http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/hbos-100m-vinyl-disappoints-westworld-868605

HBO spent about $30 million on the two-hour Vinyl pilot that only 1.1 million watched (counting three days of DVR viewing) and $100 million for the entire first season. "HBO is in a period of challenge,” explains The Hollywood Reporter’s Kim Masters. "It hasn't had a breakout drama hit since Game of Thrones launched in 2011, and in recent months, it has seen several troubled shows go expensively into and then out of production.” They include the troubled J.J. Abrams-produced Westworld, which was halted in December, and as Masters writes, "two shows from David Fincher, a limited series from Steve McQueen and another on Lewis and Clark from producers Brad Pitt and Tom Hanks." In fact, Masters reports that McQueen's series, Codes of Conduct, has been scrapped after shooting a pilot with Paul Dano, Helena Bonham Carter and Rebecca Hall.

http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2016/04/vinyl-season-2-fix

The '70s rock 'n' roll drama has too many characters, too many subplots and too many rock star impressions, says James Wolcott. "The creators and new showrunner need to trim and streamline until they can locate the narrative spine, or implant one," he says. They also need to dump Richie Finestra and replace him with Andrea Zito. While you're at it, get rid of Kip. Wolcott adds: "Everything happens too disjointedly fast on Vinyl and is rendered meaningless due to this helter-skelter effect. Empire can get away with it because it’s in its own time-space continuum, but Vinyl needs to pace itself for maximum payoff.” PLUS: Vinyl is a brave and bitterly honest depiction of addiction (http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2016/apr/12/forget-the-music-hbos-vinyl-is-a-brave-and-bitterly-honest-depiction-of-addiction).

http://www.hitfix.com/whats-alan-watching/can-vinyl-be-fixed-after-such-a-disappointing-first-season

The HBO drama ended its season struggling with its main character, played by Bobby Cannavale. As Alan Sepinwall notes, "The Richie problem is emblematic of Vinyl as a whole. Even if (new showrunner Scott Z.) Burns magically fixes every flaw — which doesn't usually happen when outside people are brought in to rescue a sagging show (see also Smash season 2) — the 'It's much better now!' critical narrative almost never brings back viewers who left during the bad old days, much less brings in people who were reluctant to sample to begin with.” PLUS: Here’s where Vinyl went wrong (http://time.com/4297119/hbo-vinyl-season-1-music-martin-scorsese-mick-jagger-rock-music/) this season, Vinyl's 15 producers (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/bastard-machine/critics-notebook-can-hbos-vinyl-884598) after Terence Winter’s exit — including nine “executive producers" — is “insane,” and Vinyl bizarrely opened up to its mistakes (http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2016/apr/18/vinyl-finale-recap-a-show-bizarrely-owning-up-to-its-mistakes) in the season finale.