Someone who apparently doesn’t like my focus on age demos called me narrowminded in some comparisons between The Office and CSI. I’ll note that this person trashed talked The Office’s numbers. I never trash talked CSI. I was about to give CSI props for being the most watched show on Thursday, beating out even American Idol, but when the final numbers were reported it did not.
While Idol did wind up besting CSI narrowly in total viewers, I think any show that can surpass 20 million viewers these days is extremely impressive. There are only a handful of them really. Both CSI and The Office benefited from there not being any new Grey’s Anatomy and I imagine both will feel it, especially in the 18-49 demo when Grey’s returns.
Here are the final numbers and as a bonus, Some Step it Up & Dance numbers for you Bravo fans courtesy of Marc Berman’s forums and Travis Yanan (new shows only):
SHOW/NET HH A18-49 Viewers
ELI STONE 4.0/7 1.8/5 5,879,000
SURVIVOR 6.8/11 3.9/11 11,587,000
CSI 12.5/19 5.9/15 20,094,000
WITHOUT A TRACE (10:01pm) 9.7/16 3.8/10 14,493,000
MY NAME IS EARL 4.4/7 3.1/9 7,086,000
30 ROCK 3.7/6 2.7/7 5,771,000
THE OFFICE 5.4/8 4.9/12 9,334,000
SCRUBS (9:31pm) 4.1/6 3.4/8 6,579,000
E.R. (10:01pm) 5.2/9 3.1/8 7,523,000
AMERICAN IDOL 12.0/19 7.0/19 20,133,000
DON'T FORGET THE LYRICS 6.6/10 4.0/10 10,895,000
STEP IT UP & DANCE 0.5/1 0.3/1 633,000
I’m not all that narrow minded about the shows themselves, but this being a site focusing on numbers, I’m myopic as hell in taking the numeric view so, so much. But hey, that’s what we’re here for. I think CSI is great and that CBS makes a lot of money on it. Plus, it’s on for twice as long as the typical airing of The Office. But The Office is much cheaper to make. In terms of profit, they’re surely both very profitable but without having the actual numbers for advertising, syndication, DVD sales, I can’t even make a guess at profit numbers.
I’m guessing The Office clears more $/viewer, but CSI has many more viewers, so CBS doesn’t likely sweat that. Nonetheless, numerically I think the feat The Office pulled off last night was more amazing. On so many fewer viewers than CSI where CSI had 115% more viewers, 131% more households watching, 138% more share of televisions turned on but only 20% more 18-49 households. Absolutely none of that is said to belittle CSI, CBS (and you or me or especially NBC!) would take CSI’s numbers every time. I’m not belittling CSI, I just think that what The Office pulled off last night was amazing! Even if Grey’s Anatomy wasn’t on.
Update, Daniel C. pointed out in a comment reminding me of the Ad Age survey for the cost of a 30 second spot. While I have no clue how accurate any of that is in the post-strike world, if we use it to calculate 30 second spot ad revenue per viewer it works out to be $.02/viewer for Office and $.0123/CSI viewer, but CBS does make it up both in volume of viewers and in having twice as many spots.
Here is a link from Advertising Age showing ad rates for this season’s shows. This is from the beginning of the season, and of course lots has happened since then.
http://adage.com/images/random/0907/2007_Ad_Age_TV_Price_Survey.pdf
Here is a link from Advertising Age showing ad rates for this season's shows. This is from the beginning of the season, and of course lots has happened since then.
http://adage.com/images/random/0907/2007_Ad_Age...
we ran that on our site last september or October too. I do wonder if Grey’s is still getting as much as it used to, and I imagine the strike wreaked some havoc with the rates, but it’s still useful, thanks. If we use the rates there the ad revenue per viewer winds up something like:
$.02/viewer for Office and $.0123/CSI viewer, but CBS does make it up both in volume of viewers and in having twice as many spots. I’ll update the post, thanks
we ran that on our site last september or October too. I do wonder if Grey's is still getting as much as it used to, and I imagine the strike wreaked some havoc with the rates, but it's still useful, thanks. If we use the rates there the ad revenue per viewer winds up something like:
$.02/viewer for Office and $.0123/CSI viewer, but CBS does make it up both in volume of viewers and in having twice as many spots. I'll update the post, thanks
we ran that on our site last september or October too. I do wonder if Grey's is still getting as much as it used to, and I imagine the strike wreaked some havoc with the rates, but it's still useful, thanks. If we use the rates there the ad revenue per viewer winds up something like:
$.02/viewer for Office and $.0123/CSI viewer, but CBS does make it up both in volume of viewers and in having twice as many spots. I'll update the post, thanks
According to frankwbaker.com, where I found the link to Advertising Age, American Idol pulled in $620,000 per spot last year on its result night and $594,000 on performance night, for comparison.
http://www.frankwbaker.com/prime_time_programs_30_sec_ad_costs.htm
According to frankwbaker.com, where I found the link to Advertising Age, American Idol pulled in $620,000 per spot last year on its result night and $594,000 on performance night, for comparison.
http://www.frankwbaker.com/prime_time_programs_...
According to frankwbaker.com, where I found the link to Advertising Age, American Idol pulled in $620,000 per spot last year on its result night and $594,000 on performance night, for comparison.
http://www.frankwbaker.com/prime_time_programs_...
Thought I’d throw in my 2 cents worth on these.
Very good numbers for both shows. If I were a Network TV BigShot (oh that’s right – I am), I would be very happy with both (oh, that’s right, I am happy with both).
But I will tell you that I don’t watch Office anymore because, in my opinion, the premise got old real quick for me. I thought Steve Carel was hilarious in the coupla movies he did before Office, and I was really looking forward to the series. I labored through most of the first season and finally passed. I didn’t like the character he created (even though I still like Carel – funny, huh).
I live in Vegas and was a big CSI fan the first coupla years, but then they went ‘Hollywood’ on me (as do a lot of shows where relatively unknown actors start making big money with a big hit and get big-headed).
I am just coming back to CSI for another go around because many of my friends around the world are fanatics and consider me ‘lucky’ to be so ‘close to the action’ – I feel obligated.
Beyond all of that… numbers speak and they’re both good (and I own both on TVBS), so I’m rooting for both.
Thought I'd throw in my 2 cents worth on these.
Very good numbers for both shows. If I were a Network TV BigShot (oh that's right – I am), I would be very happy with both (oh, that's right, I am happy with both).
But I will tell you that I don't watch Office anymore because, in my opinion, the premise got old real quick for me. I thought Steve Carel was hilarious in the coupla movies he did before Office, and I was really looking forward to the series. I labored through most of the first season and finally passed. I didn't like the character he created (even though I still like Carel – funny, huh).
I live in Vegas and was a big CSI fan the first coupla years, but then they went 'Hollywood' on me (as do a lot of shows where relatively unknown actors start making big money with a big hit and get big-headed).
I am just coming back to CSI for another go around because many of my friends around the world are fanatics and consider me 'lucky' to be so 'close to the action' – I feel obligated.
Beyond all of that… numbers speak and they're both good (and I own both on TVBS), so I'm rooting for both.
Thought I'd throw in my 2 cents worth on these.
Very good numbers for both shows. If I were a Network TV BigShot (oh that's right – I am), I would be very happy with both (oh, that's right, I am happy with both).
But I will tell you that I don't watch Office anymore because, in my opinion, the premise got old real quick for me. I thought Steve Carel was hilarious in the coupla movies he did before Office, and I was really looking forward to the series. I labored through most of the first season and finally passed. I didn't like the character he created (even though I still like Carel – funny, huh).
I live in Vegas and was a big CSI fan the first coupla years, but then they went 'Hollywood' on me (as do a lot of shows where relatively unknown actors start making big money with a big hit and get big-headed).
I am just coming back to CSI for another go around because many of my friends around the world are fanatics and consider me 'lucky' to be so 'close to the action' – I feel obligated.
Beyond all of that… numbers speak and they're both good (and I own both on TVBS), so I'm rooting for both.
p.s. Robert/Bill – can you get me some numbers on the Masters when they come out???
Jon
p.s. Robert/Bill – can you get me some numbers on the Masters when they come out???
Jon
p.s. Robert/Bill – can you get me some numbers on the Masters when they come out???
Jon
Jon, we’ll have them as soon as they are available. Since the weekend telecasts aren’t primetime, we have to wait until Nielsen releases their update to the Master’s historical data which usually comes a week or two after the events.
Jon, we'll have them as soon as they are available. Since the weekend telecasts aren't primetime, we have to wait until Nielsen releases their update to the Master's historical data which usually comes a week or two after the events.
Jon, we'll have them as soon as they are available. Since the weekend telecasts aren't primetime, we have to wait until Nielsen releases their update to the Master's historical data which usually comes a week or two after the events.
On a guess, while Bill is correct I think we’ll be able to gather them from other publicly available sources by Tuesday. I’ll keep my eyes open for them and post the #s then if that’s the case.
On a guess, while Bill is correct I think we'll be able to gather them from other publicly available sources by Tuesday. I'll keep my eyes open for them and post the #s then if that's the case.
On a guess, while Bill is correct I think we'll be able to gather them from other publicly available sources by Tuesday. I'll keep my eyes open for them and post the #s then if that's the case.
i consider it noteworthy that in the link Daniel posted, everything seems to have peaked in the ‘05-’06 season and is now on the downward slide. I don’t think this is a trend that can be easily reveresed.
Especially with DVD, DVR, Internet streaming etc, creating a show that even 30 million will want to watch (LIVE+SD) week in, week out…may never happen again.
i consider it noteworthy that in the link Daniel posted, everything seems to have peaked in the '05-'06 season and is now on the downward slide. I don't think this is a trend that can be easily reveresed.
Especially with DVD, DVR, Internet streaming etc, creating a show that even 30 million will want to watch (LIVE+SD) week in, week out…may never happen again.
i consider it noteworthy that in the link Daniel posted, everything seems to have peaked in the '05-'06 season and is now on the downward slide. I don't think this is a trend that can be easily reveresed.
Especially with DVD, DVR, Internet streaming etc, creating a show that even 30 million will want to watch (LIVE+SD) week in, week out…may never happen again.