The TV Show Renewal Frenzy

Posted: 16th April 2009 by Ted Ottey in Thoughts & Ideas
Tags: , , ,
Comments Off

After re-designing my site this past weekend I’m already behind in content and site updates, but what else is new.  Anyway, there are a host of interesting things going on around the world, but this time of year most interesting to me is the TV show renewal debate.   Typically this debate falls into two categories, the Nielsen’s and the Nielsen haters.  Nielsen is the official TV ratings source and for the past million years has been the main criteria for deciding which shows you watch on TV come back for another season or fall by the wayside.  The Nielsen’s are the people that take TV ratings as gospel for dictating which shows come back next season.  The Nielsen haters are usually made up of the fan bases of the shows most likely to be cancelled in the upcoming season.

This year more than ever, however, there has been a lot of chatter over which shows should and should not be renewed with below average ratings.  TVbyTheNumbers has a whole calculation for predicting which shows are in-danger of being canceled based off of ratings, and I usually tend to go with that.  While these numbers point to a very specific group of shows likely to be canceled things just don’t seem so clear cut this year.

Three shows in particular, NBC’s Chuck, and Fox’s Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and Dollhouse, all have below average ratings, but have fans up in arms begging for them to be renewed.  While TTSCC has the lowest ratings (.1 below Dollhouse), it’s season finale left off with a major plot twist that have bloggers across the internet claiming what a mistake Fox would make if they didn’t renew Terminator.  Of course this doesn’t stop rumors, as EW reported an inside source said the show was already canceled here.  Interestingly enough these rumors cause more clamor and other “inside” information a day later found here.

While I personally would love to see TTSCC renewed its hard to argue with the numbers and while we would all like to think TV shows are more than just numbers it’s hard to really do so.  Pilot TV shows are expensive and risky, which is probably why CBS has 3 different versions of CSI and announced plans to release an NCIS spin-off next year.  Take what works, rinse, and repeat.  Fox is apparently known for being hard on its shows and I’m not sure about NBC but I would put more money on Chuck being renewed then Terminator or Dollhouse.  I think more than that, however, we can definitely say one of the two, Terminator or Dollhouse, will be canceled.

Even more interesting is this article that makes a case for abandoning television viewing altogether and watching shows only online so that the networks know exactly how many people are watching.  While this probably sounds like a good idea in theory, I doubt it will ever work simply because TV networks can’t make as much money off online viewership, again boiling down to the numbers game.  Terminator and Dollhouse’s actual viewership is quite high counting in their DVR viewers (Terminator is something like #2 or #3 overall), but networks don’t make enough money, if any, off DVR viewers.

Regardless of all the talk circulating around, there is still a plethora of time left before any formal announcements are made as NBC’s official 2009-2010 schedule is set to be announced May 5th, Fox on May 18th, ABC on May 19th, and CBS on May 20th.  In the meantime, however, I guess we can all continue to troll the internet defending our favorite show.  Even vote in E!Online’s Save one Show poll.  Currently, from what I’ve heard, Terminator is up at 47% and ahead of the pack.  Good news for fans, and if you’re like me, you’ll continue voting for your favorite as well.  Till next time…

Weekend Thoughts & New Design

Posted: 11th April 2009 by Ted Ottey in Website News
Tags: , , ,
Comments Off

Alright, after 3 hours or so I’ve finally finished updating this blog with a new design and a host of other features undernearth.  I have a lot more updates I want to get to, most importntly, re-designing the comments as their current design is too ugly to look at.  Until I fix the comments, I’m just going to leave them disabled so I don’t hurt anyone’s eyes. As you can probably guess by this design change, my blog content will also take a slightly different direction. I’ll still be doing some eSports stuff here and there, but this will not be a sole eSports blog anymore. Don’t like that?  Tough.  Anyway on to some of my thoughts for the weekend:

TTSCC Season (Series) Finale: I don’t know how many of you watch Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles but I do, mainly because I just like the Terminator franchise. Anyway, the season 2 finale aired last night and suffice to say it was probably also the series finale. Terminator’s ratings haven’t been doing so great since the start of season 2 and finally leveled out when Fox moved it to Fridays after a 3 week break. You can head over to TVbyNumbers for a full breakdown of ratings if you’re interested. While I won’t go spoil the finale in case anyone is planning on seeing it, I will say I’m kind of disappointed to see the show go. Yeah, it could possibly get renewed next season, but based on the ratings, the experts and I doubt it will. Luckily, Terminator Salvation (with Christian Bale as John Connor) is scheduled to hit theaters next month and it looks sick, so there is at least some Terminator in our future.

Congress to Investigate Bandwidth Capping: Finally, someone is starting to make some noise concerning bandwidth capping by ISPs which may include congress sniffing around. Wired.com has the story here.  Bandwidth capping is one of those things your ISP started to implement because their customer base kept growing and growing and instead of spending money upgrading their network infrastructure, they decided to cap bandwidth on clients, saving them a ton of money. I have Comcast when I’m home and not in school and I know we have some insanely low cap per month for having 3 college students and my parents home during the summer. I mean come on, it’s not like if Comcast spends a few thousand dollars upgrading their infrastructure they will go bankrupt….

Sprint Commercial: Something about this new Sprint commercial seems really cool. I can’t really put my finger on it, but I like the commercial so here it is:

Site News – 3/22/09

Posted: 22nd March 2009 by Ted Ottey in Website News
Tags: , ,
Comments Off

Well it has certainly been a while since my last update (+2 weeks to be technical) and unfortunately I’ve been battling sickness, stress, and an overload of work.  So let me give you guys the 10 second rundown: In case you don’t know, the regular season of CEVO just ended with Pandemic landing the first seed into playoffs with a 14-1 record.   Additionally, Pandemic also pulled out an impressive win in the GotFrag Tournament over Pure eSports in 2 maps.  Also, earlier this week I hooked up with my good friend Jock Yitch over at BASHandSLASH.com for a much needed CoD4 eSports roundup.  You can check out the show below:

Finally, to wrap things up, ETS LAN in Montreal took place this weekend, so all in all not too bad. Now on to the real news…

With great sadness I unfortunately have decided to discontinue the regularity of this blog.  Now, I know what you’re thinking, WHY!?!?  I have made this decision not because of the amount, or lack, of the site’s traffic.  This has absolutely nothing to do with the declining state of competitive CoD4 nor does it have anything to do with gaming or eSports in general.  I will continue to volunteer my time with CEVO, so I will not be leaving eSports entirely.  I love eSports, I don’t think I could ever just walk away and never come back, but at this moment in my life I need to take a step back.  This blog will continue to stay up, however, its posts will not be the weekly coverage you are used to.

Until then, game on.

-Ted

CEVO-Pro Wk7 & GotFrag ???

Posted: 5th March 2009 by Ted Ottey in eSports & Gaming
Tags: ,
2

In one week’s time it’s absolutely amazing how much can change. We’ve seen x3o and MoBdeep drop in the standings significantly as MoB Gaming and Pure rise to take their places. Then again, gauging the upcoming matches this was the predicted result. My guess is we’re going to see x3o slowly but surely continue to drop down the standings until they are no longer in playoff position as, at the moment, there just isn’t much activity coming from Rob’s camp. Fortunately, however, playoffs are just around the corner so things won’t get boring as the top 6 seeds slowly emerge this week.

CEVO-Professional Week 7:1
Pandemic > x3o
MoB Gaming > Hostile Faction 16-5
MoBdeep > ptL
Pure eSports > BackSlash Gaming -MOTW

Probably on any other given night I would tell you we have a number of exciting matches to look forward to, but tonight, I can’t. For starters, MoB Gaming quickly dispensed of Hostile Faction last night with a convincing 16-5 stomping. Although Hostile Faction had to play the match without CoCo, the result would have likely been the same with the only difference being more rounds won on Hostile Faction’s end as Crash is arguably MoB Gaming’s best map. Moving on we have Pandemic taking on x3o, which assuming the match even takes place, will be just a mess to watch as Pandemic advances to 7:2 with ease. On the side of MoB pond we have MoBdeep clutching desperately for their playoff position. Fortunately, their upcoming match against PtL should give them a much needed win after their loss to Pandemic on Monday as PtL is pretty much a sunken ship with the departure of former captain kun to backslash yesterday.

Closing out the night we have the only match really worth mention: Pure vs BackSlash. In all honesty I don’t see BackSlash winning this one, but it’s the closest thing we have to an interesting match. Although Pure may have looked shaky on Strike you might want to take a gander at their team page and their latest addition. That’s right kids, rob-wiz himself. Carter is taking a step back for more leisure activities and Pure won’t be content with any replacement, they need the best. Although BackSlash just picked up Kun from PtL, Rob and the rest of Pure will most likely come for blood and for tonight at least BackSlash will be a hemophiliac.

Read the rest of this entry »

CEVO-Pro Wk6, GotFrag LB Semi’s & Top 10

Posted: 26th February 2009 by Ted Ottey in eSports & Gaming
Tags: ,
3

Although it has only been a week since our last update, quite a bit has changed. To start with, let’s take a look at x3o. The team that was once at the top of standings, dealt Pandemic their only loss, and looked next to unstoppable, is now sinking faster than the Titanic. The iceberg that first hit x3o was the departure of Preston “Juv3nile” Dornon to MoB Gaming for the allure of sponsorship dollars to potentially compete in upcoming European events. If one hit wasn’t enough, however, there are more rumors coming out that both PierreLuc “luke” Soucy and Robert “Sintax” Ryan might also be jumping off the x3o boat to MoB, Soucy as a backup and Ryan as a starter. I understand the need to pay the bills and the lure of sponsorships, but why all three of these players would jump ship to a team that is sitting 5th in the CEVO-P standings is beyond me, especially when there isn’t a European event announced anywhere near the size of AEF or TEX of last summer. Hopefully, x3o can sort themselves out and pick up some talented players to finish out the season, as there are still a plethora of players left hanging around from EG, Frag Dominant and more without homes.

CEVO-Professional Week 6:1:
Pandemic > PtL
MoB Gaming > x3o
Pure > Hostile Faction –MOTW
Backslash > Dynamic

Tonight we have an interesting set of matches with the exception of MoB vs x3o which will be delayed to Monday. At the top of the list, Pandemic should be able to move through PtL without too much trouble as their last match against Pure ended 16-9 in their favor. Needless to say, Pandemic looks at the top of their game, and it’s going to take more then what PtL has to bet them, especially on strike. This MoB vs x3o match is hard to call because it’s being delayed, but also because both teams haven’t really finalized their rosters yet. I’m going to give the edge to MoB, however, while x3o still tries to rebound. Pure vs Hostile Faction should be quite the interesting bout, especially considering where each stand at the moment.

Read the rest of this entry »

Older Entries
Newer Entries