TV Sim

We have not had a good TV sim in what seems like forever. We had MAD TV, which was pretty cool, but needed more work. We had Primetime, but it ended before you could really get into the game.

You run a TV channel, but done at primetime, doing a whole day sucks. If you ever played some of the older TV channel games, where you book the whole day, you would understand. Plus, primetime is where the fun is at because it where new shows come on, and where the ratings really come into play.

So, you start out by picking a channel to run. You then see the schedule for this network for Sunday-Saturday:
You can move shows to different timeslots or nights. Maybe a show like CSI would be better suited for Mondays with CSI Miami, or used to help kickstart a new show on another night, or that new show on the night of CSI, so you have to move another show.

You must compete against the other networks for ratings. Obviously Friday and Saturday are slow nights, and you would put cheaper, low rated shows on these nights, but you still want to win those nights to please advertisers. Or, you could air re-runs on those nights, hoping to increase viewership for those shows, or you could see a dip because why watch the original run when they will be on later in the week?

The biggest thing for this idea would be to have a strong development base for new shows. You could choose the cast and crew for the show. Maybe an episode of a show caused a lot of problems for a religious group, so, you fire whoever wrote the episode, and now you need a replacement for that spot, so, you can hire someone. Attributes would play a big role in this. As a TV season ends, you must prepare your next fall season by having new shows in development, while planning out a schedule. This is why development is huge. Advertisers need to have an idea what you plan to have, and determine how much to pay you to air their ads. You could also do movies of the week, something I believe CBS used to do on Sundays. So, you would have to develop movies to air.

Then you could bid on big movies at the box office, sporting events (like the Super Bowl, World Series ect…). With the Super Bowl, you could air a special episode of a show after the event. Maybe you have a new show to premiere, and you want to help create a lot of buzz for it, so, it airs after the SB, and now has an audience. Or, you have a current show you want to give a much needed ratings boost.

During May/June, you must also determine which shows to bring back for the fall schedule, as mentioned. You can decide how many episodes to give a show. Say you give a show 13 episodes, you can later determine if you want to give a full season during the season by the show’s ratings during that season.

Add in advertising for the show. I like the idea of a buzz meter to determine what people think of a show. You can do promotion for a show, and depending on how well it does, it can move the buzz meter up or down for that show. Although, you will find many shows with bad buzz are huge rating getters, and vice versa with good buzz shows.

It would have to be a weekly model, although, you could skip the summer months, or book cheap, new shows during that time period.

Opinions? Any other ideas you can think of? I know I would be willing to drop some money down for a game like this. Have been willing for a while.

I agree that would be awesome if someone made something similar to what you mentioned.

A game with much more creative control.

I am thinking about trying out making one myself something to what you said the only problem is what format to try it on (online or a game to download which require a lot of coding).

Hey guys, why not try this game?

networksgame.com

It’s a web/email/forum based game attempting to simulate, as real as possible, the TV industry. Players can take the role of Network CEOs (only 4 on the first seasons), Production or Creative Companies and/or Critics / Journalists. The game is just a few weeks old, but it has the potential to become something great.