I'm disappointed by the Lost numbers. I honestly thought that we would have held 14 million at least and I'm personally not going to invoke the Valentine's day curse (although its tempting). I think a lot of people tuned into the premier because of the hype. I'm not thrilled that these post strike episodes are supposed to be at 10pm after Grey's Anatomy. The shows are simply not compatible and they won't capitalize on Grey's fans IMHO.
Posts: 229 | Location: Toronto | Registered: 08 December 2006
Originally posted by asiancolossus: I'm disappointed by the Lost numbers. I honestly thought that we would have held 14 million at least and I'm personally not going to invoke the Valentine's day curse (although its tempting). I think a lot of people tuned into the premier because of the hype. I'm not thrilled that these post strike episodes are supposed to be at 10pm after Grey's Anatomy. The shows are simply not compatible and they won't capitalize on Grey's fans IMHO.
I'm also disappointed and also thought that it would have held at 14 million. I still think it may do that in the finals, like Survivor did last week. I don't think fans are abandoning the show, this season, unlike any other time since season 1 and very early in season 2, fans seem to be getting more into it. I'll point again to the DVR time-shifting viewing playing a bigger role this year. We'll see that once we start getting in those numbers.
Originally posted by xwiseguyx: Well the show was dipping considerably until they started loading a million dollars into all those suitcases. This stunt though can only be found appealing until someone wins and then the numbers will be dipping back to how it was before.
quote:
Originally posted by A.C.: DEAL OR NO DEAL...I still don't get the appeal of watching people opening suitcases for an hour. IF it were only ONE night of the week maybe I could understand the popularity...but the same thing MULTIPLE times a week being so popular I just don't get. Anyway I hope it doesn't overtake SURVIVOR in the ratings.
This DOND overexposure on NBC is so reminiscent of the demise of Who Wants to be a millionaire on ABC -- I know it's very tempting for NBC to strip it to 3-4 times a week, especially when it seems to be doing so well and nothing else they have right now works, but it's reached saturation level and I agree, after this giveaway deal is over, this Deal will never be the same in the ratings again.
FOX Ranks a Strong Number One After 15 Days of the 2008 February Sweep:
After 15 days of the February Sweep, FOX ranks a strong number one over the other networks in all key measures. The mammoth FOX lead over its rivals has been fueled by the enormous, record-breaking Super Bowl numbers, the powerhouse American Idol numbers on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and reliable ratings strength on every other night.
In the young audience A18-49 demo that advertisers crave, FOX has the most nightly wins, having beaten the other networks on nine out of 15 nights so far (one tie), followed by ABC and NBC both having three nightly wins each (one NBC win was a tie with FOX).
After two weeks, ABC holds a 0.11 advantage over NBC for second place in the A18-49 demo, while NBC in turn is only 0.07 ahead of CBS in fourth. However, CBS has a firm grip on second place in households (0.7HH over third place NBC) and viewership (roughly one million over 3rd place ABC).
After two weeks, FOX and MyNetworkTV are both showing solid double-digit improvement over their numbers from last year. All the remaining networks are showing significant double-digit year-over-year declines, with NBC showing the least year-over-year slippage (-18% in demo, -14% in households, and -13% in viewers) while CBS, who were last year's Super Bowl broadcaster, is faring worst (-63% in demo, -50% in households, -56% in viewers) due to its large proportion of encore programming as a result of the writers strike.
After 15 days, the six networks are showing smaller-than-expected (given the strike and increased use of DVR's) year-over-year erosion: the young adult demo down by -11%, households are down by -10% on a year-over-year basis, while viewership is down by -8% year-over-year.
nights nights
demo web demo demo % won won
Rank web 2008 2007 chg 2008 2007
1 FOX 8.20 4.48 83% 9 7
2 ABC 2.55 3.62 -30% 3 3
3 NBC 2.44 2.96 -18% 3
4 CBS 2.37 6.39 -63% 1 5
5 CW 0.89 1.33 -33%
6 MNT 0.47 0.27 75%
total 16.92 19.06 -11% 16 15
nights nights
HH web HH HH HH won won
rank web 2008 2007 chg 2008 2007
1 FOX 11.1 6.5 71% 9 5
2 CBS 5.5 11.0 -50% 4 9
3 NBC 4.8 5.5 -14% 2 1
4 ABC 4.7 6.1 -22% 2 1
5 CW 1.5 2.1 -29%
6 MNT 0.8 0.5 51%
total 28.4 31.7 -10% 17 16
nights nights
viewers web viewers viewers viewers won won
rank web 2008 2007 chg 2008 2007
1 FOX 21.289 10.999 94% 8 5
2 CBS 8.458 19.122 -56% 3 9
3 ABC 7.493 9.545 -22% 2 1
4 NBC 7.392 8.514 -13% 2
5 CW 2.320 3.301 -30%
6 MNT 1.232 0.786 57%
total 48.18 52.27 -8% 15 15
* MyNetworkTV for first 14 nights only.
This years and last years numbers are based upon final Nielsen numbers, except for last nights data which is based on FAST national numbers.
Ratings for Lost honestly don't really matter anymore. It's not worth it to argue over them, because it's been renewed until the end of its run. Unless it dips below 9 million (which it won't) and a 4.0 in the demo (which it also won't), it'll continue to be an ABC asset.
Why do people keep saying things like "It can't possibly dip below (fill in number said show will later dip below)."
I mean, don't you ever watch horror movies?
Lost's ratings are going down, but its production costs are not. I personally think they could easily conclude the story in ten episodes--from any point. So if the ratings keep dropping, ABC might want to consider shortening the rest of the show's run. They really do not have enough story to fill all those eps.
I absolutely DO NOT WANT Lost to be canceled unexpectedly, cutting us off at the knees. I think ABC would rightly fear the reaction they'd get for doing that. But yes, in fact, Lost's ratings do matter. And, in fact, Lost's ratings are a good thing, because they are preventing the show from becoming a complete joke, by running too long. If people had just watched like obedient little sheep, we wouldn't have a set end-date.
Zitrone, why don't you just refer back to the relevant threads for last season, where I made the same criticisms, with no assistance from yourself.
And when are you going to figure out what a waste of film PD was from the first minute of the pilot?
quote:
An even bigger shocker then: we won't learn the true nature of the Island and the Monster (original mysteries of the pilot) before the last couple of episodes, and the explanation will be a letdown.
It would be for some people, no matter when or what it was. You get a lot of people speculating, some of them are going to be disappointed. Twin Peaks answered the question of who killed Laura Palmer BRILLIANTLY, and after less than one full season--and a lot of people didn't like the answer.
Fact is, Lost has been a prisoner of its own success.
We've gotten partial answers to both of those -- the island and the monster. If you don't watch or follow it closely enough, please don't comment on its plot. You can comment on its ratings, but I'm personally satisfied about all the answers, and in fact I thought the time dilation thing was revealed much sooner than I anticipated...
For the record, I've watched every episode, and I figured out a lot of the answers long before they were revealed--and that isn't a good thing, you know. It really is not.
You do not know what the monster is, and you do not know exactly what they are going to reveal about the nature of the island. You have read a lot of online stuff, canonical and otherwise, and you probably still haven't figured out that they've been ripping off Land of the Lost, not famous western philosophers.
Why turn a big-budget network drama into a religion? I just wanted a good story. I love the science fiction elements, and I'm tired of them feeling like they have to keep pretending they aren't there, because they think people will stop watching. People stop watching every single week, because they're tired of being strung along.
Fact is, you could come back at the end of this season, and learn everything you needed to know.
Now originally, the show was so well written and produced that it didn't matter whether they gave us any solid answers. It was a pleasure to watch something so well done, and we could wait.
But that was then, this was now. It's still an above-average show, probably the best drama on the networks right now--but that isn't nearly good enough, because all the other dramas on the networks are tired pointless crap. Hey, this is my opinionated disempowered ranting, not yours!
They've got nothing of importance left to tell us about the main characters, and they'd really die in the ratings if they tried to move away from the popular ones, and they've already killed off all the disposable ones. Yes, Ben and Juliette are pretty good, but not good enough to make up for all this, and we're starting to get tired of them too.
It should NEVER have been conceived as a show that could just run on and on forever. And yet, without that possibility, ABC would never have put up so much money. And this is the reason the open-ended serialized drama is an unperfectable form.
