Ratings-related stories
Posted Nov 10th 2009 10:18PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, Programming, OpEd, Reality-Free
If you're an
Ugly Betty fan, you might be wondering why ABC has been treating the show like a stepchild lately. I know I've wondered why the Peabody-award winning, Emmy-winning, universally hailed, feel-good show was getting the fuzzy end of the lollipop. Instead of a big, splashy Season 4 premiere,
Ugly Betty was sort plunked onto the schedule on Friday night at 9 p.m. in mid-October. There was little fanfare and the ratings were underwhelming.
Well, things might be changing for the better for
Betty -- like her gradual on screen makeover. With the
cancellation of Eastwick, ABC has confirmed to AfterElton.com that
Ugly Betty will move to Wednesday at 10 p.m. It won't happen right away, but if ABC is smart, the sooner they can shift
Eastwick out of that slot and hand it over the
Betty, the better.
Continue reading Things are looking up for Ugly Betty... perhaps
Posted Nov 8th 2009 2:02PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: OpEd, TV Squad Lists, Reality-Free, V
You probably heard that
ABC's V premiere got off to a big start in the ratings. In fact, it was the biggest drama series premiere of the season, seen by 14.3 million viewers and netting a 5.2 rating among adults 18-49. What does all that mean? To me, it says that even without the
skywriting promotion that was canned, ABC marketing had raised awareness and drew the curious, the sci-fi fans, the nostalgic and a few more watchers for the launch.
Despite the big number, there's a good chance that
V will sink in future outings because viewers like me were not hooked. I wanted to fall in like/love, but it didn't happen. Here's five reasons why:
Continue reading Five reasons V didn't work for me
Posted Nov 4th 2009 6:02PM by Danny Gallagher
Filed under: Ratings, Reality-Free, V
The cast of ABC's new sci-fi drama
V have nothing to worry about. That is if you don't count the fact that the show just replaced their
showrunner, got caught launching a sneaky
skywriting campaign and opened with a
"split launch."
Last night's episode got off to an
"out of this world" start scoring a 5.0 rating and a 13 share of 13.9 million viewers. It gave ABC its highest rating among 18-34 year-olds in three years for its timeslot since 2004's
Lost. I guess you could say they had a really successful "launch" and the show really "took off." (Insert rimshot here.)
Of course, this is just the opening episode and could be the result of successful marketing. Do you think
V's winning streak will last?
Posted Oct 29th 2009 7:31PM by Danny Gallagher
Filed under: Sports, Ratings, Reality-Free
Both
the World Series and
the start of the NBA season brought in big numbers for their respective networks this week. The MLB faceoff between the Yankees and the Phillies score Fox a 6.3 rating share or 19.3 million viewers in their timeslot. The NBA's doubleheader opener on Tuesday helped TNT score a record-breaking 3.7 million viewers.
Stories like these make me long for the Yoda-like wisdom of baseball's Yogi Berra. Just think of the grammatically incorrect gems he could conjure.
"People watch sports because it's easier than playing it."
"Sports has a big following because so few people follow it."
Posted Oct 25th 2009 5:04PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, OpEd, Video, Music and Variety, Celebrities, Ratings, Reality-Free
In the original version of this post, I wrote about the big success of Jeff Dunham on Comedy Central -- last Thursday night, his new show
The Jeff Dunham Show drew 5.3 million viewers, the highest ever premiere for a show on that network. However, I mistakenly thought the show aired Friday and compared the ratings to shows on other networks that night. I sincerely apologize if that confused readers. Here's the story as it should have been written in the first place.
Jeff Dunham's success was surprising and quite a feat. As my mother might say, "Go figure."
The Jeff Dunham Show.
And the number of viewers got even better later that night when a repeat of the show aired -- 7.9 million viewers.
Continue reading Comedy Central's Jeff Dunham Show is a smash
Posted Oct 14th 2009 4:30PM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, Celebrities, Reality-Free
All of the new ABC Wednesday night comedies --
The Middle,
Cougar Town, and
Modern Family -- have been
picked up for the entire season. Actually, one new sitcom is missing from that group.
Kelsey Grammer's
Hank isn't getting any love from viewers and it's not getting any love from critics. Ratings aren't that good and the critics don't like it. So Grammer is doing a bunch of interviews for tonight's episode, including
this one over at The TV Addict. He promises that tonight's episode is funny -- really! -- and we should all watch it.
Continue reading Kelsey Grammer says tonight's episode of Hank is funny
Posted Oct 13th 2009 2:06PM by Mike Moody
Filed under: OpEd, Celebrities, Casting, Reality-Free, Dollhouse
She saved John Connor, but can she boost the ratings for another struggling Fox sci-fi show?
Former
Terminator fembot Summer Glau joins Joss Wheodn's
Dollhouse on Oct. 30 for a recurring stint as Bennett, a programmer who shares a past with Eliza Dushku's Echo. During last week's episode of
Dollhouse, the network hyped Glau's upcoming appearance with a
special promo promising, "In three weeks, Sumer Glau joins the cast of
Dollhouse!" I could be wrong, but it seemed like Fox was banking on Glau's star power to get more people to watch the show. Sadly, I don't think that's gonna happen.
I love Summer Glau. I was a big fan of
TSCC and
Firefly, and I'm eagerly anticipating her appearance on
Dollhouse. I'm sure Whedon has crafted an interesting character for Glau, and I'm sure she'll be part of a compelling arc that will fold nicely into the
Dollhouse mythology. But I doubt she'll be able to attract a ton of new viewers.
Continue reading Can Summer Glau save Dollhouse?
Posted Oct 8th 2009 11:26AM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Other Reality Shows, Food/Home/DIY, OpEd, Ratings
Even though I watch a lot of programming on the Food Network, I have to admit I missed almost all of the
The Next Iron Chef in season one. Last Sunday, the second season of
The Next Iron Chef blasted off with the best ratings for a series opener in Food Network history. Over two million viewers, a 1.1 rating among adults 25-54.
Why the big jump? Well, I think a lot of other people are like me. On Sunday, before I switched over to watch pro football, I clicked on Food Network where they were showing a marathon rerun of the first season of
The Next Iron Chef. It only took half an episode for me to kick myself for not having watched the whole first season when it aired. It was terrific.
Continue reading The Next Iron Chef is sizzling
Posted Oct 1st 2009 3:00PM by Danny Gallagher
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, Dexter, Ratings, Reality-Free
Things are looking good for Showtime's primetime bad boys.
Both
Dexter and Californication scored some huge opening numbers last Sunday with Dexter setting a new opening record for the cable network.
More than 1.5 million sets of eyeballs tuned to the season four opener for
Dexter and 821,000 stayed to watch the opener for
Californication. That's 3 million single eyeballs for
Dexter and more than 1.6 million for
Californication.
Continue reading Dexter, Californication openings rake in the eyeballs
Posted Sep 23rd 2009 6:01PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: OpEd, Ratings, NCIS, Reality-Free
Over the summer, spoilers were leaked that the
NCIS season premiere would begin with a bang. They weren't kidding. Last night's show was a spine-tingling puzzle of an episode that unraveled scene by scene, building suspense to the ultimate -- satisfying -- conclusion. If you were thinking that, like last year, the team was going to be torn asunder after the way things ended with Ziva being returned to Israel, you were pleasantly surprised. More after the jump.
However, there's another story to report. The overnight ratings are in and the viewers have spoken. Twenty million of them!
The return of NCIS zoomed to the top of the ratings with 20 million viewers tuning in. That helped CBS launch
NCIS: Los Angeles, opening with 18 million, and also bolstered
The Good Wife with nearly 14 million. Any way you slice it, those are stellar numbers. The folk at the Black Rock must be dancing in the hallways.
Continue reading NCIS's big-time return on screen and in the ratings
Posted Sep 12th 2009 12:02PM by Brad Trechak
Filed under: OpEd, Ratings, Reality-Free, Vampire Diaries
It has vampires at a time when vampires are cool. It has teen angst. It's on the network that has low ratings to begin with (although they did beat ABC and Fox for that night, but they had repeats). It should come as no surprise that
The Vampire Diaries has set a
ratings record for its premiere on The CW.
I didn't watch the premiere (our review of it is
here). I'm at the age where I find the CW "teen angst" formula a bit painful to watch. For all that, the network can comfort itself with that fact that I am not the target market.
That formula is what made
Smallville not live up to its potential (and makes that show even less likely to continue after this season. They're not teenagers anymore). It is interesting how
The Vampire Diaries cast their leads from right out of
Smallville.
From what I've read, advance reviews have been poor for the show. What do you think? Does
The Vampire Diaries have some potential?
Posted Sep 9th 2009 9:38PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: OpEd, American Idol, Celebrities, Judges
There is big news in the world of television tonight. Multiple Emmy winner and talk show host
Ellen DeGeneres has joined American Idol as a judge. She will essentially be the permanent replacement for Paula Abdul, so if any of you were holding out hope that Paula was standing by to resume her post, forget about it.
The bigger story here is that a star of Ellen's stature, someone who has high visibility and is beloved by the public, has decided to become a member of America's number one rated prime time show.
Ellen DeGeneres on
American Idol as a guest star would be a rating boost, so it's safe to say that her weekly presence will ensure that
Idol's numbers will continue to be top of the chart.
Continue reading American Idol shocker: Ellen DeGeneres replacing Paula...permanently
Posted Sep 1st 2009 3:28PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: OpEd, Pickups and Renewals, Breaking Bad, Reality-Free, Mad Men
This should come as no surprise to even the most casual of TV Squad readers.
Mad Men has been picked up for a fourth season, assuring that Matthew Weiner's engrossing and demanding tale of Don Draper and the people at Sterling Cooper will be played out for at least another year.
When a show like
Mad Men comes along, not unlike
The Sopranos in quality and pop culture appeal, the question usually isn't whether the network will stand behind it for the duration, but whether or not the creative team envisions a long run.
Continue reading Mad Men renewed for fourth season
Posted Aug 28th 2009 9:29AM by John Scott Lewinski
Filed under: Ratings, Reality-Free, Burn Notice
Lost in all the news of the
major networks' summer decline and the struggles of the pay channels and the ongoing soap operas of the endless reality shows is the news that
Burn Notice is very quietly becoming a major ratings player on cable.
What originally looked like a silly, self-referential genre show tucked in after wrestling on the USA Network,
Burn Notice is one of the biggest hits on cable. It doesn't get the critical love of
Mad Men, but it has a lot of fans.
According to a USA press release, the show's August airings are burning down nine million viewers at a pop -- making it the period's most watch scripted episodic on cable.
It's now USA's most-watched original series ever with 9.1 million viewers during August episodes -- the first time a USA original series has broken the nine million viewers benchmark.
Continue reading Burn Notice quietly catches fire in the ratings
Posted Aug 22nd 2009 10:03AM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Other Reality Shows, Industry, OpEd, Ratings
In the war between the cable channels, score this week for Lifetime over Bravo. The battle for
Project Runway had been a legal wrangle that delayed Lifetime getting to show the fashion reality series until last Thursday, but when it finally appeared it was a ratings bonanza.
Project Runway was the highest-rated series premiere in Lifetime's history. That's 25 years!
Continue reading Lifetime's Project Runway scores big with viewers
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