Television Networks – The New Business Model for Chaos

Well finally, the new fall season of network shows is upon us. Yippee!
Another year of shows moved, moved again, then moved back. Shows cancelled and resurrected. Shows changed over and over. Shows aired 12 or 13 times, even though they weren’t worth seeing the first time.
The whole process has always kinda fascinated me. Can you just imagine if other businesses conducted themselves the same way?
“Sam’s Steak House. Can I help you?”
“Yes, I’d like to make a reservation for tonight, for 8:00.”
“Excellent sir. Although our 8:00 reservation is actually at 7:50. We do that to fool the other diners who might be tempted to make a reservation at another restaurant for dessert later. See, if the other restaurant only makes reservations exactly on the hour, we can actually force people to stay at our restaurant longer, and then they miss the other, original reservation, and we get to keep them here longer and make more money off them. And the great thing is, we’re so all-fired clever about it, that no one sees what we’re doing!”
“Huh?”
“Never mind sir, you’re obviously too ignorant to see through our little scheme either. Just be here at 8:10, and don’t plan on going anywhere else.”
“Ahhh – okay. Whatever. We would like that table in the corner, by the window.”
“Great sir. I’ll put you down for that location, and just before you get here, we’ll move you to another table. Then part way through the evening, we’ll move you back to your original table, then over to another table in a whole different part of the restaurant. Then, jeeeeeest when you finally get comfortable with that table, we’ll actually come out, remove the table from the restaurant altogether, put it into storage while you wait and wonder what in the world happened to it, then we’ll paint the table so it looks totally different, even though we still call it a table, and we’ll put it back in its original location, but we’ll have several different tablecloths on it so you can never really be sure whether it’s the original table, the second table, the second original table, the original table but in a different location, the second table but with the original tablecloth, or perhaps a different restaurant completely.”
“Why?”
“I don’t really know, sir. We all do it. We’ve found that by completely confusing people, we can actually drive business away, which lowers revenues so we can complain more if and when they do come back. It’s actually a very good system.”
“Well, do you at least still have the same menu? I always liked your daily specials.”
“That depends sir. We have a new menu on the third Tuesday of every odd month that has an M in it. Then, for the rest of the month, we have daily specials that are actually the same as the specials we have every day of every other month. We continually recycle exactly the same menu specials, over and over, but we spell the words differently. We find that people will actually take comfort in knowing that they have very few choices and will come in and eat the same thing week after week. And the really great thing is, even though it’s the same thing over and over, if you haven’t been in for a day or two, it’s actually new to you. In fact, we use that phrase in our ads—new to you. Catchy, isn’t it? And people are so dimwitted, at least we think they are, that they don’t seem to see through our little scheme.”
“Wow. How in the world do you stay in business.”
“Actually, we went bankrupt months ago. Another restaurant with fresh food choices, consistent service, and an emphasis on quality has put us out of business. I just stay here and answer the phone because I can’t live without the chaos.
“It’s also kind of a public service, because some people have come to expect the comfort of the consistent inconsistency that we pride ourselves in consistently providing with complete inconsistentcy. So thanks for calling, and we’ll see you again at this time next year!”
“Or not.”