Core Post 2

In response to the Andrejevic piece: thinking about whether or not the audience has any kind of impact on a show’s production is something that really troubles me because I feel that it is way too optimistic to say that shows are directly influenced by their fans. I feel a little cynical saying that studios and networks care more about catering to advertisers, but from all my previous studies and experience that seems to be more the case for network television than we are seeing now with streaming. There are a few cases that would seem to contradict this notion, but they are few an far between. I would say yes the fans of a show have some kind of impact on the production. Specifically, Community comes to mind due to fans storming the Sony Pictures lot to have the show continue after being cancelled by NBC after it’s fourth season, but that did not stop it from being cancelled a year later. NBC and Sony were willing to take the risk on producing a new season because the fan base showed there was a market for it, but obviously the fan base was not big enough for NBC to continue to bring it back for a sixth season. I feel that this reliance on advertisers is coming through to streaming through the YouTube platform. With the Adpocalypse still continuing and plaguing the site with advertisers of all shapes and sizes pulling out, we are seeing YouTube push content that is going to appeal to broad audiences. Shows that cover topics that could be considered controversial at all are being demonetized. This is causing a shift where viewers are being forced to put their money where their mouth is. Crowd funding projects for creators that have large enough followings is allowing the fans to finally have a voice in what kind of content they want to see without the influence of advertisers and big corporations telling them what they should watch. This is all kind of complicated and I would like to go into more detail because things are on the verge of getting a lot more complicated with large conglomerates getting involved but that’s kind of paper material and not blog material.