| Scoreboard |  |
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total Viewers (million) | 17.88 | 12.07 | 11.85 | 4.03 | 3.75 | 2.26 |
| Rating/Share: Adults 18-49 | 4.6/12 | 4.3/11 | 4.0/11 | 1.6/4 | 1.3/3 | 1.2/3 |
| Rating/Share: Adults 18-34 | 3.6/10 | 3.7/11 | 3.0/9 | 1.7/5 | 0.9/3 | 1.6/5 |
Dancing With the Stars was the night’s most-watched show though it slipped from a 6.1/15 with adults 18-49 last week in its premiere to . There are a lot of good things about being the Woz, and one of them is apparently that you can dance just as well with a broken foot as you can with two good feet.
ABC won the night in total viewers and adults 18-49, and FOX took the 18-34 demographic. CBS was third across the board. NBC was beaten by Univision and I know those were repeats but you look at the numbers and wonder if it’s possible that Jeff Zucker really still thinks Ben Silverman is a rock star. This guy is raking in the cash while killing the network. Nobody ever said life was fair.
Castle was on par with last week’s premiere, and as with last week, it’s numbers will come down when the finals are released because it contained a couple of minutes of Dancing with the Stars.
Though CBS was third for the night, its comedy block still performed impressively and although The Big Bang Theory had more viewers, How I Met Your Mother bested it by a 10th of a point in adults 18-49.
I have to give some props to 24. The old crusty terrorist annihilator has some legs.
After a long break, Gossip Girl and One Tree Hill were back, and you look at the numbers and at first glance they hit you as “wow, that long break wasn’t good for the CW!”, but the loyal fan bases of these shows, sparse though they may seem are pretty loyal and the numbers were nearly identical to the last new airing on February 2, 2009. Groundhog Day!
The CW advises that W18-34 rating (2.6/7) was on par with the February 2 results as well. Though Bill and I aren’t completely aligned when it comes to the subject of the CW, we both believe those numbers (including February 2) have to be at least a little disappointing.
House moving to Mondays wasn’t good for the Gossip Girl’s complexion and Dancing with the Stars is even more popular with women 18-34 than House. Gossip Girl came in fourth among women 18-34 for the hour.
Previous Monday overnight reports are available for comparison.
Full details:
| Time | Net | Show | Viewers (Millons) | 18-49 Rating/Share | 18-34 Rating/Share |
| 8:00 | ABC | Dancing with the Stars | 20.07 | 5.0/14 | 3.8/12 |
| FOX | House | 12.80 | 4.8/13 | 4.2/13 | |
| CBS | The Big Bang Theory | 9.76 | 3.7/11 | 2.7/9 | |
| UNI | Cuidado con el Angel | 4.23 | 1.6/4 | 1.8/5 | |
| NBC | Chuck (R) | 3.93 | 1.3/4 | 0.8/3 | |
| CW | Gossip Girl | 2.24 | 1.1/3 | 1.6/5 | |
| 8:30 | CBS | How I Met Your Mother | 9.23 | 3.8/10 | 3.7/11 |
| 9:00 | ABC | Dancing with the Stars | 22.10 | 5.8/14 | 4.6/13 |
| CBS | Two and a Half Men | 14.02 | 4.8/12 | 3.3/9 | |
| FOX | 24 | 11.34 | 3.7/9 | 3.2/9 | |
| UNI | Manana Es Para Siempre | 4.57 | 1.9/5 | 2.1/6 | |
| NBC | Heroes (R) | 3.01 | 1.1/3 | 0.9/2 | |
| CW | One Tree Hill | 2.27 | 1.2/3 | 1.7/5 | |
| 9:30 | CBS | Rules of Engagement | 11.41 | 4.0/10 | 2.7/7 |
| 10:00 | CBS | CSI: Miami | 13.35 | 3.8/10 | 2.7/8 |
| ABC | Castle | 11.48 | 3.1/8 | 2.4/7 | |
| NBC | Medium (R) | 4.31 | 1.3/4 | 0.9/3 | |
| UNI | Cristina | 3.30 | 1.3/3 | 1.3/4 |
Shows are sorted by viewers in each time slot.
Nielsen TV Ratings: ©2009 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.
Oh, wow, that was worse than I though it would be.
Robert, I’m not sure I’m reading this right, but did Chuck do better than Heroes?
nothing shocking from last night…
CW didnt do very well!
Castle held onto its viewers!
Here’s hoping Castle stays at 3.0 in the finals this week. Second episode was as enjoyable as the first.
I know it’s a repeat, but, wow, One Tree Hill beat Heroes in the demos!
Wow nbc you should of just ran your new shows instead of reruns.Admit i predicted low numbers but not this low of numbers.
I’m surprised Castle held up, the show is horrible. But I expect the numbers to drop possibly below 3.0 in the demo once the final 2 minutes of DWtS is taken out. At this point, depending on how ABC’s other new shows do, I’d say Castle will get a 13 episode order for next season.
I still don’t understand why NBC opted to go into repeats this week.
Outside of that the fact that Gossip Girl couldn’t beat a repeating NBC line-up in 18-49 is pretty bad although its 18-34 did, which is some kind of win I guess. Although can someone explain to be me why when One Tree Hill gets more viewers and better demos (albeit only just) Gossip Girl is still The CW’s star show? Are its numbers with women that much better?
Oh and Castle held steady. That’s good news for ABC and does this mean Nathan Fillion might actually have a show that at least finishes its original run?
Looks like Chuck beat out Heroes last night. Interesting.
Now that the retentionistas no longer have Lie To Me as a target, they’ll be moving on to Castle!
That’s amazing. NBC got totally smoked. I’m sad to see that “24″ only came in third… How does 24 fall on the cancel/renew index? I imagine it’s probably safe for renewal, and I’m glad that it has been able to hold an acceptable 18-49 and 18-34 rating in the Monday night slot, unlike some other favorite shows of mine (TSCC).
“Dancing” is a power house. NBC should cancel Monday nights. I know they were in repeats, but they have also been beaten by repeats. They could make more money on infomercials.
Outlander 24 is back next year.
Like I said – NBC IS….”the new CW” – The peacock is now the Turkey…
For their new logo – they should have Jay Leno in a turkey costume…
Dawn at the CW must be smiling – (NBC is within our grasp!)
24 – - – ( Jack Bauer) is nothing but AWESOMENESS (if that’s even a word)!
CW = Ouch!
I think Gossip Girl is getting worse and Im a big fan of it.
I wish it was like the first season…..
Good job to Castle! Great episode and good to see it’s holding it’s own against CSI Miami.
I have a question about the numbers. Probably a dumb question, but it’s one that I’ve wondered about for a while: If the “share” is the percent of households watching TV that are turned to a specific channel, and for example, adding up all the 18-49 shares for 8:00 here only equals 49, does that mean that 51% of people watching TV are not watching these channels? And if this is the case, can we please take away their Nielsen boxes? (Yes, I know that cable ratings need to be measured, too, but it just doesn’t seem right!)
I remeber when Heroes was giving 24 a run for its money…maybe Heroes need new costumes…
And see everyone I haven’t said a thing about “Circus with the Pretend Stars”
although did I miss something or are they going up head to head against IDOL tonight…has this been going on???
It’s a true sign that we as a society are getting dumber when reality tv crap gets 20 million viewers.
D’oh! I didn’t set the DVR for Castle
…I also remember when I could spell remember…
Geekily, not only is it right, it’s very common that the aggregate cable share is greater than the aggregate broadcast share for these 6 channels. But also measured, but not included anywhere are PBS, smaller broadcast nets (MNT, ION, Telemundo) and independent local channels.
Castle held up! wow! i have enoyed both episodes, and definitly plan to continue watching.
ABC must be smiling, considering they have really had trouble establishing new shows. If ABC promotes it enough, and keeps it one spot, and those are 2 VERY BIG ifs. then i believe Castle can become a hit, anyway, we will have to wait and see
Thanks for clearing that up for me, Robert!
Yes, Geekily, it means 51% of people in the demo watching television at that time, were not watching any of these channels.
Sweet Jesus those NBC (repeat) numbers are awful. Just, wow.
and The CW….
what do u expect after having like 3 straight months of reruns! of course the numbers are gonna be down! next time, space out the reruns so stuff like this wont happen…. o wait…. u wont do that, because thats the smart thing to do, and dawn isnt smart at all.
wow.. the chucksters are silent?! how strange.
LOW-LOW numbers for both reruns… no suprise. but chuck rerun beat a heroes rerun. wow. lets hope NBC’s numbers rebound next monday after an all-around sucky performance.
LOL @ dancing’s numbers! those are insane..cant wait to see how it does going up against idol tonight…
Go castle great show last night
I think from the tree Castle, Cupid and The Unusuals, only the last one is a good show.
Good numbers for 24 and rules of engagement, and of course to dancing with the stars.
regulars performance from the rest of cbs, cw and abc castle.
NBC, OMG this is horrible!!!!
House on mondays at 8 pm it’s not very good in ratings.
Yeah, those NBC numbers are really bad. I’m trying to just focus on the silver lining, that Chuck beat Heroes. Not in a fan wars type of way, but just from the perspective that Heroes has been renewed (and I’m happy for its fans!), so if Chuck shows it can do better, maybe they’ll renew it, too.
clutz, abc.com if you can get the player to work. (Only took me half an hour today!)
NBC should have just had a rerun of KINGS on Monday.
“Robert, I’m not sure I’m reading this right, but did Chuck do better than Heroes?”
Get over yourself.
djm, do you miss the Chuck drama? Personally, I’m trying to be more conscious of what I say in light of yesterday’s article.
Some things here that are imho extremely important numbers. CHUCK repeats better than HEROES. Who would have thought that CHUCK would gain on HEROES at any point in the renew/cancel index?
The fact that HEROES can’t repeat well just solidifies the fact that the show’s quality is horrible, even the fans of the show don’t feel like watching an episode another time!
Compare that to a repeat of TWO AND A HALF MEN from a couple weeks ago. It’s embarrassing.
Nick,serials generally don’t repeat as well as sitcoms.
Hey Robert or Bill, do you know WHY NBC chose to run reruns last night? I’m just curious.
Don, what’s wrong with what I said? It was a legitimate question; I wasn’t trying to rub it in anyone’s face that it seemed to me that Chuck did slightly less horrible. I only asked because Heroes ALWAYS does better and I wanted to make sure I wasn’t missing something.
I don’t know if the fact that Heroes doesn’t repeat well is an indicator of its quality. Most serialized shows don’t repeat well. Even Lost doesn’t do well in reruns.
Wow the Chuck repeat beat the Heroes repeat by a million viewers and in the demo. That’s wild.
NBC most likely elected to do reruns this week so they could go up against some repeats next week with new episodes.
Alex, GOSSIP GIRL is the CW’s star show because it was a Dawn show. OTH is a WB show that came from the WB network. GOSSIP GIRL is also in its second season and I believe OTH is in its 5th(?) season.
The CW numbers continue their trend. Since November the viewers have abandoned the “chosen,” CW shows. While SMALLVILLE and SUPERNATURAL grow. It should be interesting to see how those two shows rebound without being interrupted by college basketball. Of course now they COMPETE against college basketball.
Oh dear, I hope Chuck numbers pick up next week.
LOL @ dancing’s numbers! those are insane..cant wait to see how it does going up against idol tonight…
I, too, want to see the smackdown between those two ratings magnets. (While I can see why Idol is popular, I cannot see how is DWTS that fun to watch??! It’s so boring, “So You Think You can Think” has more energy that DWTS!)
no i dont miss it.. i just didnt expect that rob had a magic wand he could wave to make us shut up LOL
@ Nick, wouldn’t you consider NBC’s total’s embarrassing? I mean come on.. BEAT overall by UNI??? Seriously. And a .9 in the 18-34. sheesh
If a new episode of chuck/heroes/anything gets a 1.3 and a 0.8 that show probably will be canceled.
Jenna,
I keep hearing the repeats were because of something about Obama’s February speech throwing them off track and wanting to have both shows’ finales on the same night, but that really doesn’t make sense to me.
Nick, I think OTH is in its 7th season.
paul pt,
how can u compare the 3 new abc shows when only one of them has aired so far! lol
thats like comparing a corvette to an apple! it makes no sense!
Jenna, no clue as to the specific reason for last night. There are lots of factors that effect scheduling. The basic fact that with 22 new episodes you have to pick where they go to optimize your results remains to be solved in different ways.
Hmmm…weird?
Ok gotcha. I was just curious as to if there was a “plan” behind it. Thanks Bill!
UNIVISION <3
to night ratings are going to be good American idol,NCIS,Dancing with the Stars and the mentalist can’t be better than that
In slot repeats factor into the Renew Cancel index, right?
This will hit Chuck and Heroes since they haven’t had many (or any?) in slot repeats before.
Office and 30 Rock will rise on the index since they have no in slot repeats for the rest of the season. I bet 30 Rock, and even SVU will finish a head of Heroes.
Ooh, if Reaper were to add around 300,000-500,000 viewers, it could best GG/OTH in total viewers as well as the 18-49 demo(not that the cw cares about that).
Nice to see HIMYM back on the upswing and in the 9 million range. That 18-34 demo is pretty potent(for CBS anyway).
Would you guys happen to know HIMYM’s audience breakdown? I have a feeling it skews largely female, but it’d still be nice to see.
“And see everyone I haven’t said a thing about ‘Circus with the Pretend Stars’”
*Headdesk*
DWTS dropped by 0.7, while Castle only dipped by 0.2. If it can keep this up, i think season 2 is coming. Fox and CBS did very well, and it looks as though Rules Of Engagement had it best retention out of Men since its return. CBS may once again try and launch something here next year, but if it fails like Worst Week, they would be ill-advised to not bring Rules back sooner, say in January. NBC? Well, i do think it’s noteworthy that Chuck lost “only” about 50% of it’s demo, while Heroes lost a whopping two-thirds. However, still very,very bad.
AI vs DWTS should be very interesting =D
Im a fan of 24 but why is it NCIS gets ripped on for being an old folks show when it gets better 18-49 numbers than 24…and way better overall viewers numbers…Im Just wondering so i beg you please dont rip into to me…Its just an honest question…
Jennf, probably because it’s on CBS and things like even though it has a lot more viewers than a show like House, House does better in the demos. But I’m not going to rip NCIS, it’s a gold mine — two top 10 appearances in last week’s cable rankings in reruns!
Good news for ABC and Fox, CBS was a little lower that I expected, but still ok. Once again, NBC and CW are the losers. I’m surprised that the rerun of Heroes did worse that the rerun of Chuck, but it’s good news for me.
Great to see Castle hold steady.
REAPER holds up in total viewers but gets killed in the 18-34 demo. So while its total viewers is on par right now with both OTH and GOSSIP GIRL the demos are behind in both 18-49 and 18-34. If REAPER found a way to grow in the 18-49 they may have a shot of making the “Chosen,” CW shows look even worse.
How can any one in the industry be calling this a success? Yes, September & October numbers showed a huge leap forward in ratings for the CW’s Female 18-34 Demo Target shows. The numbers were big enough to make skeptics like myself look wrong. However since November the shows have dried up and died. In fact they’re now worse than last season. So there is no growth like the CW loves to trumpet. Recent trends show this is a total failure.
Darned if I know, Nick. The network should have been buried ages ago, as far as I’m concerned. I can smell the decay from here.
24 is holding its own, but its disappointing to see the cliched evil US military company being behind the whole thing. The military contractor STARKWOOD is combination of STARK Industries in the IRON MAN movie and RavenWOOD/Jennings and Rall of JERICHO. Even KINGS is following this routine. I guess its the politically correct thing these days for the villian to be an evil Haliburton/Blackwater USA type company controlled by some shadowy guy resembling Dick Cheney or what they call a Neocon.
I hope Season 8 will come up with something really new. They could used crazed environmentalists trying to stop America from emitting CO2 and melting the ice caps by blowing up the energy infrastructre or something, but that would be atypical of anything coming out of Hollywood these days.
gossip girl is just trash… the network shoul.. must get ride of it!!!!
The whole “Serials don’t repeat well,” argument is about as valid as the argument that a time slot is death. It’s superstitious and not based on reality. Hit comedies generally do repeat better than most shows. However the idea that a serial can’t repeat well is hogwash. It has been done before, and it will be done again.
All shows see a huge dip in repeats. It’s just the way it is. Shows generally repeat as well as they air new shows in comparison. So HEROES dropping like a rock and not repeating well is an interesting stat. CHUCK actually did what it should do in a repeat. It held about 60% of its audience. HEROES did not.
Wow. Jack continues to steamroll the competition.
To be fair to Heroes it is a serialized drama so it will always do bad in the reruns whereas Chuck will be a better reruner. But I think Chuck did quite bad seeing as its rerun potential is ment to be good as its a prodecural(spelt wrong?) so I think in comparison Chuck should have done much better than Heroes not just a 0.2 ahead. Heroes considering its serialized, rerun, against hard competition did well I think.
Above making money from episode airings:
Serialized: in DVD’S, international airings (especially), merchandising (comics, ect.)
Prodecurals (Specifically comedy prodecural like Chuck): reruns, syndication, international airings (but I doubt they get any were as near as 1/5 what say serialized dramas get as comedy is hard to translate: Germans say the pun first).
But Nick Heroes is serialized that makes the situation completely different doesn’t it?
Nick C, although I do not have any analysis, and doing it is likely too much work, my guess is that all relative repeat ratings suffer in the DVR era, more so among the demo groups that own DVRs. Fans of shows with DVRs really have no reason to watch repeats now, whereas earlier the opportunity to miss an episode always opened the door to catching it as a repeat.
Good hold for Castle. I wonder how high Castle’s numbers would be if it didn’t have to go up against CSI: Miami or any other CBS procedural?
the thing about a show like 24 is it wont ever pick up viewers mid-season. My guess is they get the most on the first few “hours” and than settle. I havent looked but I bet 24 has sat on 11 million viewers the last 10 weeks, and will continue to sit on 11 mil until day 7 is over.
Its a time investment show because they dont do repeats and if you miss one week you cant pick it up again without being totally lost. For that reason I doubt fox even looks at 24’s numbers at the end of say hour 6.
Hey you guys, Obama just scheduled another address to the nation for Tuesday, March 24th from 8-9pm ET.
Here’s an episode name for you “President Obama vs. Prime-time Television!”
the address is NOT on a monday! so no conspiracy theories!
Snerk.
Well at least I don’t have to worry about that. I’ll be watching Reaper. If there’s one thing CW does right, its staying out of the presidential adresses.
Heroes did 45% of it’s last new episode, pretty much what a serial show is going to do. Lost on Wednesday only did 35%. No serial repeats well.
Fin, actually Chuck is more serialized than procedural for the most part. They typically go about a three episode arc for story and then throw in a standalone episode. The episode they aired last night was actually from the beginning of the season, the second part of a three-part arc. The fact that it did as Nick C said, held 60% of the audience of a new run show, I find kind of encouraging.
Lol even with Heroes on a rerun 24 doesn’t even manage to increase in veiwers: it lost 0.01
Nick C is completely wrong. Repeats of 24 would routinely be in the 3-4 million range and Lost only does slightly better.
Serials don’t repeat period. I think it’s hilarious to see the Chucksters get all excited because a repeat under 4 mil beat Heroes. It’s a non-issue. If it had *not* beaten Heroes, you might as well have axed it this week.
Rerun ratings for serials dont do well, but HEROES is running out of gas anyway. Even 1st run episodes are down to 7 million. They should wrap it up next Season with 13 episodes and call it day. Heroes hasnt been really good since Season 1 and its really too late to fix it. Most viewers have left it behind.
Yes FrankJ but in comparison Chuck is no where near as Serialized as say Heroes, and a three episode story arc is fairly easy to catch on whats happening: unlike like a curren 18-episode story arc. I just thinks theres a big difference and for Nick C to exspect a show which has been critised as being over complicated for doing bad in a random reurn is just unreasonable. I’ve heard people on the radio and read in books that serialized dramas are rarely expected to rerun well (Lost is an expection but even then people will watch to just catch up), were a prodecurals (even Chuck or say Smallville) are expected to do so. Personally i think Chuck is closer to prodecural than serialized.
Castle did hold up, I guess. And the DCBS PR machine has been touting the ” sizzling ” romance nowe on CSI:Miami. I thought both Castles were dull, but i guess that’s what makes the world go around.
LOL: ‘Castle did hold up’, well I think when you have Dancing With The Stars and your not holding up ABC would have seriously screwed up.
Fin, Mike: A serial repeating poorly is an old wive’s tale. They generally match the average which if I remember right is around 60%. Yes, LOST repeats poorly. However LOST is an example of a Serial that goes against the rule. If the rule is that most shows repeat at 60% of their new episode viewings, Lost is an exception to the rule. A bad one.
Heck lets look at Monday Nights. CHUCK is a SERIAL/COMEDY/PROCEDURAL. It hit 52%. HEROES is a SERIAL/SCI FI/ it hit at 24%. GOSSIP GIRL last week was a repeat. It’s a TEEN SERIAL it hit at 42%. OTH another SERIAL hit at 44%. Those numbers are compared to the original airing of the episode.
Obviously HEROES does much worse than the others. Even if your LOST at 33% is accurate.
Fin 24 pivks up around 2m viewers in DVR,
This season is its second highest rated so far on average.
Fin, the one thing Heroes had going for it last night is it was the beginning of the current story line, it was a decent spot for new viewers to come in. Its actually where I started watching after abandoning the show after the whole papa Petreli thing.
Still disagree on Chuck being more procedural. I will say however, that when they do do a standalone episode it is very standalone. They had to air episodes out of order after the Christmas break NBC gave them, two standalone episodes straddling an episode that was supposed to be part of the story arc that just ended last week, and they managed to pull it off quite well.
But Nick C I think though Heroes is just like LOST it is so serialized (GG and Chuck are no where near as serialized and to say that is just blind): I agree with you Frank J that reruns attract new veiwers but Nick C some old wives tales might be right. To every rumour there is a grain of truth. So I think one Heroes is against better competiton and Nick C I would say serialized dramas repeating badly is a well known truth: name a real serialized drama, actually serialized because GG and Chuck aren’t fully classed as serilized as the story is episodic or 3-episode. I would known its that for GG because I started watching Seaon One and understood everything in that whole episode (episode 10 I think) and didn’t need the other episodes: the same with Chuck (start on a new story-arc). One sec here are some real serialized dramas (most fail):
By the way that why the have specials before new seasons of Heroes and LOST so people can catch up on the storyline because its so complicated.
Chief, reruns of 24 when they did air them were in the 40 percentiles. So it was low, but not 24% like HEROES. Of course the trend may have changed since I had to pay attention to those numbers. TV viewing has changed a lot. It may well be that repeats now do around 50%. I’d have to look into that. If that is the case, it makes the CHUCK repeat that much better. Repeats matter. Repeats can pick up new viewers in the summer. Repeats lower the cost of the show for the network and increase revenue.
You want to be able to show repeats.
A) Gossip Girl is my favorite show on TV, but I’ll admit that the last three episodes had a big decline in quality.
B) HOUSE. Once House moved in (the, um, house) on GG’s timeslot was when the ratings fell. And House gets 33% higher ratings in the demos than 24, so the fact that GG and OTH are still about equal says good things. I know Siedman points this out, but he also points out Dancing with the Stars, but that show started the season on Mondays, and yet:
C) 18-34 ratings for the show since House: 1.6, 1.6, 1.3 = 1.5 avg.
Before House: 1.9, 1.8, 2.3, 2.2, 2.2, 2.2, 2.4, 2.2, 2.1, finished 2nd in demo, 2.6, 2.5, 2.8, 2.2, 2.3 = 2.25 avg.
Down 33%. And it can’t be because of other shows, since the season started with the same shows on every network on Monday otherwise.
Well, I’m a big fan of HEROES and watch it every week, except yesterday. Why would I want to watch the start of the current arc again? I know everything that is going on so no bother in watching it. I think it was put just to get new viewers in. Just because I didn’t watch this week doesn’t mean I’ll watch next week. I’m definitely viewing in next week.
I watched Chuck though, just because I needed to catch up so it was a nice place to start. But even though I watched Chuck this week, I WON’T be watching it next week, just because I am behind.
Why is everyone flipping out about NBC’s numbers? They ran repeats, i’m sure those are pretty much the numbers they thought they’d get with repeats. I would imagine they’re rather indifferent this morning about their overnight numbers.
actually proper serialized shows:
- LOST – ABC (2004)
-Surface- NBC (2005)
- Threshold- CBS (2005)
- Invasion – ABC (2005)
- Prison Break- FOX (2005)
- Reunion- FOX (2005)
- Kidnapped- NBC (2006)
- Heist- NBC (2006)
- Heroes- NBC (2006)
- Jericho- CBS (2006)
- The Nine- CBS (2006)
- Day Break- ABC (2006)
- Runaway- CW (2006)
- Vanished – FOX (2006)
- Drive- FOX (2007)
- Traveler- ABC (2007)
Didn’t bother with 2008 you get the idea
Fin, you don’t get to redefine what a serial is. Every serial has a stand alone story in that episode even if it moves the overall story arc forward. HEROES does it. Last week Sylar confronted his father. It ended his journey to finding his father that had gone on for what 5 episodes? Anyone could have watched it and known “he was searching for his father.” Sorry, but you can’t redefine what a serial is. You can’t say “that isn’t a REAL serial!,” when it very much is a real serial. The fact that they do a better job of keeping people from being confused that just walks in doesn’t make it less of a serial.
CHUCK’s season long story arc is about CHUCK trying to get rid of the intersect. You also have the serial relationships between multiple members of the show. Yes, every week they DO something. That is no different than LOST, HEROES, or anything else. The fact that LOST has an interesting mythology makes it more confusing. What mythology is there in HEROES? NONE.
MEDIUM only held 48% of its audience since last week. It could be that now repeats as a whole don’t do as well as they did in the 90s and 80s (wouldn’t shock me at all). If that is the case, 24% is still BAD.
I was going with viewers in my % tallies. I take it you’re going with 18-49.
Heroes was at 45% of viewers from it’s last new episode. Lost was below that.
This is probably just a pointless argument, I don’t see either show airing any repeats next year especially since Jay is coming. Both will probably either get the 24 treatment or the December-January off.
Chuck is hardly a serial, there’s elements of serial, but each episode can easily stand on it’s on. Like Supernatural, overlapping arc, but standalone each episode.
That was also the 3rd time that episode of Heroes had aired(got a Saturday repeat after it’s first airing).
Fin, you have a very narrow definition of serial. A show like Greys or Desperate Housewives isn’t serial? Please.
Mike, as has been said ad infinitum, viewers don’t matter. Demos do.
Mike, SUPERNATURAL is a serial. You don’t get to redefine what a serial is just because it does a better job of informing people of what is going on. That just means it’s better written. It doesn’t make it not a serial.
HEROES btw will not be airing next Fall according to Angela at NBC. It’s being replaced by DAY ONE.
“Im a fan of 24 but why is it NCIS gets ripped on for being an old folks show when it gets better 18-49 numbers than 24…and way better overall viewers numbers…Im Just wondering so i beg you please dont rip into to me…Its just an honest question…”
In general the tag comes from the 18-49 vs. the 18-34 where there was at one time at least a sizable difference between the two, I can’t however remember what it was or how it stacks up to 24’s numbers for example.
And on the subject of 18-49 vs. 18-34 for some reason I never really notice that there’s more than a point between those demos for Dancing With The Stars. For some reason I always thought it was closer than that.
@ mike: Vs the beefcake was hardly standalone…
Neither were any of the eps in the jill arc….
The fact that the rerun of Chuck beat the rerun of heroes, make me think that NBC would rerun Chuck always and premieres heroes. So, NBC, cancel Chuck and you´ll have better ratings.
To be completely honest Nick I think you’re putting far too much emphasis on how badly Heroes repeated just because its relatively redundant news in the sense that no one in their right mind expects a show that’s been bleeding viewers for two-years to repeat well. That’s why it was such a strange decision for NBC to switch into repeats this week, it was always going to completely cripple the line-up.
WTF are you talking about Cacho? NBC got slaughtered last night… Chuck reruns wont do anything good for them as a network
Hudson, you know you can easily catch up on Chuck on Hulu.com. They have all the episodes you missed on there.
“Down 33%. And it can’t be because of other shows, since the season started with the same shows on every network on Monday otherwise.”
J, you’re forgetting “Secret Life.” It and “House” came back at the same time, and if I’m not mistaken, both of them cut into “Gossip Girl’s” demos.
Yes but Nick C you knew what I meant, Heroes or LOST are more serialized than Chuck. There are themes of being serial but I know its more of a narrow veiw but what I’m trying to say is Heroes is much more serialized. Oh and by the way Nick I didn’t ‘re-define’ what serial is, maybe I should have said this is what a ‘highly’ serialized show is like. Because personally I think from all the evidence and the evidence above you, Heroes is more serialized, so is LOST and thats why they perform worse because they confuse veiwers: so I think that what I’m trying to say is right. Serialized (and you’ve said it) shows do worse than say less serialized shows like Chuck or Medium.
As a devoted DWTS fangirl, I like those numbers for the show!
Yeah,Julia, but OTOH, I don’t think that Chuck is a serial, anymore than CSI is a serial. CSI has ran arcs like the Miniature Killer arc but I wouldn’t call it a serial.
“HEROES btw will not be airing next Fall according to Angela at NBC. It’s being replaced by DAY ONE.”
Has this been confirmed?
i would say chuck is more serial than CSI, CSI dosent really focus on multi-episode story arcs (but they do exist)
Quote CW 2 years ago: Veronica Mars has only 2.5 million viewers, it’s a failure, we need to cancel it
Quote CW now: Wow Gossip girl has 2,24 million viewers, massive hit
Julia Desperate Housewives boarders between serial and non-serial: this season unlike Season 1 and 3 I’d say its less serialized. But I don’t watch Grey’s Anatomy so I don’t know. But I think Chuck is much less serialized than Heroes or LOST: I think theres really no argument there. Plus I think the evidence to serialized dramas rerunning badly is above us: ‘highly’ serialized dramas will always perform badly when rerunning.
“Mike, as has been said ad infinitum, viewers don’t matter. Demos do.”
Yes, it’s basically this site tagline. Along with DVR’s don’t matter.
But they still do matter, not nearly as much as demos, but they do.
If they didn’t they we wouldn’t had of dozens and dozens of posts blasting Heroes ratings last week despite retaining 100% of the previous week’s demo ratings.
Melbye the times have changed for the CW, so yes a hit know will be much less than average: considering the writers strike last year and the massive drop in broadcast TV veiwing this year.
nbc should put americas got talent during the regular season instead of the summer because its getting higer ratings than american idol did in it summer season and it would probably do a lot better in the fall
i wonder if NBC would try switching it’s Thursday lineup and it’s Mondays. I mean look at what Fox did with House. I mean The Office and 30 Rock are a sure competition fro CBS’s comedy block and it could have a par rival with the ratings. Seems like Monday is the biggest day in primetime. Might as well give the networks biggest asset on a Monday, they could even put Chuck instead of Kath and Kim and My Name is Earl. I say on Mondays 30 Rock then The Office then Chuck! What you think?
Fin, my point is the shows you listed all fall into the same sort of genre. They are all far more male oriented and more action and adventure type and that seems to be your defining characteristic for serial. Greys is DEFINITELY serial. I stopped watching several seasons ago and it happened to be on when I was at someone’s house recently and couldn’t figure out anything that was going on at all.
Wow, Chuck repeats beated Heroes in the viewers. NBC finished under UNI… what a shame…
I know Chuck was a re-run but OUCH. That’s awful numbers. I hope people remember that NEXT week is NOT a rerun! PLEASE PEOPLE remember and WATCH it!
Dawn Ostroff took the opportunity to make a broadcast network her own. Of course, 6 years ago, she couldn’t do this with UPN. But close to the end she did. And it got worse. So of course in her eyes GG and 90210 are winners while SPN and OTH are failures.
WB 1999: 12.5 million audience/4.6/12 demo (highest rated)
CW 2009: 4.5 million audience/1.9/6 (highest rated)
This is the scheme: If you’re not young, hot, rich, models, white or appealing to teen-aged women (all in the same package), you don’t get the privileges.
P.S.: I had never seen so many 90210 and GG promo’s on a night that doesn’t exist accordingly to Dawn. And mind you, i”m not a numbers person, so some things may be off and I might not understand.
@Jenna: Yes, I know. But I live in Canada so that website is not accessible to me. I also tried to bittorent Chuck once and there were no seeds, so my download didn’t go anywhere.
I never said those were the only serials: I just heres some Julia. But I understand your point and it is a good one I hadn’t thought of
Oh, thanks GRD. Mostly I don’t even think of cable ratings, especially since I don’t watch any cable shows. Secret Life of the American Teenager did cause half of the GG bleeding the first two weeks it was directly against GG, then the bleeding doubled with House. Next week seems to be the Teenager finale; maybe the episode after that will have slight recovery for GG. If not, I’ll just blame House.
Mike, there may have been many comments “blasting Heroes ratings last week despite retaining 100% of the previous week’s demo ratings.” but there were certainly no posts from me to that effect. I rarely mention average viewership in my overnight posts because it matters so little.
Alex, but TV series must air repeats to lower costs of the episodes. In HEROES case repeats are extremely necessary because the show is so damn expensive. 24 gets away with out it now, but FOX isn’t hurting like NBC is. NBC needs to air repeats of HEROES to cut down on HEROES costs. Unfortunately you’re right a show that has been bleeding viewers since the 3rd Act of Season 1 is likely to not repeat well.
It’s just another sign that says “end it.”
I saw some people saying Chuck is a procedural. It’s not. It’s a serial.
RM/89, I am as far from a fan of Dawn Ostroff’s business decisions as you’ll find (who’s never watched more than a handful of CW shows), but comparing any broadcast network’s numbers in 1999 and 2009 is going to produce similar results. It proves nothing in particular about that network, just that broadcast television in general has lost a lot of primetime viewers since the early 80’s.
Edited for clarity!
Bill, hyperbole! There must be at least a million Veronica Mars fans who would make you look like a Dawn fanboy by comparison!
Fin, wtf is “highly serialized?” A show is either serial or it is not. It either has a story arc that is SEASONAL or it doesn’t. If you mean HEROES is much worse written then, yes I agree. If you mean LOST is much worse written then, yes I agree.
All the shows I’ve stated are a SERIAL. Is the overall story of lost more confusing than the stories being told by the other examples? YES. Does that entertain many? It appears to. It is however poorly written in the context that new viewers can’t really catch on. Julia pointed out that GRAYS ANATOMY is currently showing the same trend.
Is it easy to figure out what is going on in a show like CHUCK? Sure. It’s written that way. It doesn’t make the intersect story any less interesting than what is happening on LOST.
HEROES on the other hand is only confusing in the sense that nothing any of the characters do makes any sense. So anyone who may have watched an episode before is confused on why certain characters are doing things that make no sense to how the character was defined the last time they watched.
As Robert (or was it Bill?) wrote in the overnight a few nights back when Parkman painted the DC version of season one story arc… “God, I hope they’re all there when that happens.” That is of course paraphrased.
HEROES is just bad, so it repeats bad. It has nothing to do with being a serial.
LOST btw repeated strongly originally. You know, before it got confusing.
Bill, besides NBC show us one with such a nasty drop as the CW. Wouldn’t we all agree NBC is run by a team of monkeys?
Nick C, I’m on NBC’s case just as much as the CW’s. I didn’t mean my earlier comment to imply relative distain. I was just responding to RM/89’s specific comment about the CW.
I am searching to see if I have network average numbers by year anywhere in our data hoard and will post something if I find it.
Nick, Bill won’t watch any TV with any Heroes style hocus pocus in it unless it’s set very far in the future, or a long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. So that was me. I wish they’d have made the scene my way!
Nick I don’t deny that for any shows and especially one of Heroes budget repeats have a degree of importance however I think you’re flogging a dead horse in regards to Heroes, especially when it comes to repeats.
@Bad Robot!
Word on the repetitivness of the baddies on “24″. Then again, Dick Cheney IS the heart of evil, didn’t you know? *hee* And I hear Season 8 should be pretty good. But I’m still absurdly glad “24″ did as well as it did in demos against “Dancing”.
Course, Jack will always rock-the-awesome for me.
I’m just going to sit and laugh at HEROES’ numbers. Really, nothing to say could top that.
I’m late to the party today, but I’m thrilled to see Castle doing so well. I’ve completely fallen for Nathan Fillion. (And where else on TV are you going to find an episode titled “Nanny McDead” that starts with a dead body spinning around in a dryer?) Last night’s show had more “whodunit?” moments than an entire season of Law & Order.
I know I shouldn’t be comparing two broadcast networks numbers, but I’m just saying that in it’s third year, one of WB’s numbers had a massive increase, and it spread the wealth to its other series. Meanwhile two series on CW get the privileges of budget and promotional boost, but nothing spectacular in the ratings.
OK, the treasure trove has yielded network average data, but nothing comparable to RM/89’s “top show” now vs. “top show” then, which is in retrospect a somewhat selective comparison anyway.
Here are the historic averages from 98-99 through 05-06: http://tvbythenumbers.com/2008/05/29/broadcast-network-season-averages-1998-2006/3957
The following two seasons are in separate posts on the site.
Robert, there is a scene that’s going to be coming up soon where all the cast comes together again. So if you stick around watching HEROES, you’ll be seeing it.
Is GG and OTH’s horrible #’s good news for Reaper?
Hopefully Chuck bounces back w/ 6+ million and at LEAST a 2.1 next week. Awesome seeing it finally beat Heroes, though.
Bring back Veronica Mars CW ! It drew better numbers than that horrible GG
Hudson, it’s not the same unless the bomb actually goes off.
I can easily understand where fin is coming from. Chuck is not even close to being as serialized as Lost or heroes etc. If we are considering every show that has even the smallest story that carries over the season then 90% of shows would fall into this category. I would consider a serialized show to be one that continues on like a long movie. Imo anything that is less serialized then say Grey’s Anatomy, is not a serial show.
Re: DVRs impacting re-run ratings.
Well, yeah!
Not to mention the fact that I now watch more than one third of my TV online. Google Video, YouTube, Hulu (not to mention the *ahem* less mainstream sites) have all the shows I need, and hooking my PC up to my projector for viewing in 720p or 480p is a lot cheaper and easier than getting a cable tuner to record that show to a DVR and send it to my projector.
Many broadcasters now offer high quality streams online. Usually not true “HD”, but that is changing. I can often find true 720p or even 1080p TVrips online within a day or two, as well.
I wonder how online viewership stacks up against broadcast TV these days. If I miss a show, I just go online, I almost never watch repeats on TV (Except NCIS, incidentally. 30yo Male, here; Ziva David & Abby Sciuto are H.O.T.)!
I would guess that with all the online extras offered by NBC, Heroes has rather more viewers online than Chuck does. Maybe more than epic hits, like 24.
I see Hudson…well there’s always ITunes…but alas that’s not free…
Nick, I gotta go with Tim on this one. Your definition of serial is as broad as Fin’s is narrow. Is House serial because it has some serial elements to it? Jay Turney says there’s a sizzling romance going on on CSI:Miami, which I assume is somewhat of a serial element. Are either of those shows serial? It’s been too long since I’ve watched Chuck to comment on whether it is serial or procedural, but I think we all need to work on our definitions.
One other thing I forgot to address.. I do not think it is fair to say that a show like Lost is written worse then other shows just because it’s harder to follow. I think it is just written for a more specific audience. I personally think Lost is one the best written shows( and i watch a lot of shows lol).
On “Chuck”, “Heroes”, and “Lost”:
It’s not a matter of good vs. bad writing but a matter of long form vs. short form storytelling.
Procedurals approach each episode as if it’s a short story within the show’s universe. Serials approach episodes as if they’re a chapter in a longer story.
Pick up a novel you’ve never read and turn to a chapter in the middle of the book. Do you think you’re going to understand everything that’s going on in the story? If you don’t, would you cite that as an example of “bad” writing?
I’m not defending the writing on “Heroes” because I do believe that its writing quality has suffered. But you shouldn’t conflate the idea of being badly written with the idea of being heavily serialized. Those are two separate (though sometimes overlapping) issues.
There’s ongoing plot threads in “Chuck”, but they don’t necessarily figure prominently into every individual episode. With the exception of occasional multi-episode arcs, each episode of “Chuck” is its own individual espionage escapade that doesn’t really require you to have seen previous episodes to understand the relative plot.
On “Lost”, originally, the show was more character introduction and setup, allowing people to more readily dip in without having to have seen previous episodes. As the seasons went on, and particularly now that the show is moving towards its conclusion, the story has been more about plot advancement which is why it’s harder for people to just jump in without having seen previous episodes.
Well Nick C for starters WTF? You knew what I meant.
Well saying ‘highly serialized’ grammatically doesn’t mean I’m saying it is serialized as in category (as a show) but referring it to being serialized. Serial refers to the intrinsic property of a series. So if a show is highly serialized then, well it runs in an order: which well Chuck has story-arcs which are mini-serializations of a overall story. So if something is fucking ‘highly serialized’ then I mean (maybe its not YOUR definition) its is highly chronicled. By the way in the context it way pretty obvious (maybe not to you) of what I meant: of course Heroes is a serialized but by saying highly I meant that it has lots of multpiple storys, confusing shit that is done throughout the whole season. Yes I may have just redined a word for my own purpose but hey the English language changes meanings every god dam year: so fuck it.
Julia, nope I’m using the actual definition of serial. Where are others are trying to state “more serial,” and other nonsense. CHUCK is a serial. The entire season is a story arc. Not a character arc, a story arc. “soap operas,” are a serial.
There is a difference in character arcs that take multiple episodes or “will they or won’t they?” romances. A story arc that is covered through a season like CHUCK and HEROES is different. LOST is a story arc that is covered over the entire series.
I hate to break it to people but every serial generally tells ONE story an episode with closure. 24 does this. Every hour Jack has to do SOMETHING, and that moves the overall season story along, but there is a “stand alone,” story hidden in just about every episode.
There is nothing “more serial,” about HEROES than CHUCK. HEROES does bad in reruns because it is bad.
Fin, sorry but there is nothing more “serialized,” about HEROES. Nothing. Both tell multiple stories about characters through out a season. HEROES has more characters, but that doesn’t make it “more serialized.” HEROES tells worse stories, that doesn’t make it “more serialized.” That is confused you, definitely doesn’t make it more serialized.
In fact by definition, HEROES would be “less,” because it tells two overall stories a season. CHUCK is telling one. Thus is has more “chapters,” in the story.
I’ve proberly just put some massive incorrection in that paragraph anyway: but hey I was just arguing about serialized shows like Heroes find it harder to rerun in my opinion than say Chuck because the story telling in Chuck is not as complicated or chronicaled as Heroes. So surely a rerun of a show (Heroes or LOST)which is meant to bring new surprising stories, thrills and specifically cliff hangers to each episode would do worse as those elements are lost on the veiwer: whereas maybe Chuck has the same problem but I don’t think prodecurals have as big a importance on surprise or twists. Just as the prodecural Friend or Chuck is always rerun as well as being comedic it is based on being funny and remorable to watch. Those aren’t as important (I don’t think) for shows like Heroes.
Mohs, we’re not talking about books. That is entirely a different medium. We’re talking TV where people can regularly tune in to an episode without having seen the previous episode.
Nick, so when House has a season long story arc (like finding replacement minions) is it a serial or a procedural?
Uh Nick I mean (I’m obviously useless at getting a point across) that Heroes storylines are more intertwined by episode (as it is serialized) whereas Chuck may have serial traits but its not as it is confined mostly (apart from a few themes and maybe one main storyline) to story telling in a three episode stroy arc. That I think means that if by your standards Chuck is serialized would mean that Heroes surely by definition is ‘more’ serialized than Chuck.
Sorry about my writing: I speak much better but my points are often lost in other thoughts.
Nick C i think Moh was trying to use the novel to make his point easier to understand, but I think what he has said pretty is much something that applies to TV if not more so than novels.
Most of the episodes of Chuck this season have dealt with Fulcrum (the evil spy club) or something to enhance or break down the Chuck/Sarah relationship. And then every mini-arc trilogy this season centered on a specific event or task to further those themes. Standalone episodes numbered about five or six out of sixteen so far this season, and yet even those episodes dealt with the relationship theme. And, on top of that, at the end of the last mini-arc, the writers revealed something to the viewer to show that even aspects of standalone episodes going back to season one may have something to do with the Intersect and Fulcrum. It’s serialized.
Fin, I don’t think you can apply novel writing to TV. They are extremely different mediums and require extremely different forms of story telling. I agree with Nick. If a show is so incredibly serialized that you can’t understand what’s going on at all without watching from the beginning, the story is being told wrong. The writers should go write a movie instead.
Well Julia in that respect you can’t use a wedding in a poem to convey the horror of war: seeing as there both opposites. But Julia I wasn’t appling I was similiarising: Moh used the idea of the novel as a metaphor for TV. God its impossible to say TV, Novels or Film are complete opposites. God if its not the actual topic of TV its impossible to convey a point: similies and metaphors were made for a reason. Plus Julia I think there are serialized books, just as other books don’t require you to know the previous book: thats the point I think Moh was trying to make.
In comparison to TV (put that on the end of the last sentence)
“If a show is so incredibly serialized that you can’t understand what’s going on at all without watching from the beginning, the story is being told wrong.”
I don’t agree that that necessarily means the story is being told wrong.
However, what you’re saying is supposedly the reasoning behind why procedurals have been seeing more success of late than serialized programming. Procedurals require less of the viewer in terms of having to keep up with episodes or remembering previous developments.
I’ve also heard some say that’s why some of these serialized shows work much better when being watched on DVD in episode groupings rather than as a weekly series.
I just don’t think you can compare book series to TV at all. Even as a metaphor. We’re not writing poetry here. First of all, with novel series, there’s still a matter of backstory. Stephen King wrote an autobiography/writing manual where he discussed backstory. You need to seamlessly include it, and if you can, that’s some great writing. There are book series where you obviously have to read from the beginning, but anyone can go out and buy/borrow books from first to last at any time. That’s not how TV works. If you can’t write a series where someone can at least enjoy the show on some level without having any clue what happened before or after, you’re doing it wrong. I would say most shows today are best enjoyed from beginning to end, but you should still be able to come in at any episode and at least understand enough that you can watch that one episode.
Bill, thanks for the link!
The CW still looks awful:
1999 to 2009 viewership loss (demo):
1. THE CW with a 53% loss in viewers.
2. NBC with a 45% loss in viewers.
3. ABC with a 39% loss in viewers.
4. FOX with a 31% loss in viewers.
5. CBS with a 19% loss in viewers.
So yes, there has been a gradual decline in viewership in the last decade. However the CW is still hit the worst. It’s no surprise (to me) that the worst numbers belong to the Networks most consider to be poorly run today.
FOX is likely to rebound some when Final numbers for the season are available. NBC may get worse. ABC may well improve.
Fin, but you’re just wrong. CHUCK is telling one long story this season. That makes it serialized. Does he deal with weekly spy missions? Yes. Does the gang at BUY MORE also deal with a weekly problem? However there is still an overall story going on: CHUCK and the INTERSECT. Who is really behind it? Who is behind Fulcrum. That isn’t a 3 episode arc. It’s a seasonal arc.
Julia, HOUSE promoted the fact that last season they were adding “serial elements,” to the show. They’ve made the show more and more like HOUSE’s favorite TV show. Many said ditching the procedural aspect for a more serial aspect was jumping the shark. Last night they even had HOUSE “jumping the shark,” in an amusing opening scene (where he literally had a model set up for a toy car to jump a toy shark).
It’s still a procedural. Even the minion story arc didn’t last an entire season just a large portion of the beginning of the season.
This is TV. TV is a place where many people can tune in because they heard from a friend of a friend that LOST was good. So they tune into LOST. They’re confused. That’s BAD. There is no way to avoid that assessment. It’s ok for LOST because they’ve done a good job of making the faithful happy. They’re not losing them, and ABC is happy with the numbers.
HEROES on the other hand is doing the same thing, except the faithful aren’t happy they’re jumping ship.
Well Castle did better than I expected. (Even with the two minutes of dancing with the stars included.)
Nick C I agree. Those numbers are terrible!
“Compare that to a repeat of TWO AND A HALF MEN from a couple weeks ago. It’s embarrassing.”
How can you compare a comedy with a show you have to watch every episode or you don’t know what’s going on?
It’s common sense Chuck would beat Heroes in reruns. Chuck is a more rerunnable show since most episodes could be watched without much knowledge of the previous episodes (yes there is a series plot, but you don’t get screwed if you miss an episode or two-completely unlike Heroes and it is completely possible to jump in half season and have a much general knowledge of what’s going on). If NBC keeps Chuck it’s to get to the 100th episode mark (5th season) to sell it. Of course, Chuck will have to bring in good ratings original wise. So anyone who is surprised that Chuck beat Heroes isn’t using their brain very well.
Episodic shows do better rerun rise.
Heradite, good shows routinely beat bad shows. I could just say that.
The reason HEROES doesn’t repeat well is the same reason it’s bleeding viewers.
Broadcast finals have DWTS down a tick at 5.3 and Castle down two at 2.9.
Needless to say that is better than last week.
House was up a tenth to 4.9, Mother up a tenth to 3.9, and Medium (R) up a tenth to 1.4.
Does anyone else hate how Nick C. posts around here like he’s a damn TV exec in the know about everything….sit down somewhere and spare us please.
Has it been lost somewhat that both Chuck and Heroes both did terrible numbers last night? Sure Chuck did a little bit better but a little bit better than absolutely horrible is still (at best) very horrible so beating Heroes here isn’t really a sign that Chuck repeats well.
Alex, no CHUCK did bad. It doesn’t do good to begin with. So a repeat is guaranteed to be CW worthy.
Alex, while I agree with you, I think the argument is about percentage. Chuck was only down 35% in the demo from last week while Heroes was down 65%. That is a big difference.
I would place Chuck somewhere in the middle of the spectrum. Definitely more serialized than CSI but clearly less than Heroes. Of course, it does vary a lot depending on the episode but overall, I would say there’s about equal focus on serial elements and a story-of-the-week. There needs to be a term for this kind of show, hybrid perhaps? Grey’s Anatomy is also very mixed.
It’ll be interesting to see how Fringe does when it comes on after American Idol on April 7th opposite the Mentalist when the Mentalist and Fringe will be opposite Dancing With the Stars results show. The ratings for Fringe might be higher or lower.
I like Castle. It needs sharpening up, but I’m willing to stick with it.
Wow!! Chuck beat heroes!
“I just don’t think you can compare book series to TV at all. Even as a metaphor.”
In terms of quality of writing and approach to relating narrative, they can absolutely be compared (the latter is what my comparison was between procedurals and serials). The terms of expectations in attracting readers vs. attracting viewers is where they can’t really be compared (unless you‘re talking about a novel vs. a DVD set of an entire season/show).
Admittedly, because many people have little choice in terms of when to view an episode, procedurals or less serialized shows are better adapted for scenarios in which viewers for whatever reason can’t view a particular episode of the series or haven’t had the opportunity to see previous episodes (essentially by making it not matter if you see the episode or not). That’s not a sign of stronger writing (nor is it a sign of weak writing). As I said, it’s just a difference in approach to storytelling.
In terms of practicality for attracting viewers, it means a heavily serialized program may be more of a risk as a long term project. Past the earliest episodes, the quality of writing may be depended on for keeping viewers rather than attracting more of them.
For quality sake, which approach is more enjoyable or satisfactory depends on the individual desires and expectations of a particular viewer.
From an absolutely average viewer’s perspective:
Forgive me, I have watched Chuck all of twice. I didn’t realize how serialized it was until I started reading all the stuff on this page. I can tune into to Chuck without knowing a darn thing about “The Intersect” or Fulcrum or whatever, and still enjoy the episode. Whether it’s because the show is well done or because the show is not quite as serialized as Heroes or LOST, I don’t know. I just know it’s watchable on an almost-procedural level.
Agreed with Clutz. I’ve seen all of Season 1 of Chuck due to the DVD, but before that I just used to tune in every now and then and I was not lost at all. It felt just like any other procedural show.
Clutz from what’s been said previously I think how easy it is to jump into Chuck depends entirely upon what episode you watch. Unlike something like Heroes or Lost not every episode of Chuck deals with one season(s) long story thread but instead Chuck revolves between closed ended stand alone episodes and episodes that are more focused on the season long arc.
On another note I love the ‘Chuck had less distance to fall to get really horrible numbers’ positive spin going on.
On another note completely I still haven’t made my mind up about whether or not I actually like Castle or not…
Alex, I feel the same way, but I did like last night’s episode more than the first one.
I’m way behind but I have been reading Nick’s posts on what is an isn’t a serial and I do think he is kinda narrow on the serial aspect being a large or small part of a show and if it can allow a person to differentiate. I mean if I was to be as rigid as Nick I would call Red Dwarf a serial, or Only Fools and Horses a serial because they both had a main single goal for the characters. (sorry I’m using British TV examples since I’m Irish)
Chuck is far lighter on the main ridge story then Heroes and Lost and dare I say Lost is lighter then Heroes., its perfectly valid to draw these lines.
@ Nick C
“HEROES btw will not be airing next Fall according to Angela at NBC. It’s being replaced by DAY ONE.”
PROOF?
Either Angela Broomstead is talking out of both sides of her ass or you are. I’m going with the later.
Yikes. Why do people have sooooo much angst over this stuff. It’s TV!
Anyway, Bromstad was on record for sure saying that they’d think about doing something like running Day One in Heroes time slot because its a time slot with a built-in base of Scifi (or is that syfy) type of viewers. I didn’t read anything about a definitive decision being made (though she definitely seemed to be enamored with the idea) or what the implications would be for Heroes in that instance. But it seems like if they did that they would do something similarly with Heroes as Lost is doing — starting in January and running all the way through. That’s something a lot of Heroes fans would favor, so I don’t know why it would upset any Heroes fans.
dang… DWTS is hurting my House
I agree Robert. I would think that would be better for Heroes. I would think it would improve the quality tremendously and stop this silly 2 volume per season thing.
Hudson: You don’t need Bittorrent to get shows. There are sites on the Web where people within MINUTES of the show’s ending will post the entire show sans ads on various file hosting Web sites.
All you need is broadband and you can get most of the shows on the main networks and cable.
I download four shows (TSCC, Fringe, Leverage and Dollhouse) every week they’re on. Most shows are about 350MB depending on quality – you can get HD downloads, too, for some of them, if you’ve got really fast broadband like cable.
I won’t cite specific sites here, do a Google.
All I have to say is WATCH HEROES ON MONDAY!!! It is Bryan Fuller’s episode and it is bound to be good. Maybe if some people here actually watched the show then they might see through their mental block that Heroes is still a great show. WATCH it needs the ratings!!!!!
How many times are we going to hear “next episode/volume/season is going to be better!”?
MNIS, I’ve never seen one person posting on this web site who claims to have a Nielsen box in their home. So even if ever single person who reads your post watches Heroes, it won’t likely have any effect on the ratings.
FEEL THE WRATH OF THE SySTORM!!!!!!!!!!
@ ljo
yeah i know but i am hoping some people come here but don’t leave comments… i need to hope
MNIS, I wouldn’t spend any time worrying over Heroes since it appears that it is already set to return for next season.
http://tvbythenumbers.com/2009/03/17/kings-reign-to-be-short/14764
Until it is better, Jon.
@ Nick C (to my reply):
Chuck is better than Heroes. The Mentalist is better than Heroes. 24 is better than Heroes. Their all good shows. Heroes…I watch it weekly still, but it’s not good. It’s decent. And yet people still watch 24-a great show, more than the bad show of…oh I don’t know….Crusoe.
The idea that bad shows always getting more viewers is a hoax. Shows that you regularly watch maybe…but not shows with quality. I know Law & Order is a good show. I don’t watch it though…but after 19 seasons it’s still on the air.
Yes good shows will get cancelled. But many will also get renewed. Yes bad shows get renewed. But many will be cancelled.
Heradite, what you just said is a truism, and can be reduced to “some shows get canceled other’s don’t”. What is the point?
*throws gas on flame*
So is How I Met Your Mother a serial because every season is about finding the mother?
WOW! Monday shows of ABC, FOX and CBS are all on fire!!!
CW/NBC can’t really compete with them!
Unfortunately these arguments over serial or non serial wont matter much in the near future. With BSG and Terminator ending, and lost ending next year (Heroes,FNL, and Smallville i would think are nearing their end also) it’s possible that shows like Chuck could be the most serialized shows left on tv. I like Chuck but I really hope we still have a Lost type show in the future. I’m not counting on it though because those type of shows need to premier to a huge audience since they don’t really gain viewers as the seasons go on.
Nick C, Gaurav Misra vice president for VH1 and MTV quoted saying (in the book ‘Small Screen, Big Picture’)
‘[in relation to 'serialized stuff'] theres less repeat potential as you can’t repeat stuff out of sequence, whereas you can air procedurals in any order you want’
So I think that argues one of my main points as someone who will know this stuff said this and actually the word ‘highly serialized’ is also used by the writer Chad Gervich (and this is a guy who knows what he’s talking about= from all the reveiwes and stuff). So that word has relation to what I’m talking about. Thank You
OK WHO THE HECK CARES FOR THAT UNI CHANNEL what is that spanish or something? who cares erase it. How would you show their ratings but not HBO or SHO or FX? DOesnt make any sense
steven, Univision outdoes CW every night. We don’t get overnight data for cable channels, and it would beat all of them too.
I watched HOUSE and it was WONDERFUL!!
I love House but I can’t keep up with the ever changing schedule. Any idea when they’ll stop mucking around with the time and day?