Ratings-related stories
Posted Dec 3rd 2009 10:26AM by Jonathan Toomey
Filed under: Pickups and Renewals, Ratings, Reality-Free, Sons of Anarchy
Right on the tail of
Kurt Sutter assuring fans that there would be a third season of Sons of Anarchy, FX has confirmed it -- the motorcycle drama will return in September 2010.
Another bright spot for the show? The series' second season finale, "
Na Triobloidi," smashed the show's previous ratings record to make it the most watched
Sons episode to date.
4.33 million total viewers tuned in and from that total, 2.99 million were in the coveted Adults 18-49 demographic. Men 18-49 chalked up 1.92 million viewers. With those numbers, the show secured the crown for the top scripted drama series during the season's 13-week run in the Tuesday 10 p.m. timeslot in average delivery of the Men 18-49 demo.
One other point worth noting -- Sutter signed a two-year deal to continue as executive producer and showrunner. So, unless something goes terribly wrong, there's a good chance
Sons of Anarchy will have a fourth season in its future as well.
Posted Dec 3rd 2009 10:02AM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Sports, OpEd, Celebrities, Ratings, Reality-Free
On Monday night, ESPN had one of the best NFL match ups of the season -- the undefeated New Orleans Saints versus perennial powerhouse New England Patriots. The game was, perhaps, a preview of the Super Bowl because it's entirely possible that the Saints and the Pats could make it through the playoffs to the ultimate game.
Well, without much more than the usual hype,
ESPN's Monday Night Football got the huge audience this kind of contest warrants. It was the second most-watched cable program of all time. Yes, you read that correctly.
The second most-watched cable program of all time. Over 20 million total viewers -- 21.4 million -- tuned in to watch the game... which turned out to be a bit of a dud. But that doesn't matter to ESPN because they scored big time.
Continue reading ESPN sets record with Monday's Saints-Pats game
Posted Dec 2nd 2009 9:28AM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, Programming, OpEd, Ratings, Reality-Free
Did someone at ABC
hear my plea for Ugly Betty... or read my post from the other day about how the show was being left to shrivel and die on Friday nights? Perhaps so because today's Hollywood Reporter claims that
ABC will move Ugly Betty to Wednesday at 10 p.m. in the spot currently occupied by
Eastwick.
Hey, that's what I was advocating. It just makes sense.
Eastwick is playing out the string. It's not coming back. ABC has decided to burn off the remaining episodes, but it can do that anywhere on the schedule... even on Friday nights.
But
Ugly Betty deserves a chance to come back to the glory days when it was competitive in the ratings. Notice I didn't say it was a Nielsen winner; it never really was. But it was in there trying and it was an award-winning show so that made it all right. It was a trade-off for ABC.
Continue reading Ugly Betty is moving from Friday night after all
Posted Dec 1st 2009 10:02AM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, Programming, OpEd, Reality-Free
You knew it was a bad sign in November when
CBS decided to flip flop Cold Case and Three Rivers to test whether it was the time slots that were dictating the sliding ratings of the Sunday night dramas.
The results were hardly conclusive, but consistently drawing less than 2.0 in the demographics has doomed
Three Rivers.
CBS has pulled Three Rivers off the schedule for December. Merry Christmas, Alex O'Loughlin lovers.
This is the first step to cancellation and anyone who tells you otherwise is blowing smoke. Despite a big star in the center,
Three Rivers is an earnest medical drama that's just not catching on with viewers. CBS will complete the 13-episode order and then kiss the show bye-bye.
Continue reading Three Rivers will spend December on the shelf
Posted Nov 29th 2009 1:28PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, OpEd, Ratings, Reality-Free
The ratings are in from Friday night -- that was the Friday after Thanksgiving, a night when the major networks were showing movies and reruns -- and, not surprising, the numbers are pretty low.
Oh, wait, one network had new shows, ABC. But the ratings for a new
Ugly Betty at 9 p.m. were dismal.
Ugly Betty came in dead last with just a 0.9/3, only 3.39 million viewers for that timeslot.
A few weeks ago, I thought -- hoped --
things were looking up for Ugly Betty. It looked like the show was going to get a timeslot switch to
Eastwick's Wednesday at 10 p.m. Alas, ABC has done nothing.
Eastwick is not picked up for the season and it's still losing in that spot -- it had a 1.2/4 and just 3.89 million viewers this past week. That said, why isn't ABC giving
Betty some love with a time change?
Continue reading Why is ABC treating Ugly Betty so badly?
Posted Nov 28th 2009 11:02AM by Danny Gallagher
Filed under: Ratings, Reality-Free, Jay Leno
People who hoped and prayed that
The Jay Leno Show would become a big failure had one less reason to go on living this week.
It seems that the show has
hit stopped a recent
"ratings slide." The last 11 episodes either maintained or improved their adult demographic ratings after a long slide since September.
Even the holidays didn't dampen the show's ratings. The show before Thanksgiving was his most watched since October and was the only show in his timeslot that didn't see a decline in the ratings.
Does this mean Leno will pull himself out of the muck or just sink deeper into the bottomless swamp that is NBC?
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
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