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Why doesn't Ion air original scripted shows again?

Z

zeebre12

I know Ion stopped producing original scripted shows years ago and now relies on marathons of drama repeats and a few Canadian acquisitions. Why doesn't it air original scripted drama series? As it is with the repeats of hit drama series it does better than The CW in the weekly ratings. Surely if it produced a few original scripted drama series they would rate as well as The CW original series? If The CW gets lower ratings than Ion why do they bother airing original shows each day? (they even added an extra night recently). Why not just air marathons of hit drama series like Ion does?
Also does Ion just acquire the Canadian series or do they co-produce also. On Private Eyes Wikipedia page there is no mention of Ion co-producing it?
 
Taking a stab at it...because their original programming mostly sucked, so many basic cable channels (AMC, FX, FXX, even A&E and TBS) do original programming immensely better, and because it costs money.

How did I do?
 
Two words: Palmetto Pointe. Looked like some high schooler's senior project. Not even Cheerwine as a sponsor could save it.
 
You would think they could show some English language shows from other countries. Perhaps the license fee is too high to risk it..
 
Why does The CW bother then with all the expensive original content (they even added an extra night recently) when they'd be better off ratings wise showing reruns of NCIS/Law and Order SVU
 
The fundamental difference is that Ion owns its affiliates. Or at least a significant majority of them. CW does not, so they have to keep their affiliates happy.

If CW did choose to air other networks' re-runs, they would probably see substantial affiliate defections, because stations can program that kind of thing as an independent.
 
The short answer: It's cheaper, and people seem to tune in anyway, so the return on investment is much larger.

As stated above, they own most of their affiliates, or offer attractive affiliation agreements that make stations a decent amount of money with much less investment in proven products (already successful shows). When they were doing original programming, it was costing more and attracting less viewers, so they carved out another path. Originally, I believe this was just to fill time as they tried to find a buyer or investor for the network (it came very close to bankruptcy, or was bankrupt, more than once).

As for why the CW still airs original programming, this is for two reasons. The first is that their affiliation agreements are much different. They charge more and give less time back to affiliates, in exchange they promise to bring them quality, original, programming. That said, the original affiliate deals have long since expired, so they could have just decided to fold up shop and they stayed in business. The reason is, Warner Brothers and CBS own ALL of the rights to the programs they produce there. While the first runs don't rate that well, even if they lost money they have more than made up for that loss with DVD sales, selling the shows to Netflix, and online viewing. Local affiliates get a chance to promote their syndicated/news fare during original programming (where they keep more or all ad revenue instead of splitting it) and WB/CBS gets a good vehicle to generate original content for eventual (rights) sale to other parties.

What will be interesting to see is what will happen after the next round of affiliation agreements expire. They are contractually obligated to provide a service until then, but now they are owned by AT&T. And AT&T has shown no shyness in ending things that don't make enough money or don't have an attractive deal. I could see them ending The CW because they don't want to share it with CBS, and moving all of their most profitable original programming over to their new streaming service they are looking to launch. This would allow them to concentrate on fewer "brands" and take home even more of the money from these shows. It would also give their "DC Universe" app more exclusive programming, but would take away one way they can promote that.
 
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