and that is at 2:30 am eastern! Good thing I don't depend on them :lol: As much as we have bitched about TV Land, they were never that disrespectful to I Love Lucy. This is just further proof, you want your faves,you have to buy them on DVD and not depend on programmers to give you what you want.

Yeah I know. I didn't care for switch from tvland to Hallmark for I only have one digital cable box and the rest of my set don't pick up hallmark. Well as least I have seen the shows a million times , so if I missed the series for a while it's really not a tragedy.

I just have this feeling that with Hallmark cutting it back to one showing it is just a matter of time before the network just cuts the show from its schedule. Once it is cut, I think it will be a long time before ILL appears on cable. Of course, the show is still available on DVD and the local stations, but that time to get use to TV without Lucy is coming sooner than later :( :( :( :( :( :( :(

No local Lucy in my market....I think it will just drive the casual fan to possibly investigate getting the DVDs. Hardcore fans, like most of us here, already have the DVDs. I'm craving more Lucy product, so Here's Lucy and The Lucy Show getting eventual DVD releases, will fit quite nicely.

Right, I didn't mean to say that Lucy would never be on TV again. I guess I should have said that the show will not be as readily available as it is (or was) on cable. But I do think that this will lead to people moving towards the DVDs. And of course, the release of Here's Lucy (and hopefully The Lucy Show) will be great. In fact, as much as I love I Love Lucy, I'm looking forward to a new series of her's that I have seen very little of.

These episodes will be like brand new......I haven't seen most HL episodes since the early '80s and Lucy Show, i have most taped from N@N, but the tapes are in a deterioating state, so I don't play them. The Lucy Specials will be awesome since I have not seen about 90% of them.

Okay Hallmark, splain...

I can't believe Lucy's ratings in general would suddenly drop just in the past few years after 50 years on the air. I think it's due to alot of people not getting the Hallmark Channel. We recently swithed to Time Warner, otherwise we'd never get Hallmark at all. Lucy just kinda got lost in the channel switch I guess (I hope). New or casual viewers just moved on.

I'm glad I have all the seasons on DVD to watch.

Hallmark has a history of putting shows on and expecting instant results and then yanking them off...it's happen to the Facts of Life, Family Ties, and more recently Cheers (putting it back on in the middle of the night is not a sign of faith).

after putting Lucy back on a week or so ago.....WHAM! they are pulling her again. HALLMARK BLOWS A BIG ONE!!!!! I refuse to believe that Lucy is that low rated. it is time for another network to pick up Lucy and give her the decent showcase the show deserves.

Hallmark really pushed Lucy to the curb when they acquired The Golden Girls. I live in an area where we hardly ever get classic tv programs on our local stations. This year for the first time ever our NBC affiliate is showing I Love Lucy. Thank goodness for the DVDs though! I'll never forget all the trouble I went through taping I Love Lucy on Nick at Nite.

after putting Lucy back on a week or so ago.....WHAM! they are pulling her again. HALLMARK BLOWS A BIG ONE!!!!! I refuse to believe that Lucy is that low rated. it is time for another network to pick up Lucy and give her the decent showcase the show deserves.
It's hard to believe. Lucy has lasted for over 60 years on tv but today's reality obsessed viewers could care less about classic tv. It's sick.

Well, Hallmark doesn't have the excuse of relying on reality programming. It is the last bastion (widespread at least) of family oriented programming on cable. There should be enough room on its schedule to include Lucy, GG, LHOP, etc if it would just stop all this block programming of 3-4 episodes in a row daily! At least we also know 7th Heaven has failed to make a ratings dent in primetime for Hallmark, it too has been yanked. I was just getting used to seeing GG in the afternoon when now, it is moved to primetime. Hallmark is just throwing logic out the window and scheduling shows haphazardly in hopes that something will stick.

If Hallmark would just leave their schedule alone people will find the shows, and an audience will build. You cannot build an audience by switching times every week.

I still think that ILL will soon be reduced to local airings and people who have the VHS/DVD releases. That's ok, the show deserves better than what Hallmark is treating it and I don't mind if it doesn't air on a national cable channel for awhile until the contract expires. Perhaps something like American Life will pick the series up.

It needs to go back to widespread local syndication, perhaps as a barter show, where the show is free for stations to air as long they air the national commericials that come with the program!

Dare I say it needs to be colorized and offered again in first run syndication, the colorization on the bonus disc boxset (Lucy Goes To Scotland) is frightening good, or at least they need to offer a colorized set on dvd as well, so they can make us buy the entire series all over again.....lol.......they need to colorize '"Dick Van Dyke" show as well, it was a advanced married 60's show and should have been shot in color in the first place....I can understand purists saying lucy is a 50's style B&W show, but "dick van dyke" feels like a color show, why not color them both and offer both classic 50's and 60's couples together in a one hour block?

as for the hallmark channel, its a greeting card company and magazine, its a crap channel and expects instant ratings spikes, just like all the other crap cable channels like abc family (the hogan family lasted a week) ion (broadcast), and all viacom owned channels. I predicted hallmark would treat lucy like this over a year ago when it was announced they aquired her, what fustrates me most about these announcements is they are made a year in advance and then the series lasts a month at best on the air...why bother to even announce it?, just wait, air it and take it off and maybe no one will notice!

TeeVee, check out our discussion on the Hallmark thread in the General Sitcoms Discussion board as well! :)

I Love Lucy gains the 3-5pm weekday block starting Monday:

http://www.sitcomsonline.com/blog/2009/05/less-than-perfect-joins-lifetime.html

It's great to see Lucy have a resurgance like this! Be sure to let Hallmark let them know you appreciate it!

Hallmark has pulled the rug out under us before, don't be surprised if they do it again.

Hallmark has pulled the rug out under us before, don't be surprised if they do it again.

Actually Lucy being pulled last time was due to TGG's success, IMO. Matlock is flopping, so what else can they do?

Sorry but a pull is a pull.......no matter what excuse

but I do agree that a 2 hour block is very very nice!!!

Lucy pulled from 3-5pm starting today...but 11am-2pm added:

http://www.sitcomsonline.com/blog/2009/05/cw-upfront-2009-10-fall-2009-schedule.html

Good Gravy, Marie!!!!!!!!!

:brent

Hallmark is just........ ______________!

And also the 1-3AM blocks on Saturday and Sunday!

Well, this should cycle the show pretty quickly LOL

]Hallmark really pushed Lucy to the curb when they acquired The Golden Girls.

I get a kick of you gidget grape. You said it.
Lately I Love Lucy has popped up in a mini marathon one day a week But you have pop on to it to find it.

]Hallmark really pushed Lucy to the curb when they acquired The Golden Girls.

I get a kick of you gidget grape. You said it.
Lately I Love Lucy has popped up in a mini marathon one day a week But you have pop on to it to find it.

Usually, the contracts between the distributors and broadcasters are for a specified number of airings, which means the broadcaster has paid a fixed amount to air the show that number of times. For example, the contract might specify that the sum they are paying is to air each episode three times. If the broadcaster cancels the show, they wind up losing whatever money they paid for the unaired episodes. So what they often will do is air the show in big blocks to burn off whatever number they already paid for so it's not a total loss. And, of course, they won't renew the contract for further broadcasts. I'm not saying that's what's going on here, but just warning you to be guarded in your optimism. This could be a two-pronged approach: 1) burn off the remaining broadcasts that have already been paid for in the event they need to get rid of the show altogether and minimize their losses; 2) provide a last chance for the show to gain viewers; if viewership suddenly picks up during this period, they might consider renewing the contract and continue the show. But if it doesn't pick up, they will have already fulfilled their obligation and expended all the broadcasts they paid for and be done with it. If they're moving the show around to different times, it's a sign they're not satisfied with the ratings. If big blocks of "I Love Lucy" wind up coming on in the middle of the night, and they're not promoting the show anymore, I would be especially suspicious of what might be going on. That's a sign they're not trying to gain viewers anymore, just burning off the remainder of what they paid for.

I think Lucy is being treated well. 11AM-2PM, 2:30AM weekdays, and 1AM-3AM on the weekends isn't exactly bad....

I agree with 60sfan.......if Hallmark truly regretted buying Lucy this three hour daytime block would not be going on. I think Hallmark regrets Cheers--no attempt at all to reestablish a daytime slot for that one.

I agree with 60sfan.......if Hallmark truly regretted buying Lucy this three hour daytime block would not be going on. I think Hallmark regrets Cheers--no attempt at all to reestablish a daytime slot for that one.

Totally agree. I think they're really trying to make Lucy work this time (again, she was a victim of GG's success when it started, which seems to have worn down a bit). Looks like it is doing decent, or trust me I'm sure it would have been yanked a week after this started. I hope if she continues to do decently they will consider some more classic TV series in addition to what they have (well, excluding 7th and TBAA).

As for Cheers, I agree. TOTALLY the wrong network, should have gone to WGN. I don't see them giving this one another shot.

Totally agree. I think they're really trying to make Lucy work this time (again, she was a victim of GG's success when it started, which seems to have worn down a bit). Looks like it is doing decent, or trust me I'm sure it would have been yanked a week after this started. I hope if she continues to do decently they will consider some more classic TV series in addition to what they have (well, excluding 7th and TBAA).

As for Cheers, I agree. TOTALLY the wrong network, should have gone to WGN. I don't see them giving this one another shot.

And back to my point, which nobody is addressing, if they're just trying to quickly burn off the number of airings they've already paid for in their contract, the fact that they have these huge blocks is not necessarily a good thing. And abrupt schedule changes are rarely a good sign. If the show was doing well in the previous time slot, they would have left it there. Like I said before, this is probably a two-pronged approached: Give the show one last opportunity to find an audience while, at the same time, burn off the broadcasts they've already paid for under their contract (and minimize their loses) in the event they need to cancel. If it gets moved to late night, that will be a sure sign it's on its last legs.

if they are burning off Lucy, they are burning off Golden Girls as well. MASH too. They don't give shows three hour blocks in the daytime as burnoffs.

if they are burning off Lucy, they are burning off Golden Girls as well. MASH too. They don't give shows three hour blocks in the daytime as burnoffs.

Add Little House as well. Hallmark isn't that type of network. If it doesn't work, it's gone in 2 days. Lucy is obviously doing well as it's been airing in daytime for what, 3 weeks now? Trust me, if it wasn't working, it would be sacked by now.

It's back to one showing a day, as this thread indicates:

http://www.sitcomsonline.com/blog/2009/07/hallmark-channel-cuts-lucy-from-daytime.html

I say PTOOEY!!! on Hallmark............this constant schedule reshuffling makes no sense for any of the shows on the schedule. I'm so glad I have the DVDs and also getting new Lucy DVD product too.

It's back to one showing a day, as this thread indicates:

http://www.sitcomsonline.com/blog/2009/07/hallmark-channel-cuts-lucy-from-daytime.html

I hate to say I told you so, but . . . this is exactly what I predicted/feared was going on earlier in this thread: that Hallmark was burning off episodes in big blocks to 1) give the show one last chance to find an audience and 2) exhaust the number of airings purchased under their contract if it didn't find an audience. I warned that if the show wound up in late night, it was on its last legs. And guess what? It's moving to 2:30 AM. Frankly folks, any show that has been constantly rerun, as I Love Lucy has, needs a breather. It ran for 15 years on Nick@Nite and TVLand nonstop, with no break whatsoever. TVLand realized the show needed a rest, which is why they didn't renew their contract. But then Hallmark immediately picked it up at a point when its tired. Not smart. I remember back in the old pre-cable days, people writing letters to the local paper about their favorite shows disappearing from the local TV station's schedule. The response was, "don't worry, we're just giving the show a break. It will be back." When a show runs too long and too often, it's no longer special or fresh. And it's taken for granted. Ratings decline. That's the point at which I Love Lucy has arrived. It badly needs a break. It really needs to rest a couple years, time enough for demand for it to grow again before anyone can successfully revive it. The same may be true of The Golden Girls. Lifetime ran that show into the ground.

Golden Girls is doing well for them.

Not to belabor the point--the show isn't moving to 2:30 am--it's been there. Hallmark is cutting out the daytime slots. (and they need to stop airing the promos if they are doing that).

I bought all the seasons on DVD when a big-box store was blowing them out @ $15 a set, though I haven't had the time or inclination to open them up yet (too many other DVDs I'd rather watch right now).

I cannot fathom why anyone would want to watch ILL on Hallmark when it's clear they would be cutting out 5 MINUTES of footage, at least.

Also, the demographic that would watch this show probably already owns it on DVD. Most of the under-35 crowd has no interest in '50s TV shows whatsoever and would rather watch American Idol, Gossip Girl, etc.

It's just a fact that Lucy's original fanbase is growing older, and cable outlets can no longer expect her to pull in the large ratings her reruns did in the '80s and '90s.

Also, the demographic that would watch this show probably already owns it on DVD. Most of the under-35 crowd has no interest in '50s TV shows whatsoever and would rather watch American Idol, Gossip Girl, etc.

You've got me curious. I do fit into the demographic you're talking about: I'm 45. But when I look at the ages of people posting and commenting on Lucy-related videos on Youtube, I'm struck by how many are very young people. It seems to me that most of them are quite young -- teens and twenties -- and that new generations keep discovering this show, just as I did (it aired before I was born). So could we get a poll here and see how old folks are on this message board?

Golden Girls is doing well for them.I know it's doing well for them, but is 6 hours a day a must? When something works, Hallmark never fails to run it in to the ground. LHOTP, MASH are examples. Two 3-hour blocks is outrageous for any show. They need more shows!....they simply don't have enough for a 19 hour day.

TV Land has always had even more variety, and still does.