#TV ratings

[beforeastorm]

The entertainment industry is not my area of expertise so I could be completely wrong... But I really do feel like Tim saying "[fanfic writers] don't have network notes. You don't have studio notes", then in the next paragraph saying "I don't really plan out endgame so much" and in the next article acknowledging "Eddie also has very complicated feelings...about his place in the world" when asked about Buddie, has a pretty straightforward (pun intended) interpretation when you splice them together:

Buck's storyline in 7x04 may be a Buddie audition or test run for the studio/network execs. (narratively and societally Buck's coming out arc is so much more than that but from the lens of the C suite? However much they say they care about messaging and inclusion we live in a capitalist hellscape: they're looking at the dollar$.)

More under the cut.

I just - I don't see the value in my fellow buddie stans venting their spleen via rage-bombing IMDb ratings or stating that they're not going to watch the show any more. Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face. Ultimately, it's everyone's individual choice on how they choose to react, but I have serious doubts that Network execs are going to look at a ratings/ranking/other metrics dip and go 'oh, clearly the issue is that Buck is with the wrong dude lets give him a different one.' They're more likely to say 'Tim pulled an Icarus and we need to rein it back in.' Which is bad for queer rep in general, and not just this one ship.

You want Tim to be able to march into his boss's office and sell them on Buddie? For continued focus on queer narratives? Give him the numbers to back it up - and we know the homophobes are peacing out so let's not compound it? Please?

Anyway, you don't even need to move mountains or do something wild but here's what I'm doing: - Texted all my Destiel and Merthur friends. <3 They walked so we could run, or something. - Convinced my sister to watch/stream the show (even if it's just on in the background as she does other stuff. Shout out to the best sis ever). - Leave kind (but fair) IMDb rating on the episodes, especially queer forward ones. Seriously - I see posts on Tumblr all the time with more notes than an episode has ratings. You can even write a review (and include your continued hope for Buddie) if you're feeling frisky.

[blueonwrestling]

For anyone who truly really cares about TV ratings when it comes to wrestling, via the Wrestling Observer Radio

"The top 4 entertainment shows on cable this past week were all wrestling shows (Smackdown, RAW, Dynamite and NXT). First time since 1999."

Pretty big for all of wrestling lads.

[leothil]

Can I just say. As someone who likes looking at ratings data. That the presence or absence of one (1) character as good as never impacts the ratings this much. Not positively and not negatively. When a show experiences a major drop in its rating from one week to the next it's due to outside interference 99.9% of the time, most often a sports game. If we had the quarterly ratings at hand we might be able to see something, like if a statistically significant amount of the audience got bored and turned off their tv:s during the same scene, but for a procedural show like 9-1-1 that's pretty unheard of.

[ironworked]

Oh, that's good!

[that-left-turn]

What do the episode view ratings mean to the network?

Like, if an episode gets a low rating, do they take that to mean people didn't like something about the episode before it?

It depends a little on how the individual studio looks at their ratings and also on the expectations/projections for the specific show, but in general, the studio will look more at trends than live or same day ratings for a particular episode. If there's a big plot point, a reveal or just something that might be controversial in an episode, the showrunner and the studio will keep a close eye on the reviews and SM chatter for that episode and if the reception is bad or mixed, the ratings for the following episode(s) become interesting in their own right.

[kingoftieland]

X-Men: The Animated Series TOOK SOME TIME to find its footing! ⏲️

[theomenmedia]

The Penguin Viewership Numbers Breakdown And Analysis

"The Penguin" continues to soar! Check out the latest in viewership and why this series is the talk of the town.

Read the full story here: https://www.theomenmedia.com/post/the-penguin-soars-an-in-depth-look-at-the-soaring-viewership-numbers-for-hbo-s-latest-hit

[movieinonesentence]

The Summer I Turned Pretty

5/10

Brainwashed me into finding Chris Briney attractive and I couldn’t tell you how.

[rotblume]

Okay, so, I'm not even sure how earnest I am about this, but .. we all know how, usually, movies and tv-shows and such are rated for their potential sexual &/ violent content, right? That there exist these phrases like "approved for all audiences" or "viewer discretion advised" ..

and the one thing where I always thought they should post trigger warnings but never did were nature&/animal documentaries, because of my arachnophobia .. like I've got zero problems with snakes or crocodiles or sharks, but show me a spider and I'd get a jump scare so bad that I'd accidentally throw snacks across the room or choke on&/spit out my drink

please note: this is not an invite for y'all to post pictures of spiders in the comments and give me a minor heart attack

anyway, I just thought, maybe there should exist a similar rating system for content with anthropomorphic animals, like, inform viewers above 16/14/12 whatev, that there'll be anthro characters, especially if they've got attractive personalities, because it is seriously ridiculous how attracted I am to some fictional (animated) animals and shifters and I'd like some warning next time, please and thank you, it's already enough with humanoid aliens and androids

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[kirby-is-blackhole]

Why are things rated for fear?

I'm sitting here watching Star Trek: Prodigy and it's rated TV-Y7 for fantasy violence and fear. Why do we rate things for fear?

Who cares if a five-year-old got scared because someone almost died! They can cry about it to their parents, that's what parents are for sometimes

[aro-pancake]

Well... Here we go.

I just saw that Velma has a second season coming up and... WHAT THE FUCK?

At first, I was hyped up for a new Scooby Doo show. Then we got whatever that was.

All the visibility I saw on that show was bad. All the reviews, everything everyone said about it. No one had a single good thing to be honestly said, and the few that did were paid off.

What kind of chicken shit someone has instead of brains to get established, beloved characters and... Do that?

I think that if they created new characters, it would be better, but no. They decided to go with the Scooby Gang. And remove the main character, that is the lovable Great Dane who's scared of his own shadow!

So, that's getting a new season, while actually good shows, such as Inside Job, get cancelled for? No apparent reason?

(the rant on the death of adult animation will come soon, don't worry.)

So, yeah. Apparently, they can't differentiate between good and bad visibility, especially in recent times when people bother to spend more energy to complain than to say good things. (And yes, I'm also guilty of that.)

[wyrmfedgrave]

The numbers tell it all.

Yet, the Republikkkans are still lying about their true 'ratings' - just like their Lord & master...

End.

[leothil]

Introduction to TV ratings

Hi! I know a lot of us in the 9-1-1 fandom have started looking more closely at episode ratings this past year, but every time I see them posted I also see a lot of comments from people being unsure what the numbers really mean. I'm someone who first got introduced to tv ratings from being involved in the pro wrestling fandom and learned a lot about them through osmosis, so I thought I could make a small informative post explaining the main concepts and why tv ratings matter!

What I'll cover below:

What are tv ratings?

What exactly are they reporting?

How do I know what the numbers mean?

Are the numbers any good?

Let's dive in!

What are tv ratings?

Tv ratings, or Nielsen ratings, is an audience measurement system operated by Nielsen Media Research that tries to figure out the audience size and composition for tv programs in the USA. The Nielsen company has been measuring this since the 1950's, and their ratings is the currency that drives business between advertisers and broadcasters. To simplify it, the higher the rating a program gets, the more the broadcaster can charge the advertisers and agencies for broadcasting their ads to the audience during that program.

The data collection methods have varied over the years, but right now they're using Portable People Meters and track data from DVR:s. Since 2017 they're also tracking data on Hulu and YoutubeTV, and select programs on Netflix. It is an approximation, since they (naturally) aren't getting the full data from every single tv in the country, but they are good enough (and trusted enough) that their reported metrics are what's considered official.

So what exactly are they reporting?

A couple of different things! The most interesting numbers are total viewers, demographic shares, and demographic ratings. According to Nielsen they also track "gender, race, ethnicity, income, education, occupation, etc." but those are usually not reported as openly as the aforementioned three numbers and are mostly used by advertisers.

Sites like Tvline, Tvseriesfinale and Showbuzzdaily often report daily ratings very quickly after Nielsen releases them. The Fast Nationals are usually what gets the most attention, since they're released the morning after, but they're time period ratings, which means it only measured what was watched during primetime. The more accurate Official Nationals are released later the day after, and are program ratings. So if a program was moved from its usual slot for some reason, the fast nationals will still count the original time slot towards its ratings, while the official nationals will count the slot it actually aired in.

There are also C3 and C7 ratings (live viewing + DVR three/seven days after the airing), but they are seen much more seldom and are largely a fighting point between networks (who want to get paid for more days) and advertisers (who only want to pay for live viewings).

How do I know what the numbers mean?

Let's dive into that! I'll use tables from Tvseriesfinale and Showbuzzdaily with ratings for Monday March 20th (the air date of 9-1-1 S6E12) as my examples.

Here's how Tvseriesfinale reports the ratings, they're using the fast nationals (or "fast affiliate ratings"). The %change is compared to last aired episode of the same show. If you're wondering how the demo change can be positive while the number of viewers change is negative, I'll get to that in a minute.

And here's Showbuzzdaily, they report Live+Same Day which include live viewership + DVR views from the same day (which should be the same as fast nationals, but sometimes varies a bit). You can see that they colour code according to how far above/below the average rating of the night a program placed in different ratings categories.

Now for what the different columns mean:

Viewers (mil) or Persons 2+ (000s): the total number of viewers, in millions, who watched the program. So here Tvseriesfinale reports that 4.3 million people watched 9-1-1, and Showbuzzdaily reports that 4.413 million people did.

18-49 demo and Sales Demo Ratings Adults 18-49: These are the numbers that everyone is really looking at! The demo rating means proportion of a certain group (in this case adults 18-49) that are watching a particular show. In other words, this is the percentage of all adults aged 18-49 in the United States that were watching the show. So a 0.6 (or 0.59) rating for 9-1-1 means that 0.6% (or 0.59%) out of all people aged 18-49 were watching 9-1-1. This is the money demo, this is the number all advertisers and networks are looking at. Persons 18-49 is considered the most lucrative demographic, so the more people in that group your show can draw, the better for the network since they then can ask for more money from the advertisers. Persons 18-49 are considered to be the group to best target advertisements towards for a variety of reasons (disposable income and interest towards buying new things being two of them).

As you can see above, Showbuzzdaily also reports the demo numbers for Adults 18-34 and Adults 25-54. Some advertisers are more interested in these demographics, but overall 18-49 is still the most popular demographic. As you can see, the audiences skew older for all programs. I believe the general consensus is that younger people (<35-year-olds) watch much less tv than older generations, and these numbers support that. This is also why total viewers and demo ratings can have different %change - the 18-49 demo rating cuts off a relatively large part of the audience.

Demographic shares: While the ratings are based on percentage of all people in a demographic, the shares are based on percentage of the number of people who were actually watching TV at that time. So a 6.0 in Women 18-49 means that of all women aged 18-49 watching TV at 8PM, 6% chose to watch 9-1-1.

So... are the numbers any good?

That depends on what you're looking at. TV ratings as a whole have been dropping steadily for many years now, so trying to compare ratings to even, say, five years ago can be hard. For example: in the late 90's, pro wrestling regularly pulled in ratings of 5.0 and higher (I'll put a few below as an example), but those same shows would now be ecstatic if they managed to get above a 1.0 rating; their regular numbers the past year (for the big shows RAW, Smackdown and Dynamite) have mostly hovered around 0.4-0.7.

The first number is the demo rating

For the best overview, it's best to compare ratings for a certain show to the ratings of other shows on air, and I believe that's what the networks are doing as well. In that context, 9-1-1 is doing very well, as it regularly ends up near the top for scripted shows, even when looking at all shows over a week. The average rating for S6 so far is 0.63, which is lower than the average rating of 0.76 for S5 (which in turn was lower than the average rating of 1.05 for S4 and so forth). The ratings consistently dropping year over year are a concern for the industry at large, and it's pretty clear streaming services have played a big role in causing this, but I find it hard to believe tv networks would consider stopping producing shows for live tv anytime soon.

And that's it! If something still feels unclear, feel free to drop me a message and I'll do my best to answer any questions! If you want to dive a bit deeper into the different metrics, I recommend this page on Showbuzzdaily, and if you want to look at ratings from previous seasons, Tvseriesfinale's 911 ratings tag is a good place to find articles summarizing both individual episode ratings and ratings for a whole season.

[dotthings]

So a general observation, that is relevant to the impacts on the CW Nexstar genre series that are cancelled or in danger of it at any minute.

Notice how CW Nexstar's acquired series are all drama (not genre). There's one that has a slight supernatural element, and it's more of a crime thriller.

This isn't a knock on those series. I do watch some drama. I like mysteries and thrillers, I'm not an only SF/fantasy/horror rigidly. But primarily I am a genre fan--and I've been noticing the erosion of genre TV on linear broadcast.

Look at the lists of surviving series on the broadcast TV networks. All of them. There's almost no genre series. Quantum Leap is a notable exception, but that's science based time travel adventure that emphasis the drama elements.

Spaceships, monster hunting, high fantasy, horror, urban fantasy -- is vanishing from broadcast linear tv.

CW Nexstar is just following suit. It's a business decision. And the irony of it is, it's not because genre isn't lucrative. It's because those IP's tend to be expensive. The licensing fees, remember?

There's industry spec concerning the remaining DC shows, oh maybe CW Nexstar will keep ONE DC/WBD series. As a treat.

Ok.

But it's increasingly obvious that broadcast linear tv is not able to sustain genre storytelling or retain genre fans and those fans have to go to streaming and tbh I've felt like streaming has been better to those shows creatively. Streaming has felt more suited to genre.

And that brings us to the WGA Strike issues. Because while these popular IP's do great on streaming, the writers aren't getting the residuals they deserve. And with genre vanishing more and more from broadcast tv, what does that mean for genre tv writers in particular?

So as a genre tv fan. PAY THE WRITERS WHAT THEY DESERVE IN STREAMING RESIDUALS.

And I'm sorry broadcast tv can't sustain genre tv any more.

[ironworked]

Uhm, this doesn't bode well for Rescue: Hi Surf

we'll have to see if it steadies at 0.17 and 2m, but I have my doubts (eps 2 and 3 were against repeats of NCIS); also it has to be expensive, and look at cancelled Lonestar's numbers:

They're better. On a 5th season. And it airs before RHS!

--

Brilliant Minds is doing decent numbers, but predictably behind One Chicago.

will it be renewed? it'll depend on how many scripted shows they want, I guess.

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Not enough data to say anything at all about the rest (other than Matlock had a great premiere)

[positively--speculative]

While my optimism for IWTV getting a third season is cautious, I'm still optimistic.

Yes, ratings play a role in show renewal, BUT it is my understanding that this is just one part of what influences the decision. Now, I'm not an expert, but AMC is kind of known to attract niche audiences for different shows. Also? Shows don't always get a strong following in the first one or two seasons and will sometimes start with a smaller following and gain traction in the third or fourth season. If a show is well reviewed and the network sees promise, they're likely more willing to give the show a chance to take off.

Yes, The Walking Dead is big and attracted a big audience, but I think it's the exception to the rule with AMC. Again, I'm not an expert, but AMC is not NBC, ABC, or FOX. They are not a part of the "basic cable" package. Most people with a TV have access to the listed networks so those networks are more competitive and more likely to drop shows with lower ratings. I think there's a little wiggle room for networks like AMC.

Now, please take my take with a grain of salt. Again, I'm not an expert. But I don't think we should be worried about ratings alone. However, there are other things we can do to support the show to get AMC's attention--post about it, tweet about it if you still have Twitter, engage and support content creators you feel comfortable supporting. Again, ratings are only ONE part of what influences a network to renew.