NBC’s The Chopping Block, Dollhouse, True Blood, And The New Ratings Game

After a whopping three episodes aired, NBC has pulled the plug on the new cooking competition show The Chopping Block. It seems I barely put together an article on the thing, and though my reaction was rather middle-of-the-road, NBC needs a bit of a wake-up call. I didn’t love the show, and though he may be a genius of the culinary world, Marco Pierre White just doesn’t make for really entertaining television. Besides which, my main problem with the show was the change in format, which didn’t make any sense to me.

But, none of that really matters. Whatever the ratings may do, pulling the plug on a competition show after three episodes is like closing your restaurant after being open for two days. If you can’t figure out a way to get enough viewers to make it through one run of a competition, don’t play the game to start with.

There are a lot of problems with NBC‘s basic strategy here, and those problems showcase the fact that NBC seems to be going goofy with their decisions. The new season this year may come to be known as the great culling of ’09, with hardly a NBC effort getting anywhere, more in danger, and long-running favorites ending.

On one front, every series that gets kicked aside after three episodes is just one more nagging doubt in the minds of viewers the next time you try to start something going. Especially something like The Chopping Block, which is not in the category of next greatest thing ever. Sure, when NBC next puts together a lot of big names in a show with some great hook, people will still watch. But, you can’t fill your whole line-up with those, and you’re going to have to put out some shows that are taking a chance, like this one. The next time NBC does that, are viewers going to be willing to play along and invest? It’s a really tough call after the way things have gone this season. Why am I going to invest anything in such a show? What if I like it? Even the shows that keep kicking around (let’s pick Knight Rider) fly around the rumor mill, and you aren’t sure if the thing is going to be on from one week to the next. Friday Night Lights has quite a few people calling it the best thing on television, but throughout its life thus far there have been many a moment when you had no idea if it was getting offed.

What NBC seems unable to get its head around is that straight, daily ratings just don’t mean much anymore, and they are on the road to meaning nothing at all.

We got a taste of things not long ago, largely because Dollhouse was getting a lot of press. The ratings were not good out of the gates, and that made for a lot of talk. The show seems to have polarized people into like and hate, and both sides were quick to jump on the low ratings. After a while, some manner of readjusted ratings came out that included DVR numbers and things like online viewings. That didn’t turn the numbers into anything great, but it looked like quite a few more people were watching it than the initial ratings would lead us to believe.

Well, no kidding. I haven’t watched live TV in at least six years, and the number of people who do is falling like a stone. More and more people have DVRs of one form or another, and online viewing through places like Hulu and Fancast is going through the roof fast. Networks need to figure out what’s going on with this new era of television, and dumping shows after three episodes isn’t the way to play anymore. You think repeats of Law & Order (NBC’s gameplan for the slot starting next week) are going to do something better for you? Not unless your advertisers are even more lost than you are. Someone’s watching those commercials? Good luck.

There was a similar story very early in the season, when critics bashed HBO‘s True Blood from every angle. When the show was almost immediately renewed for another season, several critics had to try hard to keep their heads from exploding. The ratings weren’t that great really, and that was much of the ammo used to support the idea that HBO had lost its mind. Of course, HBO is not so quite so closely tied to ratings, but they want to put out shows people are watching just as much as anyone. It turned out that the show was actually doing pretty good once you factored in the viewers from the multiple airings (first airing at a certain time doesn’t mean that much to HBO), DVRs, etc. What HBO, I think, paid more attention to was the show’s buzz. In the end, the show didn’t do too bad and managed a shiny award for star Anna Paquin. By the time the next season rolls around, I think we’re going to be looking at pretty good numbers.

The simple fact is that television is changing dramatically, and NBC is proving itself a network that just doesn’t get it. Cancelling The Chopping Block was a stupid move. It’s far from the best thing to get such treatment, but there are real negatives to the move without any positives. It was a mid-season shot, and nothing that took its spot was going to do any better anyway. It’s a new world, and networks and advertisers alike are going to have to figure out new ways of doing things. Demanding to be known as the network who doesn’t believe in your shows isn’t how you get audiences to believe in you as a network.

UPDATE – Just read another article on NBC which relates to changing times.

http://tv.msn.com/tv/article.aspx?news=359610&affid=100055