What ever happened...

[ethsnafu]

The thing that I fathom Richard is why Fox were airing repeats of Millennium and Sliders during one of the sweeps months. From what I have read, many networks air repeat episodes during a show's run in order that it reaches with the sweeps months with new episodes to air. In Millennium's case it appears that Fox arrived at a sweeps month and then began to air repeat episodes which seems to contradict what I am reading with regards to they way things are done.

Very odd.

Eth

[Guest WaveCrest]

It is a bit daft why FOX aired repeats during sweeps months yes.

[Earthnut]

Think about it, when has "Fox" done anything that made sense?

[ethsnafu]

Never a truer word said Darlene.

Eth

[Guest WaveCrest]

Think about it, when has "Fox" done anything that made sense?

It hasn't been very often!

[Orodromeus]

I miss Sliders. I look back at what both shows were competing against and I can't believe it. Those shows have nothing on Sliders and Millennium. ABC's TGIF was crap then, and it would be crap now if they didn't have ABC Family to handle it. I think 2200 had the news across the board for the most part.

Incredible! I didn't know what kind of competition MM (and Sliders) had back then, but it just seems incredible to me that a majority of people chose to watch something else given what was offered... Another mystery. (And yay for Sliders! At least, yay for Sliders seasons 1-2!)

Right folks. I managed to find what was airing in the weeks Kara mentioned and it was repeats of shows...

February 28, 1997: Fox, 21:00 Millennium "Blood Relatives" (repeat)

March 7, 1997: Fox, 21:00 Millennium "Wide Open" (repeat)

March 14, 1997: Fox, 21:00 When Disaster Strikes (repeat)

Source: tvtango.com

Now that is indeed puzzling. "Covenant" was solid enough to make it in the sweeps time programming. Any original material would be prefereable to reruns for the sweeps period in fact! Another mystery. 1013/Fox inside politics/strife perhaps?

As mentioned in the discussion, it's becoming more frequent to air shows without intervening reruns, from January through May. Lost and 24 started this trend. It does make more sense as a viewer. But it means the network has to find other original stuff to air and attract viewers during the September-December months. (I'm not watching TV anyway so my opinion doesn't even count in fact! )

[Guest WaveCrest]

Maybe things might have been different if Millennium had been airing today, from January to May with no repeats inbetween.

[ethsnafu]

I think it would have been different had they not targeted Philes as the target audience for Millennium. When I was working on the campaign I recall how much more receptive the horror community was to what we were doing than the science fiction community. In England, especially, Millennium was marketed as X-Files 2.0 when in reality the two couldn't have been more dissimilar and whilst they were successful in landing themselves the highest ratings for a pilot episode of a TV show (over 11 million viewers) at that time the wrong 11 million people were watching it. It's easy to turn the clock back now and see how it should have been differently but I think the marketing was a lot to do with why Millennium never secured a loyal base of fans in its day.

Eth

[Guest lilblackgirl]

It was an even year, correct? February is right about the time of the Super Bowl here in the states. I don't recall if FOX hosted it that year. There's also Winter Olympics every 4 years. And i don't believe the World Cup would have started that early though.

[Guest WaveCrest]

I was pretty certain the X Files episode "Leonard Betts" followed the Super Bowl.