ABC has announced the current seventh season of Once Upon a Time will be the show’s last. The show resumes in the US on March 2. It airs here on 7flix.
Changing of the Guard.
Biggest shock to me is that ABC is doing so poorly in both total viewers and demos. I feel that they really haven’t had a clue what to do ever since the era of Lost, Desperate Housewives and Brothers & Sisters. The decimation of their once-proud news division, which recently lost their partnership with the BBC, only reaffirms how far ABC has fallen IMO.
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In saying that, both GMA and World News Tonight are #1 in total viewers.
While I agree with your sentiments, the news division must be doing something right to not only attracting new viewers (in the case of overtaking NBC Nightly News) but keeping them as well
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True, but in terms of quality ABC News has very much declined into sensationalist nonsense. CBS and to a lesser extent NBC have resisted this, although NBC is also pretty bad. Peter Jennings would be rolling in his grave.
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At Least ABC has a Huge Hit on their hands with The Good Doctor, based on a South Korean Drama.
One hit is good?
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So You Think You Can Dance has been renewed by Fox for a 15th season. It’s the third year in a row the show received a last minute renewal.
Something I recently read about is the situation surrounding the US Masters Golf Tournament and how stringently the broadcast is controlled by Augusta National (the golf club which runs the tournament).
Augusta National basically dictates how they want the tournament to be shown, and so CBS are only allowed to run a few national commercials (which consist entirely of the sponsors of the tournament), limited to a maximum of four minutes per hour (as opposed to the usual 12 minutes per hour).
CBS’ coverage is hugely toned down compared to other golf tournaments that are broadcast on TV. Like cricket, there’s usually many technologies which broadcasters usually use to keep people watching instead of being bored out of their minds.
However, with The Masters, the graphics are very bland and have very few embellishments, and commentators are instructed to keep their words in line with the image that Augusta wants to project (commentators have been sacked for referring to the crowd as a ‘mob’ and saying a fast green has a ‘bikini wax finish’ or something like that). For someone who doesn’t watch golf on TV very often, it might seem like watching a regular old boring golf broadcast. However, compared to other golf broadcasts it’s noticeably toned down.
For example, Protracer/ball-tracking technologies, which most pro golf tournament broadcasts have adopted and is almost universally lauded, is not used at all, as it doesn’t fit in with the ‘image’ that Augusta National wants to present. Here’s an example of what it usually looks like:
It’s common knowledge that Augusta National and CBS do not make money on the broadcast, purely to maintain the image and prestige that the tournament has.
Also, spectators (tickets are distributed by lottery and to club members) aren’t gouged by the food prices, because they want to present it as a golfer’s dream place to be.
I wonder what all other American sports would be like if the sports organisations actually had a backbone and demanded that the American broadcasters toned down their coverage to make it less…hyperactive.
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Augusta National is also very racist/sexist and stuck in the mid 1950s in many ways.
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NBC has renewed Superstore for a fourth season.
HBO has renewed Crashing and High Maintenance for a third season.
Am I the only one who hasn’t heard of either of these shows? Are they available locally?
Superstore airs on Fox 8 and it’s quite good (it’s basically a satire situation half hour show about running a store with misfit staff members)
Not sure if it has been airing on FTA. Haven’t heard of Crashing and High Maintenance. Then again I don’t HBO on my directv subscription.
Crashing and High Maintenance are HBO shows and can be seen here on Showcase.
Interesting move by NBC Universal to reduce the number of ads per hour on its channels from the 2018-19 season. A typical one-hour episode which goes for 42 minutes without ads could be increased to 45 minutes under the change.
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American Ninja Warrior: Ninja Vs. Ninja - new format available for adaption by an Australian TV network 
The hour-long program will pit three teams against one another on adjacent obstacle courses that test endurance and speed. Premiered last night.
First network exec to consider this should be shot. That could be a new show - People Who Deserve To Die. 
Fox is planning to cut down on the minutes of ads shown during programming from 16 minutes today to only 2 minutes by 2020. No idea how they can afford this but ok. NBC recently began to reduce the amount of ads shown during programs by 20%, in response to a general lack of enthusiasm by consumers for long ad breaks due to ad-free streaming services such as Netflix.
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There must be other ways of making money from advertisers including product placement.
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