Ever since I decided to do this blog I thought knowing the numbers more would really help me know more about TV, the TV world and whether a show I like is going to make it or not. I’m not sure, however, at this point. Why? Well, because the numbers bounce up and down so much. How can that be? If someone likes a show, why would they dare miss a week only to return the following week? As someone that is an avid TV fan, and a loyal one at that, missing episodes just makes no sense to me. And, why is the American TV audience at one point so enthralled by a new show that the numbers make it a hit, only to start disappearing a few weeks, or half way in? I’m convinced that the American public is indeed hard to satisfy.
Let’s take ‘Flash Forward’ for instance. That show started out like gangbusters with 12.4M in viewers on it’s opening night. While it declined in the few weeks after, which is expected, it still remained a “hit”. In this blog, I thought for sure that Flash Forward could be called a season success with 10.74M viewers. By week 3, it was at 9.08M viewers and settling needed to occur. On the 15th it seemed that ‘Flash Forward’ had settled and was 9.12M viewers and a 3.1/9 in the demo. And on 10/22 it settled at 9.82M viewers. But, then on 10/29 it dipped to 8.98M and a 2.7 share. Okay, so what happened to 1M viewers in one week? On 11/12 it fell to a 2.6 share and 8.33M viewers. Now there is talk of ‘Flash Forward’ being in some danger of cancellation with an uncertain future. A status, by the way, that it seems a lot of shows are always in. TV analysts are always very nervous about numbers and any tick up or tick down spells out the future prospects for the show and it seems to always change on a dime. I suppose we’ll have to see where ‘Flash Forward’ lands on the ratings list this week.
‘V’ is another example. It came out like gangbusters as well on it’s opening night, having had the best ratings of any new show premiere to date (in regards to the demographic, not overall viewers). As I blogged last week , however, ‘V’ took a pretty steep decline from week one to week two. Not very unusual, but it was the deepest decline in a week two period of the entire season. It’s numbers in week two were 10.56 and a 3.7/10 share. This past Tuesday it slipped yet again to 9.5M and a 3.3 share. It’s not in any cancellation danger yet, as it’ s numbers are still above the network average, but the fact that it declined for a third week in a row is not a good thing. We do have the “level off” of week 4 to look forward to. I guess next Tuesday will give us a better picture of the future of ‘V’. I for one hope that it sticks around. I am enjoying it and it was the most anticipated premiere for me this season.
‘The Good Wife’ , another prime example, has now landed on the ‘In some Danger of Cancellation List’. Huh? I have no idea why it would be on that list. In defense of the list from tvbythenumbers.com it does not include results from this past Tuesday, which was 12.77M viewers and #1 in it’s time slot in the demographic. I’m sure that will pull it off that list in a weeks time when it’s updated to reflect the new numbers. It had one slow week (thanks to the world series, I guess) and it slipped. See how reading all this information can drive you nuts? LOL
But while shows seem to go up, then down, then back up again all of the bouncing around with numbers can really give you a headache. Turns out that just about everything, even the well established hits in the past few weeks are all down. So I wonder where everyone is off to. Now granted, I’ve been very busy and so I have not been watching many of my shows live and my DVR is full of stuff I have yet to watch.
Basically you can drive yourself crazy analyzing all the data. One week your favorite show is on the edge of cancellation danger, the next it’s in the safe zone. One bad week can slip it into the danger category. Some shows, like ‘Castle’ have managed to survive walking the edge. Same thing with ‘Fringe’. For fans of these shows it truly is a nail biter. Shows like ‘Fringe’ tend to have a loyal fan following. TVBythenumbers.com has a headline article that ‘Fringe Fans Have a Long Time to Wait With Little to Go On’. Yikes. The Gist of that article is that ‘Fringe’ is the only show on Fox’s line up that sits on the “in danger” list. All the others that have fallen into the ‘danger” zone, have already been canceled. Fox moved ‘Fringe’ to Thursdays, the most competitive night of TV and may feel it could do better on that night. I say just move ‘Fringe’ to another night and try to find another hit that may or may not be able to compete with the already big hitters on Thursday. But honestly, why do all the networks try to be #1. You have a great show with loyal fans, so just go with it. Do you really think you’ll find something to beat the hottest shows on TV at this point?
I’ve updated the lists on my sidebar of the ‘In Danger of Cancellation’ , and the ‘Canceled’ so check it out. By the way, while ‘Melrose Place’ did recieve a bump from Heather’s appearance it is most likely too little too late.
