| Scoreboard |  |
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total Viewers (million) | 19.310 | 10.956 | 10.407 | 6.348 | 4.559 | 1.087 |
| Rating/Share: Adults 18-49 | 7.5/18 | 2.9/7 | 4.5/11 | 1.9/5 | 1.7/4 | 0.5/1 |
| Rating/Share: Adults 18-34 | 6.9/19 | 1.8/5 | 4.2/11 | 1.6/4 | 1.8/5 | 0.6/2 |
Though of course American Idol was the most watched program of the night, at 9pm, the series premiere of Lie to Me drew more viewers than the return of LOST. In the 9pm hour Lie to Me averaged 13.188 million to LOST’s 11.656 million between 9pm-10pm. Lie to Me and LOST tied in the 18-49 rating for that hour, with a 5.2 rating.
But included in that mix are three minutes of American Idol (which averaged 25.43 million between 8p-9pm) and the news isn’t all great for FOX. Lie to Me averaged 14.996 million and a 5.9 rating among 18-49 year olds between 9p-9:30p, but only 11.379 and a 4.5 between 9:30p-10p (LOST actually beat it in the second half hour).
Either way Criminal Minds won the most viewers for the 9pm hour with 13.86 million, but with only a 3.5 rating among 18-49 year olds, it trailed both LOST and Lie To Me.
From 10pm-11pm the LOST premiere averaged 11.08 million and a 5.0 rating among 18-49 year olds. While the overall numbers for LOST are a bit lighter than I thought they might be, the 18-49 numbers are inline with predictions. It will be interesting to see where things shake out in the final numbers when the three minutes of American Idol that Lie to Me is benefiting from in the numbers cited here are stripped out.
Please note: all numbers listed here are not timezone adjusted (which is almost always the case with overnight numbers), but FOX has just released timezone adjusted numbers for its shows and wound up with 25.43 million for Idol and 12.37 million for Lie To Me.
Update: data table added.
Full details:
| Time | Net | Show | Viewers (Millons) | 18-49 Rating/Share | 18-34 Rating/Share |
| 8:00 | FOX | American Idol | 25.43 | 9.7/24 | 8.7/24 |
| CBS | New Adventures of Old Christine | 7.44 | 2.1/6 | 1.3/4 | |
| ABC | LOST: Destiny Calls | 8.48 | 3.4/9 | 3.1/9 | |
| UNI | Cuidado con el Angel | 5.13 | 1.9/5 | 2.1/6 | |
| NBC | Knight Rider | 4.98 | 1.5/4 | 1.3/4 | |
| CW | 13 – Fear is Real | 1.36 | 0.5/1 | 0.7/2 | |
| 8:30 | CBS | Gary Unmarried | 7.07 | 2.2/5 | 1.4/4 |
| 9:00 | CBS | Criminal Minds | 13.86 | 3.5/8 | 2.1/5 |
| FOX | Lie to Me (series premiere) | 13.19 | 5.2/13 | 5.1/13 | |
| ABC | LOST (season premiere) | 11.66 | 5.2/12 | 4.9/13 | |
| NBC | Law & Order: SVU (R) | 5.57 | 1.7/4 | 1.5/4 | |
| UNI | Fuego en la Sangre | 5.07 | 1.9/5 | 2.1/5 | |
| CW | 90210 (R) | 0.82 | 0.4/1 | 0.6/1 | |
| 10:00 | CBS | CSI: NY | 11.75 | 3.0/8 | 1.9/5 |
| ABC | LOST (season premiere) | 11.08 | 5.0/13 | 4.6/12 | |
| NBC | Law & Order | 8.49 | 2.5/6 | 1.9/5 | |
| UNI | Don Francisco Presenta | 3.47 | 1.3/3 | 1.3/3 |
Shows are sorted by viewers in each time slot.
Nielsen TV Ratings: ©2008 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved.
Definitions:
Fast Affiliate Ratings: These first national ratings, including demographics, are available at approximately 11 AM (ET) the day after telecast, and are released to subscribing customers daily. These data, from the National People Meter sample, are strictly time-period information, based on the normal broadcast network feed, and include all programming on the affiliated stations, sometimes including network programming, sometimes not. The figures may include stations that did not air the entire network feed, as well as local news breaks or cutaways for local coverage or other programming. Fast Affiliate ratings are not as useful for live programs and are likely to differ significantly from the final results, because the data reflect normal broadcast feed patterns. For example, with a World Series game, Fast Affiliate Ratings would include whatever aired from 8-11PM on affiliates in the Pacific Time Zone, following the live football game, but not game coverage that begins at 5PM PT. The same would be true of Presidential debates as well as live award shows and breaking news reports.
Rating: Estimated percentage of the universe of TV households (or other specified group) tuned to a program in the average minute. Ratings are expressed as a percent.
Share (of Audience): The percent of households (or persons) using television who are tuned to a specific program, station or network in a specific area at a specific time. (See also, Rating, which represents tuning or viewing as a percent of the entire population being measured.)
Time Shifted Viewing – Program ratings for national sources are produced in three streams of data – Live, Live+Same Day (Live+SD) and Live+7 Day. Time shifted figures account for incremental viewing that takes place with DVRs which are currently in approximately 24.4% of all U.S. TV households. Live+Same Day (Live+SD) include viewing during the same broadcast day as the original telecast, with a cut-off of 3:00AM local time when meters transmit daily viewing to Nielsen for processing. Live+7 Day ratings include incremental viewing that takes place during the 7 days following a telecast.
For more information see Numbers 101.
Hey guys,
Marc Berman’s message is different: He has Lie To Me as “disappointing” and Lost as “down but not out.”
L2M’s percentage looks similar to Fringe’s out of AI. I wonder if it will be another prop-up “hit” or will it stand on its own?
Aww Lost is down but still great. With all these shows falling down in ratings, 11 million is great. With the DVR it must be around 13 million.
Maybe Lie to Me has a second change to do a bit better next week when Criminal Minds is in repeat and Lost bleeds some of the premiere audience, but it definitely did not hit the ground running. It did only marginally better than Fringe (probably about en par considering AI bounced back too).
Gotta love how shows like NCIS and Criminal Minds stand up to anything thrown at them (AI, House, Lost). Smart little show that could.
I was guessing 12.5 mil for LOST, so it’s only down a bit more than I expected. We’ll see just how much it bleeds next week. Disappointing for Lie to Me.
I didn’t think that Lost was going to beat Lie to me for the simple fact that it’s a show that’s hard to jump into. I didn’t think that Lie to Me was going to pull 13 million viewers. I’m guessing most viewers who are turned of by Lost or felt they couldn’t get into Lost watched Lie to Me. I’d like to see what the second episode pulls for Lie to Me. It’s like comic books the first issue always sells better then the second. So I’d like to see if it retains most of its viewers. I will still choose Lost over anything on Wed night.
So… looks like LOSTs low this year might hit 8m.. unless it’ll just stay consistent the rest of the season.
At least the key demo(18-49) still is doing great.
Andrea, Marc usually thinks anything that doesn’t retain 65% of its lead-in is disappointing, even if the lead-in is AI.
The numbers for both shows were a bit lower than I thought they’d be for total viewers (especially LOST) but in the ballpark on the demos. It’s too early for me to call disappointment on either show. And I actually saw both shows and liked them both
With so many great shows in the 9:00 slot, I bet DVR numbers skew everything pretty heavily. Personally I watched LOST, dvr’d Criminal Minds AND Lie To Me.
Robert,
I guess House is the standard by which all AI lead-out shows will be judged. I’m starting to think that House was a big-hit fluke for FOX, and no scripted show will ever come close in the future. But will see
it’ll be interesting to see how Lie to Me will do on its own once it moves to the 8:00 timeslot. without idol, it might slip. LOST will probably slip more as well when idol’s results show moves to 9:00.
LOST still maintains huge 18-49 demo around 5. In any case its only going one more season after this one for its planned ending. Which is good. Babylon 5 did it that way in the 90s. Better to end the series in a pre-planned ending before it is diluted too much. X-Files was an example of bleeding a great show dry until theres nothing left but a dried husk.
Why is LOST: Destiny Calls bellow New Adventures of Old Christine?
docarzt, DVR viewing will increase the totals for those 9pm shows, but my guess is that it won’t *skew* them (that is, shift the competitive balance of the Live+SD results above) very much.
Normally I would agree with Bill, but here I believe LOST will even up or slightly pass Lie to Me when DVR is factored in. We won’t probably ever see the DVR info for just 9p-10p, but my guess is ~1.5 million for LTM and ~3+ million for LOST.
It will be a few weeks before those numbers are released. hopefully we will see them!
Lie to me went down hard in the second half hour according to the numbers posted on http://pifeedback.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/63310451/m/921101581/p/1
It lost 3.59 millions viewers from 14.97m to 11.38m and the demo went from 5.9 to 4.5.
As for Lost it also lost steam, it went from 11.85m and demo 5.1 at 9h00 to 10.98m demo 4.9 at 10h30. It lost viewers in every half hour.
Criminal Minds did great against shows that were heavily promoted and had the buzz factor. But as much as I have complained about CBS last week for almost no promo for CM, it wasn’t the case this week, I saw short promo on many of CBS shows for both CM and CSI:NY.
rviewer: WOW, 5.1 to 4.9 huge drop! yea, VERy comparable with lie to me.
lost > lie to me from next week on.
WOW, Lie To me Did better than i tough. It did good!
It occurs to me that if those are the best ratings Lost can pull these days, it is not going to be of any help to Life on Mars at all. Which sucks, because I wanted Jason O’Mara to break the curse.
Well, I’ve been an Idol junkie since season 1, so of course I watch every episode.
I decided to give Lie to Me a shot and it was pretty good, actually. It was cool seeing the guy who played Andy Goode from TSCC there, lol. Will the show’s ratings hold up throughout the rest of the season though, especially when it moves to the 8 pm slot in front of Idol? We’ll see…
I was expecting both LOST and Lie to Me to get bigger ratings, but apparently not.
Y la UNIVISIÓN sigue haciendo muy bonito, principalmente en la amostra 18-49. Casi empatar con SVU? Esto es ótimo!
knight rider is offically gone
It’s imposible to determen but I think most the people who stoped watching live and DVR it (especialy in the 18-49 demo) probably watch it online or download it from torrents sites.
^^The show I meant is Lost.
i dont understand why people like lost. its a terrible show. horrible acting and a silly story. its always the same with JJ Abrams. he writes stupid shows. well except Alias that was good.
Pedro, SVU was a rerun! But, yes, it was beaten by Univision for the hour among 18-49 year olds!
And to Ricardo way up above — yes, I know that the 8pm hour doesn’t have Lost/Christine sorted correctly, but we’ve had so many issues with the site today that fixing the sort order was a low priority since the numbers themselves were correct. sorry about that!
Lost was excellent.. its just keep getting better and better.
There’s arguably an increase in DVDRing and online watching, but the majority of people who have stopped watching Lost live, have simply stopped watching Lost.
At least in a somewhat timely manner. There may be some latecomers watching the DVD sets, but I am not a bigbeliever in the argument that the 10 million people Lost lost over the last seasons are now all watching it on hulu. It’s what they say about Heroes too and it doen’t really ring true.
steve…..Im sure you are an American Idol LOVER…..I dont understand why people like to see that kind of show…Lost its much better than all that other programs like AI…..but maybe its because LOST its for smarter people.
……And steve maybe you think that its a silly story becase you dont understand it…..continue watching American Idol…..
honestly looking at Lost’s viewership, i consider that a huge disaster.
Not 10 million. In seasons 1-3 it was averagin 15 million. Last season it was 13. this season it will probably be 10-11. DVRs will probably get to 2.5/3 million and the rest thru the net, not only streaming.
Americans have no idea how much people from other countries download American shows.
Right now, the most poular torrent for the first episode has been downloaded over 200,000 times. With other file sharing softwers and direct download websites it will be downloaded millions of times by next week.
lie tom me was just awfulll but i’m wonder to see it next week it probably goes realy down
But this is only the premiere, so I took the liberty to compare it to the S1 premiere. It’s not like Lost will average 11 million this season.
Also, non-Americans would always have downloaded Lost, they would never have been among the live watchers, so they don’t really fit your argument.
Steve, Lost is a great show but many will find it too complex and maybe a little absurd. As for Alias, the first two seasons were great. After that, the show went downhill once the show’s mythology became to focal point.
Lost was excellent, I was thoroughly engrossed in the 2 hour premiere, of course I’m not tracked by Nielsen so they aren’t counting me anyway. But then again the ratings don’t really matter for Lost since the show is over next year regardless. Gosh, it’s great to know I can watch a show and not worry about it suddenly being canceled.
The finals are out and Lost beat Lie To Me!!
idizzle: I know non-Americans don’t count. I just wanted to emphesize that Americans rarly download tv shows.
So how exactly did L&O manage to increase across the board from last week when going up against stiffer competition this week? It seems like they should’ve gone down.
“Lost” is around where I expected it to be. A few weeks ago I predicted 12-13m, but as the premiere approached I realized that ABC has had some really terrible ratings in recent weeks, which means the promotion for the show has been dismal. Last night I even considered that the show might only do 10 million!
Glad that it didn’t happen, but I agree that “Lost” could sink further in the coming weeks, perhaps even near the 8 million range. While I knew it was coming, I was as confused as ever with the new time traveling concept. Where, or when, the hell has the island gone???? I hope they make it more clear in the coming weeks. The diehard fan I am, I can’t see myself abandoning the show when we’ve come this far, but at the same time they really need to start explaining things and quickly.
I think that “Life on Mars” has a better chance in this timeslot than it did after “Grey’s Anatomy”. Time will tell, but I really hope this show survives because there’s a lot of potential in this series.
Andrew: I think that the episode aired 2 weeks ago against a CSI:NY rerun realy did something. It was the best episode in the last few seasons.
Jimmy McAwesome: You consider a 5.0 in the demo a disaster? Get a clue man!
Thanks Robert. I just wanted to know if the numbers were right.
@Cool, LOST beat Lie to Me in the 18-49 demo — that was true even in the time zone adjusted fast nationals, but Lie to Me still averaged more viewers than Lost.
BTW, to Jimmy et al, though LOST had ~2 million fewer viewers than last May’s season finale, it actually improved .1 among 18-49 year olds. Doesn’t seem like disaster to me, but next week is probably more telling than this week.
Hey Robert. Your site has Knight Rider’s total audience views at 4.89 Million and Marc Berman’s site has them at 4.98 Million which is the accurate nunber. 4.89 or 4.98? I hope the latter its slightly better.
I don’t think there is reason to panic. FOX could run ANYTHING after American Idol and it would be a ratings hit. Remember a couple seasons ago, they ran a terrible reality show, where people lived in an underground bunker and had to always tell the truth or the jackpot would go down? Well, that was a pretty strong ratings hit too. LOST will never recover its ratings from the first season, but 11.6 million viewers is not bad for season five. LOST has maintained a core group of loyal viewers. And there are only 2 seasons left, so there’s no threat of cancellation.
@Steven, indeed the overnight number was 4.984 million. I’ve corrected the number in the table. but it finished up with 4.928 in the final numbers so it split the difference
LOL, Tom, I didn’t say non-Americans don’t count. What a horrible thing to say. I just meant that your first argument was that most people who made up the once huge Nielsen numbers of Lost now download torrents. Some might, but it’s not the international viewers, because they would have always downloaded torrents. It just seemed like two entirely unrelated arguments.
If Lost was doing really well internationally of course that counts. House is really popular almost everywhere in Europe and together with all the award nominations it gets and the way even its repeats outdo most other FOX show, I am that’s a factor beyond the plain firstrun demo ratings.
Or NCIS and CSI, they are among the most popular shows internationally, so even if we always complain about how old they skew, CBS knows they can sell this stuff everywhere and I am sure that factors into why we’ll never escape the spin offs.
@ Tom
‘I know non-Americans don’t count. I just wanted to emphesize that Americans rarly download tv shows.”
are u kidding me… on bittorrent it shows the ip n the country flag in the peer section and majority of them are american. On a
I think ABC doesnt care about the ratings, well yes they *care*, but Lost is special case because it has an end date. Lost will be rewened for a sixth and final season even if ratings sucks.
You seem to be contradicting yourself a little bit. This article makes it seem like LOST was a disappointment, yet another article on your website “ABC Generates its Highest-Rated Wednesday Evening, With Series Programming in Over 1-1/2 Years in Adults 18-49″ is gushing with enthusiasm about LOST’s numbers, especially in the 18-49 category.
I’m new to this website, but it’s not the first time I’ve noticed somewhat contradictory articles about the same show’s ratings.
You seem to be contradicting yourself a little bit. This article makes it seem like LOST was a disappointment, yet another article on your website “ABC Generates its Highest-Rated Wednesday Evening, With Series Programming in Over 1-1/2 Years in Adults 18-49″ is gushing with enthusiasm about LOST’s numbers, especially in the 18-49 category.
I’m new to this website, but it’s not the first time I’ve noticed somewhat contradictory articles about the same show’s ratings.
I’m sorry for the double post. My brower froze.
I invested over 2 seasons in watching Lost and quit watching when it went on sporadic schedule and the storyline went too contrary. I watched the catchup show with pop up subtitles to see if I was interested in getting back into it…no. Twists in storylines are great, but Lost has shifts that would blow away the new showtime split personality show. The writers just keep throeing it at the wall!!!
Alan, this post is the numbers along with some commentary. The other post you are referring to is an ABC press release. Even if the numbers were half what they actually are they would make them sound amazing. That’s what press releases are.
Alan, i didn’t spin the Lost numbers as disappointing at all. Lie to Me had more viewers, so if you read disappointment into that, it’s not my doing. I didn’t spin them as positive either — hopefully they were spin free. The ABC press release that you cite as also posted on the site would of course have a very positive spin!
wow christine did pretty well its getting another season its its only off 2 million from what worst week gets
idizzle: I know that the people who stoped watching Lost aren’t the same people who download it.
I brought up the international viewers as an example that most of the people who download American shows are not Americans. I’m an Israeli and here the top show are 24, Lost, Prison Break and Heroes. hundreds of thousands of people here watch them regulary.
CW scheduling update! 13: Fear Is Real to relocate original episodes to Fridays at 9/8c. While Privileged repeats will take over, effectively immediately. I hope this is sign of faith from The CW in Privileged…
The CW is sending “13: Fear Is Real” to Friday nights while “Privileged” is set to get an extra run on Wednesdays.
The changes, which take effect immediately, puts first-run installments of “13″ in the Friday, 9:00/8:00c slot, replacing its encores in the hour.
Filling in on Wednesdays at 8:00/7:00c then will be “Privileged” repeats leading into “90210″ encores at 9:00/8:00c.
“13″ posted an invisible 0.6 rating among adults 18-49 last night, nearly half its debut audience on January 7 (1.1 rating).
http://www.thefutoncritic.com/news.aspx?id=7930
@ Tom
Look on the peer list there are alot of americans who download, i would say a majority of downloaders are american; however the websites are international cuz of US copyright laws. Also downloading shows/movies isnt mainstream in the US like downloading music, but to say americans dont download shows is false
sorry for the double post… when i posted the other earlier i got a network error
Charles, that scheduling move looks to be more a loss limiting move (by airing 13 only once a week, and in a dead timeslot, rather than twice) rather than a vote of confidence in Privileged.
Kate, Tom, et al., I think that what can be said is that while lots of people in the US may download TV shows, the number of people that watch those shows on television is still, today, much larger. Ultimately the world will turn to more on demand media, part of which will be downloaded, but we are still at the beginning of that trend now.
Kate: I’m saying Americans don’t download shows, just a fraction of them.
My cousin from NY visited 3 years ago and he had no idea what torrents are, and that you can download almost any tv show and how many people do.
Enough with downloads. Why isn’t any one surprised by L&O going up from last week.
“Charles, that scheduling move looks to be more a loss limiting move (by airing 13 only once a week, and in a dead timeslot, rather than twice) rather than a vote of confidence in Privileged.”–Bill Gorman
I know it. Still they could have chosen repeats of Smallville or Supernatural…heck even something from Mondays and yet they chose Privileged. *sigh* Darn show is gonna be the end of me. LOL.
Tom: L & O seems very affected by external events, but it wasn’t up by much overall (though moreso among 18-49). the SVU rerun this week did noticeably better than last week’s SVU rerun. ABC obviously did much better @10pm this week, which seems to have hurt CBS more than it helped NBC.
Lie to Me had three minutes of AI to pump up the ratings.
Lost is still going to be one of ABC’s strongest shows in the demo even if the audience attrition continues. It doesn’t make much sense to endlessly analyze the ratings for Lost as it is renewed until its final episode in May 2010.
NBC should hang it up… they should just run their cable outlets.
With two very well-established series as its competition, I think Lie To Me fared very well. The AI lead-in helped, for certain. But when your competition is LOST and CM, both veteran ratings powerhouses, how else but massive lead-in can you get eyeballs to your network?
I 100% with you, Rob R, but people are going to be analyzing the ratings anyway. The ratings drop does not bother me at all, even next week when it will go down even further, I won’t care.
I’m thinking of these last two season as a gift to the hard core and long time fan, of course the are going to lose the viewership of people who don’t like weird time travel story lines, or people who think the show is getting too mythology heavy. Personally, I think Lost still has great character who I truly care about, but I can’t fault anyone who might want to bail after last night super confusing episode, especially if they are just not that into sci-fi stories.
I don’t think anyone is lobbying for Lost to be cancelled. Or expecting it. Or suggesting it would be at all rational.
Analyzing the ratings nevertheless, that’s kinda a hazzard you’ll run into when visiting a site dedicated to, you know, ratings.
Everything seems to be going FOX’s way in this second half. Now NBC is the odd one out.
Hmm…for some reason I bet FOX is kicking itself for keeping Til Death around as long as it did.
I hadn’t watched lost last season at all(watched all the other seasons)…. I decided to watch the recap and the 2 hour premiere….i really enjoyed it!!!
With FOX and ABC much improved on Wednesdy nights, CBS’ Wednesday slate is looking vulnerable for the very first time. I know they were trying to build another comedy block but it might be time to abandon that idea and slide over Survivor into that spot. That makes me wonder why there are no solid tv sitcom’s anymore.
I have childhood memories laying on the floor in front of our floor model tv watching Three’s Company, Laverne & Shirley, Happy Days, Mork & Mindy, etc. and laughing until I cried. No one does comedy that hilarious any more. Today’s best tv sitcom, 2 1/2 Men, isn’t even in that ballpark. Still, I like 2 1/2 Men, but it depends too much on being vulgar in order to produce a laugh and in facing reality, without that anchor CBS’ Monday night comedy slate is dead in the water.
I can’t wait for DWTS to come back. It is so much fun, so exciting, and so uplifting that I completely understand why more and more Americans get their entertainment from reality programs.
American Idol- well over 20 million viewers a night
Biggest Loser- possibly NBC’s highest rated program avg. 10 million +/-
The Bachelor- 10 million and growing
Extreme Home Makeovers and Suvivor- both still big hits after many years on tv
To anybody who reads this: LOST is an absolutely fantastic show. The best show on tv since Frasier. The ratings for it are irrelevant. Its a shame that there isn’t going to be a 7th season. You have to watch it from the very beginning to get into it and then one can see its unique brilliantnes.
yeah Lost is so brilliant…it was supposed to be about people stranded on an island after a plane crash and how they survived but now we have time travel and what have you…I did watch the first season but left when the siliness started and will not go back.
Robert, I love Lost too, but I really can’t see how they could carry the show on to a 7th season. That would just draw the show out. You have to make an end to shows like this.
I agree with you matt2. The Wednesday comedy are not working, those shows are the lowest rated on CBS schedule and they are dragging the ratings down. It is a miracle that Criminal Minds get high ratings despite the shows that are its lead in.
“Lie to Me” has won me over as a fan after only one episode.
Roth is excellent & with the strong supporting cast & great Writers, IMO is a keeper.
I can hear the screaming comments already (Covering my ears)…but gotta wonder if it coud give “The Mentalist” competition if on same night & time.
The Mentalist supporting cast is very weak….Writing stinks…but what can I
say…I’m still a fan only because of Simon Baker’s smile & good looks.
I’m also still lost on “LOST” love it
I have to admit, even as a LOST zealot I was fearful that Lie to Me WOULDN’T outdo LOST. LOST is doing respectably well for a fifth season show – and as a brand at large it is as strong as ever. Lie to Me has more mass market appeal, and at the same time has a very interesting hook – even though the pilot really didn’t realize that 100%, imho.
I’m dissapointed of the ratings of Lost
Desperate Housewives/Grey’s Anatomy had 18 million viewers during their season 5 premieres this year. And Lost had more than 15 million viewers in its last year’s season premiere. So 11 million is a big drop if you compare it to season 4’s season premiere!.
I thought it was a dick move by fox to have AI run 3 minutes over. A deliberate move to try to steal viewers from lost. They know lost is a tough show to hop in late. It’s not even like AI was live this week, it was an audition show. I know business is business, but this feels like cheating, breaking the unwritten rules of scheduling.
I am kind of lolzing at “the unwritten rules of scheduling”, because we all know DWTS never ever runs over into Samantha who. WTF? The only unwritten rule of scheduling is get ahead by all means possible.
Of course “Lie to Me” beat “Lost”. They have the number#1 show in America as a lead in. But if you think about how many viewers the show bled from it’s lead in, then the numbers do not look good at all. They lost 1/2 the viewers and this is the premier too, so you know it’s going to continue to bleed viewers.
ABCFanatic,
LOST basically had NO competition last year… so ratings would seem to be very different, but as S4 went along the viewers started going down. S5 will most likely average just the same as S4… S5 will be much more consistent than S4.
Plus a 5.0 in the key demo is awesome. For a show that’s in its fifth season, and is so complex…. it’s doing really good still.
I agree with Alan. For a blog that claims the demo is the most important thing, which it turns out LOST beat Lie to Me in the finals, now it seems like you guys are trying to act like total viewers have some new found importance to you. It’s also pretty funny that in the article, you pointed out Lie to Me’s numbers were inflated by three minutes of American Idol, but still keep that ridiculous headline, making it seem like Lie to Me beat LOST like a spoiled kid. For someone being a fan of a show, you sure do like to knock shows (this time for no good reason) that you claim to enjoy.
Vader, these posts are *always* the fast affiliate results and we rarely, if ever, update them with the final overnight results.
LOL, Vader, is just trying to provide more data for the whole “people who watch more TV are generally less happy than people who have more sex.” He’s incensed at a headline, which was, if only ever so slightly, true when I wrote it!
It definitely wasn’t true by the time the final numbers came out, at least in terms of the demos, but yesterday it wound up that my priority was hounding our web host to make sure the site stayed up. For an hour or two, I sucked much more at that then I did with the headline.
What’s really interesting about all this is that regardless of the ratings score Lost will still continue through this season and conclude next year at the end of the 6th season in 2010. So it doesn’t matter whether or not the ratings drop, it doesn’t matter if you think it’s a silly show. I personally think the show is just as good in it’s 5th season as it was in it’s first. But none of this matters anyway the producers of Lost were smart enough to negotiate a contract, so ratings really have no impact on the series at all, it’s already a done deal.
You know, everyone talks about how LOST is guaranteed another season after this, but I have to wonder just how guaranteed that is. This is just hypothetical, and I don’t think that it’s in any danger of this happening, but if it were to suddenly take a nosedive and get sub 2.0 ratings in the demo would ABC really have to bring it back?
My point is, even without this so-called “guaranteed” season, the show is completely safe and would get another season no matter what. So why does everyone keep bringing it up?
Heroes ratings are a model for LOST, it will eventually end up settling into similar numbers as Heroes did this season- mid 3s in the demo and 7-8million viewers, which is not bad at all for heavily serialized science fiction show in its 5th season. People should also remember that ABC studios makes this show which means ABC has a vesten interest in making sure the show ends properly so that they can reap the benefits of syndication and DVD sales. The resurrected shows like Scrubs and According to Jim which had absolutely horrendous ratings to take advantage of syndication.
Just because a show is a dead lock for another season doesn’t mean we cannot discuss the ratings and speculate about the appeal of the show.
Look at the Thursday ratings post, where everyone is talking about 30 Rock. Another show that’s already renewed.
here in argentina everybody talks about lost.. everybody loves lost! so that is the important.. american idol is very bad seen
idizzle, I was asking why everyone keeps bringing up the “guaranteed” sixth season, as if that should make everyone feel better about these ratings. There’s nothing about these ratings that would suggest cancellation, and nothing about a guarantee that suggests there’s really a guarantee. So that point seems moot.
Julia, I agree completely. The announcing of the end date was probably more a promo gimmick to reassue fans that there was something resembling a plan than anything else. There is no way guarantee would mean guarantee if Lost really started falling to Pushing Daisies numbers. It hasn’t, won’t and I have seen no post or comment suggesting as much here ever, but one has to wonder, why if this ratings do not matter at all, do these people seek them out then.
Serialized shows like LOST or HEROES are just too hard to guarantee anything on because of the high budget, and the general fact that every season less people watch (especially if theres less quality: which is sad for shows with brillaint first seasons). I think LOST will get another season though because even if it gets lower demos and numbers this year (i very much doubt it will hit HEROES numbers) theres more money in it being more international (than others on ABC), plus theres syndication + DVD sales but what about the fact that people who did watch the show will return to see the final season (out of curiousity).
If Lost was on CBS it would have huge ratings. But I’m an ABC guy.
If you’re a bit slow and need the instant gratification then some ’simple’ gameshow or reality bullcrap might be your speed. If you’re into character development, a meaningful story, and topic that make you think you’ll love LOST.
Too many morons mezermized by the same crime-show formula, a bunch of teen punks singing badly, or a group of fatties loosing weight (ooooh great tv!!!). Screw em, give me an escape.
Good Shows:
LOST
TSCC
House
Supernatural
Bones
Burn Notice
Bad Shows:
Any CSI/Cop crap
Reality Junk
I don’t understand the popularity of American Idol, it’s so cheesy & over hyped. WTF is so great about talentless nobodies getting up onstage for Simon to humiliate. Most of the guys are too feminine, most of the girls are 3rd rate Britney or wanna be’s.
Lost is so awesome, but of course it takes more than being a brain dead couch potato to follow the story, which is why the average viewer rejects it. If it was more like the atrocious reality Show Mama’s boys that would be right up the average American viewers taste, dumbed down reality shit. Yeah keep those assenine cheap reality shows coming, it makes people forget how pathetic their lives are because the show’s contestants are the worlds biggest rejects & losers by comparison.