I posted this in the GSN Forums, and I thought this was so good, I figured I'd share it over here too, with a couple added thoughts:
I just got finished reading Steve Beverly's "All in the Game" column. And you know what? He brings up an excellent point. The sad truth about television executives is that they make these business decisions to please the advertisers. As hard as that may be to swallow, they are the prime target. Not us, the diehard fans of this genre.
Over the years, I can safely say I have learned a lot about how a television network works and the ups and downs of running one. A few years ago, I would've been screaming and hollering here for GSN to pick up shows like The Price is Right, Sale of the Century, and Scrabble. Now, over this past year, I've come to realize that it is not as easy as it seems, and only with patience, perseverance, and maybe a little luck could we get what we've asked for.
But now, this announcement has made me realize that advertisers truly do have a greater power than we viewers do. There's probably a variety of factors that make them so much more important than us viewers.
It'll probably take me some time to reel in all the factors that has lead to Rich's announcement, but I'm sure we'll be hearing some real answers soon. I know this won't be the last time I hear of someone mentioning this topic.
Before someone goes out and misinterprets what I've said, yes. I'm as shot as most of you are that the "death" of GSN is nearly upon us. But am I going to scream, holler, break things, or swear all over the place? No, because as I said earlier, the advertisers are apparently the real fans of this network. If one of the executives were to actually base the network's direction on what WE thought, then it would've been a totally different story.
But I do give Rich Cronin at least some credit. He's doing all he can to keep a television network alive. Yep, a television network. That's what I'm calling it from this point forward. I don't know whether or not I'll be watching this "new" GSN that Cronin describes, no matter how big the changes are and whether or not they are absolutely true as Casey and LostCluster explained. But if it succeeds with the younger viewers, then good for him. If not, well, then that's a shame, regardless of whether or not they take an about face on this direction.
As the old sayings go, life goes on. I've recently been gaining more of an interest in older cartoons now that I've found some really old tapes. I've also been polishing up my writing skills in an effort to create fanfiction for certain franchises soon. And my sister has been going ga-ga over pinball, among other things.
We've both learned that we can go on without GSN. Nothing is meant to last forever, and in GSN's case, I think that's what we may be seeing IF this new plan even works out at all to begin with.
Thus concludes my long and argouous thought.
