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CBS launches The Late Show With Jon Voight as part of fall, Trump-approved line-up in c/theonion@midwest.social
[–] 4 points 1 year ago

But ratings are different from profits! A show can be very highly rated and unprofitable. And that's precisely what Times article describes. It also goes into the shifts in viewership that are likely responsible for the loss of revenue and profitability. McDonald's wouldn't keep selling the Big Mac at a loss... they'd either hike the price, cut the cost, or stop selling it. It sounds like CBS was trying to improve the situation but the gap was widening, not narrowing. How long do you expect them to lose money on the show before cancelling it?

I am a fan of the show and am sad it was cancelled. But if you look at the facts, it's far more likely that this happened due to financial reasons.

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    • CBS launches The Late Show With Jon Voight as part of fall, Trump-approved line-up in c/theonion@midwest.social
    [–] 3 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    While the timing does feel suspicious, it's pretty unlikely that it was an implicit or explicit part of the settlement. According to NYT it's been losing money for years, despite having good ratings:

    “The Late Show,” a fixture of the network for over three decades, was racking up losses of tens of millions of dollars a year, and the gap was growing fast, according to two people familiar with the show’s finances.

    ...

    “The Late Show” began losing money at least three years ago, two people familiar with the finances said.

    While sometimes losses make sense in business (eg Costco's $1.50 hot dogs), I doubt this was one of those cases. I personally think the cancellation was a separate decision, though still related to the Skydance acquisition, because they probably wanted to cut unprofitable shows in order to improve their valuation.

    I think the bigger issue is that it's so believable that this could have been a quid pro quo! When you pay $16 million to settle a meritless lawsuit with the president as a bribe so your business deal goes through... you've lost all credibility. You're shown you're willing to bend the knee to the self-appointed "king".

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    • 2
    Why aren't shields up by default? (startrek.website)
     

    So, this may be a frequently discussed topic, and I'm sorry if so. But I was watching S1 of SNW and there was a scene where an early "shields up" saved the ship from serious damage. And now that I think of it, I just can't come up with a good reason why shields aren't up all the time, with a few obvious caveats.

    1. Yes, shields must be down to transport, this seems like the most obvious reason to have them down. But we see plenty of episodes where shields are brought down momentarily for a transport. Why not do that always?
    2. One reason brought up frequently is that raising shields could be taken as an act of aggression. But if you arrive with shields already up, then you're not doing anything aggressive, you just arrived that way, so I don't think this makes much sense in a world where most Starfleet ships just keep their shields up.
    3. I don't know for certain, but it seems possible that shields may not be usable at warp. I don't remember any specific episode where that happened, but it seems possible. But even then, a ship could just be programmed to bring them up as it drops out of warp.
    4. I guess it could be possible that the power usage of the shields is too much for the day-to-day use. But again, it seems like a lot of missions clearly begin with "dropping out of warp into an unfamiliar area" and those are the times where your shields should just be up by default.

    Of course, I know the answer is that "shields up" is great dramatic dialogue, but I guess I wondered if there are any more satisfying answers than that?