The prototypical
network executive is a schlub, grown bloated and neurotic on expensive meals and drugs, who does not have a creative bone in his body and whose understanding of the creative process is only marginally smaller than his grasp of what the viewing public actually
wants.
Aware that his job is so dependent on luck that he might as well empty the network's coffers at the nearest roulette table, his time revolves
not around nurturing talent for the benefit of all, but around making himself look competent.
That means appearing responsible for every success and innocent of every failing that the network might have, irrespective of whether this was actually the case. Note that the people that the executive is really trying to convince are his fellow execs, both inside and outside the station. Execs that are, to a man, also having the exact same neurotic crisis day in and day out.
Nevertheless, the need to keep their channels populated with new shows means that their commissioning bods will keep putting forward all kinds of shows that may or may not appeal to the network executives' sensibilities.
For this reason, the execs will sometimes find themselves in the unfortunate position of being in charge of a show that they do not understand and therefore do not know what to do with. This presents them with a tricky situation: if the show is a failure they risk losing face, but if the show is a success then they'll look redundant.
Alternatively, the show may be a legacy commission under your predecessor, which is worse - because if it's a success they'll have one up on you, but if you cancel it straight off, you'll lose all plausible deniability when people call you petty and small.
The answer to both of these problems, of course, is to screw the show over completely. Put it in a different time slot each episode, show it in the wrong order, bury it at midnight, put it up against
CSI... do everything you can to stop it from building up a regular viewing audience that's not quite big enough to warrant the budget, but just big enough to cause some trouble when you cancel it for not "attracting the right audience".
Then wipe your beaded brow, pop a few pills, put on your best happy face and chant your power mantra. So long as you look good in the eyes of others then everything will be fine. And that's what this job is about, right? Right?
Okay, okay - not
all network executives are like this. Some intentionally seek out creative people to make shows that don't just
Follow The Leader, and as they get promoted, they may become the very predecessors these shows are inherited from. However, this happens more often than you may wish to believe.
Fox is pretty much considered to be the king of this sort of programming decision, so much so that
ratings for new shows on Fox are usually comparatively low, since most people know they'll just be canceled within 10 shuffled-around episodes anyways.
Please try to avoid listing shows as being "screwed" just because of a disagreement over the reasons for their
cancellation. Plenty of shows are canceled simply because they just weren't making any money even with the network backing it. This is about intentional sabotage, not "the mean network executives canceled my favorite show".
Compare
Executive Meddling,
Executive Veto,
Too Good To Last,
Invisible Advertising. Also compare
No Export For You, though that doesn't affect the actual production, but the export of a given product.
Rarely, the situation will invert itself with
Network To The Rescue.
