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Drive - ongoing thread (1 Viewer)

NeilO

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That was a show that was not properly promoted to get the audience that FOX wanted to continue showing it. The audience of a premiere is based on the promotion behind it. It can't be based on the quality of the show itself since no one has seen it yet. If the show followed American Idol or House and then didn't deliver that would be another thing. It followed Simpsons reruns.

Despite the multiple failures on many networks of serial shows, FOX aired Drive in a way that doomed from the start. The audience apparently just isn't there. A summer run might have been a better idea.

Neil
 

Ric Easton

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Looks like I can free up some space on the ol' DVR. This was a show I decided to record and see if it catches on before I invest any time in it. I realise that if everyone did this, no show would become successful. But I am getting very tired of watching new series and then having them ripped out from under me before they have had much of a chance.
 

TravisR

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So what shows should they have promoted Drive during? Since February, I constantly saw ads during 24, Prison Break (which are both the same type of audience that would watch Drive) and The Simpsons and I know there were ads during American Idol, Family Guy and House. In other words, they ran tons of ads during the most popular shows on their network so what more could they done to promote it? Just because it didn't have American Idol as a lead-in doesn't mean that they abandoned it.

Fox usually deserves the blame for not giving a show a chance or for not promoting it or giving it a terrible timeslot but not this time. If you want to keep blaming the network, go ahead.
 

Scott-S

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One thing I never understood is why they don't show all the episodes that were filmed?

They already spent the money. Why not at least show them? If they were replacing it with another new show I guess I would understand that they needed a slot. But to replace it with re-runs of shows that are already on at another time just doesnt make sense.
 

NeilO

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On the FOX Drive website they say they will show the final 2 episodes that were filmed this summer. Unfortunately, since the original order was 13 episodes it will still be quite short of any sort of satisfying conclusion.

Neil
 

TravisR

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I think the ads were very indicative of what the show was but apparently people didn't want to see that show.

What night is there not a show a popular show on? Every night has a big show. They had to pick one and I don't think the same person watching The Amazing Race or Desperate Housewives was ever going to watch Drive.

Word of mouth wasn't going to suddenly triple the audience. Like I said before, if you want to blame the network for people not watching it, you can but this is a case where Fox actually did things right but the viewers didn't watch.
 

Scott_J

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Because House reruns draw a higher rating than the Drive episodes were. Drive averaged 5.6 million viewers for its four episodes (with fewer than 5 million viewers for this week's episode). The Monday before Drive premiered, a House rerun aired in the 8pm time slot and had more than 7 million viewers, which is more than any episode of Drive. Makes perfect sense to me, from the network's perspective (especially during the all-important May sweeps).

And, as has been noted, they'll likely burn the remaining 2 episodes during the summer, when ratings aren't as important as during May. So they'll air the episodes, at a time when they can more afford the lower ratings.
 

Derek Miner

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Well, Fox did the most obvious thing by advertising the show as (surprise) about cars racing. Initially, I thought I would AVOID the show because I wasn't interested in something like Fastlane or Fast and the Furious. The hard part of the marketing is selling the character part of the story, which I actually liked. The obvious sell points were less appealing.
 

Jason Seaver

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I suspect the local affiliates didn't like the practice much at all - it basically gives their audience a chance to see the programs that they pay to air (most Fox affiliates are, I believe, paying the network rather than vice versa nowadays) on another channel. That might be okay if most of those people then started watching it on the local Fox channel, but if they instead make the Wednesday showing on FX their regular time to watch it...
 

todd s

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I was at a movie premier which Nathan starred in. At the end of the movie my wife and his gf were in the bathroom. And it was just us two standing in the lobby area waiting for them. We chatted a bit. And I told him my wife and daughter loved "Drive". He then told me it was cancelled. I told my wife a bit later and she was bummed. So at the after-party she went up to him and told him how upset she was. He appreciated it. She asked him who won the race. He said they weren't told but as of the last episode he wasn't in first. So my wife and his gf decided that Nathan won and thats what they were sticking with. :D

(I posted some pics from the premier in the "Waitress" thread in the movies section.)
 

KevinGress

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I will agree with you that FOX shouldn't be blamed for not promoting DRIVE - I only watch 24 and Bones on FOX and I saw ads for it all the time.

What I do blame FOX for, and the networks in general, is that it canceled it after essentially 3 airings. As others have mentioned here and elsewhere on the board, people are becoming reluctant to start watching new shows right away - they want to see if a show survives before becoming attached.

I definitely lump myself into this category. I won't start watching a new show anymore because of the chance it'll be cancelled right away. That's why I haven't seen Heroes (I will catch it during Sci-Fi's marathon coming up in May). My first thought seeing the ad for Drive was "How many episodes will it show before it's cancelled?". The only reason I started watching it was because of Mr. Fillion. I'd actually hoped that they'd show all the episodes since it was essentally only a 13 episode mini-series.

I pose the question - how many people would go see a movie if there's a chance that partway through it the movie cuts out and you don't know how it ends?

Drive is an arc show. It takes time to reveal everything- the characters, the plot, etc. Now, if Drive was an episodic show, like CSI or L&O, and it doesn't gain an audience after several airings, cancelling it is more understandable. But Drive needed time to tell its story and for people to tell others that it was a good show, and yes, it was going to be on next week.

I actually think shows like Drive would be a smarter way for the networks to operate - essentially cut the year into 4 seasons of 13 weeks. Have 1 time offerings and if they perform well enough, renew them. If not, well, you've got 39 more weeks to try something else. It would tighten a lot of shows, and would give more niche shows a chance to be viewed.

But that's what I blame FOX for - not giving a show a chance. I, and many others, won't give a show a chance because we know that the networks, and FOX particularly, are quick to cut the strings. Give a show- especially an arc show, a chance to tell its story.
 

Chris Lockwood

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> I actually think shows like Drive would be a smarter way for the networks to operate - essentially cut the year into 4 seasons of 13 weeks.

But if Drive is the model, you must mean 3 weeks of new episodes followed by 10 weeks of House reruns.
 

Jason Seaver

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Isn't it just as logical to say that it makes more sense to cancel serials quickly, because very few people are going to start watching it in week three, knowing they've already missed two hours of setup? Except in very rare cases, the audience isn't going to grow, so if you get disappointing ratings that first week (which Drive did), and then the ratings are down significantly the next week (which Drive's were), what follows is pretty easy to predict.
 

Derek Miner

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"Drive" was no great art, but I thought it was better than it should have been considering the premise. I've seen much worse on network, Fox in particular (the "Tru Calling" pilot comes to mind)... At this point, anyone considering a serial drama should really hold out for a first-run cable run since it would have to be something pretty special to work on a regular network anymore.
 

Dave Scarpa

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How Bad is it that they Just won't show the last 2 eps. I kinda enjoyed the show but it goes beyond thaat, why should I inverst anytime into any of their shows only have them pull it after 3 shows, they won't even give it a chance. NBC might not continue Raines, another Show I've enjoyed, but at least they aired them all.
 

Dave Scarpa

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What if you buy a season pass on Itunes and it gets the whack do they credit you the difference?
 

KevinGress

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I don't know if I'm in the minority, or not, but as I've stated, I rarely start watching new shows right away - I want some assurance that it won't get cancelled right away. I didn't start watching Bones until several episodes in, wasn't interested in 24 until its 5th season, and just now I'm interested enough in Heroes to catch it when Sci-Fi has its marathon of the show.

So, I ask, is it rare that audiences don't grow because they simply aren't interested, or because networks are quick to pull the handle? I believe it's actually more of the latter. There are several to many examples - Cheers, X-Files, and I even think Seinfeld, are some shows where ratings were slow out of the gate, but once given a chance to mature, garnered the attention they deserved.

Again I refer to my movie example - who would go if there was some chance that you wouldn't see the ending? Drive was initially slated at 13 episodes, but they only filmed 6 - what was the point of airing it in the first place if they had such low expectations?! They should have either let them film all of them, so that now they could offer up the rest on Itunes, or burn them off during the summer, or forgone the whole experience.

Perhaps Minear/FOX should have done a 2-4 hr movie and if that did well enough, develop a series around that, or, FOX should have saved it for the summer- either way it should be an all-or-none proposition. Either show it all, or show none of it.

Personally, I'm hoping internet-only shows like Sanctuary take off - I think that's where the future for niche shows is going to be.
 

Jason Seaver

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It's fun to say what other people should do with their money when you'd be the primary person to benefit if things don't work out. :) Fox ordered six episodes because they had about six weeks of schedule time between the end of Prison Break and the end of the season to fill, and I imagine the stockholders don't like paying for next year's programming with this year's budget, especially if Drive is (clearly, at least in retrospect) a high-risk order anyway.

As to the summer thing - there's a bunch of reasons why you generally don't see expensive programming over the summer: The audience is smaller, and there's a good chance that the cast will no longer be under contract by the time you've decided whether you want more for next year, so it's a bigger risk, and others.
 

TravisR

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None of those shows are serialized in the way that Drive was though. You could watch almost any episode of Cheers or Seinfeld or The X-Files (the monster of the week episodes anyway) and, for the most part, follow what's happening if you've never seen the show before. Drive couldn't be like that.
 

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