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Monday ratings breakdown: What the heck happened to 'Lone Star'?
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A lot of reviews and stories written about "Lone Star" prior to its premiere mentioned that it had the feel of a cable show.Unfortunately for FOX, so did its ratings.
Despite widespread critical praise and a pretty decent promotional push from the network, the "Lone Star" premiere drew only 4.1 million viewers Monday night (Sept. 20). Yes, it was up against some well-established competition ("Dancing With the Stars" and CBS' comedy block) and another heavily hyped new show ("The Event"), but its weak performance is a bit of a shock.
The show bled more than half of its lead-in viewers from "House" (10.7 million), and in the adults 18-49 demographic, which FOX uses to measure success, "Lone Star" drew an anemic 1.3 rating. That's less than a third of "House's" 4.2 demo rating. It will undoubtedly gain some when DVR numbers are released in a couple weeks, but it would need to practically double its audience -- a pretty unlikely scenario -- to stay viable for the network.
Other notes from the first official night of the 2010-11 season:
- CBS saw both of its new series perform pretty well. "Hawaii Five-0" (14.2 million viewers) and "Mike & Molly" (12.2 million) were the two most-watched new shows of the night, and they each drew a 3.9 rating in the 18-49 demo, also tops among newcomers. "Two and a Half Men" scored 14.6 million viewers and a 4.9 rating among adults 18-49, both up from last season's premiere.
- NBC got a promising start from "The Event," which averaged 10.9 million viewers and a 3.6 rating among adults 18-49. That's way up over the time-period average last year ("Trauma" and "Heroes"), but the best news for NBC is that the show grew from its first half to its second. That's a sign that viewers were willing to stick with its twisty narrative.
- Elsewhere on NBC, "Chuck" (5.8 million viewers, 2.0 in 18-49) was up a bit from its final episodes last season (although down from its season premiere in January), while "Chase" (7.3 million, 2.3 in the demo) was unspectacular but improved on the network's time-period average from last season ("The Jay Leno Show" and "Law & Order"), Olympics coverage excluded.
- "Dancing With the Stars" (21.3 million viewers, 5.1 in 18-49) improved significantly on its fall 2009 debut in leading ABC to the night's top spot (although it wasn't as strong as the premiere of the spring 2010 edition). The big "Dancing" numbers also helped "Castle" (10.7 million, 2.7) make significant gains over its 2009 debut.
- Despite the heavier competition, both "90210" and "Gossip Girl" were pretty much even with their premieres last week. That said, neither show broke 2 million viewers.
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I watched Lone Star. I thought it sucked and I wished the entire time that I had watched The Event instead of DVRing it. Was The Event any good?
I liked the event even though the whole flashbacks were annoying. Hope they stop that junk in future episodes. There was simply too much on last night for lone star to get decent ratings.
I have Lone Star on my DVR, and I fast forwarded through it to see what it looked like. All I saw was some guy smirking for an hour. Didn't look good.
In other news, I watched Hawaii 50 and man! It was really really really bad. Not watching THAT again.
The Event was good, though. One so far to keep on my recording schedule.
Bottom line was the competition was too stiff. The buzz for The Event was huge (and it was good), and DWTS was pretty much going to rule the ratings, so no big surprise that the show was going to come in last for the slot. I dvr'd it and will try to watch it when I get time. There's just too much on tv nowadays...
I saw the Event and wished I watched Lone Star live. It is a pretty good show and wished Fox would schedule a third hour to have shows like this on to gain an audience.
I watched Lone Star; it was awesome. Hopefully, more people will give it a try.
I hated the Event and see no reason to try it again. Lame.
Lone Star is great! I don't understand how someone could call it 'horrible'...If fox cancels it I hope FX gives it a chance.
Watched "Chase" and it was fantastic- a lot better than I thought it was going to be. Recorded "The Event" and going to check out "Hawaii Five-O"'s encore on Saturday.
@Rick: You are generally right about Lone Star, and I'll add that its lack of traction shows once again that getting the critics behind you means absolutely nothing except that you had a good marketing campaign aimed at critics.
However, as far as measuring success, FOX, like all networks, measures success by the amount of money shows bring in. And that amount is directly proportional to the number of people of all ages watching.
FOX has been slicing and dicing its audience since it started because, apart from a few exceptional shows like The Simpsons, it never managed to obtain the wide success that the 3 major networks routinely used to get.
FOX legitimately was going after a smaller slice of the audience when it started and could argue that one should not look too closely at the overall numbers, but it is no longer the case,
Sadly, the spin worked all too well and now every low-rated network and every low-rated show finds some slice of the audience where it is doing less poorly and claims victory.
Sadly, the more the spin worked, the lower the ratings got, the ultimate example of that cycle being CW which kept shrinking its avowed target audience only to see its overall and target audiences shrink into utter irrelevance.
@Carly: I tried to watch Chase and it was as horrible as I thought it was going to be. :( What is it with casting awful actors in lead parts (Hawaii 5-0 similarly has two awful actors in the leads)? :(
@Ryan: Not all people have the same taste. I can only DVR so many shows or I'd have tried Lone Star yesterday, but the previews looked less promising than that of The Event (which I have yet to watch). but honestly, neither looked all that promising to me.
On the plus side, I was pleasantly surprised by Mike and Molly which could have been horrible but was actually quite enjoyable.
"Lone Star" was great! James Wolk is fantastic. I hope more people tune in next week. I would be sad if it got cancelled.