very together and self-aware answer while indicting the industry:
From that perspective, I guess it’s pretty impressive that they stuck with you this long. Although by the end they did take away the “Next week on Hannibal” promos, which I thought was weird. It’s like they were saying “Look, don’t get attached.”
They were servicing their new shows. They knew exactly who was going to be watching [next week’s Hannibal], and that number was not going to move. It’s a very strange time in television, because people are still holding on to the old ways, even though everyone knows that they don’t work. You look at broadcast television — when we moved to Saturdays [in the U.S.] but were still airing on Thursdays in Canada, we kept our audience numbers the first week, and then the second week they dropped by half, because the audience realized that they could BitTorrent it after Thursday night and watch it then.
A big portion of our audience watches the show illegally, because once it airs in one place, people put it online and everyone has access to it. It’s a really challenging situation, because what networks seem to not be realizing is that they can’t control when their audience watches the show. The audience is passionate and they’re going to find the show and get it as soon as they possibly can. And that means seeing it illegally. If all the people who watched Hannibal illegally, watched legally, we would have much healthier numbers and we’d probably still be on the air. But until networks realize that everything has to be day-and-date — like, everybody has to see it simultaneously, that’s the only way to combat piracy.
Netflix figured that out. Here it is. You don’t have to pirate it because we’re giving it all to you right now. We have a very active, rabid fan base. I mean we trend every Saturday on Twitter. It’s wonderful how active and committed the fan base is to the show. But that doesn’t translate to the old way of doing things. Until we crumple that up and throw it out the window, and say, This is how we’re measuring things, and we’re going to put commercials on piracy sites — until they figure out a way to monetize those illegal experiences and bring them into the fold of legal viewing, we’re going to see shows die early deaths because the numbers on paper don’t reflect the passion of the audience. It’s a tricky situation. I’m curious to see when they’ll make the shift into the modern day. Because they’re still using standards that are 50 years old.
Was that an issue even before the move to Saturdays?
We were frequently in the top-five most-pirated shows. And most of the fans that approach me tell me they watch it illegally. But it’s not entirely fair to blame it on piracy. I think we were canceled before they moved us to Saturday. Ultimately, like I said, the show is very niche. It is not a broadcast television show, based on its subject matter. And NBC tried it, and it was a noble effort. Now we’ve gotta see if the industry is going to evolve.
same is true all around, not just television. i'm with him. i mean, if i don't watch what i DVR'd within what, 3 days, it doesn't contribute to the numbers? (also, i'm FF through commercials). ridiculous. i wait until i have a full season sometimes and plow through it. viewing habits have changed, time to figure out how to deal with it. or maybe don't base your schedule on ratings alone - as he said, trending on twitter. so, look at how people are talking about it, not just "are their TVs on when it's scheduled to air".