More people clamor for Mad Men’s rating numbers than the ratings themselves would indicate. For a couple of weeks running I have gotten e-mails and phone calls asking “where are the Mad Men ratings!”.
So here they are for the season’s fourth episode (”Three Sundays”) which aired on Sunday, August 17:
Total viewers were down to 1.1 million, and a season-low 514,000 viewers aged 18-49.
This is courtesy of Michael Starr and the Starr Report, where he notes that Mad Men is shedding viewers at an alarming rate. Also a special TVbytheNumbers shout-out to James Hibberd of The Hollywood Reporter for sending me the link to Starr’s post.
I’m not particularly alarmed or surprised by the ratings decreases, which seemingly mirror the patterns of last season where the most-viewed episode was the season (and in that case, series) premiere. Especially against the Olympics and In Plain Sight and Army Wives, the Sunday night is very competitive at 10pm.
While I definitely am enjoying Mad Men and particularly like this past Sunday’s episode, this is a show where I believe many people will react like Bill Gorman did. Bill took it in, admired the detail and attention paid to making sure the detail of the period being covered (now 1962) was spot-on, but didn’t get wrapped up in the story. I had to give it about five episodes of season one to get completely reeled in myself. So it’s not a big surprise that people take on the premiere which generates a lot of promotion and buzz, and then bleed out. But I’m definitely not sorry that I gave it a few extra episodes.
I’d really love to see the DVR numbers for Mad Men, and the VOD (video on demand) numbers as well, but that’s probably not likely to happen.
Oh Oh. Are you still of the opinion that it will go another season? I hope so for you, I know you are enjoying it immensely.
Em, I am still of the opinion there will definitely be a third season. But it's just an opinion and if it goes down under 850K, I reserve the right to change my mind. And worry not, although I am enjoying it, cancelled TV series don't devastate me. I'm a tiny bit sad, for example, that SciFi is cancelling Stargate Atlantis after this season, but only a tiny bit.
They really need to include the DVR and VOD numbers. I have never missed an epidsode of Mad Men, however I always record it to my DVR and watch it during the week. I know many other people who also do this. This is especially important for shows that air in the later time slots.
Laura,
That's true for every show though.
For what it's worth, the DVR data *is* measured, although in order for us to see it, it would essentially need to have over 2 million DVRing it per week and my guess for a variety of factors is that it's much closer to around 300,000. Even at a million+, AMC would likely issue press releases along the lines of “As many watch on DVR as live” if that were the case.
VOD isn't data that's widely available. While I watched all of season one on VOD, and rewatched a couple of eps from season two that way, the data I have seen on VOD viewing is that it is generally a very insignificant % compared to live and DVR viewing.
Personally, I use it quite a bit, but there's no data at all to support I'm in the mainstream. Even DVRs are still not mainstream being in roughly one out of four homes in the U.S.
I wonder if one of the issues is that the new viewers don't know who's who and the backstories. When a question arises, we don't know if it is something that hasn't been revealed yet or if it aired last season. AMC should air more reruns of Season 1 and Season 2 or re-release Season 1 on VOD..
Ah, but for Stargate: Atlantis mentioned earlier, live+DVR account for about a quarter to a third of total viewership. I know I can’t always watch it live myself.
I’ve watched every episode made so far of Mad Men, but never live; always on TIVO or itunes. I buy it on itunes even if I’ve Tivo’d it, just to keep it. I don’t think they know how to account for this kind of viewership, and I don’t think TV is looking hard enough at changing their approach to advertising to adjust to the new viewership.
My children, ranging in age from 7 to 12, watch less TV than the national norm; but the TV they do watch–they arrange to TIVO all by themselves. That’s who is coming up!
Tallylo, Nielsen does measure DVR viewing, but we have such limited access to the cable show data that all we can tell you is that Mad Men doesn’t wind up being one of the top 40 shows even with seven days of DVR viewership lumped in.
Nielsen doesn’t measure iTunes and I can’t imagine it ever would unless iTunes went with an advertising supported model. I don’t believe iTunes winds up being very significant in terms of total numbers.
Not much of a tv person, other than cable news, a recent hallway conversation overheard regarding “Mad Men” intrigued me as I grew up in the 1950-60’s and with vivid childhood recall of the Camelot years.. So I rented Season One & got hooked.
I’ll be caught up tonite, but I can’t any find Season 2 reruns to record on my DVR. With only one episode left, perhaps there will be a DVD of Season 2 for Christmas?
Now I’m worried there won’t be a Season 3 as I am surprised to learn of the low ratings that I stumbled upon while trying to google reruns of Season 2.
The last time I got hooked like this was with Sex and the City this past spring. I’m glad I had the opportunity to do a marathon just in time for the movie to come out! I watched all seasons over the course of one week. (nite owl)
I hope Mad Men finds a way to continue….cable shows must be more difficult with all the competition. I KNOW that everyone raised during the 50’s & 60’s that I know would love this series, but do they know about the show. If one isn’t tv savvy, it can easily be missed IMHO. Also glad I was standing in that hallway last Thurs to find out about it!