The line that worries me most is the "without the producer?"
Without Fingers? This seems extremely grave. Fingers is obviously the only senior staffer left, and they purposely left her out of this meeting. You know they must be up to no good.
Part of me wonders if Fremantle even gives a hoot about the show. Is it possible they are trying to run the show into the ground so they can move on to bigger and better things?
If it IS really true that they are rethinking the host, could it be another "cost-cutting" move? Obviously, Drew is a big-budget name.
Either way, this news is finally getting me truly depressed about this whole mess. I mean, losing Roger was obviously catastrophic in so many ways, but coming out of it, I think I remained optimistic that the show could make changes in stride where perhaps Roger wouldn't budge. I mean, change isn't always such a terrible thing and some of these changes, while not in the tradition of Price, haven't really been that bad at all. But now, I'm convinced that perhaps we haven't seen anything yet. I dont know what these people hope to achieve. After all, we've said it over and over again, the show airs at 11 AM!! You couldn't even get a much younger demographic at that hour if you renamed the show "Real World: PIR". The show does well for what it's given, in fact, incredibly well. If they want more and more out of it (money obviously), the changes should not come from the proven formula of the show, but from the marketing aspect of the show.
It's like having a small fruit stand that sells the most delicious homegrown fruits and vegetables - but of course it's located way out in farm country. Their reputation is superb, they do excellent business, but they aren't capable of growing unless somehow, that farming community grows. If they want to do better, they dont turn themselves into a Supermarket, selling shipped in produce that tastes like crap along with the whole kitten kaboodle of other things. This destroys the reason people enjoyed coming to the business. Rather than making them more money, they run the business into the ground. But what you can do, is move that business to another area....the city, the suburb, and business increases because more people know about it and can access it. There, you can begin to add more items and perhaps expand and change over time, as the community demands more - however, you gotta stick to the winning formula because THAT's why people are coming in (tuning in) in the first place!
But if you are going to stick to that small farming community, you can't just overhaul that little charming fruit stand that all the locals know, build a large building, slap a big neon sign onto it, bring in crappy produce shipped in on trucks, and pawn it all off as if it were the same thing it always was. You will get new customers, surely, but you will lose far more in the process, killing the business.
I dont know. Perhaps that a silly analogy. But somehow, I think it works well. I'm not saying the show has to change it's time slot per se, but more that they can't expect making huge changes to really do anything to help the ratings. If they really want to change the ratings/demographics, they either have to change the time, advertise more, or figure out an extra incentive for a viewer to tune in at 11 AM (a college sweepstakes/home viewer showcase)? The formula is not the problem!!
