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innocent_lexSupernatural has apparently won more awards. Is it just me who finds it wholly amusing that these awards that allow internet voting are being loaded with SPN votes? Are there actually people out there who still don't understand the enthusiasm of fans? Heh.
The boys seem quite amused by it, too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
The boys seem quite amused by it, too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
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Date: 2012-01-15 12:55 am (UTC)I don't remember all the details, but it came out later that some SPN fans wrote a program of some kind that would use bots to vote. They could sleep or go about their day confident that the program was voting SPN for them every few seconds.
I was sort of amused/puzzled by the whole thing, because from a fan-dedication thing, you could make the argument that yes, SPN definitely has super-dedicated fans, in that they're willing to go to that much trouble. But the backlash is that even if it wins a contest now (or has done so), no one would know.
I still seem comments (including from TV critics who like or even love the show) laughing about SPN's contest wins.
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Date: 2012-01-15 12:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-15 11:30 am (UTC)I'm a bit sceptical, I have to say. This sounds like the kind of story that used to be told all the way through the SDJ campaign in attempts to discredit the campaign. I find it far more likely, knowing the fandom, that plenty of fans sat there night after night clicking and clicking and clicking. A lot of fans were talking about that's exactly what they were doing at the time - that's why people were sure nobody would have a competition like that be more than one person, one vote in the future. And that's what gave me the giggles about this latest award, knowing how dedicated the SPN voters were.
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Date: 2012-01-15 07:57 pm (UTC)(Case in point: a Castle fan today is stirring up some Bones fans by saying they wish Emily Deschanel had miscarried her baby so Bones would be canceled. (There is an increasingly troublesome rivalry between certain fans of those two shows - despite the fact that there are many people who love both.))
My memory of the TV Guide contest is that it was very close up until the last 48 hours or so - in fact, I think at one point or another the other three shows were all ahead. And then what was being reported (including by TVG tweets) was that SPN won by an insane landslide, though I don't think I saw a percentage or total of votes.
And then I saw people working out how many clicks the win would have involved and coming to the conclusion that it was done through some automated means - and now, every time they win something, the story/rumor gets repeated. (This is all on Twitter, btw, much of which has to be taken with a truck full of salt. Even the critics who've commented on it could be repeating hearsay.)
From where I sit, it's all of a piece. I know of Bones and Castle fans who said they were skipping work/classes to click the PCA votes, and that's no better (if true and not just a way to get some rather sick attention) than if someone did manage to automate voting for SPN. It says something about those fans; it doesn't say anything at all about the show, or its popularity.
At this point, I'd say there are some confused fans (in all the really active fandoms) who think "win (by any means) = best show" when it simply doesn't matter that much. It's no doubt a boost to the show or actors (although I have to wonder sometimes if all of them would prefer slightly less
insaneenthusiastic fans.)But I know of no one who said, 'oh, wow! X show won that internet award! I'd better check it out!' and I'm dead certain network execs are never going to say 'Guess we'll renew X Show after all, since it's so popular' - because they all know those wins don't reflect anything that matters to them. (i.e., one viewer, one pair of eyeballs watching the screen.)
I really don't get why more awards aren't designed to be one voter/one vote. Those results would be interesting to me - regardless of who won.
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Date: 2012-01-15 11:24 pm (UTC)To be honest, for awards if it's about fan favourites then the popularity contest has already happened - just look at the ratings. I think the only difference with the TV Guide cover was they were aiming for shows which clearly don't have huge amounts of coverage or massive viewer numbers, so that's why it was interesting then - they really were running a 'whose fandom is the keenest' competition, and rewarding them for it (which I'm pretty sure they knew, otherwise why let anyone vote more than once?). I really don't see a need for anything other than enthusiastic clicking in all of this, and go with Occam.
I think there are a set of shows that have gained fans that are, in general, more bonkers than others. Harry Potter was a good example, and Twilight. But there are still smaller pockets of, er, enthusiasm (I like your choice) gaining ground in pretty much every fandom that I've seen from the inside (or the outside) and, while I find it odd, I work on the theory that if they're not hurting anyone... which is clearly not always the case, as you've mentioned.
At the end of the day, this is 'stuff happening on the internet' which is having some real world impacts, or as real world as you can get when we're talking about telly. The outcome of this particular one for SPN is that nobody was invited to the awards show despite them winning one of the biggest awards of the night. That's pretty rotten of the organisers, however you look at it. The assumption pretty much everyone is making is that decision was made because it was a genre show that won, which doesn't surprise anyone who's a fan of genre shows.
Even assuming (which I don't *g*) that there were bots running, the TVG people would seem to approach that scenario the right way (look - this show won! we'll honour the competition as we put it together, and may quietly change our system if we choose to run this again), and the awards people didn't (we'll not invite them!).
In summary, I know SPN fandom is full of extremely enthusiastic people and I don't see a need for any more than that to achieve what they did from a global fandom. It would be the same in Twilight or HP or various other fandoms - the pull of the group has a huge impact.
And in case you're wondering, I didn't vote. ;-)
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Date: 2012-01-16 12:40 am (UTC)I see too many people commenting about that to think it wouldn't have occurred to someone, and given the comments TV Guide was making about the SPN win, I don't know why it couldn't have been some of them.
I also don't view it negatively if they did so. Honestly, I don't see it as cheating, particularly. If the contest is going to say 'the number of votes is all that matters, and each person can vote as often as they want' - go for it, dudes.
But just as I don't think that's cheating in any way, I also suspect the contests that allow that don't accomplish quite what the fans hope for.
At this point, people either know about SPN, or they don't. Ditto for Bones, Castle, NCIS, Fringe, and Vampire Diaries. So a win, particularly one that says 'some finite number of viewers put their lives completely on hold to vote' (i.e., having contests to see who could vote a thousand times in one hour of time, or crowing to one another that they stayed up all night clicking and so are 'super fans,') just says that that fandom has more fans with the time and ability to do that. Five thousand fans voting a hundred thousand times each trumps ten thousand who only voted only 10,000 times - but it's the number of people watching the screen that really matters to the show.
(I've seen those kinds of comments from all of those fandoms at one time or another, plus others. It says something about the fans, but I'm not sure it says anything in particular about the show, beyond whatever it means that the show that wins has more fans willing to stay up all night, skip classes, or call in sick to work.)
If winning those contests get more viewers, then it mattered to the show. If not, not so much. It was nice, but... I think I remember Fringe winning a contest last year, too, (due to the same rabid 'how many times can I click in one hour' fan contests)...ratings tanked and are still tanking.
(FWIW, I follow about 350 people on Twitter, a mix of fans, TV writers (including for shows I don't actually watch), critics, and friends. I don't read them all in detail, but skim them (especially the fandoms from other shows) because I find fandom behavior interesting, and because what happens in one frequently bleeds over to the forum I admin.)
As to SPN not being invited to the awards...I'd love to know what's behind the invitations. If it helps illustrate their lack of organization, though, I will note that Boreanaz wasn't invited until just a few days before the show. Since Bones was nominated in three categories, a lot of fans took that to mean they'd won in something.
Nope. Not enough of us stayed up all night clicking, I guess. (Well, I certainly didn't.)
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Date: 2012-01-16 10:36 am (UTC)On the awards, the statement made and comments from the folks at SPN seem to sum up to: the award has always been given out before, but they decided not to give it out this year. They told SPN they weren't inviting them as they weren't handing out the award on air, and when asked why, the awards folks said they could still come and sit in the audience if they wanted but gave no explanation for the change. Since they know the results in advance of the show (which struck me as really weird) it came across as a deliberate snub to an awful lot of people, and the only real explanation anyone could come up with was the genre - which, of course, doesn't surprise anyone.
It sounds like the whole thing was a disaster, though, with adverts actually in the show itself taking up a lot of time instead of handing out awards. I was a bit bewildered by reports, really - it sounded horrendous for a professionally produced programme.
I don't think I've ever voted for these things. Mostly I don't hear about them, and when I do I tend to stare at the lists and realise I don't watch / haven't heard of / haven't listened to whoever / whatever is on those lists. Not much point, really, and there's always the total lack of scifi except as a rare exception. It's odd, because I do watch quite a lot of things that aren't scifi, but that tends to be my go to interest. SPN sneaked in there due to a lot of badgering, but I love it. My history of 'I absolutely can't miss this!' has been a lot of Star Trek, B5, SG1 and so on. Then we'll add in the West Wing, but for someone from England that's pretty out there too *g*.
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Date: 2012-01-16 01:03 pm (UTC)Hollywood always comes down to money. There are three types of TV shows - ad-supported, subscription supported, and mixed shows. Ad-supported are shows on what's called the broadcast networks (Fox, ABC, CW, etc. - there are five or six) - these are the over-the-air networks that people can use antennas to pull in, or they can pay their cable company for them. Since we don't pay the government for TV here the way you all do, those networks are all completely dependent on ads.
An hour long show is 43 minutes long, allowing for 34 30-second spots. The companies paying for the ad time pay for the show. There's no other source of revenue to pay the network/studio/writers/actors. None. And the amount the advertisers pay is determined by the ratings, time of day, etc.
For example: fewer people watch TV on Friday night, so the networks don't charge the ad companies as much for their spots on that night as they do other nights.
Cable shows divide into those airing on basic cable networks (included in most packages, like TNT) and the premium channels, like HBO and Showtime. Although we pay for TNT when we pay the cable company, we're not paying extra for it, so shows airing on those channels have ads, the same as the broadcast networks. The premium channels we pay extra for, on top of our cable bill - usually an extra $20-30 a month. But shows that air on those networks (Game of Thrones, Dexter) don't have ads.
Since SPN airs on a broadcast channel, it's the ads that pay for it, and the money the network gets from ads is determined solely by ratings. So how in that mix having other industry people acknowledge them makes a difference, I don't know.
(I'm not saying it doesn't - just that I don't see the connection. Would love to, actually, because while I'm sure of what I do know, I also know I don't know everything about the behind-the-scenes stuff in Hollywood. LOL.)
As to the award shows...they bore me absolutely brainless. The PCA had something like 90 categories (or that's what it felt like) and for most of them, I had no knowledge of any of the nominees. (And for one or two, I remember not voting because I did know the nominees, and didn't want to contribute to any of them winning.)
Even with Bones in 3 categories, I didn't watch the show. I figured if they won, the clip would be all over You Tube, and I'd watch it then. Of course, that's probably why the ads were so intrusive - they knew people would be doing that.
As to shows - I'm watching five shows live right now (Bones, Fringe, White Collar, Justified, and NCIS...sometimes. SPN, no, because I'm still making my way through earlier seasons.) Everything else is British (Sherlock) or older shows I'm just now discovering.