Today's Star-Ledger column, in which I look at early ratings winners and losers in the TV season - with special emphasis on all the weirdness at NBC - was just about to go to press when Nielsen released the DVR figures from the first week of the season, which showed, among other things, that "Dollhouse" got a 50% audience boost when you factored in DVR usage. I was able to slip in a brief amendment to that item, but as the Whedon fans have spent the better part of the last 24 hours trying to parse the meaning of that figure, I thought I'd offer a few more thoughts after the jump... First, the good news: Fox scheduling chief Preston Beckman said that, in light of this news, all 13 "Dollhouse" season two episodes will air. Though you'll note he didn't say when they would air, and admitted they might have to pull the show off the schedule for November sweeps.
Now, the bad: a 50% improvement on an abysmal rating is still an abysmal rating. It's like when Fozzie Bear demanded that Kermit double his salary; Kermit did it, but since Fozzie wasn't making any money before, nothing times two still equaled nothing. As Fienberg pointed out in an excellent post that goes more in-depth into the numbers than I'm going to, it's easy to get a 50% boost when you're starting from such a small base, where other shows had a smaller percentage increase but a much larger viewership increase. And since people watching shows on DVR after the fact are far more likely to skip over the commercials, any DVR boost may be considered negligible at best from the advertisers who keep these shows on the air.
In that Hollywood Reporter story, Joss Whedon talked about how the 13th episode would "definitely have closure but will leave some doors open." At this point, I think that's the only sane way to approach things. It's a miracle "Dollhouse" was renewed at all based on last year's awful ratings, but for the ratings to be even worse this year is a sign the show just isn't long for this world. So I'd advise any fans to treat these 13 episodes as an unexpected bonus, and hope that whatever Joss does in that finale, on top of what we saw in "Epitaph One," is a satisfying enough conclusion for this flawed but often interesting series.
22 comments:
Sweeps months are so bizarre to me. The networks use it to determine their advertising rates, so they load up the schedule with things that will bring in ratings so they can set the rates as high as possible. The advertisers surely know the networks are doing this, know that it keeps the rates high, but don't do anything about it. Why don't the advertisers insist on some alternative, like using average ratings across the TV season, or having surprise sweeps months at random (like surprise quizzes in high school)?
I must be missing something in the equation, because the advertisers' behavior doesn't seem rational to me.
Sweeps are completely antiquated. All the networks hate them. The problem is that the local affiliates still need them, and until someone can come up with a better solution, it is what it is.
One thought--I'm not so sure "viewers are still checking out new shows" at 10 PM. "Eastwick" and "the forgotten" are crashing and burning, the move of "The Mentalist" hasn't been the smash success CBS hoped it would be, and "Castle" isn't ahead of Leno by that much. The only new show at 10 that's a success is "Good Wife," which is at least in part lead-off dependent. It seems like, with the inexplicable exception of "CSI: Miami" (and maybe "Good Wife") viewers are completely rejecting networks at 10.
Also, I think there's some interesting trajectory comparisons between NCIS and Law and Order as franchises--both took years to spinoff and to reach the height of their popularity.
On the DVR front, is anyone else aggravated with the way NBC seems to be running the Thursday comedies like 2 minutes over, but not listing them that way? So, if I want to see the last bit from the Office, I have to make sure I DVR whatever is after it. Which I usually do, but it's soooo annoying to have to fire up the next show to see the end of one. Or am I the only one this is happening to?
TC, you're not the only one. I actually thought it was a problem with my Tivo's clock or cable service, until I realized it was only happening on NBC Thursday nights. My recording always cuts off in the middle of the tag so I miss the joke, even if I taped the show after. Not funny, NBC. Not funny at all.
I've started noticing that, too, TC, and it's irritating. I don't get why the relationship between networks and viewers has to seem so...adversarial at times.
On the Dollhouse front, I really hope that Fox just bites the bullet and runs the show in its entirety now. If ratings are poor now, they'll only get worse if the momentum is stopped.
That's a good point, Carrie. Even when I do record the following show, there's enough of a gap between the recordings that whatever lies within is just lost.
So annoying.
TC: After the second time it happened to me on Thursday night on NBC, I stopped setting the DVR to tape individual shows and just set it to record the whole two-hour block of time. That way I get it all even if NBC plays its little reindeer games with stretching and shrinking the run times of the individual shows.
Matt said: One thought--I'm not so sure "viewers are still checking out new shows" at 10 PM.
You could be right about that. I've watched four of them so far (Trauma, The Forgotten, Three Rivers, and The Good Wife). The Good Wife is the only one that even sort of grabbed my attention. ABC and CBS blew it. They could have used that hour to feature some great shows. Instead, they've presented nothing but tired shows with trite storylines and predictable conclusions.
For those of you having DVR problems. Do your DVRs give you the option to add time at the beginning and the end? It took me a while to find it, but mine does. (We just got DVR, and have the newest unit available. Perhaps the older ones don't?)
the move of "The Mentalist" hasn't been the smash success CBS hoped it would be
Matt, I can't honestly imagine what CBS expected, exactly, out of moving The Mentalist to Thursdays at 10 other than what it's done, which is average comparable numbers (in the 15 million viewer range) to its old timeslot in a spot that had been the death knell for new programming for at least the last three years. Personally, I'd like to see it back on Tuesdays at 9, because I think an NCIS spinoff was totally unnecessary, but I think it's hard to argue this early on that it was a bad move.
@Kensington
Yeah, that makes sense from the viewer angle but from the programming angle they're just throwing good money after bad. More than likely they'll tease out Dollhouse viewers with episodes sprinkled in slots that aren't as important over the next few months, and possibly air the last few on Saturday nights going into the Winter. Just hope they don't follow ABC's treatment of Pushing Daisies and hold the final episodes for some time next Summer, or follow their own treatment of Firefly and hold them for DVD. Just because they've committing to MAKING them doesn't mean they've committed to AIRING them.
Can anyone answer whether or not they still use the Nielsen system for DVRs as well? As Alan said, sweeps is very antiquated and the whole Nielsen thing seems even worse. I don't know anyone who participates in the Nielsen system and it seems like something they should have retired decades ago.
I wouldn't want the networks to get all Big Brother on us, but can they monitor any DVRs for ratings? Because sometimes I record Tool Academy 2, alright?
TC - It happens to me, too, and I consider it just one more reason to hate NBC.
AdamW - Good thinking on just recording the block instead of individual shows. It'd be a minor inconvenience if you want to skip around between shows, but that's better than missing stuff.
The record extra time idea doesn't work so great if you're trying to record other things on other channels, too.
I rechecked the numbers on Mentalist--I thought it had worse retention from CSI and was less competitive both in total viewers and 18-49 than it actually is. I think CBS was hoping for it to break out given the lack of competition, and while it has held its own, it hasn't done that.
Joel E., you're probably right, but here's the thing that Fox ought to consider: I've been a fervent supporter of Dollhouse, but if it's clearly going to be thrown to the wolves in the way you describe, I might just give up.
Not out of malice, but it will just become very easy to stop paying attention and just forget about it.
You mention Community doing well in its first few weeks before it moved to 8, but is a pickup imminent? It's easily my favorite new show, and with NBC being the mess it is I'm worried it'll go away.
As for Dollhouse, yeah, this season has always felt like a bonus, and I'm treating it as such. In a weird way, it makes me upset that Firefly couldn't get a second batch of 13. That show didn't suffer any of the problems Dollhouse did creatively, but I guess it just cost too much.
So here's what I don't get. Everyone is really ticked at NBC for a variety of reasons (all of them justified, as far as I'm concerned) but tolerate the network's tactics anyway? I'm swearing off NBC. There's too much good TV elsewhere.
I would argue that a big part of the problem at 10 pm is the caliber of the shows the networks are putting there. Original CSI is the best of the CSI bunch, but it's the only one that airs at 9 instead of 10. Aside from Mad Men, the only 10 pm show I make it a point to try to watch every week is Top Chef. I tend to watch procedurals when I have nothing better to do, and that's pretty much all we have going at 10.
Networks have tried to launch decent quality stuff (or at least interesting failures) at 10 PM pretty regularly over the past five years--"Castle," "The Unusuals," "Love Monkey," "Commander In Chief," "Studio 60," "Dirty Sexy Money," "Journeyman," "Eli Stone," "Life On Mars." None found a big audience.
to Paul - i understand how people get frustrated at network tactics, and at one point or another may hate everything that a network does (be it the shows they air, the shows they cancel, or the antics of executives). but as a viewer, all i care about in the end is the shows i like, whatever network they are on. so i'll continue watching The Office and other NBC shows, just as i'll continue to enjoy shows on ABC, CBS, FOX, etc.
clearly, NBC's moves the past few years has put the network in a bad position right now, and the viewers are turning off. but it doesn't mean that everything on there is bad and should be avoided just because of the name of the network.
I'm sorry for being a broken record here, but I really hope Fox takes this lesson from 'Dollhouse': If you're going to commission "edgy" shows, then you've got to follow through. It seems to me that opening the series with, in effect, five pilots in a row and incredibly crass, almost soft core porno, publicity pics not only DIDN'T WORK but totally misrepresented what Dollhouse was about and only served to piss off/gross out Whedon's infamously vocal fanbase. Epic fail on all counts, as the kids say.
I'm not saying Dollhouse is flawless (it isn't) and it was sabotaged by braindead suits (it was, IMO, always going to have to work to find a viable audience when the premise had an inbuilt ick-factor). If only it was that simple.
Dare I say it, but take a look at the way SyFy approached BSG -- another show that wasn't thematically or stylistically a conventional genre show, or an easy sell. (When you start off with genocide, a female lead with terminal breast cancer and a handful of survivors running for their lives you're not talking about the television equivalent of comfort food.) For all the criticism SciFi gets on line, Ron Moore and David Eick have gone out of their way to give "the suits" due credit for getting what they were trying to do and being supportive from the start (even when the show was dark as the bottom of a coalmine at midnight). I'd also say that, on the whole, the show was intelligently and appropriately promoted.
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