Desperate Housewives surpasses CSI to become the #1 scripted show this season.
From e!online:
quote:
The odds have caught up with CSI.
For the first time in five years, the Vegas-set crime show will not finish a season as TV's most-watched scripted show.
The 2007-08 season ends Wednesday night.
Desperate Housewives, much maligned for its own ratings slippage over the past couple of years, should finish the season on top among scripted shows, with 18.2 million viewers.
CSI, which currently holds a slight edge for second place over House, ends its eighth season averaging 16.89 million viewers, its least amount ever. The show's previous "low" was 17.8 million, posted during its first season.
The last time CSI didn't wind up as TV's top scripted show was 2001-02, when the departing Friends ruled.
CSI enjoyed its best season to date in 2002-03, when the CBS series averaged 26.2 million, and bested everything on TV, scripted or no.
Since 2003-04, CSI has been trumped by American Idol for the overall No. 1—and sometimes the overall No. 2—spot. But up until this season, it was the standard-bearer for scripted shows.
Ratings-wise, CSI has been in decline for more than a year. From the 2005-06 season to the 2006-07 season, the show lost 5.3 million viewers.
CSI opened this past season big and through November was TV's No. 1 show. Then came the writers' strike—and there went 21 percent of its audience. By comparison, Desperate Housewives only lost about 7 percent of its viewers from the start of the strike through the end of the season.
In addition to the strike, CSI went through cast upheaval, with the early season departure of Jorja Fox and the late season word that Gary Dourdan would not be back in the fall.
Desperate Housewives' win, meanwhile, is its first. It takes the scripted crown the old-fashioned way—it actually had more viewers this season than last, adding more than 1 million fans to its ranks.
Overall, Housewives looks to finish sixth, behind various editions of Dancing With the Stars and American Idol, which despite all the hand-wringing over what's wrong with it, should finish the season as TV's No. 1 and No. 2 shows.
While I'm sure TV-aholic, Robert, and the other procedural lovers will hound at this because Housewives didn't air repeats in its time period, I find that decision by ABC to simply be a smart one. Its ridiculous to be airing the repeats of serialized shows like DH because fans simply don't want them. Good job by ABC and good job by Housewives! Hopefully ABC does this again next year. The more original programming, the better.
I'm a fan of DH and not a fan of CSI, but I see this as spin of the highest order. Using this junk metric is effectively punishing CSI for being a good repeater.
DH was not "more than 1 million" viewers stronger than it was last year (pisher reminds us of that every week ), but rather ran this average up by not having in-timeslot repeats. Yes, it was a good idea to not run DH repeats on Sunday... not because of artificially inflating "season average" but because the Big Give did much better than repeats would have.
Maybe the nets use this "season average" garbage, but I still hate it.
Originally posted by spotupj: I'm a fan of DH and not a fan of CSI, but I see this as spin of the highest order. Using this junk metric is effectively punishing CSI for being a good repeater.
DH was not "more than 1 million" viewers stronger than it was last year (pisher reminds us of that every week ), but rather ran this average up by not having in-timeslot repeats. Yes, it was a good idea to not run DH repeats on Sunday... not because of artificially inflating "season average" but because the Big Give did much better than repeats would have.
Maybe the nets use this "season average" garbage, but I still hate it.
This is not an ABC press release, so I wouldn't call it spin. This is how they are measured, like it or not. The serialized reruns always rate low, so ABC did the wise thing and minimize those reruns. I think running serialized shows uninterrupted and then replacing them for 8-10 weeks with a midseason show is going to be the way of the future.
Originally posted by Chimaera: This is not an ABC press release, so I wouldn't call it spin. This is how they are measured, like it or not. The serialized reruns always rate low, so ABC did the wise thing and minimize those reruns. I think running serialized shows uninterrupted and then replacing them for 8-10 weeks with a midseason show is going to be the way of the future.
Yeah, maybe "spin" was the wrong word. My problem is with the measurement. I don't think it's really any indication of anything.
Originally posted by Chimaera: This is not an ABC press release, so I wouldn't call it spin. This is how they are measured, like it or not. The serialized reruns always rate low, so ABC did the wise thing and minimize those reruns. I think running serialized shows uninterrupted and then replacing them for 8-10 weeks with a midseason show is going to be the way of the future.
Yeah, maybe "spin" was the wrong word. My problem is with the measurement. I don't think it's really any indication of anything.
No, not spin. How about "creative accounting?"
And even in this brief discussion we can see a number of issues conflated.
And I agree it doesn't indicate anything, and will not result in anything.
Posts: 1589 | Location: Western Pennsylvania | Registered: 13 December 2006
), but rather ran this average up by not having in-timeslot repeats. Yes, it was a good idea to not run DH repeats on Sunday... not because of artificially inflating "season average" but because the Big Give did much better than repeats would have.
