Vanity Is Now The Sincerest Form Of Television - Playboy Club Cancelled Already
Joe Escalante ·
Oct 5, 2011 at 11:01pm
The networks fell all over themselves trying to get their own "Madmen." Why? Madmen's ratings have peaked at less than 3 million viewers, yet the vain networks went after its demos like it attracted 8 million. What they were really envious of was the Emmys it won. Egg on vain face.
3 million viewers on a NBC = cancellation after only two weeks. Vanity is a dead end road. That is a lesson they will never learn in Hollywood. If they were smart they'd make a series based on something with a broad audience like Alex Kendrick does instead of trying to out "envelope push" each other. Courageous the series? They don't have the cajones.
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Oct '10
Re: Vanity Is Now The Sincerest Form Of Television - Playboy Club Cancelled Already
I feel sorry for Amber Heard. Christina Ricci, are you next?
Aug '11
Re: Vanity Is Now The Sincerest Form Of Television - Playboy Club Cancelled Already
It amazes me how many movies with absolutely no commercial potential get made just because a marquee star, wanting to buff his or her artistic credentials, will sign on for a 4-week shoot.
Consider, for instance, The Tree of Life, starring Brad Pitt, which cost $32 million and grossed $13 million.
What's up with that? Perhaps Rob Long can explain.
Re: Vanity Is Now The Sincerest Form Of Television - Playboy Club Cancelled Already
I've always found this- shows getting cancelled after one episode- confusing. Surely they could just use videos of people jumping onto inflatables and falling into the water and have a hit.
Dec '10
Re: Vanity Is Now The Sincerest Form Of Television - Playboy Club Cancelled Already
You meant NBC, right?
Re: Vanity Is Now The Sincerest Form Of Television - Playboy Club Cancelled Already
When I worked at CBS, I asked the programming executives why you can't just shove the programming down people's throats like they do in the music business. You just keep playing the song, no matter how bad it is until people consider it a hit and buy it.
The answer I got was that it was too much of a commitment to get people to engage in. A song is 3 minutes. 30 to 60 minutes is too much time to hold someone down without the Clockwork Orange eyeball clamps.
Re: Vanity Is Now The Sincerest Form Of Television - Playboy Club Cancelled Already
Vanity didn't push NBC to create (spew up?) "The Playboy Club." It was desperation coupled with lack of creativity on the part of the executives. It's the same every single season. If "Lost" was a hit last year, then let's do something on an island with malevolent unseen forces this season. If "Friends" was a hit last season, then let's do shows about really attractive single people who have great apartments in Manhattan this season. A couple of seasons ago CBS only had sitcoms about dumpy working class guys married to wise-cracking wives who were way too good-looking to be married to schlubs. Then CBS got it right. Instead of thinly veiled copy-catting others, just clone yourself...hence CSI ad nauseam.
Re: Vanity Is Now The Sincerest Form Of Television - Playboy Club Cancelled Already
Tom Paine: It amazes me how many movies with absolutely no commercial potential get made just because a marquee star, wanting to buff his or her artistic credentials, will sign on for a 4-week shoot.
Consider, for instance, The Tree of Life, starring Brad Pitt, which cost $32 million and grossed $13 million.
What's up with that? Perhaps Rob Long can explain. · Oct 5 at 11:22pm
I don't know the specific finances of that movie, but Brad Pitt produces a lot of movies through his company, in addition to being a big star. Studios are willing (read "have to or lose them") to fund vanity projects to keep these money makers happy. Then they write the loses off against their occasional blockbusters, so there really isn't much of a loss. That's why "Starwars" still isn't in profits and "net" points on any project is a joke. Rob, anything else to add?
Jun '11
Re: Vanity Is Now The Sincerest Form Of Television - Playboy Club Cancelled Already
I think you mean the radio business. I assure you, record companies can promote singles to radio but not "program" them.
But, I would disagree with the premise even if you did mean radio business. Programming that the audience doesn't like leads to unemployed programmers whether it's political talk, sports talk, or music. You and I may think that "Afternoon Delight" stunk musically but it gathered an audience for the sales department at the radio station to pitch to advertisers and that's what really matters in the radio business. Consider that hundreds of thousands of 3 singles died an even quicker death than this latest canceled TV offering. Others got played in tertiary, and secondary markets and never made it to major market radio. In all those cases a record company dearly wished they could just shove them into radio listeners' ear canals.