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PaperclipPerfector  13d ago (text post)   2384 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for April 17, 2026

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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The decline would be even more striking when controlling for population.)

Though less striking given the decline in audience for any primetime tv show. Used to be that primetime shows often hit 20 million viewers an episode, now they hit 5 million if they are lucky. So it's more like maybe a halving of their audience share relative to the secular trend.

2,000,000 is a pretty good audience. If you could launch a show with The Simpson's budget and be assured of 2,000,000 viewers, you'd get a green light. If an artist knew that 2,000,000 people would enjoy their art, they would make it.

This article, basically, but for TV.

There's no reason to expect the showrunners to operate on the timeline of taste, rather than the timeline of money.

If you could launch a show with The Simpson's budget and be assured of 2,000,000 viewers, you'd get a green light.

Do you think so? I've heard it said that The Simpsons is one of the most expensive shows on TV. This article claims that, by 2011, each episode cost $5 million to make, or $110 million for an entire season. I have a hard time imagining a network greenlighting a show that costs $100 million a season only to get 2 million viewers a week.

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