The Extratextuals

Now that the TV season’s had 7 weeks under its wing, and the first sweeps weeks are over, let’s look at some of their professors’ midterm grades for the new class, after the fold …

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new shows, ratings cancellations, ratings

Come on already, network TV: I want some cancellations! I submit for your consideration Eastwick, Cougar Town, Grey’s Anatomy, Jay Leno, and Melrose Place … though somehow I think only the former is realistically going anywhere soon, and the latter a bit later.

Indeed, if we look at what has not been picked up, the writing may be on the wall for Trauma, Law and Order, Eastwick, the forgotten, Hank, Three Rivers, Til Death, and Brothers (with the latter two tellingly cut from November sweeps … which may delay their inevitable deaths). Almost everything else has scored a pickup, or at least a few more episodes in the case of MP (and Trauma, Hank, and Eastwick dropped further in the ratings this week, hitting new lows). More after the fold …
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new shows, ratings Jay Leno, Melrose Place, ratings

Since I’ve been recording the Nielsen overnights, from TV By the Numbers, and have been ranking them at the end of each week, I’ve got a few observations on what’s going up and what’s going down. (Note, though, that these are from overnights, and thus at times don’t account for the refined toggling that occurs later. Take em with a grain of salt in other words):

• The Simpsons finished in the top 10 in ratings this week, even beating Football Night in America and CSI: Miami. Way to go, Lisa! And very cool to see it doing so well this year.
• Speaking of oldtimers with attitude, 60 Minutes has placed in the top 10 in overall viewers two weeks in a row now. For a show that was in the top 10 for 23 years in a row (1977-2000), it’s clearly still ticking (ouch. Sorry, bad joke)
• The very top has been pretty reliable: Sunday Night Football, Grey’s Anatomy, and House have ruled the roost for four straight weeks, if we’re talking 18-49 ratings, or NCIS, NCIS: LA, Dancing with the Stars, and Sunday Night Football have ruled if we’re talking overall viewers. There’s your evidence that I don’t have a Nielsen box in my home
• NCIS’s viewing numbers are quite remarkable – almost 4 million more than its closest competitor (that’s a difference of 3 Melrose Places), and up a full 3 million from last year. Indeed, while I don’t care much for the show (though I also don’t wish it ill), it’s encouraging to see shows slowly climb the ratings charts, as surely this gives hope that all of one’s middling favorites can also ascend to lofty heights one day … or at least that’s what I hope NBC think when they look at Chuck
• Eastwick has dropped the most precipitously, from #35 to #63 in 18-49 ratings, #36 to #63 in overall viewers
• Leno’s numbers haven’t moved in big ways, but over time they’re going down. His Monday 18-49 ranking has gone from #56 to #66, Tuesday from #41 to #52, Wednesday #53 to #61, Friday from #62 to #69, and while Thursday hasn’t dropped, it’s only gone up a smidgeon from #59 to #58. Euthanasia calls

ratings Nielsen, ratings

Not much change from last week, so I’ll spare you the full list and numbers. Suffice it to say:

• NCIS: LA is still doing really well, ranking #4 in overall viewers, and #19 in the 18-49 demo, easily the most successful of the class of 2009
• Glee, The Vampire Diaries, and Jay Leno’s Thursday night all had their best ratings to date
• Modern Family, Flash Forward, and Accidentally on Purpose recovered a bit from weaker showings the previous week
• Three Rivers and Eastwick edged closer to oblivion, both slipping slightly
• And Melrose Place is back in the undisputed last place, in both overall viewers and 18-49 demo ratings (and in class)
• Viewing in general was up last week, about a quarter of a million people per show on average. Measure the above three failures relative to that

So, my cancellation predictions remain the same as last week

new shows, ratings Nielsen, ratings

Tv By the Numbers just updated their Cancel/Renew Index for scripted shows (note: no reality, sports, news, or Jay), which divides a show’s demo ratings by its network’s average ratings to get a sense of how it’s performing relative to its colleagues. Go read, but some highlights:

• Most at risk are Til Death with an anemic 0.28, Brothers at 0.31, and Dollhouse at 0.33. All are FOX shows, so you gotta figure they’ll kill off the first two in time for the American Idolization of TV in January (if not earlier), and though FOX announced that it will play all 13 episodes of Dollhouse, you gotta figure that’s it.
• NBC’s worst performing show is Law and Order, at 0.48. Its worst new show is Trauma at 0.72
• CBS’s worst performing show is Numb3rs (which, like L&O is on Friday, so surely it has a little extra slack) at 0.54. Close behind is its newbie struggler, Three Rivers at 0.58
• ABC’s worst performing show is Hank at 0.64
• The CW’s bottom-feeder is (what else?) Melrose Place at 0.80
• The best performing new show? The CW’s Vampire Diaries at 1.65, though FOX’s The Cleveland Show is also doing very well at 1.52
• The best show overall is ABC’s Desperate Housewives at a whopping 2.09

new shows, ratings cancellations, ratings

A look at how the new shows fared this past week, with ranking within 18-49 demo ratings, and ranking of total viewers in parentheses:

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The Hits

• NCIS: LA (13, 3) has dropped in the 18-49 demo since starting, but is still going strong
• The Cleveland Show (14, 38) is up from a regular success, since it’s in the top 20 in the demo. It’s slipped, so it might go back down, but for now it’s doing very well

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The Successes

• The Good Wife (32, 9) is a really solid performer, without the volatile numbers that characterize many other new shows (see below), and with strong total viewer numbers
• Flash Forward (31, 28) had a bad week, dropping from the top 20 to 31 in the demo, and down 3.36 million viewers from its premier. But ABC picked it up for the season, so it’s on firm footing
• Modern Family (27, 31) is in a similar situation to FF: down in the demo, 4.28 million viewers down from its premier, yet picked up for the season and still doing okay
• Cougar Town (30, 37) also got picked up, dropped in the demo, and lost viewers
• Glee (28, 43) offers a rare situation: it’s doing better, up 8 spots in the demo since 2 weeks ago, and up 7 spots in viewers
• Vampire Diaries (60, 70), like The Good Wife, just keeps moving along with the same numbers, all of which are very impressive for The CW

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Middling

• Accidentally on Purpose (37, 48) is continuing a slow creep downwards, but is doing better than New Adventures and Gary Unmarried, so it’s probably safe for now
• the forgotten (51, 32) is struggling, and could easily drop a level
• Mercy (56, 44) is probably only protected by being the least unsuccessful of three new unsuccessful medical dramas
• The Middle (49, 52) is exactly there, in the middle, though it got picked up for a season, so clearly ABC have some trust in it … for now
• Jay Leno (best 47, 55; worst 71, 69) can do okay on Tuesdays, but otherwise is doing poorly

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Drop Zone

• Three Rivers (62, 41) has lousy demo numbers, not horrible, but low enough to make it CBS’s most cull-able new show
• Hank (64, 53) was tellingly the only sitcom not to get a full pick-up this week from ABC, and with its numbers, I’d be surprised to see it around much longer
• Community (52, 66) got a slightly new timeslot this week, sign #1 of being cut, and it dropped 17 spots in the demo, sign #2 of being cut
• Trauma (57, 62) has bad numbers, and “wins” the worst-performing medical drama sweepstakes
• Eastwick (55, 65) has gone down 20 spots in the demo and 29 in overall viewers in 2 weeks. I’d say it’s easily ABC’s most likely to be killed
• Brothers (80, 74) was dead last in the 18-49 demo, and close to that in overall viewers. Surely it will be axed
• Melrose Place (78, 80) had its best week, but when that equates to 78 in the demo, and last (80) in overall viewers, that’s pretty awful. Would somebody tell CW that Aaron Spelling is dead?

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Other Observations

• Total viewership is down about 800,000 per show on average from two weeks ago
• This week’s top 10 were (from top to bottom) Sunday Night Football, Grey’s Anatomy, House, The Office (yay Jim and Pam!), Desperate Housewives, Family Guy, Big Bang Theory, NCIS, Football Night in America, and Two and a Half Men in the demo, and NCIS, Dancing with the Stars, NCIS: LA, Sunday Night Football, 60 Minutes, CSI, The Mentalist, Grey’s Anatomy, The Good Wife, and Criminal Minds in total viewers
• Who says sitcoms are dead? 4 of those top 10 in the 18-49 demo are sitcoms, DH is a comedy more broadly conceived, and Grey’s is comically bad, if that counts

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new shows, ratings Nielsen, ratings

Now that I have another week of Nielsen ratings to work with, let’s reevaluate how the new shows are doing. After the fold …
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new shows, ratings Nielsen, ratings

A brief pause from reviews to discuss the passing of Beautiful Life, and the low ratings of Brothers. Both cases illustrate how much the extratextuals matter. After the fold …
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ads, new shows, poster art, ratings, trailers Brothers, Nielsen, pilots, ratings, The Beautiful Life

A pause from the reviews now to look at the new show’s numbers, and to discuss what those numbers tell us about the past five days, the “first official week” of the Fall season. After the fold …
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new shows, ratings Nielsen, pilots, ratings

While unpacking and getting the new life sorted out, one of the things I’ve found some spare time for this summer has been catching up on (ie: watching from the beginning) Mad Men. I’m now intrigued by their advertising for the new season.

Before getting to the ads for the show, though, let me say how wonderful I think Mad Men is. I’m so impressed by the storytelling, and by how the show can shift focus to various supporting characters with skill, fleshing them out wonderfully over time. It’s also a treat to see a show that can critically examine a whole bunch of “issues” without feeling didactic, obvious, or hackneyed.

I’m also somewhat surprised by its relatively low ratings to date, which places its ad campaigns under the microscope for me. Yeah, it’s slow, it’s hard to crack if you missed earlier episodes, and it’s on a cable channel. But Lost is hard to crack, and has managed much higher ratings. And, like Lost, I would have imagined that its eye candy factor, both in terms of beautiful people, but also in terms of high quality filming, would have helped smooth over other perceived problems. Even more than Lost, too, it’s been a critical darling. Like 30 Rock, it’s managed the amazing trick of being full of product placement yet still loved and revered by TV critics and academics alike. It’s gotten a bunch of Emmy nominations.

So, if it’s so good, and if it has such good buzz, why aren’t more people watching it?

AMC is clearly asking the same thing, since they’ve put a major push into marketing it this last month. Two strategies in particular are interesting.

First, as many of you will have seen on Facebook, they came up with a Mad Men Yourself avatar creator. The Simpsons made such a splash with its avatar creator for The Simpsons Movie, as Facebook went all Springfieldian for a month or more. It’s a smart tool for getting your show out there, and I’d imagine that if the Yearbook Yourself site wasn’t competing with it right now, I’d be seeing even more Duck Phillips, Pete Campbell, or Rachel Mencken clones on Facebook every time I log in. Below is my own arrival at Sterling Cooper.

What I find somewhat amusing with these is that neither Springfield nor Sterling Cooper seem like particularly wonderful worlds to step into. I think of a friend who recently expressed concern that a Facebook quiz said that she was Betty Draper in Mad Men, and a friend of hers noted that there’s no particularly wonderful woman to be in the show. I’d echo that with men – sure, everyone wanted to be Lester or Omar for the Facebook Wire quizzes, but do you really want to be Don, Sterling, or Pete? If so, you kind of missed the criticism. I think the way to read these avatar creators, though, is not that they’re saying that you might want to step into these worlds, as much as they’re sending a message that one could, since they are immersive, expansive, tangible environments.

The other part of the Mad Men campaign that somewhat perplexes me is its joining forces with Banana Republic (hereafter BR). BR has designed a bunch of its summer items around the show, and its windows are full of ads (including a competition that would allow one a walk-on role in the show). Mad Men is full of product placement, but since it’s set in the early sixties, they’re all for brands that were around then. BR wasn’t, so already there’s a somewhat odd temporal disjuncture. It’s a smart relationship for BR, since Mad Men is heavily stylized, full of well-dressed and crisp looking people, and it’s a critical darling, so they can brand themselves as classy, chic, and sophisticated. But Mad Men seems to get very little textually out of the deal – how does that communicate to anyone a sense of what Mad Men is, other than saying it’s the classy sibling of the Gap and Old Navy (but which shows are the Gap and Old Navy in this metaphor?). Admittedly, what it does get is visibility – it gets into malls around the continent.

So what I’m left wondering is whether that’s ultimately all Mad Men really needs to get more viewers – visibility. Is a BR shopper a would-be Mad Men viewer? I’d love to see the demographics and research behind this campaign. Indeed, I’m left, ironically, wanting to know how this show about advertising handles its advertising.

ads, ratings Mad Men, promotion