Comments on: Wednesday Ratings: American Idol wins again, Unusuals rather usual for ABC

By: person .

person . — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 22:07:07 +0000

… Fox’s lie to me is NOT horrible !
its awesome .
(8:00 FOX Lie to Me 2.5/8 2.0/7 8.42)
& clearly, many other people agree with me,
if you look at the numbers up there ^

By: Christina

Christina — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 02:17:48 +0000

I think that there is just an overall drop in American IQ. Seriously…if you honestly consider a show like “Lie to Me,” which I do enjoy, to complex for mainstream tv, then you need to turn off the TV and open a book! I will agree that Fox’s Bones is a bit more technical, but they essentially translate everything Bones says by having Booth ask questions. (I’m a pre-med student, so I understand much of what Bones is saying. My husband is an engineer, so he gets a bit lost, but Booth’s questions are enough for him to catch up.) The same thin can be said for Fox’s House.

Regardless, I think it says a lot that shows like AI get high marks, but shows that actually require the viewer to engage their brains don’t see positive ratings.

On a less analytical note…I don’t like Southland. I want to like it, the premise is good, but it comes off as a little overly scripted to me. It has a few good minutes followed by a few crappy ones. (I’m not to fond of a lot of the character’s personal stories…they just detract from the rest of the plot.)

Hopefully they up the ante and it gets better.

By: Lost Reality

Lost Reality — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 17:02:57 +0000

Lost sucks. That episode stunk. Dead is dead.

By: Raylie

Raylie — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 23:38:19 +0000

Ok, I feel as though American Idol will never die. Even when their ratings fluctuate, they always bounce back. I love it though, so it keeps me happy. If anyone else out there is a huge AI fan, you MUST check out the iPhone app they have available. A lite version just came out this week, so if you want to try it out you can do just that for free: phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=310915760

By: Angus

Angus — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 18:01:59 +0000

I will always hold dearest to my heart my love for my little Timmy Roth. He is my very favorite and I will always love him so, and I no longer care what anyone else thinks because it must be said. I will always love you, my Timmy. Your dearest, Angus.

By: johnthemon

johnthemon — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 15:54:33 +0000

Lost’s numbers this time around are about what Heroes was getting last fall.

By: jay

jay — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 14:54:47 +0000

Writing shows vby committee, with what passes for the old standards and practices ( now don’t offend groups x, y and z ) and expecting them to have the mainstream appeal of CSI when it started or the mentalist has got to be something like medieval alchemy. Or do they dance around beheaded chickens? I agree with the post which called out a sour grapes post. Nobody wants new cop shows? The old style sitcom is dead? Reality shows are dead – all these bland platitudes are true until they aren’t. The fact is, writing for the networks has got to be one of the most thankless tasksw imaginable, and cable with its niche audiences with almost prefabricated tastes is makinhg it well-nigh impossible. As for Holly, re ABC’s six hours of dancing shows – how about six hours of Barabara Walters?

By: Calo di ascolti per Lost : Push the button

Calo di ascolti per Lost : Push the button — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 08:37:32 +0000

[...] [...]

By: Robert Seidman

Robert Seidman — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 07:43:45 +0000

Dan, I’ve loved on Life often! I’m a big fan of the show. But though it might be a shame that the ratings are so low, it’d be impossible for a reasonable person to fault NBC if it pulls the plug. The ratings were horrible. I wish they weren’t, but, they were. I really enjoyed the season finale though.

By: Dan

Dan — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 07:30:34 +0000

Can I get any love for “Life” on here. Its so underrated; the cast is terrific, and yes I’m talking about the addition of Donal Logue as well, he is not a great actor but he works well with Damian Lewis, who by the way is the best actor on T. V. in my opinion. Life is the best show on and its a travesty that NBC would cancel them. The writing is spot on, occasionally the acting leaves something to be desired, but the character Charlie Crews is the best character on T.V. That’s attributed to Damian Lewis

By: Master Moron

Master Moron — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 06:01:51 +0000

Larry, I watch King of the Hill even though I don’t like it because it comes on after the Simpsons. I also watch How I Met Your Mother even though I hate it because it comes on after The Big Bang Theory.

By: Larry

Larry — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 04:12:58 +0000

I personally don’t understand why it would be the case that a significant portion of viewship would be linked to what comes on before or after any given show. I hope that the majority of TV viewers aren’t brain dead zombies that can’t deal with the complexities of changing the channel. Granted, I’m not much of a TV watcher but I’ve never missed an episode of Fringe, Life, Terminator, or Life on Mars. As a fan of those shows I know when they are scheduled to air (or were, in the case of LOM) and watch them. I have no idea what shows precede or follow any of those shows I watch. As far as I’m concerned it wouldn’t make any difference whatsoever …

By: jesus_stick

jesus_stick — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 04:11:52 +0000

lol, its already rated 9.6 there… i dont see the reason you should ask people to rate something. nobody benefits from it, especially not the show.

yes, last nights episode was incredibly great, critics loved it, fans loved it, but unfortunately the quality of the show has very little to do with the nielsen ratings.

By: RJ

RJ — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 04:09:24 +0000

Yasser, why? That rating means nothing.

By: Yasser

Yasser — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 04:07:07 +0000

go and give LOST a 10 out of 10 in the last epoised
in tv.com !!

By: Dianne

Dianne — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 02:33:23 +0000

“Life” – that was a great send off. Real class act all the way through.

By: Suzanne

Suzanne — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 23:38:53 +0000

So sorry about Life’s ratings….Damian Lewis is great on the show. Not really sure why NBC was not successful with it; it seems like it has a lot going for it.

By: Alex

Alex — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 23:18:56 +0000

Richard I would imagine that there are some people who only watch television on select nights because of their schedule whether it be work or social commitments. However as internet, on demand and DVR viewing increases that’s obviously going to become less of a problem for fans at least if not the networks. What the percentage of people who can only watch on x night(s) I don’t know but I would imagine someone, somewhere has conducted some kind of study on it.

As far as Fringe goes I agree with you, I think it would hold up relatively well without Idol assuming it stays a 9. I don’t know if I’d be as confident if it were for some reason to move to 8. I’m not sure if at this stage at least Fringe is a show that pulls large numbers of people to the network off the bat.

And Andrew remember, quality is subjective.

By: Jason

Jason — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 23:16:49 +0000

I have a theory:

Damon Lindelof is a Nielsen viewer. It makes sense! He’s always going on about how he watches Criminal Minds instead of Lost at in their podcasts, and he’s smart enough to know the difference between rerun and original eps. It explains EVERYTHING!!!!!!111

[sarcasm]

By: Andrew

Andrew — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 22:54:56 +0000

I hate AI and DWTS, god can’t people see these shows are dumb. I can’t take the loss of viewers for good shows because people don’t understand the concept of watching good shows.

By: Richard Steven Hack

Richard Steven Hack — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 22:32:48 +0000

Good points, Alex. However, I’d be inclined to think Fringe would do reasonably well after ANY lead-in for the reasons I cited – it’s just too unusual not to attract attention, and the characters are so likable people won’t mind watching something that unusual (unless they’re really hide-bound as to their viewing preferences.)

So if Fringe was moved, I suspect some viewers would drop off, but then some other viewers of whatever lead-in the new slot had would start watching. Whether that would result in significant bleeding of viewers I don’t know, but it would seem quite a few shows would be subject to that same phenomena. Only a really, really compelling show is likely to drag ALL its current viewers to some other night and then pick up new ones as well.

I don’t know if anyone has ever statistically studied the effects of the night of the week on viewing habits. Do some people only watch on certain nights REGARDLESS of what’s on? Because of work or whatever? To what degree are people just resistant to shows moving and thus disrupting their settled-on viewing schedule? There’s a lot of questions one could ask and I suspect the answers aren’t around.

By: Shem

Shem — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 22:31:11 +0000

NBC is in dead last? What a shame for the former #1 network…

By: Alex

Alex — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 22:28:19 +0000

On another, whilst the numbers aren’t good I thought The Unusuals was ok.

The problem with the pilot is that they tried to do too much in too short a period of time. Too many characters and too many plots. It doesn’t help that none of the characters really feel natural at this point. Just ‘quirky’ ideas packaged together.

By: Alex

Alex — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 22:23:15 +0000

Richard (to a degree) I think Fringe has some Idol inflation just as any show that follows Idol gets some degree of benefit from it. I do however agree with the general idea that its flawed to think people will watch Fringe just because its on after Idol (or House) – they have to be getting some kind of entertainment out of it.

The question for Fringe is do the people that discovered it and stick with it because its on after Idol like it and enjoy it enough to stick with it if it moves somewhere else? That was the same question Lie To Me faced and apparently the answer there was not really.

Of course the other question a lot of people seem to love asking is, would Fringe have found an audience without a House/Idol lead-in? And that’s a bit of a backwards question because you can apply that to countless shows that were built on the back of a strong lead-in – House springs to mind as an obvious example. Its a big hit now but would it have done that without Idol?

By: Pete

Pete — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 22:20:07 +0000

It’s more like Ouch, viewers, ouch! IMHO the viewers only hurt themselves if the missed Lost last night. Micheal Emerson gave another Emmy winning performance, in his latest Ben centric episode. He was absolutely wonderful, as was Terry O’Quinn and the rest of the cast. Lots of back story to fill in some important answers and some unexpected turns as well.