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'Glee' rockets up the ratings
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"Glee" was a lot of things during its fall run this season, but at just under 8 million viewers a week, one thing it wasn't was a bona fide hit.That changed Tuesday night (April 13).
The FOX series scored the biggest audience in its short history Tuesday, going from cult favorite to top-20 show in the span of one hour. The headline numbers are 13.66 million viewers -- more than 5 million above its season average of 7.95 million -- and a 5.6 rating in the adults 18-49 demographic, a bump of two full points over its fall run.
(The show's previous high mark was for the pilot episode last May, which drew 9.6 million viewers and a 3.9 in the 18-49 demo.)
Having "American Idol" as a lead-in certainly helped, but that's not the only factor in the improved ratings. FOX did a pretty brilliant job at keeping fan awareness high while the show was off, and newcomers had a chance to catch up with a DVD set of the first 13 episodes.
The most striking thing about the ratings Tuesday, to me at least, was the fact that among adults 18-34 -- where "Glee" has had the most success all season -- it actually outdrew "American Idol" (5.8 to 5.6). That almost never happens. "Glee" also retained a higher percentage of "Idol's" adults 18-49 rating than lead-out since a February 2008 episode of "House" and held onto two-thirds of the overall audience, which is also pretty strong for a show airing after "American Idol."
TV being a what-have-you-done-for-me-today kind of business, it will be interesting to watch "Glee's" ratings for the rest of its run. But if it can stay within a reasonable distance of the numbers it put up Tuesday, FOX's decision to give the show an early pickup for next season is going to look increasingly smart.
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NICE!
Awesome show and well deserved good news. :)
Awesome show and well deserved good news. :)
That's great news. Glee is an incredible show and I'm glad that it's finally getting the audience that it deserves.
VERY nice!!!!!
I never understood why the pilot - that originally aired back in May 2009 - did so poorly in the ratings.
Glad to see Glee pull in some very good numbers, however, I'll be more interested to see what the numbers look like in 2 weeks (April 27th ep) when it goes up against a new ep of NCIS: LA (and AI against a new NCIS as well). I know there isn't much of a crossover audience, but I'd imagine there will be a slight hit.
Hopefully next week's Madonna episode ticks up the ratings even further so that the ep in 2 weeks will be in line with this weeks ratings (i.e. a slight dip from next week).
ANOTHER CRAP SHOW THAT PEOPLE WATCH!!!!!!!
THERE ARE MANY SHOWS THAT BLOW THIS JOKE OF A SHOW AWAY ....
LIKE "JUSTIFIED" "SOUTHLAND"
"BREAKING BAD" "IN PLAIN SIGHT"
THE BEST SHOWS ARE NOT ON REGULAR TV CHANNELS ANYMORE ......
THEY ARE ON CABLE/SATELLITE!!!
HELLO PEOPLE ---START WATCHING SHOWS THAT ARE AWESOME!!!!
@Rick: That was a great article! :)
I thought the headline was a bit much, but you hit on all the salient points: lead-in effect, wait for the next few weeks to really call it a hit.
The only thing I'd have added is that FOX not only "kept awareness" it actually re-launched the show.
This is a practice the press rarely (if ever) talks about even though it's become prevalent in the let's-not-try-new -shows-when-we-can-keep-hyping-old-shows world we live in.
But overall, even if I think the headline is a bit misleading, great article. :)
@Rishi: You're entirely right. The rush to call shows "hits" (sometimes even before they air!!) is something that the press all too often falls into.
Of course, we live in a world where HBO just renewed a show (Treme) after one low-rated airing and Starz ordered the sequel to a miniseries that hasn't even aired yet!
I don't know what the cause is, but TV analysis is woefully short of reflection and consideration.
That said, I'll renew my kudos to Rick who mentioned a number of these factors that his colleagues are going to entirely ignore.
I have to emphasize the part about the DVD set coming out so quickly helping newcomers catch up because I fall into that category. I didn't watch the show at first but after all the buzz it got I wanted to give it a try so I watched the entire season so far on DVD over the past month or so, liked it, and watched the new episode this past Tuesday, which I probably wouldn't have without the DVD.