Alternate History in Star Trek Part 25: Early Voyager spinoffs

[Gary Oswald]

Discuss this article by @Thande here

 

[Thande]

Need to find time to finish the next one in this series so we don't run out! I got sidetracked by being fascinated about how earlier attempts at doing a Captain Pike spinoff may have influenced "Strange New Worlds".

Also nice find on that photo of the pile of Voyager books Gary!

 

[RyanF]

Always amazing the way things change in terms of how we class "obscure" television viewership. Voyager was regularly drawing around 5M viewers a week on UPN (the obscure Paramount channel mentioned in the article) at the turn of the century. Though this was way down from the 10M average they were seeing during the first season, it was on the same channel and it was doing similar numbers to the Smackdown, also on UPN, which at the time was at the height of its popularity.

If you want to be really shocked at how values change, 22M people tuned into a Flintstones special in 1993 to see Pebbles and Bam Bam wed.

 

[Thande]

Always amazing the way things change in terms of how we class "obscure" television viewership. Voyager was regularly drawing around 5M viewers a week on UPN (the obscure Paramount channel mentioned in the article) at the turn of the century. Though this was way down from the 10M average they were seeing during the first season, it was on the same channel and it was doing similar numbers to the Smackdown, also on UPN, which at the time was at the height of its popularity.

If you want to be really shocked at how values change, 22M people tuned into a Flintstones special in 1993 to see Pebbles and Bam Bam wed.

Yeah, I'm just quoting what the bloke said in "Delta Quadrant" as I lack context for this - he described it as "the American version of Channel 5".

I've had a similar observation about numbers - like, even the biggest big-name Twitch streamers, who are playing to a global audience where it being live is a big part of the gimmick (you wouldn't watch back a VHS recording of a Saturday morning phone-in show) only get a few thousand viewers, the sort of thing we mock certain TV channels for.

 

[Gary Oswald]

Yeah, I'm just quoting what the bloke said in "Delta Quadrant" as I lack context for this - he described it as "the American version of Channel 5".

I've had a similar observation about numbers - like, even the biggest big-name Twitch streamers, who are playing to a global audience where it being live is a big part of the gimmick (you wouldn't watch back a VHS recording of a Saturday morning phone-in show) only get a few thousand viewers, the sort of thing we mock certain TV channels for.

Live tv isn't a big thing, is a huge part of that I think.

To use Ryan's example of wrestling, the live tv figures of aew dynamite are around 800,000 but times warner have said oh around 4 million people watch that, they just don't do it live on tv.

The idea of this is when the show starts lets watch it, isn't there any more so viewing figures are far trickier to grasp. Like even with twitch, people watch the replays of live streams later all the time.

Obviously also less people watch tv full stop, but its important to note the figures also aren't really comparable.

 

[RyanF]

Yeah, I'm just quoting what the bloke said in "Delta Quadrant" as I lack context for this - he described it as "the American version of Channel 5".

Like for like UK to US channel comparisons are pretty much impossible for both terrestrial and cable/satellite channels. The industry and marketplace are far too different. It's like saying Ross Perot's Reform Party is the US version of the SDP.

 

[Alex Richards]

Live tv isn't a big thing, is a huge part of that I think.

To use Ryan's example of wrestling, the live tv figures of aew dynamite are around 800,000 but times warner have said oh around 4 million people watch that, they just don't do it live on tv.

The idea of this is when the show starts lets watch it, isn't there any more so viewing figures are far trickier to grasp. Like even with twitch, people watch the replays of live streams later all the time.

Obviously also less people watch tv full stop, but its important to note the figures also aren't really comparable.

You've just got to consider how many are in the 'yes I want to watch this Australian streamer, but as it's all on Twitch I can do so two days later rather than having to get up at 2AM' boat.

 

[RyanF]

You've just got to consider how many are in the 'yes I want to watch this Australian streamer, but as it's all on Twitch I can do so two days later rather than having to get up at 2AM' boat.

Live events do help, depending on relative time zones of course. Sports in particular seem to have an immunity, which broadcasters hope extends to sports adjacent live presentations.

I will point out however that no one has attempted a Flintstones wedding since 1993.