I don't think the Farscape situation much impacts my stuff with SFC one way or
another. I suspect there were a number of factors, including the cost of the
show (which was the highest on the network, from what I've heard, but that's
second-hand and may not be accurate) combined with the fact that SFC (via their
parent company USA Networks) didn't own the show.

Lemme splain....

If a network owns the show they air, they can reap long-term profits from
syndication of the program. More and more, USA Network (and other cable
outlets) is under pressure to own what they produce, otherwise they're paying
huge sums of money to produce shows that they air a few times, then the money
goes to the studio that did the actual production. The higher the cost, the
iffier the proposition.

So that may have been an issue here. They needed Farscape to help build their
audience, but now that this seems to be coming together for them, the logical
(for a network) thing would be to start paring away what they don't own, and
which is costly, to replace it with their own stuff.

One of the things you can never allow yourself to forget is that TV is a
business designed around making a profit, and determining who owns what
long-term revenue streams.

Doesn't affect Polaris one way or another, since if that goes, it would be
under the aegis of the network.

jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
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