How you can help Chuck

Some folks may not like this post but......

How can you help Chuck?  Stop providing content, links and downloading illegal Chuck episodes.

Why should this matter?  For the WB and NBC, it is a negative in the key decisions that are made whether to renew a bubble show.

NBC - Chuck has been showing troubling declines in the key metrics that NBC uses in their decisions.  In the bubble decisions every source of viewership is measured.  Nielsen is not the only source!  They do use other sources of data like Comcast, Time Warner, and the satellite companies.  They also use the data from the online sources primarily NBC.com since they get the revenue from the ads.  When Josh Schwartz tweets to watch LIVE this is the reason why.  WATCHING LIVE MATTERS BECAUSE ALL DATA IS USED.  It does not matter if you aren't a Nielsen Family!

When you provide the illegal content, especially after the East/Central airing (Cripes), the viewers on the West/Mountain don't have the incentive anymore to either view it on their cable/satellite system, online, or buy it from iTunes/Amazon.  The download links are still being provided even though the episodes are available now.  The sales of Chuck through iTunes/Amazon is not a concern for NBC but it is for the producer of the series Warner Brothers.

Warner Brothers - They have the most to lose here along with us the Chuck viewers.  They have cut the fee to the bone most likely.  Who knows if they are taking a loss just filming Chuck?  The only way for them to recoup it is the possible syndication, broadcast fees in foreign countries and DVD/Digital sales.  If everyone is downloading it illegally why watch it or buy it?

What prompted me to write this?  Season 4 of Chuck did show up in the seasons list of iTunes in the top 10 for almost 2 weeks but the individual episodes have not broken the top 10 once this season.  I can't explain the disparity of the Season 4 sales vs the individual episodes that were offered after Season 4 appeared.  Chuck did show up in the unfortunate listing of top pirated episodes which does Chuck Season 5 no favors.  It will probably show up again.

I don't think NBC has made a decision about its fate yet due to the state of the pilot season (pilots have a high failure rate).  If a few of the pilots are picked up and a lot of existing shows are cancelled then Chuck has a chance as filler mid season or a backup to a failed new series.  However, that is an optimistic outlook on my part because at this point numbers are the bottom line.

It may be unfair to base the entire renewal on illegal downloading because the show has bled viewers throughout its run.  To be fair, broadcast television as a whole has been bleeding viewers for years.  My point is even with ratings that Chuck has today it hasn't been cancelled yet (with a month to go till upfronts) and it needs all the help it can get to justify a Season 5.  With the top listing of pirated episodes, declining online(NBC provides this data on its website)/broadcast viewers and the seeming decline of iTunes sales you can't blame me for drawing those conclusions.

I should have written this a while ago because it may be too late.  The damage probably has been done already.  I don't foresee this changing anything because the nature of today's loosey-goosey outlook on ethics and morals.  People will do the free thing even if it kills their favorite show.

Bottom line:  People have to watch the show live/online or buy a copy.  Pirating will kill it for sure.

Chuck related Ep 4.22 information

I went on a Warner Brothers tour yesterday.  It wasn't Chuck centric but there were fellow Chuck fans on the tour so several things were highlighted.  The cast were shooting on Stage 10 (Castle and other sets) with the others being:  Stage 4 (Apartment set/nerd herd cage) and Stage 17 (the Buy More) and they were going to film at the village backlot.  The house in question was being prepped for an explosion later that afternoon or evening.  There was a fence around around the house but it was removed (you can see what looks like a darker shade astroturf close to the street).  They also removed items that were in the house and installed the special effects windows (so you don't have glass shrapnel going everywhere).

That's it for the 4.22 information but here is where I talk about last years Chuck only tour.  This little block of houses (the village is much bigger but have other types of buildings and not houses) was used in Chuck, Mentalist, Gilmore girls among others.  I still plan to go more in-depth about that Chuck tour and I used this tour to refresh my memories about that.  The following pictures were taken when it was bright and sunny and not cloudy and rainy like it was today :).

The house above is located right next to this one below and you will recognize the carport where Chuck confronted his Stanford professor in Chuck vs the Alma Mater.

In that Chuck scene you can see a blue house across the street with a little shed off to the left of it (see pic below) - that blue house was also used in Chuck vs the Ex.  In that scene Chuck bounces the ping pong of the window and before he does that you can see that carport in the background.  Right next to the shed you see a yellow house that is right across from the target house (1st pic above) - that yellow house was used in Chuck vs the Tic Tac (Chuck went to defend Casey's ex-fiance).

That's it for that little slice of Chuck points of interest.  Here are some oddball pictures from todays tour.  This time we went into the prop department (we didn't last Nov - we went to Costumes and according to the last tour and this tour that is incredibly rare and just not done - just like a tour of Stage 10 (4 and 17 are used by the tour)) and saw a lot of the props.  Our tour set today was brand new Stage 25 (built in 2008) and it currently houses the jail, court set, judges chambers and the corridors of the municipal building for Harry's Law.

This particular chandelier was bouncing around until they found out it was Tiffany and they have two of them (estimated worth $1 million for each one).  It is no longer rented out but they can be used for Warner productions but I think they discourage that.

This chandelier (they have two) has been bouncing around Warner Brothers for a while and they have no idea how they came about them.  They found out it was a set of six that was made for Tsar Nicholas (the last Tsar of Russia) and was a ........ (I don't remember the name of the maker but it is on the level of Tiffany).  Two were destroyed, two are in Museums and two are in the prop department of Warner Brothers.  It is too expensive and too complex to be rented out anymore and it's estimated worth is $2 million a piece.

Chuck article

Ken-Mar Rescue Benefit - Yvonne Strahovski's Charity

The following are the photos from the Ken-Mar Rescue benefit that took place in the Hollywood Hills in Los Angeles, CA on 13 Nov 10.  The video of her speech will be coming soon as soon as it comes back from Ken-Mar.

Universal Backlot Tour - Chuck related.

This is a picture from the Universal tour and it is Chuck related.  Keep in mind that Chuck is filmed at Warner Bros.  The first picture is bad one but you get the gist of the building.  They shot the scene from the other side of the building.  The 2nd is the actual scene and the 3rd is a satellite image of the area.  Thanks to Sara for the tip... Hi Bailey! 

Chuckfest 2 Pics

A better picture of Linda Hamilton and myself

Zac Levi and myself

Mark Christopher Lawrence!

Chuckfest 2

I wrote this when I was tired so excuse some parts that may be wonky.

ChuckFest 2 - Sunday - 7 Nov 2010 - Los Angeles, CA

The event was held at the Joint which is a smallish club that had about 7-8 booths that held at least 4-5 people and we had 4 tables that had at least 8-9 people at them.  The first hour or so was just getting the event going with Ken-Mar and operation smile had booths there and a bar.  Some people played rockband that they had setup.  That is what the people in the Pic are doing.

They had a cover band called the Wayward Sons.  They were quite excellent and their schtick was quite awesome.  The lead singer spoke in an english accent and took on the persona of the band whose song they would play next.  They played for a bit and then the meet and greet started.

The cast was introduced on stage and Linda Hamilton was introduced last.  The organizers had kept that secret.

The following cast members were introduced (Zac Levi was not there at first - he was flying back from San Francisco doing press for Tangled):  Yvonne Strahovski, Adam Baldwin, Sarah Lancaster, Joshua Gomez, Ryan McPartlin, Mark Christopher Lawrence, Scott Krinsky, Bonita F, Linda Hamilton and Chris Fedak.  All of them were split up except for Yvonne and Sarah (they always group together for this type of thing) and Chris and Josh.  There were three positions that weren't covered by the cast so some tables didn't have a cast member doing a rotation.  They changed places when an annoying alarm sounded that they played on the megaphone (for the record they hated that sound when Adam was at our table he gave Tess (punkatess) a look that could kill).  The casts time was limited so most of the time was spent with autographs and pictures.  There wasn't really time to ask specific questions other than small talk at our table.  The standard question the cast always asked was our names and where we were from.  Zac did show up but it was close to the end of the meet and greet.  

My impressions, no particular order -

-Bonita - she is called Bonnie BTW.  Very nice and sweet.  She was very friendly and asked us question instead of the other way around.  I liked it.  She also has grey hair which surprised us. 

-Mark - the coolest cat on the block.  He was a fav.  Very nice.

- Scott - also very nice and our time with him was limited since Chris and Josh stayed through one rotation so he didn't have a place to go and still stay in the rotation.   

-Adam - that was a little awkward - I was told later that it was Adam being Adam.  No specifics it just felt off and maybe intimidating since he is the more well known of the cast members and he looked huge.

-Josh and Chris - Josh deferred to Chris and most of our time with them was with joking around with them.  Both Chris and Josh are very funny and worked great together.

- Sarah and Yvonne - for some reason this felt a little off too.  I got the impression that they didn't want to be doing this anymore and that is not a criticism.  I understand that since we were the 2nd to the last table and meeting with that many people signing all those autographs and posing for pictures would be tiring (maybe annoying when you are dealing with fanboys and girls ;) ).

One of our group asked Yvonne a question and she answered it (about Australia) and I couldn't hear what Sarah was talking about since hearing the cast and table members was problematic for all the cast.  Sarah did look around Yvonne to see if I had anything to sign and we exchanged my poster and talked behind Yvonne's back (she was signing stuff).  Our encounter was interrupted by a purse situation and it was short rotation.  *something was here but I deleted it - it wasn't important to the event*

- Linda - Wow, fantastic lady.  Super nice and talkative just like Bonnie.  She signed everything and talked small talk.  When she was about to leave I asked her for a pic and she plopped down next to me held on tight for the pic.  The pic is a little dark since I used my cell phone because the battery on my camera gave out.

- Ryan - what can you say about Awesome - he's just awesome.  He uses the exact same booming voice as he does as the Cpt!  He got everything signed, kicked back and asked us to fire questions away like we were on a talk show.  Super cool guy.

- Zac - also super nice - I talked with him more than anyone else besides Linda.  Very cool guy.

Zac was our last cast member and at that time Adam announced that he had to leave for something else.  The other cast members went upstairs to the green room to wait for Zac to get donnish.  When he had our table and the table next to us left they decided to do the Operation Smile check presentation to get the cast out of there.  They all gathered up on the stage to do the presentation - the cast said farewell and Zac come back out to do the last two table.  When he was done, he went upstairs and the band started back up.  He did come out later and actually sang - we are the champions - with the band.  At that point, Zac thanked everyone for coming and supporting his charity and then Chuckfest was at an end.

Overall, this was a fantastic time had by all.  My overall impression of the cast was they are a fantastic and accommodating group.

There are other pics but i don't have access to my camera.