I am pretty sure a MBA told them they were doomed if they stayed the way they were. What happened next is very much typical business. They got lucky. One good hit and they were off and running. Now what they have to avoid is the SyFy debacle of turning into cheese. Sadly they have started reality TV shows and that seems to be a staple of far too many channels.

They could have equally floundered in their choice of scripted shows. The difference is that compared to network TV they don't have a dearth of "original" programming to fall back on and hide the fails