Comments on: Early Ratings: Dancing Loved; Heroes, Sarah Connor and Denny Crane, not so much

By: Julia

Julia — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 22:51:57 +0000

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.

By: Kevin Beaumont

Kevin Beaumont — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 22:19:38 +0000

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.

By: Mike G.

Mike G. — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 17:37:59 +0000

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???

By: richard

richard — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 11:49:39 +0000

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.

By: Ahmed Ardalan

Ahmed Ardalan — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 07:14:27 +0000

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 !!!!!

By: Mike G.

Mike G. — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 21:01:24 +0000

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???

By: Pete

Pete — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 19:48:09 +0000

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.

By: FrankJ

FrankJ — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 18:26:52 +0000

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?

By: Robert Seidman

Robert Seidman — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 17:39:58 +0000

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.

By: confused

confused — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 17:31:53 +0000

so how are TIVO’ed shows factored in?

By: Julia

Julia — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 17:28:17 +0000

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.

By: Andrea

Andrea — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 17:20:23 +0000

“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.

By: 1982

1982 — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 17:07:06 +0000

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?

By: Julia

Julia — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 16:58:44 +0000

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.

By: Joe Bua

Joe Bua — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 16:57:03 +0000

Hey, you’re back! Oh, good deal guys!

I’m happy the stuff is all worked out with your DNS server.

By: Gusar

Gusar — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 16:06:43 +0000

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.

By: Andrea

Andrea — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 16:03:35 +0000

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.

By: Robert Seidman

Robert Seidman — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 16:02:24 +0000

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.

By: Denise

Denise — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 16:01:55 +0000

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.

By: FrankJ

FrankJ — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 15:56:00 +0000

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.

By: FrankJ

FrankJ — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 15:52:10 +0000

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.

By: Alec

Alec — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 15:51:43 +0000

the numbers for TSCC look a lli better than last week

By: Julia

Julia — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 15:49:08 +0000

Woot! I was only off by 310,000 viewers! Not bad.

By: Andrea

Andrea — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 15:45:39 +0000

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.

By: Ronnie

Ronnie — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 15:45:28 +0000

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..