the renegade, you been afraid, i penetrate pop culture
trekweb has a link to an interview with big scott bakula, capt. archer on enterprise. in it he makes a comment about tv studios owning a network and its programming - something lessig talks about in free culture - and has this to say:
"I don't like how the business is going. I don't think that a company should own a studio and the network, and program for their own network," he argues. "It hurts the creativity...it is not a level playing field. It's obvious that UPN does not really know what to do with us. The challenge is that we continue to perform well, and we out perform a lot of their other shows that they are putting a lot of stock in."i didn't quite get the big deal about this concept until i read that... it gave me a concrete example: enterprise is a successful show, it seems like, because people watch it, and more than just trek geeks. it's entertaining. but because it doesn't fit in with UPN's 'image', they'd kill it off. but plenty of networks - scifi, spike tv, etc - would pick it up and show new episodes. imagine what that would add to scifi's credibility and lineup of original programming. but it won't happen because rarely do studios create any content except for the network owned by the studio - which wasn't the case until the last decade or two. the lockdown hurts - not helps - the choice of stuff available to the viewer. it seems like the only beneficiaries of such a policy are executives at studios.
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