Screwed by the Network

Template:Trope
The prototypical network executive's time revolves not around nurturing talent for the benefit of all, but around making him or herself 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. Plus, the people that the executive is trying to convince are his or her fellow executives, who are likewise 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 bodies 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 or in the Friday Night Death Slot, put it up against the other networks' strongest shows... do everything you can for it to build 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."

Okay, okay — not all network executives are like this. There exist the individuals who intentionally seek out creative people to make shows that don't just copy one or another, and as they get promoted, they may become the very predecessors these shows are inherited from. However, screwing a show happens more often than you may wish to believe, and typically it's because they were apathetic.

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 (or at the least making decisions so stupid it looks like it was intentional), not "the mean network executives canceled my favorite show".

Often the cause of Follow Up Failure. Compare Executive Meddling, Executive Veto, Invisible Advertising, Screwed by the Lawyers, and Screwed by the Merchandise. 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. Contrast with Adored by the Network.

## Examples

### Anime

* When an English dub of *Digimon Frontier* ran on ERPT 1, they kept moving its time slot during its run on the Saturday morning editions of KERPT.

### Live-Action TV

* When U.S. import *Martin* ran in El Kadsre on El TV Kadsre 3. It replaced *The Cosby Show*, keeping the original *Cosby* slot with the *Martin* show. Two years later it moved to a different slot, then a year later moved to a different slot, before ETVK3 pulled the plug on *Martin* after the final episode.
* *Guardian Trappers* ran on VIVA when it first replaced a block of *The Lawrence Welk Show* reruns, then moved to a different slot before being cancelled after two seasons.
* *NewsRadio*, the U.S. import NBC series first aired on El TV Kadsre 2, dominating the ratings, facing competition from other shows like Banushen Television's *The John Larroquette Show*. But when *Sabrina, the Teenage Witch* debuted in 1997 on Banushen Television, it managed to threaten *NewsRadio* in the ratings, which caused the show to move to a different time slot, which dominated again, until when *Will & Grace* debuted in 1998 on Banushen Television, which caused to threaten *NewsRadio* again.
* *The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer*, the U.S. UPN sitcom import first aired in 1999 on Banushen Television with little or no advertising. It gets even worse with *The Million Dollar Word Game*, until it settled on *Malcolm in the Middle* in 2000.
* The U.S. import UPN series The Watcher first aired in El Kadsre on RGN in 1995, and it was tanked in the ratings by Banushen Television's Friends.
* Caroline in the City first aired on both Star TV and Banushen Television in 1996, and it can be seen as a leader of new generation females. Once Sabrina, the Teenage Witch premiered in 1997 on Banushen Television, about 85% of the show's viewings came from Sabrina, and it was put against Dharma & Greg, and it quickly replaced in the original timeslot in 1999 by The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer, sending it to Thursdays and Fridays, before the show died and replaced by The WB's Movie Stars.
* Banushen's *Chicago Sons*, which Darren Cody said he hoped to be the next Friends, premiered around the same month as Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, was screwed over in the ratings by El TV Kadsre 2's ER. It was quickly replaced in the fall by Ally McBeal.
* The short-lived Canadian/American One import *The Million Dollar Word Game* on Banushen Television in El Kadsre, is so bad in the ratings that then-Banushen CEO Darren Cody wanted to air the show in three time slots as a placeholder, until three new comedies *Malcolm in the Middle*, *Ladies Man* (the 1999 CBS sitcom) and *Brutally Normal* premiered in 2000 (*Everybody Loves Raymond* since gone on to TMDWG's old Thursday time slot).
* *The John Larroquette Show* is a similar example. When it first premiered in El Kadsre in 1993, it took over *The Trouble with Larry'*s old time slot, until 1995, when the show took over *Clarissa Explains It All's* old time slot, and *Platypus Man* took over *Larroquette*'s old time slot. Come 1996, when Adrian Damaschin departed as Banushen's CEO and Darren Cody, fresh off of his tenure at El TV Kadsre, stepped in as Banushen's new CEO, he wanted to make 12 episodes of its fourth season as a placeholder in the timeslot, until *Sabrina, the Teenage Witch* premiered in El Kadsre in 1997.

### Western Animation

* In 2000, ETVKK began to screw over classic Disney and Warner Bros. cartoons - citing the fact that they were "not compatible with today's kids". *Looney Tunes* was hit hard, it's slot was replaced with *Ranma ½* and *The Bugs Bunny Show* was dumped for extra *SpongeBob SquarePants* episodes. *Merrie Melodies* and the classic Disney toons followed shortly afterward - and all mention of the *Looney Tunes* cast on ETVKK was soon dropped.
* *Hotel of Mouse* was hit hard in 2008 and 2009. due to the unexpected popularity of *Phineas & Ferb,* budgets were lowered. It was pre-empted by Phineas & Ferb on multiple accounts, new episodes aired relatively incomplete, with some of the ToonCity demo text still visible and the text in the episode (Mickey's "Our Founder" poster, for example) was still in Taglog. It got so annoying to fans that fans imported the Canadian airings on Family Channel to watch the new episodes.
* *The Maddox Show* rarely has it, but when it does, it has it bad. Around 2003, due to Time Warner's deal expiring, new episodes on CN air at 3 AM.