It's about what I expected from Lost. DVR penentration is up again this year, and Heroes and Lost are always neck and neck for being the most DVRed show. The premiere last year was an anomaly - the rest of the rest did not follow those numbers at all. It'll settle into the 10 to 11 million view range and win the timeslot in adults (well, at 9:30 anyway, once Idol is done).
Originally posted by a-mad: Marc, MediaLife Magazine had a much more positive assessment of Lost's performance compared to last year:
"Like just about everything else on broadcast, “Lost” saw a substantial dip compared to last year for last night’s season debut. But it still gave ABC a big boost on a night where it has struggled, even against the much-hyped premiere of Fox’s “Lie to Me.”
“Lost” averaged a 5.0 adults 18-49 rating for its two-hour debut at 9 p.m., according to Nielsen overnights, down 25 percent from last season’s 6.7 for its premiere.
Last year “Lost” aired against weak competition at the height of the writers’ strike. Last night it had much tougher competition and in fact did not even win its timeslot in its first hour. “Lie,” which got a cushy “American Idol” lead-in, bettered “Lost” by 0.1 at 9 p.m., averaging a 5.2 to the ABC drama’s 5.1.
“Lost” did revive ABC’s Wednesday, where the network had been lagging for months with a trio of second-year dramas. The network finished second on the night behind Fox, with the network's best performance in the timeslot for a regularly scheduled scripted series since May 2007."
Last year, Lost premiered on a writer's strike afflicted Thursday night... so no American Idol lead-in affect. Its main competition? Don't Forget the Lyrics, Celebrity Apprentice and a repeat of CSI...
Last night? Highly promoted debut of post-Idol Lie to Me and an original Criminal Minds.
This about sums it up perfectly. All of these factors considered, the premiere of Lost did very, very well. Lost is never going to rise in viewership again, ever, it's a serialized drama that requires a lot of attention. And the fact that 11-13 million people have found it in themselves to find that attention for over four years now is incredibly amazing. ABC will be very happy to have this show on for the next two years with it's reliable and strong demo following.
AND YES, it has definitely revitalized the long-dead Wednesday night for ABC! It's been a loooong time since they got this strong ratings from a Wednesday.
Lost's ratings are awful for a hyped 2 hour season premiere. But really does the ratings even mean anything to it anymore, it's already got it's end date. It won't be canceled before that.
Instead of promoting Steve McPherson they should be getting new blood in there to fix things look at the mess he allowed at GA. PP is a place holder, DH and B&S are going down. Other than DTWS what does it have to compete?
ABC Entertainment, Studios Merging By Josef Adalian
ABC Entertainment and ABC Studios are merging into a single unit to be headed by Steve McPherson.
Anne Sweeney, president of the Disney-ABC Television Group, announced the expected decision Thursday morning at a meeting of ABC and ABC Studios employees.
Mr. McPherson will become president of the newly titled ABC Entertainment Group. Mark Pedowitz, who has a successful four-year run as head of ABC Studios, will now serve as a senior advisor to Ms. Sweeney, where he will help her on a broad range of business, emerging media and labor issues.
“The landscape of our business, and an opportunity to coalesce the creative process dictated this change in structure," Ms. Sweeney said. "By operating these units in a coordinated fashion, we’ll be able to present the industry with a unified, cohesive creative vision for ABC programming, which will serve us well as we move forward.”
Ms. Sweeney praised both Mr. McPherson and Mr. Pedowitz.
“Thanks to the quality of leadership and professional excellence exhibited by both Steve and Mark, we are able to implement this change and ensure that a smooth integration occurs," she said. "Mark’s years of experience on both the business and creative sides of the equation make him the perfect person to have in a key advisory position, especially with the multitude and complexity of the issues facing our industry today. And there is no one more passionate about the creative process, with as much proven business acumen, as Steve. This combination is why I’m so excited about this new management structure, and what it means for the future of the Disney-ABC Television Group.”
ABC said the new group's "primary mandate will be to develop and produce compelling programming for broadcast on ABC. However, when appropriate, the studio will look for outside opportunities."
In other words, ABC will still use its roster to develop programming for outside networks&meash;but it won't be its chief goal.
This vertical integration, and the way it muddies up network decision-making ('According to Jim'), makes me wistful for the days of fin-syn when the interests of producers and distributors/exhibitors were more clearly demarcated. Now, all the networks seem to be moving to a model of being captive pipelines for their studio product (except for MyNetworkTV, which has nada FOX Television productions), and this will, over time, shut out independent producers and alternative voices (especially minorities) from the system.
If an activist FCC and Justice Department brings back fin-syn (and I think they should look at a new 21st century model), they needs to broaden the umbrella to include corporate control over theatrical, broadcast, cable and web distribution channels and the production arms that feed the beast.
Originally posted by dumont: Now, all the networks seem to be moving to a model of being captive pipelines for their studio product (except for MyNetworkTV, which has nada FOX Television productions),
Where do all those movies come from?
i'd still count Warner Bros. as the one exception, since they put large amounts of product onto all the networks. Just look at shows like The Mentalist, Fringe, Smallville, ER, and Pushing Daisies: Warner gives every nwetwork a shot at their shows.
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If an activist FCC and Justice Department brings back fin-syn (and I think they should look at a new 21st century model), they needs to broaden the umbrella to include corporate control over broadcast, cable and web distribution channels and the production arms that feed the beast.
I agree with you that there needs to be a better separation between Studios and networks...as well as a better separation to prevent one entity from owning multiple local affiliates and newspapers. The swing toward conglomerates has moved too far.
Demos are still too low. In my opinion, for these comedies to have a chance on Wednesdays next year, they both need to pull in mid 2s demos. If CBS doesn't want to get rid of the happy hour concept completely, they could stick one of their dramadies in development there next year.
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Originally posted by Twins12: Gary Unmarried is really starting to lose steam. It was building a little bit on Old Christine earlier in the season now it loses viewers every week, and the .1 demo increase is almost like losing demo considering the higher rated 830 time slot. I suppose Christine looks a little better, while Gary is looking a little worse.
Lost, like all of ABC's other big dramas, experienced a large year to year decline. The numbers are good enough for Lost. When it faces Idol, it will take a dip in the ratings.
Over at CBS, the comedies are still having trouble finding an audience and the demos are still struggling to get past a 2. CM did well. CSI NY did well in viewers, but it's demos were lower. Lost took some of the demos away from CBS. If LOM can hang on to Lost's demos, then it could really affect CSI NY.
At NBC, Knight Rider is dead. L&O: SVU did decently in repeats. L&O also did decently. NBC will be happy with a 2.5 demo for it.
FOX got good ratings out of AI and decent ratings out of LTM. Going against the premiere of Lost probably affected its numbers. We'll have to see how it stands next week. Moving it to 8 PM with lesser competition will also help it.
CW was dead with 13: The Fear Is Real and a repeat of 90210. This night can't wait until ANTM returns.
Not amazing, but not a complete disaster either. If LTM can hang on to 75% of those numbers when it moves to 8 PM, FOX would be satisfied.
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Originally posted by TravisYanan: Fox has released "time-zone adjusted fast nationals" for Lie to Me just as it did for the Idol premiere last Tuesday. Here are the numbers for the pilot (which aired 9:03pm to 10:06pm)...
- 12.4 million viewers - 4.9 A18-49 (share not calculated)
These numbers will be much closer to the finals than the 13.19 million viewers and 5.2/13 A18-49 figure.
I agree. ABC needs to work on finding their next big hits.
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Originally posted by KSO: Lost's ratings are awful for a hyped 2 hour season premiere. But really does the ratings even mean anything to it anymore, it's already got it's end date. It won't be canceled before that.
Instead of promoting Steve McPherson they should be getting new blood in there to fix things look at the mess he allowed at GA. PP is a place holder, DH and B&S are going down. Other than DTWS what does it have to compete?
Originally posted by dumont: Now, all the networks seem to be moving to a model of being captive pipelines for their studio product (except for MyNetworkTV, which has nada FOX Television productions),
Where do all those movies come from?
Some of the MyNetworkTV movies do indeed come from FOX, but they are curated from an wide array of studios (MGM, Columbia/Sony, Warner, Disney/BV/Touchstone, Paramount, Lionsgate, Universal) and a large number of independent producers that would make a Sundance programmer proud (illustrious titles that received their broadcast premieres on MyNetworkTV included 'Hotel Rwanda', 'The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou', 'Under the Tuscan Son', 'Something Wild', 'Being Julia', 'Sherrybaby', 'Whale Rider', 'Mulholland Drive', 'The Salton Sea', 'Detroit 9000', 'The End of the Affair', 'Spartan', 'Secret Window').
