system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: why are good shows like firefly and futurama cancelled, while there are tons bad shows running on so many networks ?

I mean even if they got cancelled from the original network ,  Why not go to some other network and replace one of the crappy shows.


Edit: thanks for the reply guys. Many of you have pointed out that good and bad are relative, which is probably true for most things, I guess. As for a network, a good show is one which is cheap to produce, while makes a lot of money; a show makes money by appealing to a lot of people. Sci-fi shows do not appeal to a lot of people, whereas reality-tv/game shows appeal to a lot of people, and are relatively cheap to make. Also as Prof Farnsworth said, "I don't want to live on this planet anymore."
gpt
Both Firefly and Futurama are good shows with a cult following but not good ratings in the average population. Most of the bad shows have a lot of viewers because their content hits a much broader market. The production cost of these shows also plays a big part. Most bad shows can be mass produced for almost nothing. Hire a bunch of bad writers and bad actors and give them a TV set bought on the cheap and a film crew under training and you have a cheap soap opera watched by millions. Or rent a concert hall, sell tickets to be in the audience and on stage, hire a few hired judges and use the remote camera crew that currently have no other events to cover and you have many hours of a cheap talent show. On the other hand Firefly had 9 highly paid main actors and two star script writers and directors. They required a lot of different props to be made, performed stunts, pyrotechnics and utilized CGI in every episode. For the cost of making another season of Firefly to entertain the browncoats they instead made ten seasons of a silly game show that were watched by bored people who could not find anything better to watch which is a larger group.