They’ll put a positive spin on it in any way they can, but the truth is things are spinning out of control over in the land of Gossip Girl and Dawn Ostroff known as the CW.
Do I fault the CW for wanting to target 18-34 year olds, specifically females? Not at all. The evidence is crystal clear that advertisers are actually willing to pay a premium for that demographic and we don’t like to ever chide anyone for “following the money”. We consider that a sensible ploy.
But check this out, courtesy of Travis Yanan who posted this data on Marc Berman’s forums:
| Show | Net | HH Rating/Share | 18-49 | 18-34 | Women 18-34 | Viewers (Millions) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gossip Girl | CW | 1.7/3 | 1.3/4 | 2.0/6 | 2.9/8 | 2.50 |
| One Tree Hill | CW | 1.9/3 | 1.4/3 | 2.1/6 | 3.3/8 | 2.93 |
| The Hills | MTV | 2.4/4 | 2.4/6 | 4.0/11 | 6.3/16 | 3.75 |
While I do not find the data particularly surprising, I find it interesting nonetheless. On a couple of levels:
- It appears that a show about real life spoiled, skanky girls who do whatever the heck they feel like is a way, way bigger draw than a fictional scripted show about spoiled, skanky girls who do whatever the heck they feel like. Unscripted lands yet another blow against scripted, even in premium target demos
- The beat-down in Gossip Girl’s (and the CW’s) target demo is massive. The Hills did 100% better among 18-34 year olds.
While we don’t have the gender breakdown, (the women’s 18-34 data has been added to the table) 100% is a massive beat-down. 100%.
I believe in the Internet parlance popular among the 18-34 crowd, The Hills and MTV PWNS Gossip Girl and the CW. For my middle-aged brethren, I’ll translate: The Hills and MTV OWNS Gossip Girl and the CW.
My hat is off to MTV.
Update 4/23 5:10pm PDT: Travis Yanan was kind enough to provide the Women 18-34 demographic ratings/share for the three shows in the comments and I’ve added to the table above. In the allegedly key demo for Gossip Girl it is out performed by both One Tree Hill and The Hills, in fact The Hills outperformed Gossip Girl and One Tree Hill combined among women 18-34!
“I believe that is truly pwnage,” said Yanan.
We agree.
BG: The Hills’ performance is even more impressive when you compare MTV’s average primetime viewership of 948,000 to CW’s average primetime viewership of 2.29 million.
I was thinking of the same thing, I bet if MTV airs reruns of Gossip Girl it’ll get as many viewers as it does on CW, its gotta do with the incapabilities of this network.
I stick to my earlier comment that CW shows should be on cable. I mean Everybody Hates Chris doesn’t cross the 2 million mark on “CW” and House of Payne gets 3 million viewers on “TBS”.
I was thinking of the same thing, I bet if MTV airs reruns of Gossip Girl it'll get as many viewers as it does on CW, its gotta do with the incapabilities of this network.
I stick to my earlier comment that CW shows should be on cable. I mean Everybody Hates Chris doesn't cross the 2 million mark on “CW” and House of Payne gets 3 million viewers on “TBS”.
WTH? NIELSENS LIE!!11 GOSSIP GIRL AND CW FTW!
No, really, after watching a couple of GG episodes I find the show to be quite disturbing. Who would in their right mind watch a show about spoiled, filthy rich, skanky girls and boys who do whatever the hell they wanna do? And they have ‘problems’? F*** GG and f*** The CW.
WTH? NIELSENS LIE!!11 GOSSIP GIRL AND CW FTW!
No, really, after watching a couple of GG episodes I find the show to be quite disturbing. Who would in their right mind watch a show about spoiled, filthy rich, skanky girls and boys who do whatever the hell they wanna do? And they have 'problems'? F*** GG and f*** The CW.
I don’t think the characters are neither skanky and filthy nor rich enough.
And its weird that these girls love 7th Heaven, Gilmore Girls and they also watch The OC and Gossip Girl.
I don't think the characters are neither skanky and filthy nor rich enough.
And its weird that these girls love 7th Heaven, Gilmore Girls and they also watch The OC and Gossip Girl.
I don't think the characters are neither skanky and filthy nor rich enough.
And its weird that these girls love 7th Heaven, Gilmore Girls and they also watch The OC and Gossip Girl.
I believe that Gossip Girl aired a marathon on MTV and did rather poorly. The fact is, people don’t watch the show live, and a show without live viewers cannot reasonably continue to exist.
It pisses me off that they keep pushing it down viewers’ throats–as if they think they can make us believe what their false advertising claims. And I can’t believe that they cut Supernatural’s budget for season 4, but raised Gossip Girl’s. Based on WHAT?!
I believe that Gossip Girl aired a marathon on MTV and did rather poorly. The fact is, people don't watch the show live, and a show without live viewers cannot reasonably continue to exist.
It pisses me off that they keep pushing it down viewers' throats–as if they think they can make us believe what their false advertising claims. And I can't believe that they cut Supernatural's budget for season 4, but raised Gossip Girl's. Based on WHAT?!
I believe that Gossip Girl aired a marathon on MTV and did rather poorly. The fact is, people don't watch the show live, and a show without live viewers cannot reasonably continue to exist.
It pisses me off that they keep pushing it down viewers' throats–as if they think they can make us believe what their false advertising claims. And I can't believe that they cut Supernatural's budget for season 4, but raised Gossip Girl's. Based on WHAT?!
How wrong is it that I actually like this show. It sucks me in. Dawn loves it though and as long as she has control of the CW, she will air it. How long the CW stays afloat though, who knows. I worry for my Supernatural boys though. I could live without GG very easily. I will be heartbroken though if Supernatural gets taken off the air because the CW ran themselves into the ground.
How wrong is it that I actually like this show. It sucks me in. Dawn loves it though and as long as she has control of the CW, she will air it. How long the CW stays afloat though, who knows. I worry for my Supernatural boys though. I could live without GG very easily. I will be heartbroken though if Supernatural gets taken off the air because the CW ran themselves into the ground.
How wrong is it that I actually like this show. It sucks me in. Dawn loves it though and as long as she has control of the CW, she will air it. How long the CW stays afloat though, who knows. I worry for my Supernatural boys though. I could live without GG very easily. I will be heartbroken though if Supernatural gets taken off the air because the CW ran themselves into the ground.
Fact is, The Hills is actually a good show made in a novel way. The focus is not on the dialog but on the style and the blurring of reality. TV needs more good looking rich kids and less Ugly Betty’s and obviously The Hills got it right more so than Gossip Girl.
Fact is, The Hills is actually a good show made in a novel way. The focus is not on the dialog but on the style and the blurring of reality. TV needs more good looking rich kids and less Ugly Betty's and obviously The Hills got it right more so than Gossip Girl.
Fact is, The Hills is actually a good show made in a novel way. The focus is not on the dialog but on the style and the blurring of reality. TV needs more good looking rich kids and less Ugly Betty's and obviously The Hills got it right more so than Gossip Girl.
Well to each his own because I accidently put on The Hills today (home sick) and it was awful. But I’m not a fan of that type of show so that could be part of the reason. Gossip Girl is a kind of guilty pleasure for me. I could live without it, and if it went away, there’d be no letter writing or tears, but if its on and I remember, I’ll turn it on. If the Hills is on, I’ll turn it off. LOL.
I dont always have mainstream taste though since half the shows I love have been canceled.
Well to each his own because I accidently put on The Hills today (home sick) and it was awful. But I'm not a fan of that type of show so that could be part of the reason. Gossip Girl is a kind of guilty pleasure for me. I could live without it, and if it went away, there'd be no letter writing or tears, but if its on and I remember, I'll turn it on. If the Hills is on, I'll turn it off. LOL.
I dont always have mainstream taste though since half the shows I love have been canceled.
Well to each his own because I accidently put on The Hills today (home sick) and it was awful. But I'm not a fan of that type of show so that could be part of the reason. Gossip Girl is a kind of guilty pleasure for me. I could live without it, and if it went away, there'd be no letter writing or tears, but if its on and I remember, I'll turn it on. If the Hills is on, I'll turn it off. LOL.
I dont always have mainstream taste though since half the shows I love have been canceled.
Here’s the W18-34 breakdown:
Gossip Girl: 2.9/8
One Tree Hill: 3.3/8
The Hills: 6.3/16
I believe that truly is pwnage.
Here's the W18-34 breakdown:
Gossip Girl: 2.9/8
One Tree Hill: 3.3/8
The Hills: 6.3/16
I believe that truly is pwnage.
Here's the W18-34 breakdown:
Gossip Girl: 2.9/8
One Tree Hill: 3.3/8
The Hills: 6.3/16
I believe that truly is pwnage.
LOL all my favorite shows have low number and get canceled. Just because I show gets better ratings, doesn’t mean its a better quality show. It just means its being watched more…for whatever reason. There’s no accounting for taste with the ratings system. lol
LOL all my favorite shows have low number and get canceled. Just because I show gets better ratings, doesn't mean its a better quality show. It just means its being watched more…for whatever reason. There's no accounting for taste with the ratings system. lol
LOL all my favorite shows have low number and get canceled. Just because I show gets better ratings, doesn't mean its a better quality show. It just means its being watched more…for whatever reason. There's no accounting for taste with the ratings system. lol
@Travis – pwnage indeed. WOW. Thanks for posting the info! I’ll add it to the table.
@Travis – pwnage indeed. WOW. Thanks for posting the info! I'll add it to the table.
@Travis – pwnage indeed. WOW. Thanks for posting the info! I'll add it to the table.
I tried watching Gossip Girls twice and could not make it thru 10 minutes. The Hills however, I cannot miss an episode.
I tried watching Gossip Girls twice and could not make it thru 10 minutes. The Hills however, I cannot miss an episode.
I tried watching Gossip Girls twice and could not make it thru 10 minutes. The Hills however, I cannot miss an episode.
Hi there,
I’m from Singapore and I’m a huge fan of Gossip Girl. In defense of the show, I’d like to share with you some of my findings on social networking websites like Facebook and Friendster.
On Facebook, there are dozens of groups catered to GG and The Hills, and as I’m typing this out, the largest Gossip Girl group has 7181 members while the largest group for The Hills has 1535.
It’s a bit harder for Friendster as search results for ‘The Hills’ tend to include ‘One Tree Hill’, ‘King of the Hill’, etc. But I did try ‘GossipGirl’ and ‘TheHills’ and it turns out that 61 Americans listed GG under their Favorite TV Shows vis-a-vis 33 for The Hills.
In my country alone, 1281 people wrote Gossip Girl as one of their favorite shows, the highest among the 2007-08 slate of shows, and mind you, no TV station in my country has yet to air it.
Yes I admit that these numbers aren’t a hundred percent accurate but you have to agree that it does give you an idea of the size of a show’s fan base and popularity.
Hi there,
I’m from Singapore and I’m a huge fan of Gossip Girl. In defense of the show, I’d like to share with you some of my findings on social networking websites like Facebook and Friendster.
On Facebook, there are dozens of groups catered to GG and The Hills, and as I’m typing this out, the largest Gossip Girl group has 7181 members while the largest group for The Hills has 1535.
It’s a bit harder for Friendster as search results for ‘The Hills’ tend to include ‘One Tree Hill’, ‘King of the Hill’, etc. But I did try ‘GossipGirl’ and ‘TheHills’ and it turns out that 61 Americans listed GG under their Favorite TV Shows vis-a-vis 33 for The Hills.
In my country alone, 1281 people wrote Gossip Girl as one of their favorite shows, the highest among the 2007-08 slate of shows, and mind you, no TV station in my country has yet to air it.
Yes I admit that these numbers aren’t a hundred percent accurate but you have to agree that it does give you an idea of the size of a show’s fan base and popularity.
Hi there,
I’m from Singapore and I’m a huge fan of Gossip Girl. In defense of the show, I’d like to share with you some of my findings on social networking websites like Facebook and Friendster.
On Facebook, there are dozens of groups catered to GG and The Hills, and as I’m typing this out, the largest Gossip Girl group has 7181 members while the largest group for The Hills has 1535.
It’s a bit harder for Friendster as search results for ‘The Hills’ tend to include ‘One Tree Hill’, ‘King of the Hill’, etc. But I did try ‘GossipGirl’ and ‘TheHills’ and it turns out that 61 Americans listed GG under their Favorite TV Shows vis-a-vis 33 for The Hills.
In my country alone, 1281 people wrote Gossip Girl as one of their favorite shows, the highest among the 2007-08 slate of shows, and mind you, no TV station in my country has yet to air it.
Yes I admit that these numbers aren’t a hundred percent accurate but you have to agree that it does give you an idea of the size of a show’s fan base and popularity.
what do you think of one tree hill people? i thnk its gr8! id die if dey cancel it! nd the oc was much better than gossip girl! anyway its not dat bad
what do you think of one tree hill people? i thnk its gr8! id die if dey cancel it! nd the oc was much better than gossip girl! anyway its not dat bad
what do you think of one tree hill people? i thnk its gr8! id die if dey cancel it! nd the oc was much better than gossip girl! anyway its not dat bad
Well, it seems that some media is practically deifying Gossip Girl for ways that only seem oblivious. Gossip Girl is produced in New York and it will be subsidized by New York for as long as possible. It’s a great advertisement for that city regardless if it sucks at attracting viewership. Case in point: The current People magazine in which the most beautiful people are photographed. There’s the gang from GG, propped up on a bed looking glamourous and all, while the girls from The Hills get a half page, showing pictures of them directly after they get up in the morning, brushing their teeth and drinking coffee. Hardly glamourous at all but which group comes off unnatural and almost desperate in their pictorial and which one comes off casual and real? Even given the short shrift from ‘People’, The Hills Girls come out winners! I can’t even imagine the kids from GG having actual personalities. When someone wants to get out of town for some soul searching on The Hills, she drives her car. When the same thing happens on Gossip Girl, she’s at the heliport! Poseur…
Well, it seems that some media is practically deifying Gossip Girl for ways that only seem oblivious. Gossip Girl is produced in New York and it will be subsidized by New York for as long as possible. It's a great advertisement for that city regardless if it sucks at attracting viewership. Case in point: The current People magazine in which the most beautiful people are photographed. There's the gang from GG, propped up on a bed looking glamourous and all, while the girls from The Hills get a half page, showing pictures of them directly after they get up in the morning, brushing their teeth and drinking coffee. Hardly glamourous at all but which group comes off unnatural and almost desperate in their pictorial and which one comes off casual and real? Even given the short shrift from 'People', The Hills Girls come out winners! I can't even imagine the kids from GG having actual personalities. When someone wants to get out of town for some soul searching on The Hills, she drives her car. When the same thing happens on Gossip Girl, she's at the heliport! Poseur…
Well, it seems that some media is practically deifying Gossip Girl for ways that only seem oblivious. Gossip Girl is produced in New York and it will be subsidized by New York for as long as possible. It's a great advertisement for that city regardless if it sucks at attracting viewership. Case in point: The current People magazine in which the most beautiful people are photographed. There's the gang from GG, propped up on a bed looking glamourous and all, while the girls from The Hills get a half page, showing pictures of them directly after they get up in the morning, brushing their teeth and drinking coffee. Hardly glamourous at all but which group comes off unnatural and almost desperate in their pictorial and which one comes off casual and real? Even given the short shrift from 'People', The Hills Girls come out winners! I can't even imagine the kids from GG having actual personalities. When someone wants to get out of town for some soul searching on The Hills, she drives her car. When the same thing happens on Gossip Girl, she's at the heliport! Poseur…
ewww um the hills is a horrible show and doesn’t even compare with oth which is the best show and gg is ok but i could live without it…this is a lie cause there is no way the hills outnumbered oth and gg! oth is the best show ever!
i don’t know way are people so jealous on GG girls,they are so hot.Get a life people,let people watch what they like.