Empire TV Tycoon

I had such high hopes for this one - a tycoon game about building your own TV station, building out original programming and cultivating a niche audience, how could it possibly go wrong?

Very easily, apparently. The game really railroads you into doing the same thing over and over, denying you any of the freedom that makes tycoon games so relaxing and enjoyable - and for some weird reason, it forces you into broadcasting syndicated films, which feels completely counter-intuitive to the game's title. I didn't buy Empire Cinema Tycoon. It starts on the right foot, as you get to choose a specialty for your channel, but then completely abandons that as the available list of films to buy the rights to narrows ever further; when my sports channel is being forced to broadcast westerns and romances because I literally have no other choice, forcing a complete break from the reality of how television actually works, you know things have gone very wrong somewhere. I assume there must be a way of making this work - otherwise, why give you the option? - but the game is terrible at giving you feedback on why your decisions are failing or succeeding. The GUI is a bit bewildering and dull to look at too.

There is huge potential in this idea, and I'm sure I will absolutely love the game that gets it right, but right now I'm looking to companies like Eggcode Games (makers of Mad Games Tycoon) and Kairosoft (makers of an untold number of management sims and practically a genre unto themselves) to deliver it. Unfortunately, the former seem to be focusing on a skyscraper tycoon game right now and the latter would probably have made their TV game by now if they were going to. This, meanwhile, gets every important point wrong once you get past the name.