Re: Sonic v. Free Willy: Why?

From: Erich Schulman (KTN4CA) -- Team OS/2 <"Erich>
Date: Wed, 12 Jul 1995 19:46:35 -0400 (EDT)

On Wed, 12 Jul 1995, Dan Drazen wrote:

> disappointing surprise. This all makes sense if you're a TV programming
> executive...admittedly a lower form of life than your average hedgehog.

It's really tricky to program a TV station or network, particularly when
planning out your next fall season. You don't know what your competition
is going to do until they announce it (if they even do). Likewise, they
don't know what you are going to do until you announce it (if you even do).

I had a class where one of our projects was to develop that fall's prime
time schedule for two networks (this was in a Spring semester). My group
was assigned ABC and Fox. One decision I made for ABC is that the
network was doing so bad on Saturday that we would drop everything and
start over from scratch. Sunday posed a special problem because
"America's Funniest Home Videos" was the perfect lead-in to "The
Simpsons" on another network (a rarely seen situation).

Call 'em jaded, short-sighted, over-conservative, or what have you, but
those people do have difficult jobs. There's enough money on the line
that one wrong move will get you fired. And being known as the man,
woman, or hedgehog who caused your now-former employer to not even show
up in the ratings for a time slot (or (yipes!) an entire evening) will
make it very tough to get another job in the business.

It was interesting to see how my group's decisions compared against the
actual fall schedules. If you want to see them, ask me for the RTV 414
project in direct mail (not on the mailing list). I think I still have a
copy of that year's fall schedule. I know I don't remember it now.

> Forget about Willy; Free Mobius!

Let's give Willy to the Annheusser-Busch people so he can go join Shamu;
maybe they'll get to be good friends.

As for Mobius, that's why we're here, supporting the Rebel Alliance until
victory has been achieved. Remember to buy bonds and it's "taxes to beat
the Axis". Oops, wrong war :-)

|-- Erich Schulman (KTN4CA) + Team OS/2 ---- acme_at_use.usit.net -----|
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| "Freedom Fighters are #1!" -- Sonic the Hedgehog |
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Received on Wed Jul 12 1995 - 20:24:01 PDT