Goodbye John Connor

I am not your normal TV viewer. The shows I tend to watch have a huge change of being canceled. This year it is Life and now Terminator: The Sara Connor Chronicles. Both shows are kind of odd with quirky lead characters. In Life, Detective Charlie Crews is an odd detective that observes his surroundings and solves crimes. He is looking for the people who framed him for a murder that took 10 years of his life but gave him millions when it was proved that he was innocence and he sued the city. In Terminator, robots from the future are trying to kill John Connor so he will not lead the resistance against the evil government computer gone rogue "Skynet". Both shows were compelling for their own reasons and get canceled because they were probably too complicated to follow. In the past shows such at Jericho, New Amsterdam, the Black Donnellys, the 4400, and both Stargate series on the SCI-FI network were also compelling but found the chopping block.

The big fact with all of these shows is the "shifted viewing" or watching the show at a later date on TIVO or a DVR or online received high numbers but the actual TV live viewership was low. Advertisers only care about live TV viewership because they haven't been able to wrap their minds around the value of online or DVR viewership. This needs to change because the technology is shifting and if the advertisers want to sell their products they need to embrace the concept of watching shows on Hulu.com, TV.com or on a DVR. Networks need to learn how to sell shows that have solid online and DVR followings instead of canceling quality show and ticking off the home viewer.