Futurama 11/10 or "Oh, the jedis are going to feel this one." (1 Viewer)

[Jeff Kleist]

yes, unfortunately that still doesn't help the NFL tell time

CALL or WRITE your local Fox affiliate (NOT EMAIL) and tell them how displeased you are. Tell them that you are NOT pleased with their pre-emption when it's OBVIOUS it was optional. We only get at most 15 episodes, and usually 13 a year of Futurama thanks to the NFL's inability to tell time.

 

[Jeremy Allin]

Look at it this way, guys. Futurama is destined to be the longest running show ever! Heck, they can only show about 2 new episodes a season so I figure they're good for at least 15 years!

 

[AndrewD]

yes, unfortunately that still doesn't help the NFL tell time

I'm sure they'd rather count money than count minutes.

As you can imagine, ad rates for NFL games are a lot more than most primetime shows, including Futurama. The longer the game, the more money both the network and the local affiliates can make.

 

[Morgan Jolley]

You guys could just make some friends somewhere where they don't preempt Futurama and have them tape it for you.

 

[Jason Seaver]

Andrew,

Don't try to use logic on Jeff here. It doesn't help.

 

[Jeff Kleist]

You're just pissed because you can't dispute what I say Jason, The MLB and NFL kill shows. They have a murder sheet a mile long, and at the very least when I'm promised no pre-emption _1_ week out of the fall, the least they can do is deliver to the customer that watches the timeslot the other 7 months of the year.

 

[Jason Seaver]

I'm far from pissed. I mean, you're amusing. You honestly seem to think that What You Want should be a bigger factor in a large communications company's decisions than what will make them more money.

Most of the shows you claimed sports "murdered" are shows that had niche appeal; that they were pre-empted by sports was only one of several contributing factors to their demise.

the least they can do is deliver to the customer that watches the timeslot the other 7 months of the year.

And yet they do less.

Besides, I wouldn't be surprised to find that the audience for an NFL overrun is roughly two or three times the audience for "Futurama", and is a more varied one.

 

[Jeff Kleist]

Who's making you promises, Jeff?

They advertised it in commercials and pop ups all week

"Futurama Season Premiere Sunday 7/6 Central"

 

[Jeff Kleist]

Just bitched ot our Fox affiliate, apparently the calls have been a steady stream all day. Bet it was a lot more calls than they would have gotten had they just done what the rest of the country did.

 

[Morgan Jolley]

Isn't there a reason there's a Fox Sports Net?

 

[Michael St. Clair]

How can the NFL kill shows when FOX schedules the show in a time slot that they know does not really exist?
This is all about the fact that Fox does now own the reruns to Futurama, and nothing to do with football.

 

[Jeff Kleist]

Michael, it's this simple

If the NFL would learn to tell time, their games would be over in plenty of time for Futurama, and other's show's schedualed time

They go over because they stop the clock

STOP STOPPING THE CLOCK, and the problem ends. Then they can have Howie Long and Terry Bradshaw blather on for 20 minute to what amounts to "they lost because they suck" to fill in the gap, and start Futurama on time. Basketball and Hockey seem to have this problem extraordinarily rarely. If they say they're over at time X, well gee, it's typically over at about that time. One of the keys to that is that they don't allow ads during play, so they don't stop playing to show me the latest car I won't be buying. They can charge just as much money for 4-5 ad breaks during the entire game by charging more per ad. The companies will pay it.

 

[Michael St. Clair]

No, it's this simple.
FOX scheduled a rerun of The Simpsons, and a rerun of Malcolm last night...in later time slots.
Yet they continue to put 'Futurama' in the fictitious 7pm time slot that they know doesn't really exist during football season.
If FOX wanted us to watch Futurama, we would watch it. Plain and simple. FOX has the ability to schedule nothing but reruns during 7pm-8pm during football season. They show many, many hours of reruns every week.
As long as the network hates the show (no residuals, duh), they will always find a way to kill it.
And I'm no fan of the NFL at all. But if everything in our society is modified to the extent that you suggest to fit around the tube, I'll start agreeing with the folks with the kill your television bumper stickers.

 

[LarryDavenport]

Move to the west coast where Futurama is never postponed. A great episdoe and particularly funny for me as they had a joke about my (at Matt Groening's) Alma Mater, The Evergreen Stae College.

 

[Jeff Kleist]

All I suggested is that they stop stopping the clock.

 

[Jay E]

They go over because they stop the clock

I'm not sure what you mean by this. Are you talking about stopping the clock when a pass is not completed or when the player runs out of bounds during the last 5 minutes?

 

[Malcolm R]

One of the keys to that is that they don't allow ads during play, so they don't stop playing to show me the latest car I won't be buying.

Actually, there are so-called "TV timeouts" during both basketball and hockey. Attend a game and you'll see several instances where play is stopped for no apparent reason and everyone just stands around for 2 minutes. It's a TV timeout (i.e. commercial break).

As others have said, I wouldn't put the blame on football, put it on FOX for scheduling new episodes of a series in the 7pm hour instead of scheduling reruns at that time.

 

[Jeff Kleist]

I'm not sure what you mean by this. Are you talking about stopping the clock when a pass is not completed or when the player runs out of bounds during the last 5 minutes?

Whenever they stop the clock, I have no idea what circumstances bring that about, but they should stop it immediately. The game should take 60 minutes to play. 6-0 if that's what's on the clock. Therefore with ads and halftime, they should be able to finish in 2 hours easily.

 

[Jason Seaver]

Jeff, you might want to reserve strong opinions for things you actually know something about. Working the clock is part of any game that has one.

 

[Martin Rendall]

Jeff,

I understand your complaint. I understand you not liking football. I can't say I understand why you would want to change the rules. The game is the game. It's not gonna change because other shows get pre-empted. Like it or not, stopping the clock is part of the strategy of football. You want to change the whole dynamic of the sport?

It really looks like you are placing the blame on the wrong thing. From what I've read, Fox is to blame for scheduling a show when they know that 9 times out of 10, the game will still be on. Hell, NA society is to blame, as more people seem to like football than Futurama or BTVS. You may not get why, and I certainly don't get why, but it's true.

Television is about making money. It's not about entertainment, values, morals, or anything else. Just money. Entertaining people is nothing more than a method of regularly attracting viewers to advertising to making money. Period. That's why sports are OTA and on basic cable, and why niche shows should be relegated to the the "other" cable channels and niche networks (such as WB), if they are to have any hope of surviving.

Fox Sports Net is another niche channel. It appeals to the sports fanatic, as opposed to the casual viewer who follows their local teams. I doubt Fox Sports Net would survive on a basic cable channel or OTA.

Blasting your Fox affiliate is a valid response, however. You will either be ignored because so few people take the time, or you will cause change to occur, likely in the form of moving the show to another time, or getting it cancelled because it's more trouble than it's worth.

Martin.