Category Archives: Spring 2015

The Dovekeepers – Publicity

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Publicity for the CBS miniseries The Dovekeepers has been ramped up in recent weeks.  The most prominent of the promotions campaign is that the 30 second ad has begun running on CBS in primetime.  CBS has also been releasing a number of promotional videos on it’s website as well as on YouTube, including set tours with each major cast member.  There have also been segment appearances on shows like Entertainment Tonight and print articles in TV Guide magazine and CBS Watch magazine.

The more interesting of the promotions has been the digital and social media campaign.  The Dovekeepers has been getting decent exposure on the CBS Television website, with features on the front page.  It also has a Facebook, and Twitter, on which they conducted an “Ask the Author” livetweeting session with author Alice Hoffman under the hashtag #TheDovekeepersAskAlice.  More unconventionally the show also has a Pinterest account, on which CBS is releasing the sketches for wardrobe, jewelry and set design as well as promotional stills.   Whether or not this promotion will boost the ratings for the broadcast is yet to be seen.  The Dovekeepers airs on CBS March 31 and April 1.

Secrets and Lies – Week 5

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“Secrets and Lies” continues to be a stable presence on Sunday nights. Although the show has not demonstrated an ability to grow its viewership, TV by the Numbers says the mystery has retained 95% of its audience from its premier on March 1. One major obstacle for the ABC drama is overcoming the stacked CBS Sunday line-up. Weekly, CBS pulls in at least 11 million viewers at the 7:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. hours for “60 Minutes” and “Madam Secretary,” solid lead-ins to the “The Good Wife” at 9:00 p.m.

When it comes to reviews, the critics drastically disagree. In February, the Hollywood Reporter endorsed the cast of the show. That same month, SFGate.com, a Hearst owned entity, came away unimpressed and delivered a scathing review. Critic Dave Wiegand said, “Even before you’ve finished watching one episode, you’ll be convinced that ‘Secrets and Lies’ is the single worst show of 2015 so far.” The varying reviews have not stopped the show’s publicists from promoting the cast. An ABC News article published Wednesday, seeks to promote and humanize actors Ryan Phillippe (Ben Crawford) and Juliette Lewis (Andrea Cornell) who high speak about their personal lives and attempt to tease future episodes. However, in my opinion, teasing future episodes of a fictitious murder mystery is pointless. Regardless of the show’s plot, the mystery always gets solved in the end. Furthermore, this ABC show gives viewers another clue; there will be secrets and lies along the way.

American Crime- Second Episode Ratings Drop

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During “American Crime”‘s second week on television, the series drew headlines for losing a sizable chunk of its audience compared to the week before. In the 18-49 demo, the show lost six tenths of a rating point, and has left many wondering how the show will perform in the next few weeks of its 11-episode season.

“American Crime”‘s lead-ins “Scandal” and “Grey’s Anatomy” were also down, so that almost certainly contributed to the show’s drop-off, but there could be another reason why the show isn’t performing like some anticipated it would.

The series has a different feel to it than its time slot predecessor “How To Get Away With Murder”, and viewers seeking a Shonda Rhimes sensationalized hour of TV may feel empty after watching “American Crime”. The series may just not be the type of programming that ABC viewers are looking for on Thursday nights, which doesn’t diminish its quality, but may just indicate that it needs to find a different place on TV.

American Crime- First Week

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“American Crime” performed well during its first episode premiere on March 5th. Ratings wise, approximately 8.4 million people tuned into the show, which benefited from its lead- in (“Scandal”) and heavy promotion during the Academy Awards a few weeks prior. However, while the show started on fairly solid footing, there was a noticeable drop off when it came to viewers 18-49 from “Scandal”. “American Crime’ only captured about 60% of viewers 18-49 from the hour preceding it.

Reviews for the show have been strong, and critics have been almost universally giving it high praise. However, there has been some conversation about whether this type of program is appropriate for broadcast television, when it has more of a “cable-esque” feel to it.

 

NBC Says Goodbye to Allegiance

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NBC Cancels Allegiance

After only five episodes, NBC has officially cancelled Allegiance and removed the show from the Thursday night lineup.  The fifth episode premiered on March 5th to a total audience in 18-49 of 3.28 million with a .8 rating/ 3 share which was pretty consistent with the numbers it generated in the first few episodes.  Although Allegiance is cancelled, they will continue to release the rest of the filmed episodes every Thursday online at NBC.com and the Twitter account remains active.  The cancellation was not surprising, TV By the Numbers has been predicting since the second week that NBC would pull it from the lineup.

The fate of NBC Thursday night is facing uncertainty and is struggling since it abandoned its traditional comedy format.  The Slap has been temporarily moved to the Thursday 10 PM slot from 8 PM.  NBC is trying to leverage the success of The Blacklist and will fill The Slap‘s former spot with Dateline: The Real Blacklist.  The two hour Blacklist themed programming block premiered on March 12th.  The program is hosted by Richard Engel and will be about real life conspiracy themed investigations, playing off the theme of the show. “TV By the Numbers” reported that Dateline averages 7 million viewers overall on its regular Friday edition.  On its Thursday premiere, Dateline came in fourth in its time-slot with 4.51 million total viewers in 18-49, less than its average, but not horrible.  Blacklist is the only savior for NBC on Thursdays– it has improved the time period by 9 million people according to Nielsen.  It will be interesting to see if the following of The Blacklist is strong enough to pull in a good audience for the Dateline themed series.

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Weird Loners – Blog Post 5

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The season premiere of Weird Loners is right around the corner!

Last time I addressed issues of this show’s social media presence. Well, I’ve been thinking more about it and I had an epiphany: this show may not need to try as hard to get the attention of its fans because of the following each actor brings. Notice that Becki Newton is from Ugly Betty, Zachary Knighton is from Happy Endings, and Nate Torrence is from Hello Ladies. Casting seems to be one advantage this show may have over others.

What incentive could these actors possibly have? 

Perhaps the actors of Weird Loners aspire to be the Friends of 2015. Time will tell!

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Odd Couple Update #5

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After losing some of its initial audience in its second week, The Odd Couple rebounded after its third airing. The new CBS Thursday night sitcom won its 8:30 pm time slot on March 5, 2015 and according to Variety, it came within one tenth of a percentage point of its series premiere rating (on February 19th). It still looks like CBS’ hammock approach is working; while it is not scoring the numbers that its time slot predecessor, The Big Bang Theory is achieving, The Odd Couple is growing in viewership week-to-week and is benefiting from the lead-in. It will be interesting to see the numbers for The Odd Couple’s fourth showing, which will be on March 12th. Following the March 12th broadcast, The Odd Couple will be on hiatus for two weeks while CBS broadcasts NCAA Basketball. It will also be important to track whether or not the two week disruption will affect its aforementioned audience growth.

Secrets and Lies – Week 4

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“Secrets and Lies” debuted to mixed reviews Sunday night. The two-hour premier reeled in 5.83 million viewers, the second largest audience that night. Only CBS’s hit show “The Good Wife” had more people watch with 8.92 million tuned in. The new ABC murder mystery premiered the same night that FOX debuted “The Last Man on Earth.” Critics from the Hollywood Reporter were surprised by the success of the FOX show. It seemed to appeal to a younger demographic as its 2.3 rating in the 18-49 demographic was the best at the 9:00 hour. This is bad news for “Secrets and Lies.” If both shows remain in the same time slot “Secrets and Lies” is likely to struggle.

Additionally, I thought it was an unusual approach to have a two-hour premier for a show that was poorly promoted. In my opinion, I don’t see the average TV viewer budgeting two hours of their time to catch-up on a murder mystery.

Allegiance Week Four

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The Future of “Allegiance” Looks Bleak

The ratings continued to fall further this week for NBC’s “Allegiance”.  The show pulled in a .8 rating in 18-49 with a 3 share and 3.36 million total viewers, down from last week’s also low .9 rating.  This week the Thursday 10 o’clock hour looked a little different than usual.  “Allegiance” was slated up against the Victoria’s Secret Swim Special on CBS which did slightly better with a 1.0 rating/ 3 share and 4.02 million total viewers in 18-49. ABC had a special two hour Season 1 finale episode of  “How to Get Away with Murder” from 9-11, which pulled in 8.97 million total viewers for a 2.8 rating/9 share.  It will be interesting to see how the numbers of “The Blacklist” and “Allegiance” are affected now that “How to Get Away with Murder” is off until the fall.  “American Crime” will be premiering in the time slot next week which seems like it will be relatively successful from the reviews.  “Elementary” will be back on at its normal time next week as well.

Allegiance is bringing in Giancarlo Esposito who was in Breaking Bad as a new character in March to play an enemy.  In response to that, they did a live Facebook Q&A with him this past Thursday.  The Q&A generated only a little activity.  There were about 70 questions asked and the post got 266 likes.  Seeing as their social media activity is usually so low, I think it would benefit them to do more of these fan engagement types of Facebook and Twitter things instead of posting random promotional graphics sporadically throughout the week.  They seem to be engaging more than before with fans on Twitter and have been retweeting more fan posts, which doesn’t really do much but shows activity.

Here’s the preview for the episode with Giancarlo Esposito:

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The Dovekeepers – The Production Team

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The creative minds behind The Dovekeepers are the dynamic husband and wife team Mark Burnett and Roma Downey. Both Downey and Burnett have done extensive work prior to this miniseries on their own terms. Roma Downey is an Emmy award-nominates actress with prominent roles in television shows like Touched By An Angel, and Burnett is one of the most prominent reality tv producers both in the US and internationally with hits such as Shark Tank, The Voice, and The Apprentice.

As much success they’ve had separately they are an even more dynamic team together.  Burnett and Downey were the creative minds between the epic miniseries The Bible, Burnett’s first scripted work, which has garnered more than 100 million views cumulatively.  In addition to The Dovekeepers, the pair has produced another 12-week miniseries, a sequel to The Bible titled AD: The BIble Continues to air on NBC starting Easter Sunday. Looking to the future, Burnett and Downey are also producing a big screen remake of Ben-Hur, another religious historical adaptation to add to their growing list.