Why do the best TV Shows always get cancelled?

Just to name a few...

Star Trek Voyager

Miss Guided

Quarter Life

Testees

Pushing Daisies

I'm sure the list could go on. Star Trek Voyager wasn't exactly cancelled, but they barely even played reruns before taking it off the air.

Miss Guided, starring Judy Greer (27 Dresses, 13 Going on 30), was aired on ABC for only 7 weeks before it disappeared from television and ABC online episodes. It was a lighthearted show, centering around Becky Freeley (Greer) who returns to her high school to become a guidance counselor, and I feel like i'm the only one who ever even realized it existed. (inadequate advertising?)

Quarter Life is a show that started on the internet (www.quarterlife.com), and is a realistic take on the life of 8 young people entering the real world after college, (not a reality show however). NBC aired one episode, and qualified the poor ratings as means to never air the show again. However all 36 8-minute episodes can be seen on the website, and YouTube. I only found out about the show because of a poster advertisement on campus that got me interested enough to look it up. Unfortunately, the show had already been cancelled a month prior to me seeing the poster. =.=

Testees is a hilarious show that once again was cancelled due to poor ratings. Two regular guys work for a company called Testico that runs experiments, while they act as human guinea pigs. Each episode revolves around some hilarious side-effects of the treatments/medications/new products.

Pushing Daisies was largely devastated by the writer's strike that happened mid-series in Season 1. Fortunately it came back to finish the season, but however stopped being aired a few episodes into Season 2. I was sooo sad that this show was cancelled because it was probably one of the only wholesome, family-oriented, and heartwarming shows left on television. It follows a pie-maker who can touch dead things back to life. He eventually teams up with a private detective to solve murders by asking the victims who killed them. One of these murders was that of his childhood-sweetheart, who he chooses to keep alive, despite the fact that he can never touch her again or she will go back to being dead. ABC recently picked up the show again to air the last 3 episodes of Season 2, with no real indication if there will be a 3rd season or not.

I really enjoy shows that actually have substance and a brillant writer behind them. It's really sad and pathetic to me that the American population is so lazy now that if they can't figure out what is going on in a show within 2 minutes, it isn't worth their time to figure out, which leads the majority of the population to watching crap like reality TV (The Bachelor, I Love New York, Top Model, The Real World etc). This sadly makes the ratings drop severely for good shows, and leads to the success and growth of the horrible reality shows that are in the most part pointless, vulgar, over-exaggerated, offensive, and are not in actuality real depictions of life at all! It really is frustrating, and I wish that television channels would start counting online viewers while figuring out ratings for shows. I know a ton of people who don't have time to catch up on their favorite shows until late at night, or at times totally different from that of the actual showing. Is there any hope left for clever, well-thought television shows? How far will this go!?