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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Failing grades have so far been given to:

• The Beautiful Life – Force-dropped after only one class. Came to class provocatively dressed, and Dr. Ostroff didn’t feel it was cut out for the demands of the class.
• Trauma – Dr. Zucker had problems working out which was Trauma and which was Mercy. Neither showed many signs of achievement in the class, but since Mercy seemed to do marginally better, he decided to cut Trauma for simplicity’s sake.
• Eastwick – Poor test scores continued to hound Eastwick, which saw its viewing numbers drop by over a half. Though this didn’t seem to bother Dr. Iger, other classmates have noted its poor attitude towards women.

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Danger of failing messages have been sent home to:

• Jay Leno – Thinks he’s the class clown, but just isn’t funny, and shows no real sign of having studied for tests. 18-49 ratings have dropped as low as 1.2, and though Dr. Zucker shows ludicrous loyalty to him, meaning failure isn’t likely, he really should be out of here.
• Hank – This student’s scores have gotten worse and worse, reaching a season-low 1.4 in the 18-49 demo rating in its first sweeps week, lower than Eastwick scored before being failed. Update: Hank has now been expelled, officially the fourth new show to get the axe
• the forgotten – Fairly reliable, yet never all that exciting, this student is constantly at risk of failing, stumbling along at a 2.1 rating.
• Three Rivers – Flatlining at a 1.7 rating, this student isn’t doing enough to impress the requiring Dr. Moonves, and may be going home to Pittsburgh unless performance increases.
• Mercy – Earlier confusion over who was Trauma and who was Mercy has not been improved by the failure of the former, as Mercy still looks like Trauma with lousy ratings (worse than Trauma’s, for the record). Mercy is now at risk too.
• Melrose Place – Thinks that its parent’s former success is enough to ride on, but is a real slacker of a student, all gloss and no show. The only current prime time program unable to reach a 1 rating in the 18-49 demo. We don’t like this student, and don’t know who let it into our fine institution

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Showing signs of improvement:

• Brothers – Began with dreadful ratings, but just more than doubled its best rating, jumping from 1 to 2.3 and adding a full 2.9 million viewers to its previous best. Strong performances like this in sweeps, in a new slot alongside football, may save this student from what seemed at first to be certain failure.
• Accidentally on Purpose – Hit a high this week, ranking as the 25th highest in the 18-49 demo, after strong work the week before. Student appears to be hitting her stride

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Struggling:

• Flash Forward – Dr. Iger was quite happy with this student’s initial success, but his/her grades have slid downwards, reaching a low of a 2.6 rating in the first sweeps week. No reason to panic per se, but performance will need to improve. Taking the eyes off the here and now can be risky: don’t get ahead of yourself
• Cougar Town – Dropping a full 0.3 off one’s lowest-rating-to-date in the first week of sweeps isn’t a great way to impress, nor is hemorrhaging almost 5 million viewers since one’s premier
• The Middle – Student plateau’d at a demo rating of 2. Despite a season pickup, it’s not doing well, definitively meh
• The Cleveland Show – Don’t get us wrong, Cleveland’s doing okay, and has shown himself capable of an A. But he had a bad week dropping 0.6 below his previous lowest rating. Mind you, we understand that the entire MacFarlane family had a very bad week
• Community – Has done slightly better of late, but otherwise is still languishing with low ratings

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B+ grades go to:

• The Good Wife – A fairly solid, reliable performer, sometimes up a little, sometimes down, never excellent, but always good.
• Modern Family – Sometimes in the top 20 for ratings, Modern Family’s doing well. Buzz is good too
• Glee – Solid buzz and a welcome sense of humor keeps this student in our good books. Could certainly do better, but has impressed with solid ratings

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A grades go to:

• NCIS: Los Angeles – Some of this student’s early shine has been tempered somewhat, as s/he’s fallen from the top 10 to top 20 in ratings, but s/he’s still doing better than his/her classmates, and should be commended.
• Vampire Diaries – With ratings that might get other students in trouble, it should still be noted that Vampire Diaries is being graded on a different curve, and on that curve is excelling, Dr. Ostroff’s unquestioned favorite, outperforming all her other students

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n.b: transfer student, V, has not yet received a grade. A very impressive start, but we’re concerned by one professor’s comment that “the quality of dialogue made me throw up in my mouth a little”

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 …

This means that the only cancellations thus far have been CW’s axing of The Beautiful Life, and NBC’s announcement that Southland won’t return …. And yet not so fast! It seems that TNT is in deals to add Southland to its lineup.

That said, in signs that CW know something’s wrong, Melrose Place is getting a bit of a shakeup, as both Ashlee Simpson-Wentz and Colin Egglesfield have been fired. Really, CW? You didn’t want to start with the entire writing team first? At the same time, CW have announced that MP won’t be replayed during the November sweeps; that honor is reserved for a show that’s actually doing well: Vampire Diaries. I don’t know which is sadder: the show itself, or CW’s apparent belief that Heather Locklear will rescue it.

NBC, on the other hand, is likely not going to cancel Jay, since, well, what would they replace him with, when almost everything else in their lineup is dying or only a half hour long, and Sunday Night Football only happens on Sunday? Somehow I wouldn’t be surprised if they aimed for The Biggest Loser (the network’s new slogan, by the way) five nights a week. That said, if you want evidence of how bad Jay is, he’s come dead last in every head-to-head in five weeks (i.e: 25 nights), with the rare highlights of beating Eastwick once, and the forgotten twice. His ratings suck so badly that last night a CSI: Miami *rerun* beat him in the ratings by a factor of over two. Ouch.

late addition: it seems as though my request was granted, and we have another victim. Trauma suffered massive bodily damage, and though NBC will let it play its 13 episodes out, then it’s history. And NBC, imma let you finish, but for the record, Jay Leno’s ratings are worse than Trauma’s

• 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

• 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

• 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

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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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Numbers in parentheses are the rankings, according to the numbers I received, of total viewers, and then ratings/share in the 18-49 demo

The Big Hit

• NCIS: LA (2, 8 ) remains the only bona fide hit, and is only down slightly from its first week

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The Successes

• Flash Forward (22, 18) dropped 1.43million viewers and 0.4/1 off its demo rating/share, but still fared well
• The Cleveland Show (35, 13) joins the mix at the top, though it lost a full 0.7/2 demo rating/share from its first week, so it’s not quite on safe ground
• Modern Family (24, 20) and Cougar Town (31, 25) are still doing well, but both suffered losses of over 2 million viewers and 0.6/2 and 0.7/2 demo ratings/share drops too. If that becomes a pattern, they’re out of this category quickly
• The Good Wife (11, 28) moves into this category, improving upon its rankings from last week, even if only marginally
• Vampire Diaries (71, 65) held its numbers from the previous week. Its numbers could get it canceled elsewhere, but it’s still The CW’s most-watched show, so I’d imagine the network like it a lot

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Moderately Successful

• Accidentally on Purpose (38, 33) lost almost a million viewers, but is still doing okay
• The Middle (36, 40) hardly enjoyed the great start of its ABC sitcom colleagues, but it’s safe for now
• Glee (48, 30), in a week of lower viewer numbers, actually gained 0.7 million, and went up in ratings/share. Say thank you to Kristen Chenoweth, Glee

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Tier III

• The Forgotten (41, 57) dropped markedly from last week, putting it in danger. One more week going down, and I’m moving it to the Drop Zone (if ABC don’t beat me to it)
• Community (63, 35) has low overall viewership, but is doing okay with younger audiences (look at that overall viewers/demo split in rankings), so will survive for now
• Mercy (47, 54) is falling, while Trauma (54, 49) opened with meh numbers, so the question now becomes which NBC will euthanize first. Stay tuned
• Eastwick (58, 45) is also free-falling, especially in overall viewers
• Jay Leno (highest/lowest are 51, 42 and 69, 70) isn’t getting canceled, though he should be

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Drop Zone

• Melrose Place (81, 81) is dead last in the rankings. How long will The CW hold its nose?
• Brothers (76, 78) did poorly last week, and worse this week. Whereas The CW is used to low numbers, perhaps keeping Melrose Place around for a while, FOX certainly isn’t, and I’d expect to see this go soon

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Looking Beyond the New Shows
A few notes:

• Kudos to The Simpsons, ranking 11 in the 18-49 demo. Wuhoo!
• Surely Dollhouse is not long for this world, unless it improves upon its rather horrific 0.8/3 18-49 rating/share with 2.09 million viewers
• Parks and Rec is also facing the axe, at 1.9/5 an 4.63 million viewers (though it did add half a mill viewers this week)
• Other shows earmarked for trouble by TV By the Numbers’ Cancel/Renew Index (a neat metric formed by dividing the show’s ratings by its network’s average ratings) are Castle, Cold Case, and Law and Order

I think all of us (and I’m talking about everyone- not just cast) are sad that something we invested our time, effort and talent into was thrown away so abruptly by the network but the reality is the ratings were VERY low. Nobody knew this show was even on. The advertising campaign for TBL was small to non existent.

We were the last pick up of the season and that’s just the way it goes sometimes. The CW had Melrose Place and Vampire Diaries and had already allocated the publicity budget to those shows. We were on after Top Model and we had the draw of Mischa. They never had any plans to advertise us. I guess we were an experiment to see if ratings can fall out of the air…… um, they cant.

Okay, first off, based on what I saw I’m not ready to defend the show. But I agree with her in blaming the hype, or lack thereof. After all, let’s be clear about something: if a show is cancelled after one or two episodes, it cannot be because it’s bad (even if it is bad); it can only be because the ads were bad or insufficient. Its cancellation is a sign of poor marketing. It’s a massive fallacy of stat analysis in film and TV that poor opening numbers equate to a poor product. If, as with TBL, only one million people tune in to see a show, we’d be foolish to think that all the others didn’t because they know it’s bad. How do they know? They haven’t seen it, and let’s not flatter the TV critics too much to suggest that all of America is waiting to hear what they think, so as much as reviews matter, they can’t be the all and end all. Rather, viewers who aren’t watching haven’t been given a good reason to do so, and/or have been given reasons not to do so. At this early point in a show’s life, they’re responding to the advertising.

Admittedly, a really bad film or TV show will make the trailer or preview maker’s job all the harder, and I don’t mean to suggest that all shows should open with good numbers. And maybe we could be kind to CW and say they’d seen further episodes and knew how truly horrific the show was becoming, hence the early cancellation. But if we’re analyzing the stats, Medekwe’s right.

Which brings us to Brothers, which also experienced rather anemic ratings, especially for FOX. Last Friday, it received 2.82 million viewers with an 18-49 demo ratings/share of 1.0/4. When it replayed on Sunday, it received 3.73 million viewers with a 1.7/5 in the demo. When you consider that first week hits Flash Forward, Modern Family, and Cougar Town all enjoyed solid yet still much lower numbers for their replays, Brothers’ ability to garner better ratings in the second week is impressive. But it also tells me simply that the show had insufficient advertising and/or a crappy timeslot. FOX hurt its chances, in other words. When given a better slot, and perhaps the benefit of some word of mouth, Brothers did better on Sunday. Once more, so much is about the extratextuals – hype and timeslot.

A month from now, I’ll feel better evaluating shows’ life or death based on ratings. And it does give me faith in the human race to see that Melrose Place is getting shamefully low ratings despite an ad blitz. For now, though, and after only 1-3 eps., if a show’s ratings are poor, we really have to blame the nets for doing a bad job at advertising them, and/or at placing them. An ad campaign may capture a show’s essence perfectly (as did MP’s with its trashy feel), but it’s still the ad campaign that’s being reacted to more than the show itself at such an early date.

The four real success stories so far are (with total viewer ranking, demo rating ranking, and demo shares ranking in parentheses. If you want the actual numbers, go here, here, here, here, and here for each day of the week respectively):

• NCIS: Los Angeles (2, 5, 6) was CBS’s second best ranked show, and a legitimate hit. It’s not a critical darling, but it hasn’t got bad press either
• Modern Family (16, 7, 4) was ABC’s third best ranked show (though I’m counting all of the Dancing with the Stars nights as one) overall . And it is a critical darling
• Flash Forward (17, 11, 4) also did very well for ABC, and with the critics
• Cougar Town (19, 9, 7) is (much to my chagrin) also in ABC’s top echelon

So, if you like one of those shows, don’t worry – they’re safe (at least for now, and I’d guess for a good while, unless the hole drops out next week). Indeed, it should also be noted that ABC wisely replayed its three on Friday, garnering solid numbers (for a Friday), and thus potentially picking up another 4-4.5 million viewers per show. Factor those numbers in and each of these three shows is top ten material
Moderately successful were:

• The Good Wife (12, 23, 17)
• The Forgotten (20, 30, 31)
• Accidentally on Purpose (23, 24, 24)
• Eastwick (27, 25, 25)
• Glee (38, 26, 25)
• Vampire Diaries (51, 48, 47)

I’d look for some of those numbers to suffer when the novelty factor wears off. The Good Wife will be aided by its strong reviews and press, and Glee was already in week 3, so I’d say those two are safe. Vampire Diaries, too, is in the clear: it has poor numbers when compared to other nets, but this was The CW’s top-ranked show overall, and by far its best ranked new show. The others’ fates will rest on the next fortnight

In Tier III, we can place:

• Mercy (30, 36, 37), which has awful reviews, matched only by the now canceled Beautiful Life, but NBC is in dire straits, and this is their third best ranked show, so I’d say it’s fairly safe if it can stay at that level
• The Jay Leno Show (best numbers were on Tuesday, with 35, 31, 34; worst were Thursday, with 48, 47, 47) isn’t going anywhere, since it’s cheap, and Jay is to NBC what Katie Couric was to CBS – they can’t admit an error, and thus will keep the experiment alive even if it gets worse. They also just don’t have the material to replace him at this point. So, Leno’s staying
• Community (47, 28, 32) did okay with its demo, but it better do better soon

Finally, in the drop zone are:

• Brothers (53, 57, 53), whose numbers and poor press are sure to put it in trouble. Those are NBC/CW numbers, not FOX numbers, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see it go
• Melrose Place (60, 60, 60, which is the second worst in all categories) really should go. It’s horrible, and its numbers are bad. But The CW magically, and totally misguidedly  think that signing Heather Locklear will save it (really, CW? Do you think the average 22 year old CW viewer even knows who she is?)
• Beautiful Life (61, 61, 61) brought up the rear, and for its sins has already been cancelled. As Heidi Klum says, in fashion, you’re either in or you’re out: TBL, you’re out.

A few other observations:

• CBS and ABC should obviously be proud. All of their new shows so far have ranked well. That said, it’s the wonder of being on top – when people watch your network, they see your ads, which helps
• It’s interesting to look at the gaps between demo ratings and total viewers sometimes. Take Glee, for instance, which at #26 for demo ratings is up a full 12 spots from its #38 ranking for total viewers, or even more stark is Community, pulling up the rear at #47 for total viewers, yet had an okay #28 for demo ratings
• So far, we don’t seem to have the scenario so common to many seasons of a critical darling on the precipice: those shows that the critics liked are doing okay, which in turn means that those at risk of cancellation have no defenders. Watch this space, though
• Another number to play with is 8.76 million viewers, the average number of viewers for all primetime shows these last five days. If that’s our “safety number,” then the only shows above that line are: NCIS: LA, The Good Wife, Modern Family, Flash Forward, Cougar Town, The Forgotten, and Accidentally on Purpose

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.