WAAHOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

Amazing numbers, I love it.

Yes True Blood!!!
If anyone had any doubts about how Hot Vampires are this year, well…
And I cannot wait for CW , Vampire Diaries to start…This show will be another sucess.
HBO, CW…You Go!!
I am waiting to see how many new shows are going to tank this year..LOL. It is so great to see HBO and CW giving people what they want. These both shows will stay for several seasons , a smart network would not cancel a Vamp show these days…That would be so so stupid. LOL.

True Blood is a monster for HBO and considering it started with 1.4m, HBO have reaped the awards for sticking with it.

HBO has got their mojo back and I think they can rebuild their lineup with some great shows in 2010.

Michaela, I am detecting you are a Moonlight fan?

good job tb

I hope the Labor Day break doesn’t hurt the momentum, I love True Blood!

why the jump was there a free hbo preview that week?

Lifetime should resurrect Blood Ties to cash in on the vampire obsession

Hi fox x-exec,
There was a Free Preview when the season premier of True Blood happened. But not for this, at least not with Comcast.

Go True Blood!

I thought that those predicting it would reach 6-6.5 mill by the finale were being a bit optimistic. Those figures are looking more and more likely now!

[...] Source [...]

again, can we get numbers for entourage last week and this week?

Who said last week that the show would reach 5 millions by the end of the season? Well, seems to be it’s gonna be over the 6 million bar. I made some people watch true blood this summer, just the forst episode… They all got hooked and watched the whole thing in 2-3 days… Guess the magic is working for everyone. Good to see a show so successfull. I guess blood, sex scene and swearing is getting real popular…

The last show I remember with this kind of momentum was The OC, which premiered to 7.5 million viewers, then built to 7.9, 8.1, 8.6, 9.1, 9.2, and finally 8.8 million viewers. It’s not quite the same percentage climb as TB, but I’ve never seen a show increase in viewers (from the premiere episode) for 6 consecutive episodes.

Congrats to True Blood! The growth in viewership is good to read…..

That’s a pretty big jump from last week…I thought it would reach 5 million for the finale. Guess it could be quite big by then, especially since the last 2 episodes look action packed.

what’s the OnDemand action on True Blood?

Chris, not sure about last week. This past Sunday Entourage averaged 3.2 million and Hung 3.3 million. More here:

http://tvbythenumbers.com/2009/08/25/entourage-and-hung-ride-true-bloods-success/25372

Corey, they have never broken it out, and only included it in the cumulative number for rebroadcasts, and DVR viewing. Based on that it must be relatively a tiny portion of the 11.6 million they’ve been reporting as a cumulative number.

I’m not sure how much the growth of the first airing is impacting total cumulative growth since it could be the show is just getting more water-coolery and more people who were watching later broadcasts or on DVR or On-Demand have shifted to live or same night DVR viewing.

Killer show! Excellent production and actors. I’ve been a fan from day one.
Keep it up HBO.

Do you think HBO will order more than 12 for next season? That’s so skimpy! It seems 15 or 16 as long as they aren’t split up (I talking to you, BN) should be minimum. Been totally spoiled and loving it will extra long season of Rescue Me — although it’s had some down moments.

My prediction of 7 million for the Season Finale is getting real

Denver Dean. no. I do not think they will order extra episodes. Look at how many DVDs they sold with only 12 episodes of season 1? HBO is not USA Network and shows like the Sopranos were traditionally 13 episodes so this is only one less. The last two seasons of Six Feet Under (also Alan Ball’s project like True Blood) had 12 episodes as well.

I think HBO will be in the mode of “if it ain’t broke.”

It’s not like they will acquire more new subscribers by having a few more episodes, there’s no advertising revenue in having more episodes and it sure doesn’t seem like they could sell more DVDs than season one sold by doing anything.

To the woefully uninformed way back up this string, free preview viewership isn’t ever measured by Nielsen as part of the ratings. Those “non-subscribers” aren’t qualified to be in the sample.

Great numbers. Fantastic show.

Great. If only they wouldn’t have cut it 15 minutes short. Awesome episode.

Thanks Robert…

there is no way entourage doubled there audience overnight.

True Blood must play a huge role in bringing new fans to the show.

This is good. I want to try V. Does anyone know where I can get some?

One plot hole: Apparently vampires can’t drink Maryanne’s blood without getting messed up. But how come Bill didn’t just try to rip her head off? I mean, after he bit her, he was messed up, but once he recovered, why not just try tearing her apart. Vampires have the strength.

Or just move at vampire speed with a 2×4 and just beat the crap out of her.

Maryanne is declared as being “immortal”, based on what, I don’t know. But nobody has proven she’s invulnerable like the girl on Heroes or a healer like Wolverine. Pop a cap in her ass!

Jason Stackhouse in this last episode maybe proved that he wasn’t THE dumbest redneck in the country, which is an improvement over his behavior so far.

Best show ever!!!!! Not as good as six feet under though, but close.

Word of mouth success! wow! Happy for Anna Paquin <3

i looooooove this show. I am one of those people that got into it in season 2 and I have bought all the books to read when this season ends and i ordered all of season one – and i will probably order all of season 2 when it is over so i can watch it again-it is going to be so long until season 3. my goodness, between sundays seems like forever! i haven’t loved a show like this, i think since twilight zone (yes, i am 61)

Aren’t you glad we pestered you for the True Blood numbers back in the day? I love this site almost as much as I love True Blood. Some of the best television ever.

Hey Robert there were break down numbers for True Blood in the first season, check my analysis out here: http://kasandra.us/?p=145. The On Demand numbers were averaging about 25% of their overall viewership for the week. Second view was usually 25% as well so first viewership was running about 50% of total views for the week. That would bring them to around 10.66 million views for the week total if the ratios are consistant.

Sorry Kasandra, I didn’t see any VOD data referenced at that link, let alone broken out.

True Blood’s current season is averaging at the same levels as Buffy’s last season and is above Btvs’ first season. The last two eps should make the #’s go higher. Hmm.

Well, it can’t match the highest Buffy season unless the show goes up to over 11 mil. So that’s good.

j, how can comparing a teen show like Buffy to a work of art like True Blood lead you to any conclusions whatsoever?

What’s next? Comparing Hannah Montana to Lost?

True Blood has now reached Rome like numbers and I’m very sure next season’s premiere would surpass Rome’s season 2 premiere of 7.8 miillion viewers.

“The last show I remember with this kind of momentum was The OC, which premiered to 7.5 million viewers, then built to 7.9, 8.1, 8.6, 9.1, 9.2, and finally 8.8 million viewers.”

To Doug => Don’t forget Grey’s Anatomy season 2 !

Buffy was shortlisted for the critics’ best drama of the decade, and SMG was shortlisted for best dramatic actress. They also nominated it for program of the year twice (one of ten shows in that boat, along with stuff like Sopranos, Mad Men, Arrested, etc.).

True Blood’s first season got a C+, 2nd season got a B- from critics.

Despite being from a network the Emmys try to avoid like the plague, Buffy got a Best Writing nomination. True Blood got…oh, wait, zero nominations despite being from the network that the Emmys love the most. Its star did get that award from the show that loves to reward people just for being famous and having won stuff before.

Besides, pigeonholing is stupid. “A teen show.” Some people (not me) would say that TB is ripping off a certain franchise’s success and is about a hottish girl with starcrossed romances with vegetarian vampires. At least you’re not a Twitard. Probably.

j, True Blood has been nominated for 3 Emmys. Plus it’s only in its second season it has more than enough time to win awards, which I’m sure it will.

Awards aren’t everything. I’m sure HBO would rather TB be a success in the ratings (which it evidently is!) than in the awards shows.

You can’t really compare Buffy with TB. The similarity stops at both featuring vampires, and even there the two shows portray them very differently.

Also, Anna won the GG for best actress. SMG was only ever nominated.

I love True Blood, it gets better every week! With the vampire craze going full tilt, now would be a great time to bring Blood Ties back in some form, either a movie or a miniseries. Surely there is a network out there that would be interested in doing so?

Congratulations to Tru Blood. It only confirms what Blood Ties fans tried to tell lifetime ad nauseam, that vampires are hot right now and will continue to be. Tru Blood is special in its own right but I prefer Blood Ties and would love to see it brought back. Of course the odds of that are probably slim and none, but hey, one can always hope. It’s a great time to be a vampire fan right now-Tru Blood, Twilight, the Vampire Diaries, and most likely many more new ones…..

Not that I’m bitter mind you but I’m enjoy seeing Tru Blood’s success while lifetime flounders with their reality shows.

Of course all would be forgiven if lifetime would give us a decent “Movie of the Week” to tie up loose ends but I would imagine that idea was staked a long time ago.

[...] Vía | TV by the Numbers [...]

Yes, as I said, Paquin won because Globes like to reward people for having won before (She got Supporting Actress for Campion’s The Piano).

Best Credits
Best Art Direction
& Best Casting Director

aren’t as good as Best Writing.

[...] Remember when we got all excited because over 3.7 million people tuned in to watch the True Blood season-two premiere? Well, the show has picked up nearly 2 million more fangbanging viewers since June: Roughly 5.3 million people watched this weekend’s episode. And just think — we haven’t even met the Vampire Queen of Louisiana yet! [TV by the Numbers] [...]

j, that’s a pretty big assumption to make. Sally Field was nominated in the same category as Anna but didn’t win. Sally has won two academy awards and numerous others. Why didn’t they reward her instead of Anna?

The second season of TB had barely started airing when the nominations were announced. Buffy got it’s writing nomination for ‘Hush’ in season 4. It’s got time to prove you wrong! LOL

j, Alan Ball had announced that True Blood was going to be his next TV series after SFU, long before Twilight was even considered to be turned into a movie – plus, back then no one really believed that Twilight would turn out to be such a huge, inexplicable if you ask me, success.

If you’d bothered to check it’s development history, you would have seen that:
1)Dead Until Dark was written 4 whole years before Twilight
and 2) True Blood shot its pilot in the summer of 2007, whereas Twilight was shot in early 2008.

So before you reach any conclusions, get the whole story: if someone is ripping off another, that would have to be Twilight, not TB.

Agreed, True Blood was lucky enough to hit the small screen at the same time as the Vampire-loving frenzy, but apart from the Vampire-Human relationship there are no similarities between the hideousness that is Twilight and True Blood.

Also, I would really like you to tell me why you think the phrase “teen show” equals “a crappy show”. Veronica Mars was a teen show, broadcast by the very same network that picked up Buffy after it’s cancellation from WB, and to me Veronica Mars, which at its core WAS a teen show, felt deeper than many other “serious” and “adult oriented” shows. To me “Teen” does not mean “The Hills”, just as “adult-oriented” does not unfortunately always mean “as deep as Six Feet Under”.

Buffy WAS a teen-oriented show. Plus, the main actress, was…well less than adequate. That’s the ugly truth. It was a cult pleasure, nothing really deeper than that.

PS: Awards mean nothing. I really don’t care how many awards True Blood, Buffy or Twilight got. All it matters to me, is that a show I love stays on air and keeps me coming back for more. Seems to me there are so many pointless award shows nowadays that EVERYONE has to win something, so that they can feel proud about even the worst show or movie ever. See Teen Choice Awards for more. Life Achievement Award to Britney? For what???? Shaving off her head?? lololololol

Hmmm, this is great news, as a fan of “True Blood”, it’s good to see it do well.
And as a fan of the vampire genre in general, it’s even better.
That’s why I’m saddened to think that networks like LifeTime Tv couldn’t have kept that other decent vampire show “Blood Ties”.

It could have been a nice ‘tween “True Blood” replacement for those like myself wanting a vamp fix. Esp, too as “Blood Ties” had a pretty good formula, in that although it may not have been as quick as “True Blood” in it’s appeal, once you were in you couldn’t help becoming invested in the characters. And “BT’s” fan base was growing and still continues to (imagine the collective disappointment when the new fans to “BT” find out it’s no longer running) (

Yes, there is no comparison TB to BT as they both have/had a different feel and appeal.
But, compared to some other vampire fare ( “Twilight”, which no offense to its’ fans but it sucks and not in a good way, but in a sucky “fang-less” way) “Blood Ties” was pretty darn good.

And the vampire Henry, played by Kyle Schmid, wasn’t hard on the eyes either! ;o)

[...] has done very well for the premium cable network, despite a slow start in the first season.  Over 5 million viewers tuned in during a recent week, making it HBO’s most successful show since The Sopranos.  A [...]