Category Archives: Uncategorized

The Slap-By The Numbers

Posted on by

Since its premiere, The Slap has enjoyed modest ratings. It dipped a bit when it changed timeslots, but for the most part, it has stayed pretty consistent between 3 and 3.5 million viewers with a 0.7-0.8 rating. However, these are not the only numbers that matter. The show has benefited greatly from L+3 viewings. For 2 weeks in a row, The Slap saw a 51% increase in viewers with L+3 numbers. This meant that it gained 1-1.1 million viewers with this delay. In this era of changing viewing habits, these are not numbers that should be ignored.

The show also has a 116 index of adults living in homes with $100K incomes. This upscale audience is likely to bring in desirable advertisers for NBC, which could be a contributing factor as to why the show hasn’t gotten cancelled. If the network is making money from advertisers, they won’t worry as much about the modest ratings.

One Big Happy ep. 2

Posted on by

As predicted, the ratings for One Big Happy have decreased from a 1.6 series premier rating to a 1.2 rating for the second episode, falling 25 percent. I did not see a lot of twitter buzz about the show, but I did see some interesting comments on different blogs. One author from afterellen.com said she actually liked the second episode of the show and stated, “I was shocked at how many commenters said they would give the show a couple more chances to knock their socks off, and if it failed, they’d just change the channel to one of 20 more shows with lesbian characters that air on Tuesday (deliberate exaggeration). It says a lot about how far we’ve come that we can afford to be picky.” Again, many viewers felt the show was trying to use the same type of humor as shows like Two and a Half Men. Some viewers said they wish OBH would write for the audience it wants rather than an audience created by other successful comedies. Promotion continued for the show this week as one of its stars, Elisha Cuthbert, appeared on The Tonight Show. One Big Happy competes with shows including iZombie, Weird Loners, The Dovekeepers, and Criminal Minds.

American Crime- Cancellation Likely

Posted on by

After only three weeks on the air, American Crime is looking like it won’t make it back next season on ABC. While the network doesn’t formally say whether a show has been renewed or cancelled until May, the numbers are indicating that it is not strong enough to continue on broadcast.

The interesting question now becomes: what’s next for American Crime? As I mentioned before, it has received almost universal praise from critics, and so it may find new life on some other platform. It is a possibility that one of the streaming services will pick it up, and it will likely perform much better online.

American Odyssey: The Beginning

Posted on by

NBC American Odyssey

On Sunday April 5, 2015 NBC will premiere its new intelligence drama series American Odyssey in the 10 pm slot.  American Odyssey is the story of female American Sargent Odelle Ballard (Anna Friel) fighting jihadists in North Africa and her struggle to return home to her family in America. Two other Americans, attorney Peter Decker (Peter Facinelli), and Harrison Walters (Jake Robinson) gets tangled up with the jihadists as well.

Production

The full series, originally named Odyssey, was ordered originally at the NBC Upfronts in May along with Allegiance which has already been cancelled.  The show is a co-production between Universal Television, London based Red Arrow Entertainment and its US partners Fabrik Entertainment.  Red Arrow is part of the larger Red Arrow Entertainment group which is part of the German based ProSiebenSat.1 media group.  The series was created by Peter Horton, Adam Armus and Kay Foster who will serve as the shows executive producers.  Both Armus and Foster were previously executive producers on The Following and Heroes. The show was shot in Morocco and New York.

Cast

The main character is played by Anna Friel, a British actress best known for her role in the ABC television series Pushing Daisies.  The other two lead characters are played by Peter Facinelli and Jake Robinson.  Facinelli gained a large following after his role in the Twilight movies as the father vampire Carlisle.  Robinson has appeared in many episodes of the show The Carrie Diaries, the prequel to Sex in the City.  An interesting thing about the show is that it was shot in Morocco and some casting was done there as well.  Omar Ghazaoui who will play Aslam is a Moroccan teenager who was chosen during casting in Morocco.  This will be his first professional acting role.

Programming

American Odyssey will be up against Revenge on ABC and Battle Creek on CBS for the Sunday 10pm slot. Last week Revenge received a 1.1 rating/3 share with 4.42 million viewers total in 18-49 which is pretty standard for how it has been performing all season.  Dateline will be the lead-in for American Odyssey which has averaged around 5 million viewers in the past few weeks in 18-49 which is the highest that its been since January, according to TV By the Numbers.

Facebook Likes: 31,926

Twitter Followers: 7,040

Last Man On Earth – Week 4

Posted on by

This week Fox gave viewers two episodes of Last Man On Earth. Many Last Man viewers are saying that they should have spent more time developing Phil’s character before introducing more people. Critics are saying that every episode a new cast member becomes introduced and they want to see more layers of Phil because they view him as this obnoxious, grating person.

Last Man came in first in the 9pm 18-49 ratings, against Secrets and Lies and Dateline but third in total viewers (live + SD) attracting 4.55 million viewers. The 9:30pm episode came in first in 18-49 ratings against The Good Wife but almost had half of the total viewers The Good Wife attracted (8.43 compared to Last Man’s 4.42).

The Slap-Beyond the Screen

Posted on by

It seems as though The Slap is getting more comfortable in its new 10 pm timeslot on NBC. After taking a hit on 3/12 and dropping to 2.74 million viewers with a 0.6/2 rating, it rose closer to the numbers from previous weeks with 3.18 million viewers and a 0.7/2 rating. With 2 episodes left, I expect the ratings to stay around this zone.

The Slap was recently prominently featured in a New York Times article. A woman who lives in Brooklyn (where the show takes place) was walking down the street and nearly run over by a young boy on a scooter, prompting her to yell an expletive at the child. His mother was appalled but the “victim’s” community (read: Facebook friends) supported her actions, some even feeling she didn’t go far enough. It seems these kinds of discussions on parenting styles are being fueled by the show. Even if they haven’t seen it, the people of Brooklyn have an opinion. One resident said, “These are some of the most hateful people you will find, until, of course you leave your apartment.” So even if The Slap isn’t winning in the ratings, they seem to have struck a cord of realism, at least in their New York setting.

Battle Creek by the Numbers

Posted on by

Battle Creek, now with three weeks of viewership statistics to digest has dug in with steady numbers in key demographics. The results so far? Not great. But there are a couple of things that must be taken into account when you look at these numbers.

1. 10pm on a broadcast network isn’t great anymore. People on in the eastern time zone start to go to bed, especially people aged 50 and above, a significant chunk of CBS’s audience, traditionally.

2. After football season, Sunday night becomes cable’s domain. Between the Walking Dead, Mad Men, Game of Thrones, and True Detective, broadcasters are having a tougher time than ever.

That being said, Battle Creek has performed solidly in terms of overall viewership, cracking the top four of programs broadcast on March 15th. The crime procedural also has seen raw numbers north of 6.5 million viewers every week.

Then why is Battle Creek performing so poorly in the 18-49 demographic, only barely hitting a 1.0 it’s first week, and then .08 and .09 in the second and third weeks, respectively? I think the answer is the Walking Dead, AMC’s zombie-core program that has been breaking cable ratings records for the past couple of years. Dead’s impact is so significant that AMC runs a pre-show and a post-show analysis program bookending the show.

While there has been rumblings of the show needing to perform better to avoid being cancelled, the silver lining is that the overall viewership numbers are pretty good. That, coupled with favorable critical reception, give Battle Creek a fighting chance.

One Big Happy Pre & Post Season Premier

Posted on by

As expected, the promotion for One Big Happy dramatically increased as soon as March hit. First, executive producer Ellen DeGeneres talked about and even showed clips from the show during her talk show time. One Big Happy commercials also became more frequent as the premier date approached. Also, The Today Show’s Matt Lauer gave OBH a shout out during the eight o’clock hour. Lauer also conducted an interview with Ellen DeGeneres, asking about her roll as executive producer, and what she wanted the audience to take away from watching the show. DeGeneres said she did not want the show to focus on the lesbian co star, but rather have it just be one of the many components in the show that make it unique. DeGeneres also tweeted about the show several times before the premier.

 

After One Big Happy premiered, I looked to several websites like Rotten Tomatoes, to see what critics thought of the show, and the results were not pretty. Most websites said the show was cute but lacked original humor. Others said the show relied too heavily on the humor from past sitcoms. One critic from Rotten Tomatoes said, “Although Ellen DeGeneres is an executive producer of the show, her influence is undetectable.” Another said, “Obvious, dumb and mostly unfunny, One Big Happy is an embarrassment for all involved.” And the comments only got worse. I don’t see the show surviving for very long.

One Big Happy 3/12/15

Posted on by

As predicted, I was pleased to see more promotion for One Big Happy. The show’s commercial with Ellen DeGeneres is now more frequently played on NBC. After watching The Ellen DeGeneres show the other day, I was also pleasantly surprised to see her talking about the show to her audience. As the “Queen of Daytime Television” this is a smart move. Although DeGeneres is not in One Big Happy, she will bring her comedic style and its fan base to the show. Unfortunately, I have still have not seen promotion outside of this one commercial on NBC.

One Big Happy 3/5/15

Posted on by

Last week, I was pleasantly surprised to see promotion had started for One Big Happy. In fact, not only did promotion start, but just as predicted, executive producer of the new show and talk show host, Ellen DeGeneres starred in the commercial. She brought her funny, laid back style to the commercial that I believe will bring big numbers for the premier of the One Big Happy. Other than this commercial, I have not seen any other type of promotion for the show. But when conducting research, I did see that the commercial for OBH was first aired during this past Super Bowl. Unfortunately I could only find the promotion video (posted last week) online but not the commercial.