Disappointing Oshkosh 2004 Video on Wings

"Michelle P" wrote in message
news
Dan,
We are not their audience. We (pilots, aviation nuts) are only a small
part of their demographic.
If they were catering to only us they would have gone off the air years
ago.
Michelle

Well, there's 600,000 pilots in the US, figure that the 400,000 or so in
AOPA/EAA are the active and engaged kind. In a
digital-cable-with-300-channels world that's a decent size audience to work
with, expecially considering that it's on the whole an extremely affluent
and educated demographic.

Plus, there's a ton of "enthusiasts" out there who'd enjoy programming for
"real pilots." Look at all the Flight Simulator weenies who spend hundreds
or thousands on fancy joysticks, etc., and fly simulated airlines. I bet
they'd watch "IFR Tonight with Captain Al McFly."

Who would've guessed 20 years ago there would even be such a thing as the
"Discovery Wings Channel?"

Best,
-cwk.

"C Kingsbury" wrote:
Who would've guessed 20 years ago there would even be such a thing as
the
"Discovery Wings Channel?"

....or that an aviation nut like me would almost never watch it?
--
Dan
C172RG at BFM

"Dan Luke" wrote in message
...

"C Kingsbury" wrote:
Who would've guessed 20 years ago there would even be such a thing as
the
"Discovery Wings Channel?"

...or that an aviation nut like me would almost never watch it?

Maybe if they did a bit more interesting programming rather than recycling
"bizarre machines of Nazi Germany" hand-me-downs from the History Channel...
I wonder how many hours of programming per month is new? I'd bet no more
than 5-10.

"Learning to Fly" is a nice idea that would have benefited from (1)
following multiple students with different personalities and (2) editing. Of
course that means jacking up production costs, which have to be covered
somehow. Digital tech has brought post-production costs down enormously but
it still costs real money to put a film crew on-site. This probably explains
why there's still so little original content.

What Wings lacks is a signature show that people like us make a point of
watching. They ought to do something like the back page of AOPA Pilot, or
Lane What's-Her-Name's column in Flying, where they do a 50-minute feature
on interesting people, places, and planes in aviation. It could appeal to a
wide audience and thus also be run on Discovery, Nat'l Geo, or whoever.

I also wonder whether anybody's ever tried to make a movie of Rinker Buck's
book Flight of Passage. It'd be cake to turn into a screenplay and it has
enough mischief to keep it contemporary (think about the kids getting high
painting the plane with nitrate dope) but ultimately "heartwarming" enough
to become "the feel-good hit of the season for the entire family."

Best,
-cwk.

("C Kingsbury" wrote)
What Wings lacks is a signature show that people like us make a point of
watching. They ought to do something like the back page of AOPA Pilot, or
Lane What's-Her-Name's column in Flying, where they do a 50-minute feature
on interesting people, places, and planes in aviation. It could appeal to
a
wide audience and thus also be run on Discovery, Nat'l Geo, or whoever.


Lane What's-Her-Name is a goddess. She was at the Golden Wings hangar dance
(at ANE) last September for the National Air Tour.

Lane Wallace. Yummy.


Montblack

"C Kingsbury" wrote:
"C Kingsbury" wrote:
Who would've guessed 20 years ago there would even be such a thing
as
the
"Discovery Wings Channel?"

...or that an aviation nut like me would almost never watch it?

Maybe if they did a bit more interesting programming rather than
recycling
"bizarre machines of Nazi Germany" hand-me-downs from the History
Channel...
I wonder how many hours of programming per month is new? I'd bet no
more
than 5-10.

"Learning to Fly" is a nice idea that would have benefited from (1)
following multiple students with different personalities and (2)
editing. Of
course that means jacking up production costs, which have to be
covered
somehow. Digital tech has brought post-production costs down
enormously but
it still costs real money to put a film crew on-site. This probably
explains
why there's still so little original content.

What Wings lacks is a signature show that people like us make a point
of
watching. They ought to do something like the back page of AOPA Pilot,
or
Lane What's-Her-Name's column in Flying, where they do a 50-minute
feature
on interesting people, places, and planes in aviation. It could appeal
to a
wide audience and thus also be run on Discovery, Nat'l Geo, or
whoever.

I also wonder whether anybody's ever tried to make a movie of Rinker
Buck's
book Flight of Passage. It'd be cake to turn into a screenplay and it
has
enough mischief to keep it contemporary (think about the kids getting
high
painting the plane with nitrate dope) but ultimately "heartwarming"
enough
to become "the feel-good hit of the season for the entire family."

It's frustrating: a network about airplanes that has very little
programming for pilots. It seems they must do very little demographic
research.
--
Dan
C172RG at BFM

"Dan Luke" wrote in message
...

"C Kingsbury" wrote:
"C Kingsbury" wrote:
Who would've guessed 20 years ago there would even be such a thing
as
the
"Discovery Wings Channel?"

...or that an aviation nut like me would almost never watch it?

Maybe if they did a bit more interesting programming rather than
recycling
"bizarre machines of Nazi Germany" hand-me-downs from the History
Channel...
I wonder how many hours of programming per month is new? I'd bet no
more
than 5-10.

"Learning to Fly" is a nice idea that would have benefited from (1)
following multiple students with different personalities and (2)
editing. Of
course that means jacking up production costs, which have to be
covered
somehow. Digital tech has brought post-production costs down
enormously but
it still costs real money to put a film crew on-site. This probably
explains
why there's still so little original content.

What Wings lacks is a signature show that people like us make a point
of
watching. They ought to do something like the back page of AOPA Pilot,
or
Lane What's-Her-Name's column in Flying, where they do a 50-minute
feature
on interesting people, places, and planes in aviation. It could appeal
to a
wide audience and thus also be run on Discovery, Nat'l Geo, or
whoever.

I also wonder whether anybody's ever tried to make a movie of Rinker
Buck's
book Flight of Passage. It'd be cake to turn into a screenplay and it
has
enough mischief to keep it contemporary (think about the kids getting
high
painting the plane with nitrate dope) but ultimately "heartwarming"
enough
to become "the feel-good hit of the season for the entire family."

It's frustrating: a network about airplanes that has very little
programming for pilots. It seems they must do very little demographic
research.
--
Dan
C172RG at BFM

No doubt the vast majority of viewers if Discovery Wings are not pilots.

C Kingsbury wrote:

Who would've guessed 20 years ago there would even be such a thing as the
"Discovery Wings Channel?"

Well, 20 years ago is about 3 years after I quit watching televison. I've never seen
Discovery Wings.

George Patterson
If a man gets into a fight 3,000 miles away from home, he *had* to have
been looking for it.

"Dave Stadt" wrote:
It's frustrating: a network about airplanes that has very little
programming for pilots. It seems they must do very little demographic
research.

No doubt the vast majority of viewers if Discovery Wings are not pilots.

"No doubt?" How do you know? What is their audience size, anyway?

I'm not confident enough to make a "no doubt" assertion, but I'd *bet* their
audience has a larger percentage of pilots than any other cable channel.
--
Dan
C-172RG at BFM

"Michelle P" wrote:
Dan,
We are not their audience. We (pilots, aviation nuts) are only a small
part of their demographic.
If they were catering to only us they would have gone off the air years
ago.

What is their audience size? How do you know what portion is pilots?
--
Dan
C-172RG at BFM

"Dan Luke" wrote in message
...
No doubt the vast majority of viewers if Discovery Wings are not pilots.

"No doubt?" How do you know? What is their audience size, anyway?


I suppose you might equivocate on "vast", but I think there simply aren't
enough pilots to support a channel like that, when you consider that only a
fraction of them are watching the channel. Between pilots who don't watch
TV, who don't get Discovery Wings, who don't know that they get it, and
those who simply get bored with the repetitive programming, I'd be surprised
if even 10% of the total pilot population actually watches. That's only
60,000 people in the US.

I don't know exactly how many people are needed in order to support a
cable/satellite channel like Discovery Wings, but it's got to be at least
twice that. Maybe closer to 500,000 or a million.

I think it's safe to say that, for any viable channel, more non-pilots watch
it than pilots. There simply aren't enough pilots for it to be any other
way.

I'm not confident enough to make a "no doubt" assertion, but I'd *bet*
their
audience has a larger percentage of pilots than any other cable channel.

Now that seems like a reasonably safe bet. Even there, however, you
have to take into account the problem that Discovery Wings *is* very
repetitive. So other channels that might also appeal to pilots, like
Speedvision, or the Action Movie Channel, The Nashville Network, and other
stuff like that, might still draw more of the pilot crowd, due to the
greater variety of programming.

Pete