Women, kids, and Stargate Universe

To refer to a user on GateWorld Forums who contended that the most populous demographic watching Stargate Universe (SGU) were older (white) men who would watch any and all Stargate that was available. He asked if women and kids "killed" SGU — implying those Nielsen viewers who didn't watch Stargate Universe, thereby letting SyFy have low ratings as the official reason as to not renewing SGU.

I haven't seen the Nielsen statistics, but based on information presented here (that mostly men watched), then the conclusion is that not all [i]Nielsen[/i] women could watch the show — preferring "Dancing With The Star(let)s". — And those that could watch couldn't let their kids watch, effectively sacrificing watching it themselves.

Part of SyFy's favoured demographic wasn't adult enough: The young kids who couldn't see (under-14's), and older kids who wouldn't watch (the video game generation not interested in character drama). And assuming those were mostly male. The 'girl' demographic could have been turned off either by the very concept of science fiction, or other interests, such as Dancing With My Two Left Feet and a goth woman scientist secretly infatuated with her father-figure-boss.

There's been another thread over here questioning if any of the women characters could have been or could have become someone like Carter (I haven't read through all the thread yet, but I do have a draft reply for it), or very nearly as perfect as her. You know, these people are very few and far between anyway; the closest real-life examples are women astronauts or someone like Valerie Plame. — I have to admit I dropped my jaw when I first saw her on tv (IIRC :-).

This must probably be a cultural thing that women in nowadays' U.S.-based (or -targeted) television shows are very strong characters, possessing almost superwoman-like capabilities in each show, including NCIS, SG-1, and so on; as if that were something who young American women would strive to be, thereby failing to tolerate characters more fallible than your average superchick.

Truth of the matter is, that most people (including women) just are not as perfect as the 'hero'-type characters presented on popular tv shows. I have to contend that SGU was so realistic in its presentation that it perhaps turned viewers off to the collective dismay of us fans. I remember an unintentionally funny line by an SGU hater who wrote (on IMDb, I think) that tv shows weren't supposed to show real life...

Oh, and the kids that did watch SGU, didn't watch it from a Nielsen box, but I guess, very much on their own terms. I am also considering failures in marketing SGU, but I don't know where did the responsibilities lie as to who was supposed to do exactly what.

Why SyFy canceled SGU

Disclaimer: The post is all my personal opinion, based on some facts

I'd like to add a few of my own thoughts here about why SGU was cancelled. It's all speculation and I've said it before.

Just before MGM entered a pre-packaged bankruptcy, SyFy was probably considering picking the show up for the third season, but after MGM entered bankruptcy proceedings and before it emerged from bankruptcy (a matter of just a few weeks or even less, I might add), SyFy decided not to pick up SGU for S3.

The reason, which is all speculation and inference – is based on the facts that before MGM entered bankruptcy, it was 20% owned by Comcast, which owns 51% of NBC Universal (the other 49% owned by General Electric), which owns SyFy; and 20% of MGM owned by Sony. Thus, with both Comcast/NBC Universal & Sony owning 40% of MGM, it was still (simultaneously) a competitor to them.

After MGM emerged from a pre-packaged bankruptcy, the former owners didn't own it anymore.

Right after it became clear that Comcast+GE/NBC Universal (owner of SyFy) wouldn't own 20% of MGM anymore, any incentive for Comcast's television property to cough up 50% production costs to produce more SGU evaporated. — To reiterate, just because SyFy's parent company/ies didn't own 20% of MGM anymore. (The production went roughly $2 mil. per episode, AFAIK, with 50% by MGM proper.)

And imagine how all the money really ran around. I would love for some regulator to look into this.

My opinion is that SyFy's move of SGU to a terrible timeslot was intentional and I assume, that more than anyone else were Comcast/NBC Universal/SyFy aware that MGM would eventually go into bankruptcy after which they wouldn't own it anymore. Letting SGU fail ratings-wise worked as a convenient excuse not to finance its production any further.
</end of speculation>

The only facts are who and how much anyone owned MGM and who then did not own MGM at which time and who did then and still owns SyFy/NBC. See MGM Holdings article at Wikipedia.

Everyone knew that MGM were haemorraging money like crazy and most potential buyers wanted as a condition of any sale of MGM for it to go through bankruptcy, so that MGM would not be under its former owners. Source here.

Where I think SyFy is culpable in letting SGU's ratings go is shuffling SGU's air times too much; Joseph Mallozzi directly (AFAIK) blames moving SGU to Tuesdays against "Dancing with the Stars" (and starlets) and NCIS (a police-procedural show), in a time of year that is not Summer; I also noticed indirect finger-pointing at what I understand to be rather creative accounting practices (search for Bailey writes in text) over at skiffy. Now it cancelled Eureka.

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