So glad to hear Smallville and Supernatural are being renewed! (It was announnced with a link over in the Smallville in the Media thread.) Kind of surprised about Gossip Girl being renewed. I thought it was considered a flop considering all the hype and promos it had. I guess that demographic worked for them though.

Anybody know what Smallville's demographic is considered to be?

Also any thoughts on what show it should be paired with? I love it paired with Supernatural, I just don't like that the time slot then pits SPN against the CSI and Grey's Anatomy juggernauts.

Not having to worry until the last possible moment about whether or not Supernatural will be renewed? I have no idea what to do with myself now.



Aside from Life Is Wild (which wasn't given much of a real chance), every other scripted drama on the CW (including Reaper) is doing better than GG in the ratings. Some of the reality shows and comedies are also doing better. Yet, the way the CW execs talk about it in interviews, you'd think GG was one of the biggest hits of the season. Heck, they ran promos calling GG a "phenomenon." Maybe they think that, if they pretend it's a big hit, more viewers will be interested in checking it out.

When asked about it interviews, CW execs are quick to point out that shows like Beverly Hills 90210 and The OC weren't big hits right away. It took them a while to build an audience and become "phenomenons." And they seem to believe GG will follow in the footsteps of those shows...if they promote it enough, and give it as many perks as they can to help it succeed.

Good to know! So S8 is a go. What will they come up with next for us to hate? ; )

Heh, when you figure it out, let me know. That's... weird. But good.

Gossip Girl apparently does well in timeshifted viewing, downloads and key demos as well. So I guess that's the reason for renewal. That and the CW seems to have very little else to fill their timeslots with.

See: Smallville, season 8.

Smallville is the same way. It gets a HUUGEE increase in timeshifted viewing and is always one of the top sellers on DVD every year.

The CW Source Blog ( http://blogs.trb.com/network/cwsource ) )has Smallville's Season Finale schedualed for May 15th. The same date for Supernatural.

Is "Hero" definitely airing early in Canada this week?

According to the A Channel Toronto website, Hero is airing tomorrow (Wednesday) at 8pm.

Shouldn't the ratings for "Hero" be up by now?

Ratings for Hero:
an original installment of the CW’s already renewed Smallville (Viewers: #5, 3.79 million; A18-49: #4t, 1.6/ 5)

According to pifeedback "Hero" had 3.79 million viewers.

I hope the "Traveler" trailer is enough to get people to watch next week, or I expect a dip. The general reaction to "Hero" came out negative, which is a shame because on paper I expected it to be a lot more exciting and not just an hour-long Stride Gum commercial.

I think that if they REALLy wanted to make people watch next week, then they shouldn't have to depend on trailers but the previous episodes which have to be good. To put it bluntly, most of the feedback I've seen has either found Hero lackluster or actually funny but in a bad way (i.e. seeing it as an infomercial for gum & a music band instead of an actual coherent story). It is a shame if Traveler is good but I won't blame people if they skip it because the previous episode was bad.

It usually seems to be a trend with SV unfortunately though, that really good episodes are missed because they followed really bad ones. Let's see if they can buck the trend.

Fortunately, unless there's some bad editing going on, Traveler and Veritas are back to back good, but then we get repeats again. Bleh.

It also seems SV isn't the only show with that sort of trend - Lost was down from the previous week, and the indications on pifeedback were that last week's episode wasn't as good as the others.

It seems that putting Reaper after SV didn't do anything to improve it's ratings. Is Supernatural in hiatus or shown another night?

SPN has been completely taken off the air. So, while we get to watch Pussycat Dolls twice a week (yipee), SPN is nowhere to be seen.

The CW recently announced they are going to bring SPN back earlier than originally intended. But the fact that the execs were fine with making the show vanish from the air for so long in the first place makes me think not-so-nice thoughts about the CW. :D

And here are the final ratings from last night.

Smallville....3.81 million viewers

Reaper.......2.52 million viewers

I think putting Reaper after SV was a great idea, actually - anything to give Reaper some more viewers. I think they're trying to be sure SV is paired with new episodes of *something* all the time, too... when SPN returns it'll be nights of new SV and SPN as well.

The network has been terrible to Reaper... pairing it with bad reality shows and taking it off the air for like two months at one point... even 2.52 million viewers is better than the show had been getting, which is a shame, because I think that show is a lot of fun.

It's just as stupid to take SPN off entirely, though. Would it have killed them to at least run SPN repeats on another night? Then again, if the CW schedule went the way I'd like it to, Sundays would just be a SV/SPN/Reaper rerun night.... give the fans of the genre shows a second chance to see what they may have missed.

If Reaper grew in viewers after Smallville then I think it could bode well for the show. I think the CW should pair them with Smallville next year as well. SPN will pull in it's 3.3 million viewers no matter where it is.

What is disappointing with SV ratings lately is the fact that they promoted the mythology stuff instead of the relationship plots and if that doesnt bring viewers I don't know what could.Sure there are other things that influence the ratings but I can't help wondering about it.

It would certainly help the ratings if they promote the next season as the final season.I believe there is an audience who'd be willing to come back to see how it all unfolds.Of course if they turn the final season into a setup for a Supergirl spin-off or something I can't blame people for changing the channel.

It'll be their last shot to get a spin-off, so personally, I'm expecting them to devote more time to working on getting it.

To be blunt, I think that promoting next seasons as the whole final season thing isn't going to help that much. You have to care about the story and have even a bit of optimism that it's going to be an ending you WANT to see in order to care.

1) As said above, Goughlar may try to whip up a spinoff instead of concentrating on the ending.

2) Why improve quality when Goughlar have proven to be pretty conceited, smug and vapid about the whole thing? They're the ones boasting that each season is the "BEST EVAH!" and think that they're misunderstood geniuses.

3) And I don't see the ending pleasing everyone due to the fact Goughlar botched management of romantic "ships." Clana/KK fans will leave once KK is gone. Chlark fans will be pissed if they start ramping up SV!Clois and Clois fans will be peeved if they start ramping up Chlark. A lot of Clexers of seasons past have moved on to SGA, SPN, Dr. Who, Torchwood.

I would be shocked if they did not try for a spin off. They have been for years.

Season five - Mercy Reef
Season six - GA / JL (This one I would have watched)
Season seven - Supergirl

I also think there was a Lois Lane / JL one mentioned somewhere, too. I just hope the spin-off pimping will not overwhelm the show.Not bad for the first episode back after a hiatus, which always seems takes hit in the ratings. At least we are not getting single episodes left alone during weeks and weeks of repeats anymore.

That being said, Hero could, IMO, have a real effect on Traveller and Veritas. Whatever excitement I had for the last two pre-strike episodes was crushed by the show screwing up what could and should have been a fun, easy episode. Cool promo aside, I would not be surprised to see them take a hit. I do not expect anything like the notorious Promise-to-Combat drop, but I am certainly not as excited as I was a few days ago.Torchwood's meta HoYay! blows away anything Smallville has done for years. No pun intended.

My prediction is very low 4 if anything. Also I think there is a point when you can't blame all these external forces for making ratings low but you have to admit it's the show itself and the producers themselves.

"Traveler", IMO, has no chance of doing well next week. The reason why is because Smallville will be going up against the NCAA tournament. Even "Hero" went up against other college basketball tournaments going on that night. That's why bringing Smallville back in late March was probably one of the worst decisions made by the CW. They should've held these episodes back until April and aired the last 8 in a row.

Also, around this time of year, Smallville usually has a ratings decline when looking at the past few years so this is not really a big surprise, IMO.



I actually think that the rating will drop from "Hero" instead of go up.

In the past, ratings declines often followed storylines taking turns a lot of the audience really, really didn't like.

SV hasn't really produced one of those, "I hate this show and can't believe I've been wasting my frickin' time on it for this long," episodes yet this season. But it also hasn't had one of those episodes that make us trip all over the message boards trying to tell everyone how much we loved it, the way previous seasons did. (Well, maybe "Cure," but that was very early in the season.) Overall, it's been a very uninspired and, to a lot of people, blah season.

I also think part of SV's problem is that they start the season with all this stuff that could be so good, and manages to make people curious enough to watch. But, by about this time every year, not much has come of any of it, viewers lose interest again, and the ratings start to slide.

So, while external factors certainly have an effect on SV's ratings, the show's own quality also plays a part.

Why fret about these preliminary numbers?

SV always gets a huge spike when the DVR numbers come out. It is consistantly top 3 in DVR recordings. People watch the show, even if they don't do it live.

I just don't see WHY people are so proud of high DVR numbers combined with very low live watching. It just means people made it second string and did something they thought was tons better.

I DVR'd the last episode of Smallville. I didn't watch anything else at 8pm on Thursday, I just couldn't physically be in front of my TV that night (not usually the case - if Supernatural's on, I remember to have 8-10pm free and I always watch Smallville live too :D). I guess you could say real life is my "first string".

DVR is the future, man - five years from now, if half the people are still watching TV live that once did (say, a year ago), I'll die of shock. Why can't I watch the shows I want to watch when I want to watch them? That's why I have a DVR. (Well, that and so I can take advantage of Comcast OnDemand. :D)

The networks (and cable and premium channels) are slowly but surely figuring this out, and the advertisers following suit - with Nielsen upping the percentage of households sampled with DVRs, and advertisers agreeing to consider LIVE + 3 days for this season's ad rates, yeah, I think it's fair to say DVR numbers mean a whole lot. I wouldn't be surprised if they convinced the media buyers to use LIVE + 7 for next season or the following season.

It also means that all those people still think Smallville is worth recording to watch later. They're still viewers; they're still interested. Otherwise, they wouldn't bother recording it at all and just be happy to do whatever it is they prefer to do on Thursday nights.

My point is that I find DVR records being pimped out when the live numbers suck.

I DVR Smallville every week and watch it off of the DVR. What I do is start watching at 8:20, that way I can skip through the commercials. I wonder if other people have that idea. The DVR numbers do mean something, IMO, because there are people who at least make Smallville enough of a priority to DVR it each week and watch it later. If there was a live sports event on television that I wanted to see, as big of a Smallville fan that I am, I'm watching the sports event live and watching Smallville after that. I wouldn't watch April/May Yankees baseball over Smallville but playoff games? Absolutely.

I usually start SV at 8:20 too for that same reason. Hey, they still get advertising time from me with the blatant Stride commercials.

Yep, that is what I do. I always tivo smallville, even if I am watching it at 8 though, I still tape it. I just might have to rewatch the scenes again, either because it was just that good or I fell asleep through it. lol

Also does tivo/DVR Smallville actually show in the ratings? I thought if you only had a Nielsen box or something?

Then why care about live ratings at all then?

I know one of the reasons the CW isn't depressed over Gossip Girl has to do with DVR ratings. But they don't seem to get that people need to see the stuff as it's on too, or broadcasting is pointless.

I'm curious how the new online-only "WB" will do. The WB brand was so much more powerful and frankly, liked than the CW is, which has been a disaster from the day they revealed their ugly green logo and failed to pick up Everwood.

Also quite a few people have said in their ljs that they'll sometimes record, read the reviews and if an episode sounds crappy, they erase w/o watching. Now I'm not going to say ALL people do that but I do think quite a few do so just the fact it's recorded doesn't mean it's WATCHED.

Is it going to be international, or like most of the US network sites, where the videos are only available for American IP addresses? I'd think they would have a better chance of success if they don't limit their audience, but I understand copyrights may force them to.


Just because someone has the TV on live doesn't mean it's watched, either. I have my TV on quite a bit, but unless it's something I really want to see, I may not be paying attention to it at all. It's background noise. There is absolutely no way to get an accurate read on how many people actually sit down and watch an episode of anything from beginning to end. All that matters is that the TV is on and tuned in, or the show is recorded.

Actually, that's not quite true. The DVR numbers aren't the number of viewers that record the show, but the number of viewers that actually watch the recording. If you don't watch the recording within a specific time, it doesn't count. That's why we don't get the DVR ratings for at least a week. They have to wait and see who will actually watch what they recorded.

So, if you DVR'd an episode of Smallville, but waited a week and a day to watch it, you wouldn't be counted in the DVR ratings.



Actually, it's GG's demo that really has them going gaga. GG might be the lowest rated drama on the network overall but, apparently, its ratings with the network's target audience are pretty good.

Really? I did not know that. ...I suppose this outs me as someone who doesn't have DVR. I guess that shows why they mean so much.

It's not an either-or situation - both live and DVR numbers are important, just for different reasons.

True. *waves to Supernatural peeps also on this board*

The next day ratings are always important, its the first look in a way. If the ratings are good for those first days, then the DVR numbers about a week and a half later are just icing on the cake, per se. The DVR numbers are important to see how many people really are watching, but the live ones are too. If anything, they give the network an idea of how many people watch a TV show every week.

The live numbers contain people who may be sitting still for the commercials, whereas most DVR viewers are FF'ing through them. It's a problem for advertisers as the timeshifting phenomenon grows -- hence, the brilliance (not) of a Stride-driven plot. Can't skip past that green glowing gum footage without missing most of the episode. Same goes for Clark's new brilliant blue truck or Chloe's great mileage Yaris. Soon the characters will look like sports stars, with brand names sprinkled down their sleeves. "This barn courtesy of Ben and Jerry."

What? It could happen.

Do the ratings even matter at this point? The show has been renewed. It's the last season next year. And I cannot imagine any scenario where they pull Smallville from the schedule.

So I imagine the ratings can be as mediocre as they want from now on. It's not going to make a difference one way or another... Well, except to a potential spin-off I guess, but aren't we about three or four seasons too late for that? Don't you usually spin off a show when it's in its prime?

Al and Miles have been trying to get a spin off for years. Why would they stop now?

I don't know if this is the right place to ask this, but during Smallville's whole run, was it ever on at 9pm? I know it's moved days several times, I was just wondered if it ever changed hours. Thanks! :-)

It was on Tuesday's at 9 eastern time.

A poster on K-Site noticed that TVGuide updated their "After the WGA Strike" article, and it has indeed changed from what I remember. It originally said 5 episodes would be shot post-strike, and that it hadn't been renewed yet. It now says 6 episodes will be shot post-strike, and that it has been renewed.

Now, I don't know if it's right, but it has changed. What do you guys think? 21 episodes for season seven? :\

The reason I asked this was because it seems like in earlier seasons, the love scenes were somewhat racier than they are in the later seasons. When I saw the promo for Obsession (this was before I watched SV) where they show Alicia straddling Clark in his bed, I remember thinking, "what kind of show is this?!?" Now, it's one of my favorite love/sex scenes...Anyway, another example that comes to mind is the scene in Unsafe in the Las Vegas hotel room where Clark and Alicia almost have sex. It's not just an Alicia thing either- there's Nicodemus where Lana (body double) strips down to her underwear and then she does it again in Slumber.
Scenes like that make me wonder why they didn't show the "Supersex" in Wrath or at least them in bed together, happy, or why didn't they ever show Lois and Oliver or Chloe and Jimmy in similiar situations? Not that I need to see Clark and Lana having sex, but any excuse to see TW without his shirt on is okay by me. :-) Is it because of the time slot? I'm sure the CW would be all about the T & A if they could get it. Was the show still on at 9pm in the U.S. during the 4th season?

ETA: I thought about it some more and I guess the scene in Lex's head in Fracture where there's Lexana sex is kind of racy so maybe I'm totally off base. I don't know...



I looked at the article and it appears the numbers for the episodes of Supernatural have increased by one also. Hmmm...

I meant to ask this earlier.

Craig, do you know anything about the possibility of having 6 post-strike episodes? Both TVGuide and Entertainment Weekly are reporting the new number, but I won't believe it until I hear it from you.

I've heard nothing at all about a sixth episode... I don't know when they'd have time to shoot one... so I can't say if it's right or if it's wrong. Sorry. :(

From pifeedback.com

Doh.
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