Question:
Tuesday 2/20/07
The following results are based on the fast national ratings (Live
Plus Same Day data)
-Total Viewers:
Fox: 29.44 million, CBS: 11.65, NBC: 9.05, ABC: 6.65, CW: 3.17
-Adults 18-49:
Fox: 11.7 rating/30 share, CBS and NBC: 2.9/ 8 each, ABC: 2.1/ 5, CW:
1.4/ 4
Answer:
There is no way The CW will renew Veronica Mars for a third season.
The show can't handle the tough competition. On top of that Gilmore
Girls has been a weaker lead-in than expected. It's too bad the show
is down 1 1/2 million viewers on average compared to last year for
"fresh" episodes. I don't even know how this new network is going to
survive. Not that I'm a fan... but they cancelled their highest rated
comedy... that happened to be 7:30 on Sundays which is usually when
shows don't do that great, but "Reba" did pull off the impossible. But
it's cancelled... 7th Heaven has to be a big money losing 11 year old
show... and it's not exactly demo friendly. Gilmore Girls ratings
while not bad, the show is getting costly, and I don't see how they
can make money on a 8 year old show. The entire monday comedy line-up
has plumment, despite better shows this year with Everybody Hates
Chris, and Girlfriends together on one night. One Tree Hill has also
faltered... and is heading into its 5th season which can't possibly
also be a money maker. Which leaves.... Top Model, Beauty & The Geek,
Wrestling, and Smallville has held onto a decent amount of ratings...
but I don't see it lasting beyond next year with the high costs of the
show. So what will the cw do? I don't see it coming up with any new
development that will be much better....
Gg tends to get hammered by Idol anyway. But the critical thing to
remember about Gg's ratings is that it remains the #2 show in its
target demos, W18-25, which means that whatever viewers it's losing,
they aren't important to either the show's bottom line/advertisting
base.
Remember, the aggregate ratings don't mean nearly as much to the CW,
which is the definition of a niche programmer as its ratings in its
target demo means. And the only target demo that Berman and most
other columnists cite are Adults 18-49, which is, like, STILL not Gg's
target audience.
BTW, basketball season is starting up and I know that the NBC
affiliate in my area pushed everything behind 20 minutes on Tuesday
night for a game (and the affiliate's audio was out of sync the entire
night, to boot!) If there were any basketball games being broadcast
on major CW affiliates this week or last, that might account for the
dip in Gg's ratings last night and perhaps even last week.
Still, 4 million viewers for a show on a niche network, much less one
that VASTLY over-rated the number of viewers it was going to pull in
across-the-board immediately after the merger -- basic cable's
original programming generally only does that for season premieres and
season finales, not for regular episodes. And it's still the #2-rated
scripted show on the network *and* still its biggest critics' darling.
