via NBCU press release:
Battlestar Galactica Returns With Double Digit-Gains
New York, NY – January 20, 2009 – The final episodes of the Emmy and Peabody-winning series Battlestar Galactica made their highly-anticipated debut on Friday, January 16 at 10pm. The season 4.5 premiere episode, “Sometimes a Great Notion,” earned a 1.6 Household rating, over 1.3 million Adults 18-49, over 1.4 million Adults 25-54 and more than 2.1 million total viewers.
Battlestar was the #1 cable program in the 10pm hour among Men 18-49 and Men 25-54, and SCI FI scored as the #3 cable entertainment network of the night among Adults 25-54 and #4 among Adults 18-49. Friday’s episode delivered double-digit increases versus the show’s highly-rated season 4.0 average – +23% in Household ratings and total viewers, +21% in Adults 18-49 and +15% in Adults 25-54.
Viewers also flocked to SCIFI.COM, the official online destination for all things Battlestar Galactica, making it the best day for the Website since 11/1/08 in page views, best day since 10/31/08 in uniques and best day since 10/7/06 in video streams. The Battlestar Galactica section of SCIFI.COM had its best day since 4/4/08 (season 4.0 premiere) in page views and uniques and best day in video since 10/7/06.
Battlestar Galactica is the gripping saga of humanity’s last remnants and their struggle to find a new home while fleeing from their deadly Cylon enemies. Redefining the space opera with its gritty realism, Galactica’s intensity, issues-driven topicality, and command performances have garnered it numerous awards, including two Emmy Awards and the prestigious George Foster Peabody Award. The show was recognized by the American Film Institute (AFI) as one of the most outstanding programs of the year two years running. The series is from Universal Cable Productions and is executive produced by Ronald D. Moore and David Eick. The outstanding ensemble cast is led by Edward James Olmos, Mary McDonnell, Katee Sackhoff, Jamie Bamber, James Callis, Tricia Helfer and Grace Park. The series airs Fridays at 10pm on SCI FI.
Sci-fi should have given Moore the two more seasons he wanted.
exactly the same premiere numbers as last year. given that season four was its lowest-rated season, it’s impressive that the PR meisters could spin that to increases versus “the highly rated season four average”
Hey Robert,
That is some serious spin from the network. It got the same rating and viewer total as the Season premiere. It is up double digits because they are comparing one big episode to an entire season.
Now i may be wrong, but didn’t the midseason premier of Stargate Atlantis as well as the Finale earn a 1.5 or i think about 80 thousand viewers less then the premier of Battlestar Galactica. A show which was promoted more then Atlantis could have ever dreamed of getting. Which really makes me wonder how the managed to spin these numbers like they tried to.
in other words it pulled the same viewers as SGA which is far cheaper to make.
That about sums up my point.
You want to know how they spin the numbers so that BSG returns with double digit gains? Easy. The premieres get better than usual ratings, then they slowly sink for the next nine eps. Then, when it comes time for the next mini season premiere, they talk how it went from a 1.2 rating to a 1.6. But of course, from next week on, it goes back down to 1.2.
Not much an increase when you factor in reality, as everyone here is mentioning, but it still is nice to see the show hasn’t lost any viewers. And there is always the chance that the show will increase slightly this season, which would be nice, considering it’s about the best show on television right now. It would be nice if people actually watched the damn thing.
Even more bizarre is that it’s never received any Emmy love. That just blows my mind, as Mary McDonnell and Ed Olmos have both been doing Oscar caliber work for years now.
OK, last completely non relevant (to a TV ratings site) comment:
It’s amazing to me the contrast between this show and 24. 24 was barely 2 hours into it’s new season when Cherry Jones turned into President Exposition. The storyline was barely 2 hours old and they were already recapping things. In fact, 24 actually does so much exposition that they even use scenes to recap things that just happened five minutes earlier in the same episode. It’s like they think all of their audience is either mentally impaired and/or very stoned.
By contrast, BSG is now four years into a continuing storyline and yet their season premier had almost no exposition at all beyond the obligatory Previously On.
It’s like the difference between reading See Dick Run & War Peace.
Anyway, I’ll take any ratings loving spin I can get for this underappreciated show.
BSG went too political back in S2-S3 and lost a lot of viewers. It then got really, really dark and depressing, and is now locked into a dead-end storyline. That “Caprica” show they want to air is going to give them way more room to grow a series. It was a good move, I think.
The dumb move by SCIFI and MGM was cancelling Stargate Atlantis, just to try and save on actor salaries. I think Stargate Universe is going to majorly bomb. So fine, you save money on salaries, but you lose all your ratings, too.
BSG quit being good about 4 episodes into season there. As for Olmos, he is a good actor but this past episode, when he argued with Tigh was some of the worst acting he’s ever done.
@ Jimmy McAwesome:
And you would know a good acting job if it came up and goosed you in the petooti?
Listen, Olmos is a very good actor, sometimes a great actor but everyone has an off day. Olmos’ scene with Tigh at the end of the first episode was awful. He was chewing scenery so bad I thought he was about to bend over and starting eating the chair he was sitting in. It was pathetic acting. He overacted so badly it was painful to watch. Olmos is a low key actor. The great thing about Olmos is that he can show pain, leadership, and many other key feelings with just his normal skills. The director took him out of what made him great, his low key delivery, and tried to make him something else.
If you disagree I recommend you quit drinking the kool-aid and try and judge objectively. Something I don’t you will do Tweedle Dee