bill_az
Rookie
TV shows are "ordered" by a network. A production company pays for the costs of the programming, and the network pays for & acquires exclusive rights to air the show. Sometimes the network and the production company are one in the same. The network airs the show, hoping to make money by selling advertising during the show.
Networks make the most money when shows are either repeated (because they continue to sell ad time but have no costs except beaming the signal up to a satellite. If a show goes into syndication, the network has sold & granted broadcast rights to another network. The new network pays a fee for these rights, then tries to offset their fee by selling yet more advertising.
So, for example, CBS used to air all 3 shows as they came out. Then they air repeats during the season. They have syndicated most of the older shows to networks like Spike, A&E, and local affiliates. They don't really lose money on any of these shows. The rub occurs when the ad revenue is not sufficient to pay for the production costs of a new show. So if a new CSIM episode costs $1 million to produce and air, but they only sell $950,000 worth of ad time (which is calculated as a base cost multiplied by viewership), CBS has just lost $50,000.
The dynamic gets even more complicated when multiple shows are in play. Don't doubt for a second that Charlie Sheen's huge raise affected how much Les Moonves was willing to pay for the CSIM cast. I would go so far as to say Charlie and Jon Crybaby effectively cost Eddie Cibrian his job.
Networks make the most money when shows are either repeated (because they continue to sell ad time but have no costs except beaming the signal up to a satellite. If a show goes into syndication, the network has sold & granted broadcast rights to another network. The new network pays a fee for these rights, then tries to offset their fee by selling yet more advertising.
So, for example, CBS used to air all 3 shows as they came out. Then they air repeats during the season. They have syndicated most of the older shows to networks like Spike, A&E, and local affiliates. They don't really lose money on any of these shows. The rub occurs when the ad revenue is not sufficient to pay for the production costs of a new show. So if a new CSIM episode costs $1 million to produce and air, but they only sell $950,000 worth of ad time (which is calculated as a base cost multiplied by viewership), CBS has just lost $50,000.
The dynamic gets even more complicated when multiple shows are in play. Don't doubt for a second that Charlie Sheen's huge raise affected how much Les Moonves was willing to pay for the CSIM cast. I would go so far as to say Charlie and Jon Crybaby effectively cost Eddie Cibrian his job.