The Orville is off to a great start ratings wise. The initial ratings information from last Sunday night’s premiere showed that over 7.3 Million people tuned in with a 18-49 rating of 2.3. This number has now been adjusted up to 8.6 milllion viewers and a 18-49 share of 2.8. One of the factors that may have helped The Orville succeed is that the premiere immediately followed NFL programming. Another factor that may have contributed to this is that there was a big Orville presence on social media. #TheOrville was trending for a large portion of the premiere night. Star of the show Seth MacFarlane was very active on his social media accounts promoting the show. After the show, he encouraged viewers to view the content via streaming services, this may have influenced the adjust up that we saw in the numbers. This is a great success for the show, but only time will tell if these numbers will hold throughout the entire season.
Category Archives: Uncategorized
9JKL # 6
Cord Cutting and Individual Streaming Services
Scott Koondel EVP, Chief Corporate Content Licensing Officer of CBS proudly touted CBS All Access to students at a presentation at S.I Newhouse on October 11th. Following in the footsteps of HBO, CBS All Access has network shows like “9JKL” but also some shows that are solely for the streaming service like the new “Star Trek Discovery.”
HBO’s HBO Go seems to be working well. But as more and more networks dive into creating their own streaming services, consumers may become fatigued as stated in an article on CBS Money Watch.
If consumers note that TV starts to cost as much (or more) than cable, they may go backwards to antenna TV or stick with one of the original streaming sites that carries many options such as Netflix or Hulu. Or viewers may give up on specialized shows because it becomes too much of an effort and, again, too expensive.
You can see what the networks are doing; Disney included, but as to whether it will be successful is still uncertain and may not be seen for a few years yet. Who’s to say that the streaming services won’t be treated the same way as the cable providers with the current cord cutting going on? Investors were not a fan of Disney’s split from Netflix as Disney’s stock dropped following the announcement. Netflix remained the same though according to an article by Variety on September 7th.
Perhaps not though and going to specialized sites may be the future of entertainment for everyone.
For now, it may benefit the viewing of “9JKL” as people who miss it on Monday nights can catch up or (as CBS is hoping) become new fans of the show and tune into the CBS broadcast station or All Access for future episodes.
Image courtesy of CBS
Ghosted #5
Gallery
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On October 2nd, “AdAge” published the average prices for 30-second ads for this Fall season. “For the first time in four years, no freshman shows rank among the 10 costliest programs for advertisers,” indicating that advertisers aren’t comfortable betting on … Continue reading
Will & Grace #4
The merit of a show is very subjective- some people simply enjoy things that others don’t. That’s is why we look at the ratings- for quantitative answers. The problem with using live ratings is most people don’t watch television shows live anymore, so ratings don’t account for real viewership and how “popular” or “good” a show could be considered. To see how well a show is doing we need to look at the Live +3 or Live+7 viewership ratings.
Will and Graces re-debuted on September 28th did phenomenal for an NBC sitcom, but we didn’t even see how well they really did until looking at their L+3. The day after Will & Grace airs its put onto Hulu, leaving viewers options on how to watch- live, DVR’ed or streaming- so we must look at their L+3 or L+7 for accurate information.
Will & Grace’s Live+3 showed that their ratings were actually 2.6 points more (making it a 5.6) and they had 4.6 million more viewers than the data from the day it aired (making it 14.8 million). This was the biggest L+3 lift in primetime comedy history. By measuring delayed viewership we are able to get more accurate viewership ratings.
http://deadline.com/2017/10/will-grace-premiere-live3-ratings-thursday-nbc-comedy-record-1202181596/
Valor #5
After Valor’s season premiere this past Monday, the fear of the military drama falling too off-brand rang true. The Variety television review found the show to be an overall awkward fit, which could explain why it “failed to lift the CW from last place among the broadcast networks in the Monday overnight ratings, according to Nielson data.” Although Valor does compete with Dancing with the Stars, Kevin Can Wait, The Voice, and The Gifted, none of those shows share a military plot that could take away CW viewers.
The total rating and viewers for Valor’s season premiere was lower than shows like “Frequency” and “No Tomorrow,” which the CW cancelled. And so with a 0.3 rating and 1.2 million viewers, Valor has a good chance of being cancelled as well. Although the actors may give good performances, critics seem to believe the storylines and characters themselves aren’t strong enough to continually draw audiences. The show is drama packed, with cheating scandals, lies, and military conspiracies. Yet critics seem to believe, despite these components, the plot isn’t intriguing enough for viewers to care about the show’s progression.
Dynasty #3- Competition
An important aspect that CW must pay close attention to is what shows Dynasty will be competing with during the Wednesday nighttime slot. A major competitor will be ABC’s Modern Family, a multigenerational family comedy, as it also airs at 9:00 PM. Modern Family and Dynasty have similar target audiences, both including teenagers and middle-aged adults. Although Modern Family has consistently held the lead demographic on Wednesday nights, a recent TV By The Numbers article stated that it reached its third-lowest mark ever of 1.9 in ratings. Similarly, Wednesday’s collective ratings for the big 4 networks which include ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC decreased 30% from the premiere week in 2016. With this decrease in ratings, CW is put at an advantage with their upcoming debut of Dynasty. Reports show that CW has maintained a steady audience unlike these other networks. Dynasty’s other competitors include CBS’s Seal Team, Fox’s Star, and NBC’s Law & Order: SVU. The question is if whether or not lost viewers for the big network shows will shift their attention towards Dynasty. This would give CW a lead by allowing its viewer ratings to increase.
Dynasty #2- Marketing & Buzz
The launch of Dynasty is set to air in three short weeks and old fans are becoming filled with excitement. Los Angeles Times has called this, “throwback Wednesday on the CW”. Although the original series was a success, the producers are making it known through many interviews that there will be differences this time around. It seems that part of the CW’s marketing technique is to publicize these changes in order create talk and to get their audience to spread the word. These specific adjustments such as the show’s location and the content of family arguments are part of the producer’s attempt to make the show now appeal to a wider age demographic. While the original series had complaints about the portrayal of woman, the producers have made it clear that this will not be an issue. Furthermore, the CW has a special Instagram account to publicize information about Dynasty’s upcoming debut. It consists of pictures that over time have revealed the new cast members. There has also been buzz about if members of the original cast will be making any guest appearances. The producers are keeping the audience on their toes by not disclosing any information about this.
9JKL # 5
9JKL Premiere is… all right.
The Los Angeles Times liked it. It liked that it had a familiar 3-camera feel to it. It liked the comfort food factor and there may be something to that considering that the news of yet another mass shooting filled TV screens Monday night. For those that chose “9JKL”, they liked the familiarity of that type of concept and/or was in need of some comedic relief. The worse drama, in this case, being an overbearing mother. Its HH Rating share was 5.3/8 coming in as the bronze medalist for the Monday evening lineup.
Yes, it fared worse than “Young Sheldon” that aired a week prior in second place with 17.2 million viewers according to Nielsen. However, “9JKL” doesn’t have the relation advantage that “Young Sheldon” has with the “Big Bang Theory” lead-in.
A majority of critics still pan it, but many seem to love Albert Tsai, who, as mentioned, got pulled up to a series regular. Popular little guy. The way things are going for him we may be seeing him headlining his own show in a couple years, you know, after he graduates high school.
The good news to note here is that it’s not the critics that keep it on the air, it’s the audiences and thus far, the audiences have given the show their eyes.
It will be interesting to see the return audience next week. Will it hold steady? Improve? Falter? It will only have “Big Bang” as a lead in temporarily. CBS will be shifting “Big Bang” and “Young Sheldon” to compete with NBC’s must see TV Thursday line-up that includes the highly rated “Will and Grace” re-boot.
Because of this, at some point in time, “9JKL” will have to stand on its own, unless they get lucky and CBS moves “9JKL” with the Cooper family to the Upper East Side of TV land.
Photo courtesy of CBS
Me, Myself and I #6
Me, Myself and I has a clear Twitter strategy: get online users to watch existing episodes through links to CBS.com (no authentication required) and CBS All Access.
As expected, the tweets that get the highest engagement are not the ones that simply include cast interviews or show scenes, but use identity-defining polls to excite users to share their opinions. For example, one poll asked if users were team pancakes or waffles? It received over 440 votes, while video tweets averaged about 100 likes. Another issue is that the videos emphasize the characters’ and actors’ everyday triumphs and failures, but if you’re not already a committed fan, this will mean little to you.
Everyone from cast members to writers of the show came together for a mass live tweet during the pilot, and have since been consistently promoting the show on Twitter. Creator, Dan Kopelman, went so far as to create an account just to promote the pilot on 9/25.
While Me, Myself & I has made a notable and concerted effort on Twitter, they better develop stickier content if they want to entice nonfans to watch the show.
Cast members of Me, Myself & I live tweet during the pilot on Sept 25, 2017.
Me, Myself and I #5
Me, Myself and I is not failing critically or commercially (yet), but it is not thriving either. Now in its second week, the ratings fell by 0.6 to land at 1.0 for A18-49. In online reviews, it received a lukewarm 62% on Rotten Tomatoes’ Tomatometer.
While the show certainly went through the pains of achieving the three-tiered narrative between young, middle-aged, and old Alex, as described in its logline, critics lamented that the structure did nothing to enhance the story. In fact, The Hollywood Reporter criticized Kopelman for even including the future, as he lacked the vision or insight to execute it. More than one critic described the show as a failed attempt to replicate NBC’s This Is Us, which also toggles between decades, albeit much more purposefully and successfully. Me, Myself and I’s problem is not that it failed to live to its logline, but that it only lived up to its logline.