OK, so don't watch TV
A while back, I wrote, “The fall season is hereby cancelled.” I had no idea.
Friend of Your Mayor Marc Berman, Mediaweek’s ratings guru, has been striving to soften the blow as he has delivered the news of the fall season’s TV numbers. In addition to his usual winners and losers, he has been adding other categories, such as “Could Be Better/Could Be Worse” and “Disappointing.” (Hint: There haven’t been many winners.)
He has also just sort of thrown up his hands and issued this caveat:
“(S)ince the level of DVR penetration has increased from 8.54 percent during premiere week in 2006 to 19.43 million percent at present, the overall results have, no doubt, been negatively impacted.”
No doubt. (Heh-heh, he said “DVR penetration.”) So here are the results from last night’s carnage:
“Dancing with the Stars” (20.34m viewers) and “CSI: Miami” (14.88m) were the evening’s only real hits; everything else just sort of limped along, including “Heroes” (11.94m, but strong in that 18-49 demo you hear so much about), which is proving to be mortal after all.
The only good news for “The Big Bang Theory” (8.58m) is that it does better than its lead-in, “How I Met Your Mother.” The bad news is, its lead-in is “How I Met Your Mother.”
“Chuck” had 8.22m viewers, which looks iffy to me, but Mr. Berman says that its decent retention of its audience from last week is an encouraging sign. He’s less bullish on “Journeyman:” Even though it had slightly more viewers (8.39m), it’s skidding at a faster rate than “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip” did last season.
Meanwhile: Fox and The CW are pretty much DOA. “Prison Break” has shed more than 20% of its audience from last season, and “K-Ville” is down to 5.78m viewers. And The CW can’t manage more than 2.59m viewers in its Monday lineup, even with one-time critical fave rave “Everybody Hates Chris.”
Seems to me TeeVee executives need to have a huge brainstorming session to figure out how to reverse this hemorrhaging of viewers and call in people from outside the industry, as the usual groupthink is clearly not accomplishing much. Or, they can just wait ’til “Jingles” comes along and saves the industry.
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About this blog
David Kronke was appointed Mayor of Television after a bloodless coup in 2000. Since then, he has improved infrastructure, championed greater educational opportunities and fought for reforms that have utterly erased corruption and incompetence from the television industry. Since Mr. Kronke has ascended to power, Television is a far better place.
Could you give some of these shows a break. I mean they are up against the # 2 show on TV in Dancing With The Stars. Chuck and The Big Bang Theory will fine after DWTS exists in November. They will both be over 10 million. I mean did think either show could establish itself as a hit opposite DWTS. Also, Big Bang is the first CBS show to build on the ratings of the 8:00 show, and that is pretty impressive already.
Robbie,
Hey I like both of the shows you mention. I just think (and wish) they should be doing better, particularly since network executives don't necessarily wait until a hit goes off the schedule to kill a promising show.