Sophomore slumps: Long layoffs hurting second-year shows
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The sample size is pretty small, but early returns on the new TV season suggest it's not an especially good time to be a new show, and an even worse one to be a second-year show -- particularly one whose first season was cut short by the writers strike.
Chuck, Pushing Daisies, Private Practice and other second-year shows that had longer-than-usual layoffs because of the strike have suffered some pretty steep dropoffs in their audience. Again, we're only talking about one or two episodes in most cases, and the shows will gain some when later DVR viewing is taken into account (a little over a quarter of homes have DVRs now). But shows also don't usually make big ratings gains once a season starts, so the outlook isn't exactly rosy.
Consider some of these figures:
- Last season NBC's Chuck averaged about 8.7 million viewers per week, and Life drew 8.1 million. Both shows premiered Monday to fewer than 7 million viewers.
- ABC's Pushing Daisies and Private Practice premiered Wednesday to audiences that were 3.1 million and 2.7 million viewers below their averages last fall. Dirty Sexy Money fared a little better, but its audience of 7.1 million was still down by 1 million compared to last year's average.
- Two more series that had their midseason runs truncated because of the strike -- FOX's Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and NBC's Lipstick Jungle -- have also declined. Even if you remove the 18 million-plus opening for Sarah Connor following an NFL playoff game in January, the show has still lost more than 2 million viewers. Lipstick Jungle, which was a surprise renewal in the spring, is down about 1.3 million viewers.
The common thread among all those shows is that none of them had aired an original episode in at least six months. The networks for the most part opted to rest their first-year shows after the strike, and no show that more than half a year off -- even an established one like Heroes, which has lost about 3 million viewers so far -- has come close to matching its ratings from last season.
In contrast, established shows that were brought back post-strike -- the Grey's Anatomys and NCISes of the world -- have done OK, drawing audiences on par with or slightly below their 2007-08 averages. Two of the few second-year shows that did air new episodes in the spring, CBS' The Big Bang Theory and The CW's Gossip Girl, have been fairly healthy so far this fall.
The bitter irony for the second-year shows is that in at least a couple of cases, the long hiatus has actually helped them creatively. The first three episodes of Chuck that NBC sent to critics are as good, if not better, than any the series aired last fall. Pushing Daisies also has a strong beginning creatively, and Private Practice seems to have worked out some of the adolescent silliness that plagued it last year.
News for the newcomers isn't a whole lot better. Tuesday-night competitors The Mentalist and Fringe are the only shows that can be labeled "hits" so far; the CBS crime drama is by far the most-watched new show at 15 million-plus viewers, while the FOX show leads all newbies in the adults 18-49 demographic (4.1, six-tenths of a point ahead of The Mentalist). The CW's 90210 has been a CW-sized success, averaging about 3.7 million viewers so far and pulling in the young female viewers the network wants.
A few high-profile new series -- Life on Mars, Eleventh Hour and My Own Worst Enemy -- have yet to premiere and could still make a bit of a splash in the coming weeks. But if you're looking for a new (or newish) smash this season, you're going to have a hard time finding one.
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Rick:
How has House MD, with it's new team firmly in place and no Wilson, done in the ratings so far this season compared to the averages of last or even the season prior?
Just curious as there seem to be a lot of people who dislike the new direction of the show.
I know I got out of the habit of watching. Between the strike and few new episodes before the summer break, I really stopped caring about many of the shows I was watching. I'm still watching the cable shows because their schedules really didn't change much. Network viewing is still few and far between for me.
I don't feel that the problem lies in less people watching television, but in more people using alternative avenues to watch their shows, such as online, Itunes, DVRs. I myself am too busy to sit in front of the television, and I watch most of my shows online when I'm able to. The networks are using an antiquited method of judging how many people watch their shows. And what's worse, it shows the viewers who the networks don't care about. Most of the people who are using these alternative routes of viewing are the younger people who advertisers want. Until the networks factor in the numbers of people who use online and Itunes to watch their programming, rather than the Nielsons, shows will keep getting pulled prematurely, and more viewers will get fed up that their favorites are getting cancelled and give up on television.
The ratings slump is the fault of the networks because they didn't show any reruns of their shows before the new season. They put everything into showing
game shows and reality programs during the strike. I didn't see one repeat of Heroes but a zillion repeats of Law&Order though.
I agree entirely with JEFF here. Please don't cancel any of these shows before you figure out how to truly calculate accurate numbers of viewers who watch through alternate means! I'm late-20s and I watch primarily via online methods since I'm too busy to sit in front of a tv to watch.
I have not watched a live show in about 3 years, but I watch almost every show that airs on my DVRs or on-line. It is absurd that these so called Network experts have not gotten into the new age of technology. With DVR's, On-line and portable players like Zune and Ipods, who watches live anymore. Even when I do watch on the same night the show airs, it is not live. I love my FF button on the remote.
I'm old school...I only watch live.
I felt that the premiere of PUSHING DAISIES was as good as (if not better than) anything from last year. It was truly magical.
Part of the problem with these shows' second seasons is that they're up against some more-established shows that didn't take quite as long a hiatus last year, like BONES, CRIMINAL MINDS, CSI NY.
I couldn't survive without my DVRs, though. There's way too much on at the same time. There are times when I'm recording four shows at once -- and then hours and hours of prime time where there's nothing to watch. Good think NBC sucks this year... AGAIN.
I was never that into Chuck, actively hated Pushing Daisies, and never saw Private Practice. So I don't care..they can go away and I won't miss them. I'm more into the better shows on cable channels than network drivel.
Chuck's season opener was awesome. Hopefully people come back on board.
And TSCC is terrible. It deserves to lose viewers after last season. I refuse to watch after what should have been it's killer action sequence last year was absolutely stupid. I realize that it's t.v. and it may not have the budget of a major movie but dam it was a let down.