History Main / ScrewedByTheNetwork

[[WMG:[[center:[[AC:This trope is [[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1652989456002459000 under discussion]] in the Administrivia/TropeRepairShop.]]]]]]

The prototypical UsefulNotes/{{network executive|s}}'s time revolves ''not'' around nurturing talent for the benefit of all, but around [[TheDilbertPrinciple making themselves 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 their own 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 [[OutOfOrder in the wrong order]], bury it at midnight or in the FridayNightDeathSlot, 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." The big-screen equivalent of the Friday Night Death Slot are the DumpMonths.

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

Often the cause of FollowUpFailure and QuietlyCancelled. Compare ExecutiveMeddling, ExecutiveVeto, InvisibleAdvertising, ScrewedByTheLawyers, and ScrewedByTheMerchandise. Also compare NoExportForYou, though that doesn't affect the actual production, but the export of a given product.

* Children's Series:

* Played with by AMC regarding Knoxville-based Windsor Square 7, a Cinemark acquisition inherited from Carmike. The cinema has not once been renovated since the Cinemark days (with the possible exception of removing all references to ''Advertising/FrontRowJoe'' in order to avoid paying royalties to a competing theater chain), meaning the very '80s color scheme of the interiors remains to this day, but, proving Administrivia/TropesAreNotBad, the now-dated, tacky, and shabby interior look has been taking on a [[NarmCharm "vintage" appeal]] for having had to be put up with by more modern moviegoers for a long while.

* Jumbo Pictures, producer of many fine Nickelodeon and Disney cartoons and shows, can be said to have been screwed by both Disney ''and'' Nickelodeon. The company started out producing SliceOfLife puppet shows like ''Series/GullahGullahIsland'' and ''Series/AllegrasWindow'', and animated shows like ''WesternAnimation/{{Doug}}'' for Nickelodeon. However Nickelodeon started showing less interest in educational values and more towards generic slapstick as time went on, and Jumbo's terms with Nick started degrading. Disney then made them dump Nick and subsequently bought them over. So far so good, right? After Disney's version of Doug, ''WesternAnimation/JoJosCircus'' and ''WesternAnimation/PBAndJOtter'', Disney went against their wishes and used some of their characters in a music video that aired on multiple children's channels entitled "We Are Family: A Musical Message for All". ''WesternAnimation/PinkyDinkyDoo'', their only success since they broke up with Disney and renamed themselves Cartoon Pizza, was cancelled in 2010 and they have since gone dormant.
* Polygram Home Video did this to two of their kids' properties: ''WesternAnimation/TheCrayonBox'' and ''Series/TheNoddyShop''. Both were supposed to be released on home video. ''The Crayon Box'''s releases were cancelled for unexplained reasons, but the PublicServiceAnnouncement based on the poem still appeared on other Polygram releases. ''The Noddy Shop'', however, only had the ''WesternAnimation/NoddysToylandAdventures'' segments released.
* Regal Entertainment Group is doing this to Downtown West 8 in Knoxville, Tennessee, where it is headquartered. When one moviegoer complained about having to go all the way to Asheville, North Carolina, just to see ''Film/{{Pina}}'' in 3D, Regal's official excuse was that 3D was too expensive to install in Downtown West 8.

* This is exactly what AMC is doing to all of the former Metro Detroit-based Star Theatres locations that they had acquired in 2006. Most notably, all of the special effects eye candy that Star was famous for was disabled entirely by AMC. It has gotten to the point that AMC has even closed former Star locations in Taylor, Rochester Hills, and Southfield[[note]]reopened for two years under local ownership before closing again, rescued by Emagine Theaters and given much-needed upgrades, and for reasons other than the then-ongoing UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic, respectively[[/note]], the latter of which was a [[AdoredByTheNetwork flagship for Star]], while permanently shuttering a six-screen wing at the Gratiot location in Clinton Township, Michigan.
* The German dub of the Chinese animated series ''The Legends of Nezha'' ran once in its entirety on {{Creator/RTL 2}}, and never reaired, making it hard to find online.
* The Creator/{{Qubo}} over-the-air network was Screwed by the ''Parent Company'' in early 2021 when Ion Television's new parent company E.W. Scripps chose to shut down the network and sister channel Ion Plus as part of an excuse to move Scripps' digital subchannel networks to the Ion owned-and-operated stations.

Often the cause of FollowUpFailure. Compare ExecutiveMeddling, ExecutiveVeto, InvisibleAdvertising, ScrewedByTheLawyers, and ScrewedByTheMerchandise. Also compare NoExportForYou, though that doesn't affect the actual production, but the export of a given product.

->'''WebVideo/CDawgVA''': I feel bad for all the actors involved, honestly.//

* Despite decent ticket sales, the Shubert Company demanded that ''Theatre/{{Beetlejuice}}'' be evicted from the Winter Garden Theater due to a contract stating the 2020 revival of ''Theatre/TheMusicMan'' had to play at the Shubert and no other Shubert theaters were available for ''Beetlejuice.'' This was [[BitingTheHandHumor alluded to in the show]], where Beetlejuice's line "Fuck ''Brigadoon''!" was changed to "Fuck ''The Music Man''!" for a night. The show would have closed on June 2020, fourteen months after its first performance, but all Broadway productions were shut down in mid-March due to the UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic, and ''The Music Man'' never got its planned October 2020 opening either, making all of this for naught.

* This trope is the reason Apple created its own retail stores. One of the problems compounding the company's DorkAge in UsefulNotes/TheNineties was a lack of attractive displays in stores. Retailers devoted floor space to more popular ([[MoneyDearBoy and profitable]]) [=PCs=] instead of Macs, usually relegating them to a corner of the store, if they sold them at all. They also often left the machines turned off, crashed, or set them up without a mouse, leading to an unfavorable first impression with potential buyers. The fluorescent lighting also didn't help, helping show off the various PC beige boxes, but doing no favors for Apple's machines. Apple stores were created to give Macs and other Apple products an aesthetically pleasing showcase. Apple has since gone back to selling their products in major retailers, though they insist on its products on being presented in specialized displays.

-->--'''Creator/TimAllen''' on ''Series/LastManStanding''

* ''Literature/{{Terra}}'' and ''Terra's World'' were written as YA books, but published and marketed as adult science fiction. The poor reception resulting from this meant the publishers weren't interested in keeping them in print or publishing the third in the series. Music/MitchBenn eventually completed the trilogy through self-publishing.

* ScrewedByTheNetwork/{{FOX}}
** ScrewedByTheNetwork/FOXKids

* Fandom has booted the "reception wikis", Random-ness Wiki, and several Webcomic/{{Polandball}}-related wikis from the platform, with most of them migrating to [=Miraheze=], a [=MediaWiki=] hosting service.

The prototypical UsefulNotes/{{network executive|s}}'s time revolves ''not'' around nurturing talent for the benefit of all, but around [[TheDilbertPrinciple making themselves 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.

The prototypical UsefulNotes/{{network executive|s}}'s time revolves ''not'' around nurturing talent for the benefit of all, but around [[TheDilbertPrinciple 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.

* Fandom has booted the "reception wikis" and several Webcomic/{{Polandball}}-related wikis from the platform, with the former migrating to [=Miraheze=], a [=MediaWiki=] hosting service.

* In 2005, [[Ride/DisneyThemeParks Disney]], Creator/JKRowling and Creator/WarnerBros were in negotiations to create a ''Franchise/HarryPotter'' theme park in Singapore. Around that time, then-Disney CEO Michael Eisner, who was the main architect of the negotiations, was fired and replaced with Bob Iger, who had little care for ''Harry Potter'' and significantly downsized the project to just a single ride, where guests could shoot at screens with interactive wands. [[AdaptationDistillation Naturally]], Rowling rejected Disney's plans and the negotiations broke down. Warner and Rowling eventually got better treatment when they went to Ride/UniversalStudios, who proceeded to create ''The Wizarding World of Harry Potter'', which [[LaserGuidedKarma became a major threat for Disney's place in the Orlando theme park market in the years that followed]].

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* Jumbo Pictures, producer of many fine Nickelodeon and Disney cartoons and shows, can be said to have been screwed by both Disney ''and'' Nickelodeon. The company started out producing SliceOfLife puppet shows like ''Series/GullahGullahIsland'' and ''Series/AllegrasWindow'', and animated shows like ''WesternAnimation/{{Doug}}'' for Nickelodeon. However Nickelodeon started showing less interest in educational values and more towards generic slapstick as time went on, and Jumbo's terms with Nick started degrading. Disney then made them dump Nick and subsequently bought them over. So far so good, right? After Disney's version of Doug, ''WesternAnimation/JoJosCircus'' and ''WesternAnimation/PBAndJOtter'', Disney went against their wishes and used some of their characters in a music video that aired on multiple children's channels entitled "We Are Family: A Musical Message for All".''WesternAnimation/PinkyDinkyDoo'', their only success since they broke up with Disney and renamed themselves Cartoon Pizza, was cancelled in 2010 and they have since gone dormant.

->Team LMS was in the sixth inning, ahead by four runs, stands were packed and then for no reason, they call off the game.