Well, providing MTV (USA) don't stomp on it by pressing c5 to suspend the UK screenings until after the US premiere (perish the thought!), it looks like the UK fans will be back to our weekly fix of Daria on June 12th. Woohoo, if I may make so bold.
"Daria | Lane Miserables | Channel 5 | Saturday 12 June | 17:00 to 17:25 | Videoplus 67734473 | Cartoon capers with a cynical teen. Jane and Trent Lane move in with Dana [sic] when their two sisters, brother and father unexpectedly come home." [1]
I think this calls for another bit of tweaking the invitation to follow spoiler policy. I'll do it, if no-one objects: another spoiler policy thread isn't what I crave just now. 8-)
Interesting that "Cartoon capers..." forms the opening of the synopsis on more than one listing service: presumably, each service is copying from the same source. The c5 press pack? Scanned, perhaps from printed media? "n" for "ri" looks like an OCR error. And are c5 copying from the MTV material for broadcasters?
I can understand any US fan being disappointed that they won't be the first to see some new episodes, but if this applies to you, please remain calm! If MTV get complaints, they might create a much longer quarantine period for Series Four, leaving us non-US fans with a long, long wait. Some broadcasters might even choose not to buy S4 (heaven forbid) if they can only screen it after Daria's been off their network for a year or more.
ISTM that, thanks largely to this ng, the various Daria websites, and #DariaFan, there's now a global audience for Daria, not a whole load of hermetically sealed national ones. It's not clear whether everyone in MTV realises this. <sigh>
On Fri, 4 Jun 1999 11:23:57 +0100, "Martin Sylvester" wrote:
No offense, Padre, but seeing as how it's the USA that created and produced the show, and thus by all rights deserves first (if not equal) crack at showing them, I don't think you'll garner a whole lot of sympathy for this point of view here in the Colonies. :-) Sure, "Daria" now has an international audience, and I mean no disrespect to our friends across the Two Ponds, but it's those of us here in the States that supported the show and built its popularity in the first place. To deny us the opportunity to see these episodes first is a huge slap in the face that I can guarantee won't be forgotten for a long time to come.
Martin
(send all e-mail to "[email]")
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Martin J. Pollard wrote in message news:[email]...
first
If
No offense taken! As I say, I understand how disappointing this must be. I imagine that whoever set back the US premiere by a month is not the leading contender for MTV Employee of the Month.
The danger is not just a case of longer delays for overseas fans. As I went on to say, some overseas broadcasters - the ones who don't seem to value Daria very highly to begin with - may decide that if they have to wait a year with no episode screened, they may decide not to buy the next series. How much or how little Daria depends on overseas sales for viability is something I can't even guess at, but even if MTV are willing to bankroll Daria for domestic consumption only, the overseas fans would be very sad to see an end to their access to the show.
Appreciated. I think the camaraderie among Daria fans in different countries is, in part, down to an understanding that the support of the US fans helped get Daria established, and the support of the overseas fans helps keep it going (by creating revenue for MTV as they sell it to other broadcasters). Of course, the greater part of our camaraderie is down to the fact that anyone who appreciates Daria must be Our Sort of Person! <g>
As someone else has wisely observed here in the past, one solution would be for MTV to recognise that Daria has a global audience, and premiere in the same week in all markets. The chances of that happening, though, seem, let's say, remote.
No, but I bet s/he's a contender for "Bonehead of the year" for not bothering to clear everything before making the move.
I doubt that MTV will change their policy *that* drastically-- I would assume, though, that foreign broadcasters won't get their hands on the episodes until after they've aired here, though.
And, of course, because most of us are "Brains" too. ;-)
They're remote until everyone has a big fat data pipe into their homes, and the current TV distro system becomes obsolete. Imagine logging on your TV and downloading the latest ep of Daria:The Post-Graduate Years <g> from the Net as soon as the file's made available to the public. (Same time every week--- 10PM EST on Wednesdays, natch.) That way, you can save the ep to a Portable Storage Device and catch it later if need be, or rewatch it whenever you want. Of course, by then we'll all be driving rocket cars to commute to our cheese-mining jobs on the Moon. ;-)
As for foreign fans being punished later for these cock-ups, I don't think y'all will be punished that badly. I do suspect that you may have to wait an extra week or two (if the eps are shown over air and censored), or just an extra day or two (if you have a squirrely MTV subsidiary). I would guess that in order to prevent a recurrence, foreign broadcasters will not get actual possession of each tape until after it has aired in the US. That really isn't much of a problem, considering that broadcasters use Air Courier services (and sometimes airlines) to send tapes all over the place. (Or, I guess they could just send 'em over the satellite.)
Anywho, if the MTV:Oz folks had been kept abreast of the situation, and if the Idjit Lawyer who wrote the contract for the sale of eps to c5 had bothered to put in a clause allowing MTV to delay airings, then this would never have happened.
rich.
Daria: Sorry, with all of this animation, I thought I was on Nickelodeon for a moment.
Well, naturally! Perhaps I should put another question on the atd survey: which world do you inhabit? (a) popular (b) regular (c) the brains' world.
be
the
let's
Or "Daria in her Montana cabin" by the time the industry gives up trying to keep markets insulated from each other?
All indisputably true. Would c5 have bought with a condition like that attached? As Shez points out, UK broadcasters have different audience expectations to cater for, and have a bizarre habit of planning in advance. Applying Occam's razor: if MTV USA had stuck to the schedule, this would never had happened.
My own experience in contracts is that attaching strings reduces the contract value. MTV would probably have to reduce the price by 10%, although they might mitigate this by guaranteeing to supply an alternative show to fill the slot should the supply of Daria be delayed for some reason. I think a limiting clause would harm their reputation as a programme supplier though. I mean, would you buy your TV programmes from a supplier who said "although we're selling you this show, we can't guarantee to deliver the episodes in time to go out as scheduled, and even if we have delivered them we might change our minds and forbid you to broadcast them." I think I'd go to a different supplier for my TV programmes, wouldn't you?
I've been reading this thread and thinking... "June 12... June 12... something about June 12...." I was assuming that having seen the subject header once I'd made a mental note of the date or something, and that it was otherwise irrelevant. Nope, just realised, June 12 is my best friend's 17th (or 19th, if you work in a pub) birthday. I have no money for a present or anything. Oh well. I'm sure you all really wanted to know that.
It would be totally wrong for them to make us wait. It's bad enough having no Daria this week! Just because some sadistic MTV scheduler has decided to inflict pain on US viewers by delaying American screenings by a month is no reason to make us suffer too. Hopefully there are contractual terms which will prevent MTV from withdrawing the screening rights it has already sold to other country's broadcasters. As I mentioned in another post, most broadcasters sort out their schedules weeks, if not months, in advance, and just because MTV in the US uses a random number generator to produce it's programme schedules doesn't mean other people have to suffer too.
I've noticed before that in the US tv series tend to go out using something akin to the Tower of Hanoi algorithm, with a few new episodes interspersed with weeks of repeats, but in the UK we are accustomed to TV series following the dictum "begin at the beginning, then go on until the end, and then stop".
If a series is being shown, we expect to tune in the same time every week and see the next episode in the series, not a rerun or something else entirely. (I realise the BBC has not being doing this with Buffy though, which it seems to regard as a filler programme to be shown only when there are no sports events on.)
But leaving aside the BBC's shameful treatment of Buffy, unless a national emergency or world war has been declared, we do not expect a TV series to suddenly stop half way through as happens in the US, and if it does happen we write complaints to the broadcaster demanding an explanation.
And if we have reruns during a season, they're given their own slot in the schedules, on a different day and time to the first run stuff. That's how we like it in good ol' Blighty, a place for everything, and everything in its place.
One of the worrying things about the internationalisation of broadcasting and the multiplication of the number of TV channels is that broadcasters may start trying to inflict the depraved practices of barmy American broadcasters on us. I don't know why you put up with this stuff in America, you should write and complain and demand that your TV series be shown in a single uninterrupted block UK-style, instead of being fed to you in dribs and drabs, the way people feed scraps to a dog under the table.
And as for ad breaks, I was gobsmacked when I visited America and found that no sooner had the opening titles of a show been run than there was an ad-break! And then more ads before the closing credits? It's completely crazy! How are people supposed to settle into a show and really get into it when it keeps stopping for an ad break every 2 minutes?
Ironically, when Channel 5 was founded in the UK, the chief executive openly admitted that the programmes were simply there to fill the space between ad breaks, which appears also to be the ethos of US broadcasters. Yet C5 show Daria in a single piece, from the moment the titles start to run through to the end of the closing song, there is not a single break for ads. To me that says that despite their mission statement, in practice they have respect for the programmes they show, and respect for their viewers. Why should US citizens settle for anything less than being treated with respect? If I were a US viewer I think I would campaign vociferously for this.
Ah well. At least we in America get the whole episodes. Isn't that more worth the wait?? It's pretty bad that those in the UK w/o MTV have to watch the chopped up versions.
It is bad that C5 edits some of the episodes for content. The problem is partly that some things which are considered inoffensive in America are considered offensive here (at least amongst the vocal minority who file complaints against broadcasters), as with the use of British swear words in the Depth Takes A Holiday episode. MTV and the Daria team had evidently overlooked the fact that the series has international distribution when they did that.
More of a problem though is that UK broadcasters often decide that US series are most suited to viewing slots aimed at young people. Then they seem to discover that the content isn't suited to children after all, but instead of putting the show on at a more appropriate time, they edit it to force it to fit the children's slot. With a 5pm slot, and formerly a 11:30am slot IIRC, Channel 5 are obviously aiming Daria at young viewers, whereas in contrast it's forerunner, Beavis & Butthead, used to go out a 11pm on Channel 4.
Channel 4 does seem to be the only UK broadcaster which doesn't automatically class all SF and animation series as children's programming. I recall that many Doctor Who fans felt insulted recently when the BBC had included Dr.Who alongside Postman Pat & the Teletubbies in a promotional piece for their children's TV output. Although most of us watched Dr. Who as children, I think few of us regarded it as a children's show, rather it was something for all the family. Certainly there is plenty in it which scares children witless - eg. I recall hiding behind the sofa whenever cybermen appeared on screen!
Returning to Daria, it would be preferable if C5 showed it in a later slot, perhaps 7pm, when it would no longer have to be edited for content, but the trouble here I think is that broadcasters are concerned with maximising viewing figures and feel they will get a bigger audience showing an edited version earlier in the day than an unedited version later on. This is certainly the BBC's position with Buffy. (Also, if they're clever with the scissors, they think people won't realise that there's been a cut, but this is no longer true given the international environment we live in. I have never noticed any obvious cuts in Daria, and it's only through atd that I am aware of the cuts to the C5 showings. I think maybe Depth Takes a Holiday may perhaps have been rendered more surreal by the swearing being cut, but I think it was fairly odd to begin with.)
A compromise, which Channel 4 adopted with their "TFI Friday" chat show thing, would be to show things twice in different slots. TFI Friday goes out in edited form at 6pm (with swearing removed), and then again in unedited form at about 11pm. I think Channel 5 should look into doing likewise.
The solution to these things lies in part in complaining, as I suggested in my previous post. I complained to C5 about cutting Jake's song from the musical, and I complained to the BBC about showing Buffy in an early slot that requires it to be edited. I've also complained to various broadcasters about the insidious use of DOGs (permanently onscreen logos). In some ways it's an unequal contest between rival complainants though - people who feel offended by swearing or violence on TV can complain to statutory authorities who have powers to impose various sanctions on broadcasters. But those of us who are offended by the *removal* of swearing and violence have no statutory recourse, and can only complain to the broadcaster themself (and perhaps hit them in the pocket by taking our viewing elsewhere). This inequality means broadcasters inevitably err on the side of caution as they're more afraid of people who complain about swearing etc than those who complain about its removal.
There was a guy on uk.media.tv.misc who used to publish a weekly "Melon Farmers Hit List" of all the films on UK tv that week which had been censored, which was a useful resource for those wishing to campaign on such issues. Sadly he discontinued it a while ago now.
The term "melon farmer" came from an infamous edit where UK film director Alex Cox was required to sanitise one of his own films for airline viewing or somesuch use, and he overdubbed all the swearing with ridiculous replacement words. Most notably, all instances of "motherfucker" were changed to "melon farmer". It was meant to be a statement against censorship, but ironically people actually preferred the dubbed version as it was so hilarious!
ISTR that it works that way for 2 reasons: 1) it's always been done that way and 2) it allows new viewers to get into the shows. Actually, most US broadcasters will show new episodes in 4-8 episode blocks, followed by a repeat, then 4-8 more, then repeat, then the last block of 4-8, then reruns from May-September. (When everyone's too busy to watch TV, anyway.) The new eps usually fall around Fall, Winter, and Spring Sweeps-- the time when networks set their ad rates based on ratings. IIRC, the fall sweeps period is November, the winter sweeps are in February, and spring sweeps are in May.
Interestingly enough, of late a number of cable channels (MTV included) have been ignoring the traditional sweeps periods by premiering new shows while the networks are in reruns. And, to nobody's surprise, the tactic has worked-- cable ratings are up 11% over last year. The summertime is when cable networks really turn on the heat, because nobody's watching network TV reruns, and anyone who happens to be home at the time is desperate to see something new for a change.
Also, keep in mind that shows are still in production while they're already being aired-- while you're watching episode #405 of "ER," they're still shooting episode #409, or maybe #411. It gives the shows an enormous amount of flexibilty to deal with all sorts of things that may arise. (Like an actor leaving the show, or the show being cancelled...)
This is also all a function of how TV shows are ordered-- usually they come in packages of: a pilot (1 test show), then a block of 4-6 (in case it sucks and gets cancelled), then maybe 12-14 (in the case of a mid-season replacement or an expensive series), then 22 (for a full year of a live-action series). Again, this allows flexibility-- if you order 6 shows of a show that you're not too sure about, you can order up the rest of the season if it becomes a hit, and the show will go back into production while the first 6 episodes get rerun. Naturally, in order to fill out the season, you're going to have to rerun as well.
Finally, you must remember that the US is the ultimate capitalist society in terms of entertainment-- if you want commercial-free TV, then you have to pay a premium for it (although in the case of PBS it's a bi-annual annoyance tax. <g>) Otherwise, there are no government subidies of any sort-- it's all driven by ad revenue. And if your competitors give their advertisers the ability to put in 3 spots during the broadcast of a show, well, then, so will you. And there's no way in hell that the US Government would ever try to regulate that-- that's the sort of action that would raise the hackles of the entire entertainment industry. And even if such a regulation was handed down, then advertisers would punish the networks-- they'd pull ads, and force ad rates waaaay down. The result? Less money to fund current shows, and even less incentive to gamble on new or "edgy" shows. Cause, let's face it-- who would watch an 8-minute block of ads between shows? Everyone would just get up and either walk the dog, make a sandwich, or go to the bathroom. Precisely what the advertisers are trying to avoid by airing in the middle of the show.
*Shrug* We're used to it by now. Of course, it helps to have 50 channels to choose from for about $10/mo. (Actually, my cable costs even less than that.)
Well, we like the hustle and bustle here. It's all a question of what you're used to. Both systems provide good TV, and both systems produce a lot of crap. The only difference, I would gather, is that here, good shows don't have to be limited to a run of 6, and bad shows won't air endlessly, just because they're "in the can," and "we've got nothing else to show." Having shows constantly in production (except, of course, in summer), allows you to change as necessary.
Well, for me I prefer a steady diet of scraps over a week than gorging myself on Sunday and wondering what to eat the rest of the week. It's all an issue of what you're used to. I know some people who wait till summer to watch their favorite TV shows, as the whole series are usually run of the most popular shows.
You get used to it. (See above for details.)
It's a business. People go into it to make money. There's nothing unethical about trying to earn a living through airing ads. In the US, entertainment is the one business that everyone wants to get into, because there's the opportunity to make a whoooole lotta money doing stuff that can be really fun. (And very frustrating, too. Most people in the entertainment biz *don't* make a ton of money, but there's always a possibility...)
*shrug* sure, it'd be great if all shows could be aired without interruption, but then who'd pay for the show to be written, produced, filmed, edited, and distributed? Yeah, commercials are annoying, but that's what VCRs are for. ;-)
rich.
Helen: Bureaucracy is the price we pay for impartiality.
Three out of five of our TV stations are funded from ad revenue too, but they have fewer breaks. Ad breaks are normally 3-4 minutes long in the UK, although occasionally they're shorter than that. ITV normally have ad breaks every 15 minutes, so with a half hour show there is an ad break between shows, and one in the middle, whereas the US stations seem to put in an extra two breaks during a show of that length.
Meanwhile I think Channel 4, which is apparently an immensely profitable operation (sufficiently to enable it to bankroll most of the UK film industry anyhow), used to make ends meet with only one ad break every half hour or so, though nowadays it seems to be more like one every 20 minutes.
Channel 5 of course is purely advert funded too, despite not showing any ads during Daria itself - the ad break is between shows in this case. Admittedly having no breaks at all in a half hour show is unusual, I suspect it arises from C5 classing Daria as a children's show, and AFAIK ad breaks are only allowed between shows in children's tv slots.
Regarding having short runs at the start, and reruns to allow more episodes to be commissioned (or the show to be axed) or to allow new viewers to catch up, I can see this has its advantages. However we seem to get plenty of new shows here under our system, and I'm not convinced of the benefit of a few weeks viewing figures in deciding whether to keep or axe a show. Even with the benefit of a whole season of a show having been broadcast, UK broadcasters seem to make some bizarre decisions on what shows are worth renewing and which ones should be dropped.