Why the lack of SG-1 photos?

[the fifth man]

SGA and SG1 were overall almost the same in ratings, however, SGA started to fall off towards the end of the season. In the last two or three episodes it fared worse than SG1 and BSG, despite being sandwiched between the two, which meant people were watching SG1, then changing channels for an hour, then coming back for BSG.

In the rerun department, SGA totally tanked and was pulled, which was why we got two episodes of SG1 on Fridays. I read at the SciFi board that for the first 10 weeks of reruns, SGA only made SciFi's top 10 once while SG1 reruns made it 5 or 6 times.

I'm a bigger fan of SG-1 anyways, but I'm sure SGA will be just fine. The spoilers I've read so far have this season looking like a pretty good one to me.

[prion]

I thought the photos were leaked by MGM.

That leads to another question...where do they come from?

(edited to add....)

I think I know the source of my confusion. When I go to that German Stargate-Project website the photos for SG-1 say:



The new Atlantis photos at Gateworld are attributed to a photographer from the SciFi Channel, but say "All images are the property of MGM Television Entertainment and SCI FI Channel".

You can see why I'm confused at who releases the photos and who to attribute these tactics to.

I believe that Scifi (which is part of Sony which used to be MGM and also has a whole ton of other networks and weblets in the fold) is releasing them. I think everybody puts in copyright notices to cover their butts, which is standard to do

[Agent_Dark]

lol, spoke too soon
/me points to teh s10 folder

[the fifth man]

Yay, finally we get the first Season 10 photos. About freaking time, if you ask me. Hopefully that means more will be on the way in the coming days.

[prion]

Yay, finally we get the first Season 10 photos. About freaking time, if you ask me. Hopefully that means more will be on the way in the coming days.

As long as it doesn't delay the SGA "Common Ground" images from being put up. I am soooo waiting for those!!!!!!!!

[MediaSavant]

I believe that Scifi (which is part of Sony which used to be MGM and also has a whole ton of other networks and weblets in the fold) is releasing them. I think everybody puts in copyright notices to cover their butts, which is standard to do

You have the ownership wrong. SciFi is part of NBC Universal, which is part of GE.

As far as I know, Sony has no ownership of any networks. But, they do have a syndication division.

[prion]

You have the ownership wrong. SciFi is part of NBC Universal, which is part of GE.

As far as I know, Sony has no ownership of any networks. But, they do have a syndication division.

Sorry. Well, I must admit, I've lost track of who sells what to whom anymore. But MGM is part of Sony now, right? Can't recall.

Yes, the NBC Universal connection has very obvious lately, what with LAw & Order marathons on SciFi.... think it had a lot of fans going "huh what?". What they oughta do NEXT time is go through the L&O episodes and find episodes where Stargate actors have guest starred (could definitely do that with CSI).

[Pitry]

MGM is part of Sony now, but I recall the interview conducted with the vice-preisdent-for-something-or-other in MGM for 200 saying that Stargate is owned by a part of MGM that remained independant.

[Piratejenna]

MGM is part of Sony now, but I recall the interview conducted with the vice-preisdent-for-something-or-other in MGM for 200 saying that Stargate is owned by a part of MGM that remained independant.

That's right. I may be completely wrong about this, because this falls into the "makes my brain hurt" category, but I think the relationship between Sony and MGM was a distribution partnership - I don't think Sony ever owned MGM.

As far as I can make out, Stargate 'belongs' to MGM. They are the producers - the people who fund the show and hold original rights to all the intellectual property. There are a couple of small independents involved: Jonathan Glassner and Brad Wright had a small production company controlling their rights as the original creators; RDA and Michael Greenburg were involved as independent producers while RDA was part of the cast, and now (I think) BW and RCC are also credited as a producing company. So MGM hold the purse strings, make the big production decisions etc in conjunction with those independents.

MGM entered into partnership with Sony to distribute the rights to air Stargate around the world - the idea being that Sony had huge global reach and was a significant brand name. Sony paid for the right to attach their brand, rather than paid for the production itself. Sony's main income was from hardware - Games Consoles, TVs & DVD machines, but they've been trying to get their brand attached to content by means of these distribution deals. (They're now a major film distributers as well). They sometimes co-fund specific productions but they are not primarily a production company. As you say, MGM recently announced that they were terminating that arrangement. So we've seen a year or so of Stargate under the MGM/Sony brand, and now it will presumably revert to just MGM on the label. MGM will deal with global distribution and publicity as well as production. Sci-fi Channel will also have a role in publicity because they need to promote any show which airs on their channel.

Sci-fi Channel were bought by Vivendi who were bought by NBC. Their job is simply to air the show in the US prior to syndication. Unlike BSG and Farscape before it, Sci-fi/NBC are not co-producers of Stargate. They support Stargate by buying the rights to air, not by direct contribution to the production budget. As such, they don't have the same level of creative input into Stargate that they have with BSG (or had with Farscape) although presumably their views would be listened to.

That, at least, is how it seems to me! Now I need to lie down - my brain hurts....