There’s this really odd subset of fandom culture, for lack of a better word, lets call these people “The Idiots”. These are the type of fans that emphatically support whatever it is they’re interested in, be it a band, a specific film, or a television show, but contribute nothing to that thing’s continued existence. They relentlessly consume the things they love, but when it comes down to showing any physical support in the form of money, they’re conveniently absent. This isn’t entirely their fault of course. Apart from music, the means through which we as consumers are asked to support films or television shows are archaic and inherently flawed. But as annoying and inconvenient as watching a show on an actual television or going to the theaters to see a film may be, it’s a necessity. Something can’t exist if it creates no revenue, and as more and more people begin to eschew the traditional methods of consumption for popular media, an increasing amount of films and television shows disappear. Networks aren’t going to support the next Seinfeld if history shows that it won’t bring them any profit, and major studios won’t fund films like Drive if the majority of their audience is guaranteed to illegally download it instead of going to the theaters. This needs to stop.
What is, in my opinion, the greatest example of this insidious trend is NBC’s Community. The show is one of the greatest comedies ever put on the small screen, it’s only flaw being that it’s essentially made for an audience that has no interest in paying to see it. The show’s third season premiered last week to a viewership of only 3.93 million people. The numbers for this week’s episode have yet to be released, so it’s unclear if there was any improvement, but all signs indicate that the shows life on NBC could soon be coming to an end. Which is fucking insane considering the calibre of the show. How is it that a series like Big Bang Theory can pull 14.3 million viewers on it’s premier while Community doesn’t even get a third of that? Well, to put it simply, the people who love Community don’t watch Community.
The show is made for nerds. Pop-culture savvy 20-30 year olds who spend too much time on the internet to be bothered by watching a show on an actual television. But the tragedy of the ratings system is that as far as it’s concerned, these people don’t exist. When NBC is looking at it’s numbers come renewal time all they’re going to see is the startling amount of people not watching this show. And then when it eventually does get cancelled because no one watches it, guess who’ll be the first ones to complain? The Idiots.
But is it really their fault? As I said before, I really don’t think so. The cable-TV system is set up in a way that immediately repels anyone who has ever watched a television show on the internet. It’s outdated, I have several massive TV nerd friends who’ve just outright cancelled their cable subscriptions because watching television on the computer is just so much easier. And Networks don’t seem to be doing anything other than resist the changes either. Services like Hulu are great, but they’re not going to be the thing that completely changes the way in which we consume TV.
Consider iTunes for a second. Before iTunes came along music listeners were forced to choose between going to the record store and picking up a CD — an already outdated format — or almost-instantly downloading the album to their computer for free. Surprisingly, this proved to be a pretty easy decision for most. Illegal downloading was heralded as being the fall of the music industry, and for a long time studios resisted going digital. But then iTunes came along and showed everyone that people weren’t cheap, they were just lazy. Consumers were completely willing to pay a reasonable amount for their favourite music, they just didn’t want to have to go to the store and deal with a cumbersome CD to do it. Are TV consumers any different?
The TV industry needs to go digital as well. Something like putting it’s content online, asking users to pay a reasonable monthly fee, and not barraging them with commercials every couple of minutes would definitely work towards improving system enough that consumers who are reticent to watch television may actually start paying to do so once again. But that’s wishful thinking. I think we’re pretty far away from a time where major studios embrace a change that drastic. So in the meantime, in order to avoid the cancellation of awesome shows like Community, stop being part of The Idiots and start actually paying to watch your favourite shows.
Reel Talk 
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