in order to keep their word to KIA. Recall last Fall, Kia was one of the to-do list advertisers. Kia contacted Skiffy about Farscape and then told us the result of that contact. Skiffy told KIA that Farscape would be shown in reruns starting March 31, which it did, and running through the END of September, which we will see. By showing season 4 episodes only once a week, Farscape will reach "Terra Firma" by the end of September.

Any suggestions for what we should do after June 29th?

:confused:

[Digger]

So why throw away Farscape's reruns at midnight and 5 am Saturday UNLESS you were burning through them? And why stop NOW?


Option One:
There may have been a change of attitude by someone at skiffy with enough clout to change the schedule (the new programming boss???). Someone MAY have said to themselves "wait a minute. we're gonna get sold pretty soon and if we burn through those eps at a 5 per week rate we'll lose the rights come September. The new owner may want to renegotiate with Henson and that could take time, so better to slow things up with the reruns to give us that time."

Option Two:
They just don't give a damn and decided to stick it to us.

Option Three:
They don't know what they're doing anyway. This is just example 263 of their cluelessness.

[B Sharp]

wow...pretty interesting.

Can you say more about the Kia commitment? I don't remember that part at all clearly...

[Selena]

So that gives us 19/20 more eps right? Last night was SoD. That would put us at the end of Season 3.

I did notice that the eps for last Saturday am were from season 4. WSC - so that's not in order anyway. Are they showing season 4 on the week-ends? Anyone been watching in the wee small hours on the weekend?

[vhsiv]

Repeats have typically been Season 4, 5am EST Saturday; Seasons 1-3 Midnight Sunday-Thursday. Don't ask why - it's the logic of empire...

The 'slower' schedule, if strategic it's an interesting idea. It may be a signal that Skiffy recognizes that FS is one of the few cards they have worth playing.

[CosmicTheorist]

This was posted by harveywhispers on November 7 in the "Responses to To-Do List Letters":


"Just got this email response from KIA -

Dear (real me deleted):

Thank you for writing regarding your concern with the cancellation of Farscape. As Kia has been an advertiser in the past on this program, we investigated this cancellation and discovered the following:

* This is Farscape's last season on Sci-Fi due to contract issues.
* Farscape will air new episodes through March '03, and repeat episodes through September '03. Kia will air commercials on Farscape through September 03.
* Unfortunately, it is our understanding that UPN will not be picking up the show as was rumored.

Kia is eager to support shows with a loyal following, thereby ensuring that quality programming remains on the air. Although Kia was unable to affect the Farscape cancellation, we will continue to support similar quality programming, such as Stargate on The Sci-Fi Channel and Star Trek Enterprise on UPN.

Thank you for writing with your concern.

Sincerely,


Walter Anderson
Vice President, Marketing"



B Sharp, Skiffy has demonstrated not an iota of concern for our sensibilities; however, they would NEVER be so cavalier with one of their PAYING customers such as Kia. I believe they will keep their word to Kia, even though they feel no need to keep their word with us, the lowly "eyeballs" they think they are delivering.

;)

[CosmicTheorist]

June 30th was scheduled for Part 2 of Into the Lion's Den back on May 15th. Now it is not. What the frell is going on with Skiffy?

I can ALMOST believe that Farscape's midnight ratings were SO LOW that it had to be yanked from the schedule, but why take it out on the new love of their lives, Stargate? It's 1 am showings have been pulled too. Why not replace Farscape WITH Stargate, or better even, those very expensive X-Files episodes. No wait, The X-Files is scheduled for 2 am.

Why not swap Farscape with The X-Files and ditch that "dog" of show? Why are they keeping it if they have no intention of exploiting it? It seems petty and vindictive. It looks like Skiffy doesn't want Farscape to find a 2nd life in syndication. Why? What's it to them?

Skiffy is SO odd.

:confused:

[B Sharp]

just a maybe, but if you give SciFi some credit for brains (OK, bear with me here...), this could be part of some sort of strategy that's not yet fully rolled out- e.g. we have seen changes done in past years that were a sort of 'transition' move (e.g. move re-run schedule timing, then all of a sudden do a 'chain reaction', then switch to a totally new schedule.

this is probably giving them too much credit, but if they know that SG-1 and FS are the aces in their deck, then put them on the bottom and deal them out when needed- and don't tell anyone you did it. That could be part of the impending sale, or because Henson and SciFi are already talking again, or because they hope we'll forget about FS if they make the schedule really arcane to follow, or...

...or maybe I am giving them too much credit.

[Midnight27]

Originally posted by Digger
Option Two:
They just don't give a damn and decided to stick it to us.

Option Three:
They don't know what they're doing anyway. This is just example 263 of their cluelessness.

Unfortunately, I'm going with these two, w/ #2 as first choice. I am not normally a negative person (as anyond in D.A.G.G.E.R. could attest to, but I get the feeling that TPTB want us to get so PO/demoralized that we give up (hush, I know that's not going to happen).


As for the reruns, I'm watching them all so that I can at least see them once before I actually own them on DVD (hubby's really got to start driving some miles). SoD is opening of S3 and was last night. Sat 0dark:hundred was WSS:Hot to Katrazi.

According to just a countdown on my calendar, we won't get through S3 before the slowdown. I just went through Skiffy's calendar, and am correct. We have La Bomba and Bad Timing of S4 left on Sat. am, then that slot is no longer FS (don't remember what goes in--didn't care). But when Skiffy goes to once a week, they look like they will stay in order of S3--only look at a couple Sundays after to establish the pattern.

Midnight

[blue]

Is it possible that this last complete runthough is all they have? Do we know that they have an additional rerun right for the series again after this one? If they slow it down starting in July to go through season 4 once a week, that's 22 weeks-
which would finish before the end of this year, right? (6 months from the beginning of July to the end of December is about half of 52 weeks in a year)

At least we will be able to do the ads at a less frenetic pace, and cross post the list each week without overwhelming people.

[B Sharp]

Re this:
Originally posted by CosmicTheorist
This was posted by harveywhispers on November 7 in the "Responses to To-Do List Letters":


"Just got this email response from KIA -

Dear (real me deleted):

Thank you for writing regarding your concern with the cancellation of Farscape. As Kia has been an advertiser in the past on this program, we investigated this cancellation and discovered the following:

* This is Farscape's last season on Sci-Fi due to contract issues.
* Farscape will air new episodes through March '03, and repeat episodes through September '03. Kia will air commercials on Farscape through September 03.
* Unfortunately, it is our understanding that UPN will not be picking up the show as was rumored.

Kia is eager to support shows with a loyal following, thereby ensuring that quality programming remains on the air. Although Kia was unable to affect the Farscape cancellation, we will continue to support similar quality programming, such as Stargate on The Sci-Fi Channel and Star Trek Enterprise on UPN.

Thank you for writing with your concern.

Sincerely,


Walter Anderson
Vice President, Marketing"
;)

The letter from Kia seems to indicate that Kia is a supporter. Should we have a targetted letter template for Kia at this point? Something to remind them that we're still here, and still watching even though it's cancelled, and shown only at midnight, and now only once/week....?

also - Is it worth a to-do list request ?

[blue]

I would like to see Kia, HP and many others on a to do list--

Here's the list of targeted responders:

Advertisers targetted and responsive
Best Buy
CDW Computers
Clorox
ConAgra
Domino's Pizza
FedEx
Gillette
HP
Kia
Kraft
Mazda
Michelin
Nissan
Norelco
Orkin
Proctor & Gamble
Quaker
SC Johnson
Wendy's

and there's

Advertisers not targetted and responsive

Charmin
General Mills
Hershey
KFC
Long John Silver's
Mitsubishi
Nestle
Post
TGI Friday's
Visa

plus those who have advertised a lot and have never been targeted, like Pfizer, I think. Does someone want to make a list of those?

[Chryse]

Originally posted by CosmicTheorist

* Farscape will air new episodes through March '03, and repeat episodes through September '03. Kia will air commercials on Farscape through September 03.


This doesn't say anything about how often the reruns would run, just that there would be re-runs. There was no guarantee anywhere that the 4 or 5 days a week reruns would continue on Scifi. So they are cutting down to once a week, technically, they are still running the reruns as they told Kia, just not as often as we would like.

:)
aileen

[Sococlear]

Unfortunately, it is our understanding that UPN will not be picking up the show as was rumored.

I know this was posted on nov. 7, but what does this mean. Someone refresh my memory, and clarify, thank you..

[CosmicTheorist]

Back in November, UPN probably did not have any plans for Farscape that they would or could make public. That is what they told Kia, that they had no plans. Since the email did not use quotes, we don't know if UPN qualified any of their statements to Kia. However, Scapers have been writing directly to UPN since last September and WE have NEVER been told that UPN. By way of contrast, UPN did tell the Firefly fans that they would not be picking up Firefly.

I believe this means UPN is not ready to sell advertising space for Farscape to companies like Kia, but they aren't ready to tell Scapers they are picking up Farscape, or not. So hope still lives with UPN. And Showtime. And it wouldn't hurt to write to TNN-soon-to-be-SPIKE TV.

;)

[Sococlear]

Yes I agree about spike, Thanks for refressing my memory and clearing up that quote.

[Kerlin]

You are freaking kidding me, right? Oh, Skiffy, the lows of stupidity you sink to...

Once a week. Midnight. On SUNDAYS.

*grits teeth*

Okay. Time to make lemonade. This will slow down the frantic pace and allow us to really hone in on a strategy, do recon, and really stick it to the advertisers.

[vhsiv]

Originally posted by CosmicTheorist
Back in November, UPN probably did not have any plans for Farscape that they would or could make public. That is what they told Kia, that they had no plans. Since the email did not use quotes, we don't know if UPN qualified any of their statements to Kia. However, Scapers have been writing directly to UPN since last September and WE have NEVER been told that UPN. By way of contrast, UPN did tell the Firefly fans that they would not be picking up Firefly.

I believe this means UPN is not ready to sell advertising space for Farscape to companies like Kia, but they aren't ready to tell Scapers they are picking up Farscape, or not. So hope still lives with UPN. And Showtime. And it wouldn't hurt to write to TNN-soon-to-be-SPIKE TV. One possible corollary is that there might have been noise of a pick-up by another net, and Skiffy chose this moment to slow down the airings, thus extending the duration of their contract.

[CosmicTheorist]

Farscape is an asset, right? Having the exclusive rights to show Farscape is an asset; but it is a limited asset with limitations set by the number of times Farscape is shown OR the length of time since its LAST new episode aired. Maybe they cut back on the number of showings per week to INCREASE the value of this Farscape asset.

This is the week that Vivendi promised to open its books to all potential buyers. You can read the article posted by kechara420 in the Network News forum that tells about this promise by using this link:

http://www.watchfarscape.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=11227

Since Viacom wants to buy Skiffy, I'm sure that Skiffy's books are going to get looked at by Viacom. Skiffy was probably told by Vivendi to put it's best "face" on for it's potential buyers. Wouldn't maximizing all their assets, including their Farscape asset, be a part of this process?

;)