Update: Bill will get the full numbers up shortly but:
- Heroes 9p-11p: 9.89 million (ouch, but it still performed very very well in the 18-49 demo ~5.0 -it should also be noted that Heroes crushed the field in the 18-34 demographic)
- TSCC: 5.816 million (2.3 in 18-49 demo)
- 2.5 Men: 14.926 million (5.3 demo)
- Gossip Girl: 3.35 million
- CSI Miami: 16.866 million w/a 5.1 in the demo
- DWTS: 21.12 million from 8p-10p/5.4 in demo
The early ratings buzz for Monday is in, and there are no surprises for me, save perhaps CSI: Miami, which pulled an 11/18 (rating/share) at 10pm. Keep in mind these early metered market ratings are subject to change even vs. the fast affiliate overnight ratings which follow them shortly thereafter.
Unsurprisingly a two hour Dancing with the Stars led the night with a 13.5/20 share between 8pm-10pm and equally unsurprisingly, almost all of them left when Boston Legal came on, it dipped to a 5.8/10 at 10pm.
CBS had all new episodes and Big Bang Theory and How I Met Your Mother seemed in line with last year. With 5.6/9 and 5.9/9 respectively. Two and a Half Men pulled a 9.0/13, but it will likely dominate among 18-49 year olds once we see the fast affiliate data. Worst Week then dipped to a 6.4/9, which if that holds is worse than Rules of Engagement and The New Adventures of Old Christine did in that slot.
Now for the disappointments: first, I didn’t love the two hour Heroes opener which pulled a 6.4/10 from 9p-11p. If that holds, that may be less viewers than last year’s finale — 11.06 million, but that was on December 3, a long time ago — and it will certainly be less than last year’s premiere which scored 16.97 million on a 9.9/14 household rating/share. I knew I wasn’t going to love this and while I am not TV critic, it’s plain to see that the first season had a very good mix of “good and evil” and that last year and last night did not. When you go to mostly dark, you may get some critical acclaim as in Mad Men or Battlestar Galactica, but one thing you do not get is lots of viewers. Sadly though, the writing just didn’t seem particularly good (the writing on Mad Men is typically fantastic, even if it’s a “dark” show).
The first half hour of Heroes pulled a 6.8/10, so it seemed like only the show’s faithful following showed up to begin with, and then it slowly lost some of them dropping to a 6.1/10 the final half hour. We’ll know more when the fast affiliate data arrives.
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles pulled a 3.9/6, which at least in the metered markets was better than Prison Break’s 3.6/5. The CW was down a bit, but only a bit vs first run competition across the board with both Gossip Girl and One Tree Hill pulling a 2.4/4. If CW retained a significant portion of last week’s 18-34 female crowd (and judging from these numbers, it will), it will be much happier with these numbers than NBC will be with Heroes…
Bill will post the full overnight report as soon as we get the updated fast affiliate data…
September 23rd, 2008 at 8:06 am
I’m actually surprised at those Heroes numbers, I thought it would bring in more new viewers. Seems to be going around with a lot of shows.
And Robert, does a 3.9/6 for TSCC mean that the Live+SD numbers will hold from last week?
September 23rd, 2008 at 8:10 am
it’s hard to say. Last week in the fast affiliates it had a 4.1, but in the metered markets it had a 3.8, so it’s in the same ballpark on a household basis
September 23rd, 2008 at 8:10 am
I see a third hour of DWTS soon…. LOL.
September 23rd, 2008 at 8:11 am
Ok, I won’t start celebrating my victory yet, but it’s looking like I called it!
September 23rd, 2008 at 8:13 am
Looks like Terminator is still having a hard time thanks for the BS Nielsen numbers. Thankfully it pulled ahead of Prison Break. Heroes wasn’t as big as I was expecting either.
Here’s hoping for a full 22 of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
September 23rd, 2008 at 8:14 am
You gave yourself a range of 2 million+ viewers Julia! I went with the under 11.6 million, Bill went with the over. We’ll be able to celebrate, but I’d celebrate more if it was a great two hours with so-so ratings than a so-so two hours with so-so ratings…
September 23rd, 2008 at 8:18 am
And wht about Gossip Girl? Do u think it’ll make 3.5 mill.?
Last night episode was good!
xx
B
September 23rd, 2008 at 8:19 am
My hope is, even though the overall numbers may still be down from last year, if it can at least stay in the same ballpark as last week against new shows and the craftily advertised “3-HOUR HEROES PREMIERE!” that NBC was shouting at the top of their lungs, maybe Fox will see this as a sign the bleeding has stopped. Or at least slowed.
haha…I don’t know, just looking for some kind of good news, if there is any.
September 23rd, 2008 at 8:19 am
Yeah, and my actual prediction (which I didn’t post here) was 9.58 mil, but that will likely be a bit low.
September 23rd, 2008 at 8:23 am
So, Terminator had similar numbers as last week.
it means that TSCC performances are similar with or without competition ?
Or , we have to wait until next week when Chuck premiere…?
September 23rd, 2008 at 8:24 am
Frank, the good news is (at least from my perspective) that the TSCC episode didn’t suck as bad as Heroes did to me. When even the Hiro storyline is annoying to me, there’s no silver lining at all. Nikki as evil twin/ice queen — well given all the split personality stuff prior, that’s just annoying. Speedy Gonzales? Annoying. Peter and Nate being Silas brother? Annoying. Their mother? Annoying.
Ben, it’s hard to say because of the unreliable nature of the metered market numbers, but if those numbers hold up or go up it looks like Gossip Girl held up well and 3.5 million or higher is definitely possible. We should know soon.
September 23rd, 2008 at 8:25 am
TSCC didn’t have a major competition this week and it won’t have it next week wither. Chuck will do badly. PB has been more unfortunate. Heroes is still a powerful show with the same type of audience
September 23rd, 2008 at 8:25 am
Richard, right now of Heroes, TSCC and Chuck, Chuck is definitely the show with the best chances for wide appeal. The downside is that it’s on NBC, so who knows…
September 23rd, 2008 at 8:28 am
Robert,
How are your feelings about the lifespan for TSCC as of right now? Still on 13 Episodes for Season 2, waiting for FOX to order the rest of 22. Give it to me straight, Doc!
September 23rd, 2008 at 8:29 am
Guys,
Variety and The Hollywood Reporter have reported that FOX has ordered 13 episodes of the Tim Roth-headed drama, “Lie To Me”, for midseason. I think this show will replace Sarah Connor.
BTW, I hope your server problems are under control. I need my daily fix!
September 23rd, 2008 at 8:29 am
Thx R
September 23rd, 2008 at 8:31 am
TSCC had almost all the competition it’s going to get this week. It had already faced new episodes of GG. This week it was also up against the premieres of the CBS comedies and DWTS. The only network not airing a new episode of it’s regular programming was NBC. Unless FOX moves TSCC to Wednesday or Thursday, it’s not going to get any more competion than this.
September 23rd, 2008 at 8:31 am
Nielsen has nothing to do with TSCC’s low numbers. Blaming Nielsen is a straw man argument. TSCC is ok, but its not great. It will likely be 13 episodes and that all she wrote. Prison Break should have been axed after Season 1 – that was the only really good one.
Heroes predictably didnt do that well after a lackluster Season 2. It lost that magic of Season 1 and isnt back.
Its definitely true that the darker a series becomes the more fans it loses – same thing happened with JERICHO – of course die hard fans of serial dramas like these think they get better the darker they get. But the vast majority of viewers just dont like it when they become too dark and foreboding.
In general serial dramas generally bleed off fans as time goes on and new viewers rarely pick it up because they dont want to have to catch up. Its why episodic dramas like CSI, L&O and others have consistently high ratings – it doesnt matter if you miss an episode here and there or pick it up in Season 5. I think part of the problem is the shorter attention span of viewers – they want everything wrapped up in a hour – 2 hours at most for a 2 parter. Its tough times for serial drama fans. The only ones that make it more than 2 seasons these days are ones like LOST and HEROES that start out with high viewer numbers 15-20 million – they can afford to lose 1-2 million fans a season while ones starting out near 10 million or less cant.
The thing that bothers me about HEROES is now its ripping off the plotline where more people with powers can be created – THE 4400 on USA already did that with its “promicin in a syringe” deal, except that on that show 50% of the people got powers and the other 50% dropped dead. (HEROES just uses adrenalin injections instead – no word yet n whether its 100% effective or if anyone dies from taking it).
September 23rd, 2008 at 8:35 am
Ronnie, there are some variables that make it hard to prognosticate, but if I do so anyway, just based on the numbers, things do not look good for TSCC getting its back nine.
Andrea, we hope everything is back to (and even better)than normal. It’s been a stressful five days!
I agree with Holly. Though Chuck may be my new favorite, it will be interesting to see how it does say vs. the Heroes “clip show” that ran at 8pm last night. I’m sure if the ratings aren’t great next week people will say it’s because the episode was on the Internet a week early, but I do not buy that having a big impact on broadcast ratings at this point.
September 23rd, 2008 at 8:36 am
I think Robert was right from last week – you can stick a fork in TSCC, it’s done. Fox took its two marginal shows (TSCC and Prison Break) and put them back-to-back on a night with absolutely brutal competition: Dancing With The Stars, Chuck, and Monday Night Football. They did advertise the shows, but I don’t think either show stood a chance.
My prediction is that Fox will air the remaining episodes of TSCC and Prison Break as scheduled, simply because advertisers did pay for certain special promotions of TSCC episodes (the Dodge truck give-away) and there’s nothing else to air on Monday night that’s going to do any better. So, we’ll get our remaining 10 episodes, but that’s going to be it.
Andrea, good catch on “Lie to Me.”
September 23rd, 2008 at 8:40 am
I was actually hoping to see Cameron knock Cromartie off the pier. Nice touch though with him sinking into the abyss.
What killed the Heroes episode for me was the whole Claire/Sylar part. That completely defeats the sacrifices from Season One, I don’t care what other cool things we now learn about her. And next week with Sylar looks worse.
Hiro…ugh… It was fun when he was reading his comic book/destiny. Now their decisions are just annoying and relatively stupid. And I’m sorry, but the “speed of sound” woman could NOT outrun his stopped clock. No way. I think the only way I’ll feel compelled to tune in every week is if they give HRG and Kristen Bell something interesting to do.
September 23rd, 2008 at 8:42 am
Well, let me amend my previous remark. I think the only way we see the “back nine” is if the T4 people are willing to front the production cost for those episodes in order to try and generate buzz for the movie. But I don’t see why the movie producers would be willing to sink $5-10 million into television episodes to promote a movie. Ok, I’m officially so desperate for any scenario under which TSCC gets saved that I’ve lost credibility. I’ll put my dunce cap on now.
September 23rd, 2008 at 8:44 am
folks, I’ve updated the post with some viewer numbers…have at them until Bill does the full post which should be up shortly.
September 23rd, 2008 at 8:45 am
T4 and TSCC are both done by Warner Brothers. Hopefully something will happen.
DVD Sales were good for S1, and the show is usually ranked pretty well on iTunes/Amazon downloads, so hopefully they’re taking everything into account. I’m hoping DVR numbers will help too once they are released..
September 23rd, 2008 at 8:45 am
I know people hate to talk about shopping failed shows to other networks, but maybe there is hope with T:SCC since it is built on a franchise. The numbers may not be good for FOX, but would be a hit for, say, Sci Fi. Sci Fi did take on Sliders after its run on FOX.
September 23rd, 2008 at 8:49 am
Woot! I was only off by 310,000 viewers! Not bad.
September 23rd, 2008 at 8:51 am
the numbers for TSCC look a lli better than last week
September 23rd, 2008 at 8:52 am
Studios sink millions into movie promotion. Giving Fox a break on episode cost is not outside the realm of possibility. In fact it’s probably a given.
Will that save TSCC? No idea. But I think it’s premature to call it curtains for the show when the time-shifted numbers haven’t even come out yet. I doubt Fox has even made a decision yet. I would like to think, by the way, that Fox would first try to move TSCC to Wed. night or somewhere else so Fox can dominate the 18-49yr viewers.
September 23rd, 2008 at 8:56 am
Okay, 21 million? Dancing with the Stars is taking over the earth.
But I have to say, TSCC did hold it’s own. And it looks like it did better in the 18-49 demo. Not great, by a long shot, but against such steep competition this is not terrible.
September 23rd, 2008 at 9:01 am
Hiro’s storyline annoyed me too. I actually hated the episode, except for seeing Eli and Veronica (Veronica Mars) back together even though it was extremely brief. The only way I’d be okay with the Ali Larter storyline is if the new character is actually Jessica the supposed dead twin and she never really died at all.
September 23rd, 2008 at 9:02 am
Frank there are a multitude of ways to look at things. I believe (though I did not check) that those numbers are not even as good as K-Ville performed last year. It could be worse — they could’ve been under a 2.0 in the demo. But while perhaps not “terrible’ there is no way for me to spin those results as “good” either.
September 23rd, 2008 at 9:03 am
Frank,
Time shifting won’t save a show with sub 6 million viewers and a sub 3.0 demo. New Amsterdam had the save time slot and comp and never slipped under 6 mill, and it still got canned. TSCC is a much more expensive show than NA.
September 23rd, 2008 at 9:06 am
No matter how you try to spin things, we won’t be getting any more TSCC episodes, after the 13 air. MNF is killing both TSCC and PB and Fox knew it from the beginning, but they don’t care. They put them on because they have nothing better and never planned to renew them anyway. They don’t care about the early fall, all they care about is 24 and American Idol.
Do I sound bitter? Well, it’s because I am bitter.
September 23rd, 2008 at 9:57 am
Hey, you’re back! Oh, good deal guys!
I’m happy the stuff is all worked out with your DNS server.
September 23rd, 2008 at 9:58 am
Gusar, you can be bitter. I’ve been bitter about more than a few shows in my day. But the conspiracy theories are too much. Fox did not purposely try to kill any show. They want every show to succeed. They would not renew TSCC for even 13 episodes if they were trying to kill it. Networks aren’t always smart, and are more often quite stupid, but they do not set out to destroy a very expensive show just to waste money.
September 23rd, 2008 at 10:07 am
This might be a stupid question but since all the fuss with the writers strike and how the numbers for shows and tv watching in general has dropped, do you think that the networks are sometimes happy with numbers now that 2-3 years ago would have been considered quite low?
September 23rd, 2008 at 10:20 am
“Fox did not purposely try to kill any show. They want every show to succeed.”
Julie,
I’m not sure about that, especially with regime changes. I’ve had my doubts that Kevin Reilly cared about many of the shows that were signed by his predecessor. If not actively killing a show, then not actively trying to save it, either.
He’s not unusual, either in TV or in business in general. It’s an ego thing.
September 23rd, 2008 at 10:28 am
Yes, but even more of an ego boost is seeing his schedule succeed. Bottom line is that this is a business. They are not going to throw away money. Period.
September 23rd, 2008 at 10:31 am
so how are TIVO’ed shows factored in?
September 23rd, 2008 at 10:39 am
Confused: same night (up to 3am) DVR viewing is *in* these numbers. We don’t see the full 7 days worth of DVR data until much (2+ weeks in some cases) later. My opinion (only that) is that the Live + seven day numbers are only use for PR, and do not factor much into the network decisions typically. These are the numbers that matter most. Technically it is the C+3 numbers (commercial ratings with 3 days of DVR viewing) that matter most. But we never see that data and the networks never publish it either so for us and most people, the live+SD ratings are the defacto standard to judge things based on.
September 23rd, 2008 at 11:26 am
Andrea, I don’t think TSCC is that expensive, the producers have said it’s on par with any other hour long drama.
And about Kevin Reilly, I think the only shows Fox wants him to kill are on other networks.
Besides, and correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t the Spring season ad rates negotiated with Nielsen data from the Fall? Why would they want to drive shows down if it’s only going to hurt them when they get their favorites in?
September 23rd, 2008 at 12:48 pm
Heroes was so lame. Two hours of mind numbing drivel. And using time travel to reboot the series is only going to succeed if the writing is better than it was. Unfortunately the writing did not improve. There numbers will never increase when the season opener is nothing more than mediocre.
September 23rd, 2008 at 2:01 pm
Last night was my third attempt to get interested in Heroes. I thought it was OK. Not sure that I’m going to watch the whole season and still can’t really see what the big hype was over this show in the first place. I’m a total sci fi geek, so I should be loving this stuff. Did I really miss something???
September 24th, 2008 at 12:14 am
I would like to remind everybody that the shows you are talking about are also shown around the world and bring money. Just for your info Prison break is so huge in greece ,france ,Africa,hong kong and the middle east in fact the highest ads are for Prison break and Fox sells the whole season for lots of money to the channels there .
Do you think that Fox would air a show without profit.
wanna check about prison break success in those areas go to facebook and check the fan sites and check on IMDB and check the legions of fans.
Shows are not only counted in the USA !!!!!
September 24th, 2008 at 4:49 am
Ahmed Ardalan, You’re right
We can’t just focus on domestic revenue.
I live in Hong Kong. Prison Break is the highest rated drama on english channel.
September 24th, 2008 at 10:37 am
Richard & Ahmed: I totally agree with you, but I’m not sure if the networks really take that into consideration. The impression that I’ve gotten from previous postings is that the networks focus on domestic Nielsen ratings in a certain demo. Anyone else have a thought on that???
September 29th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
Richard, Ahmed Ardalan – FOX Broadcasting Corp aren’t an international company. They don’t profit from international distribution, international fans or international DVD sales. All they make money from is US TV advertising. If Nielsen sucks, they will cancel it. Period.
September 29th, 2008 at 3:51 pm
Kevin is right. The studio will make money on internationally syndicated programs, but if the studio is not 21st Century Fox, Fox has no stake in keeping a show alive. I’m not sure what studio produces Prison Break, but if it is 21st Century Fox, then Ahmed’s point is valid. After all, look at how ABC picked up Scrubs despite dismal ratings due to the high DVD sales.