4 ms·

Same news on other site [0] was posted last night but not upvoted (I believe). Most important aspect, which is not discussed by the Hollywood reporter: The ca

Same news on other site [0] was posted last night but not upvoted (I believe). Most important aspect, which is not discussed by the Hollywood reporter: The cancellation decision by Syfy is said to be linked to the nature of its agreement for the series, which only gives the cable network first-run linear rights in the U.S. That puts an extraordinary amount of emphasis on live, linear viewing, which is inherently challenging for sci-fi/genre series that tend to draw the lion’s share of their audiences from digital/streaming [0] http://deadline.com/2018/05/the-expanse-canceled-syfy-after-three-seasons-to-be-shopped-1202388026/ http://deadline.com/2018/05/the-expanse-canceled-syfy-after-...

SideburnsOfDoom 8y ago
Which means that it's not on Netflix UK until about 6 months later, by which time fans of hard sci-fi have either lost interest, or found other ways to watch it which are counted in nobody's revenue stream. It sucks but it's true.
jjoonathan 8y ago
For instance, nobody who bought it through Amazon counted towards SyFy's numbers even though they certainly counted towards the profitability of production. The people who actually finance production (not SyFy) said this: > "... given the commercial and critical success of the show, we fully plan to pursue other opportunities for this terrific and original IP ..." (emphasis mine) so to my uninformed sensibilities SyFy dropping the show seems more like a distribution hickup than an existential threat. At least I hope that's the case.
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  Two days after that (i.e. last night), it turned out that sets are being scheduled for deconstruction. So it is really an existential threat at this point (if they tear down the sets, it'll add a big up-front cost for any party that would like to pick the show up in the future).
  - jjoonathan 8y ago
    That does sound serious. There must be something I don't understand about the SyFy relationship -- I'd think that the company who owns and finances the show would decide when to tear down the sets and that they'd want to do it after shopping the show around. Too bad, I liked the show.
    - TeMPOraL 8y ago
      It does sound as if Alcon knew it was coming, tried to shop around in secret before, didn't succeed, and wrote the current announcement to sound like they haven't already given up on the show. I hope I'm wrong about this.
      - jjoonathan 8y ago
        Yep, me too.

SideburnsOfDoom 8y ago

Which means that it's not on Netflix UK until about 6 months later, by which time fans of hard sci-fi have either lost interest, or found other ways to watch it which are counted in nobody's revenue stream. It sucks but it's true.

jjoonathan 8y ago

For instance, nobody who bought it through Amazon counted towards SyFy's numbers even though they certainly counted towards the profitability of production. The people who actually finance production (not SyFy) said this: > "... given the commercial and critical success of the show, we fully plan to pursue other opportunities for this terrific and original IP ..." (emphasis mine) so to my uninformed sensibilities SyFy dropping the show seems more like a distribution hickup than an existential threat. At least I hope that's the case.

TeMPOraL 8y ago
Two days after that (i.e. last night), it turned out that sets are being scheduled for deconstruction. So it is really an existential threat at this point (if they tear down the sets, it'll add a big up-front cost for any party that would like to pick the show up in the future).
- jjoonathan 8y ago
  That does sound serious. There must be something I don't understand about the SyFy relationship -- I'd think that the company who owns and finances the show would decide when to tear down the sets and that they'd want to do it after shopping the show around. Too bad, I liked the show.
  - TeMPOraL 8y ago
    It does sound as if Alcon knew it was coming, tried to shop around in secret before, didn't succeed, and wrote the current announcement to sound like they haven't already given up on the show. I hope I'm wrong about this.
    - jjoonathan 8y ago
      Yep, me too.