"Buffy The Ignored Show"
February 2001

Okay, you know what I notice? Buffy is consistently one of the top WB shows. I know it doesn’t have anything near Survivor ratings, but on the WB it’s always the 2nd or 3rd highest rated show. On occasion it’s even in 1st place.

If you weren’t a fan of the show (I am assuming most of you are since you came to this site) you would probably say "Oh, it’s one of the network’s highest rated shows? They probably show a million commercials for it." Well, they don’t! I mean, it’s ridiculous.

I watch the WB a lot. I absolutely adore Grosse Point, I catch the occasional Gilmore Girls, I even admit I tape (since I have class until 9:30 on Monday nights) 7th Heaven along with Roswell. Of course, I watch Buffy too. That means I am watching the WB four nights a week. I see what kind of commercials they play. You know what I see over and over? Way too many Dawson’s Creek commercials, Jack and Jill commercials, a fair amount of Roswell ones too(I am not bagging on their coverage of Roswell, I think they are fair to them, it just pisses me off that they aren’t fair to every show).

I swear, I have my walkman on so much, I have to worry about them becoming attached to my ears. Therefore, I am constantly listening to the radio. I very often hear commercials for shows on the WB. However, it’s extremely rare that I hear Buffy commercials! Don’t mistake me, I am not saying they never play them… just rarely. Of course, this is February, sweeps month, so they’ll probably get their acts together and promote the show like they ought to be for the month and make me look like an ass.

Think about it, though. If you watch the WB other than watching Buffy and possibly Angel, do you not notice that they seem to ignore Buffy. I mean, I am one of those people who is leaning towards wanting to keep the show on the WB because I fear what a bigger network would do to it, but I do agree that Fox has a point about the WB not being fair in it’s lack of promotion of the show. I think that if someone asked the president of the network "What makes you better than some lame network all about hormones with cheesy shows and teen actors?" the first words out of their mouth would be "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," but you wouldn’t know it by watching the show, listening to the radio, and looking for ads in TV Guide and other publications.

Am I so wrong for thinking the WB ought to say "Buffy has good ratings, but lets promote it like Fox promotes The X-Files. Hell, let’s promote it like we promote Dawson’s Creek!"? Maybe then Buffy will get ratings that *are* comparable to those on the big networks!

Responses

La Femme NiBuffy
I'm right on your track here Pamela. I'm an avid WB watcher, watching 6 shows of the network, and everytime I watch a show, all I SEE is Dawson's Creek promos!! Just last night while I was watching the Buffy and Angel reruns, I saw the Dawson's Creek promo at LEAST 7 times. No joke. The word is that DC's ratings have plunged since last season and they're really plugging it now. I think they really need to even out advertising for both struggling shows and successful shows though, because even though I doubt this would happen, Buffy's ratings could really start suffering if they keep cutting advertising for the show.

Kim
I have to disagree with this rant. I too watch the WB a fair bit. I am a big Roswell fan, as well as Popular, Grosse Point, Nikki, Sabrina and Buffy and Angel (obviously=), and I see Buffy/Angel previews all the time. I rarely go through a sitting of watching the WB without seeing Buffy and Angel advertised at least once if not two or three times. Maybe it has to do with timing...Who knows?

Jessica
I have to agree with you on this one. They show previews for "Dawson's Creek" every other commercial (and just for the record, I used to like the show, but I'm sick of the break-up-get-back-together plot that they use every week on everyone), but I can honestly say that I only see "Buffy" or "Angel" previews immediately after each show, providing that it's not a repeat the following week (and is anyone else just getting a little sick of all the repeats?). A friend of mine thinks that the lack of promotion is because the WB wants "Buffy" to move. I think that the WB tends to forget that before "Buffy", they only really showed syndicated shows, talk shows, and movies. The start of "Buffy" in 1997 really paved the way for every other teen drama on the WB, making it the network more watched now then ever. Where is your loyalty, TV executives?

Jocelyn AKA Jo Lyn
I agree also. I watch the WB 5 nights a week and I see maybe 2 commercials for buffy/angel. I also wonder why they show so many "Dawson's Creek" previews. I think it might be because their ratings are going down and they need to get peoples attention.

 

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