Looks like myaskent was right, it went even lower.

I know that quite a few people like the episode but as was also said in many reviews, it would have helped immeasurably if they had done much better buildup.

It looks like all the people predicting lower ratings this week were right. It could be that "Hero" and its over the top product placement turned people off or the NCAA tournament took people away or it could be that the theme seemed too dark for some viewers or it could be that people were traveling or otherwise busy because of taking a long holiday weekend. I don't know.

However, there has been a lot of good buzz about this episode so maybe the DVR numbers will be exceptionally high as people decide to watch the episode in the next couple of days. If it is 6 days, then some people may watch it when they get back home from their Easter trip. I know I am normally traveling on the Thursday night before Easter since I take a trip with my family every year, but this year due to family illness, we postponed it. Other people might have similar family trips planned for this weekend starting on Thursday and taking Good Friday off.

I just hope that the good buzz from "Traveler" leads to good ratings for "Veritas." Unfortunately then the CW scheduling geniuses give us MORE REPEATS before "Descent."

I don't even know if we can blame it on the NCAA tournament... I think a lot of people were just turned off last week.

My opinion is that "Hero" should be blamed. I still feel terrible even thinking about that crap. The buzz about how horrible it was is a lot bigger than the buzz about "Traveler" will ever be.

Filler episodes I get, 40-minute long product placement crapfests I never will.

People were surprisingly bitter about the product placement last week. I didn't expect so much ire about it. That could have made some people decide to blow it off this week.

But, the NCAA tournament was a big deal as is the Thursday before a big holiday. Last night at dinner, every man was talking about the game and they all had money riding on it, even the waiter. I chose to ignore it all, but they were very into it. And I was out with company because they were returning from a Spring break trip and during dinner I got three calls to ask what my weekend plans were because the two sides of our family were trying to see if we were going to travel or not and make their own plans accordingly. So I could buy that some Nielsen viewers might have had a lot of stuff going on last night too and that would help account for the drop.

Massena1 I think you are right. I think that it seems March Madness is even more popular than ever and with the holiday coming up, I am not surprised at all! I even watched a little bit of it last night.

I don't know if I can fault the promos for "Traveler" because I thought the CW did a good job with that. I think that without the basketball, "Traveler", at the very least, does the same rating as "Hero". Plus, you got the holiday weekend as well. Next week, there will be no basketball so I am very interested to see how "Veritas" does. "Veritas" also had a strong trailer as well, so I would expect an increase in the rating. I don't know if the CW will do this, but it is in their best interest after "Veritas" to show a promo for "Descent", even if it's just a quick trailer clip from one of the scenes cut from "Veritas" that will be inserted into "Descent". They have to promote these final five episodes or else they will not get over 4 million again this season, IMO.

I still think, even though it would have meant a longer run of repeats beforehand, they should've just delayed Hero through Veritas so they could run back to back with the other stuff.

That, and the CW SERIOUSLY should restart the Sunday night repeats. If someone had a second chance to see "Traveler" on Sunday that would really do well for the series on Thursday.

Well I dunno. The Trailer may be nice but were they aired frequently throughout the week? But unlike hero they aired the resolution as a Director's cut, people may be like "what's the point in watching now?"

Also I agree with it's a culmination of events, that lead to the low ratings. Hero's disappointment aftermath, and the NCAA, with addition to people leaving for the Holiday.



Yes/No. IMHO what they should've done, now that we know Veritas isn't the season finale, they should have aired Hero when they did, since it's seems just like a infomercial, and postponed Traveler and Veritas couple weeks so it would have been from Traveler straight on. That way, Traveler would have gotten a hiatus built up and be back when holiday was over and people settled back into gear and the promotions could have built up however now it's not the case.

Honestly this was a great episode, and it's rating was too low for such an episode.

Just got word... the "6 episodes remaining" from TV Guide and EW includes Veritas. There will be only 20 this year.

Oh, cool. Thanks for the info, Craig.

Looks like the early reports of the Traveler ratings were way off.

Credit to Supes4ever at K-Site:

Because of Good Friday finals won't be in until Monday per Travis at pifeedback.com, the guy who gives the demo breakdowns.

I am not sure where the 3.95 million figure comes from, but I didn't see it on mediaweek or pifeedback.com from Marc Berman. I only saw where he gave out the 2.6/4 metered market figure and I don't think we can know how many viewers that number represents without the info being given by the source. I could be confused since I'm tired and I have to pay attention when I think about ratings because I get them confused when I don't, but it seems like the metered market ratings only tell us how many sets were turned on and what % of the total number of US tv sets were tuned into the show. It doesn't say how many eyes were watching those sets if I'm thinking clearly. I remember the metered market numbers for Cyborg weren't much different than the regular numbers for other episodes around that time (i.e. the # of sets were comparable) but when the finals came in for Cyborth, the total number of viewers and the demos were much higher because for some reason, there were bigger groups of people watching a single set together that night.

Those numbers aren't final nationals, they're metered markets, which is something else entirely.

Now the finals are in.

That makes it the second least watched episode in the history of the series. :\

That is... precipitous.

So these aren't the final numbers? Is someone being too hasty? Are we waiting for the DVR playbacks?

They're final numbers, minus DVR, if I understand correctly.

"Reaper"'s numbers look WAY worse. Ouch.

Well, BadToad coined the phrase "the Lana Effect" to describe how Lana made everyone around her so very dumb.

I call this the Promise Effect. The ability of a truely horrible episode to destroy the ratings for the following episode.

Actually, Reapers numbers aren't bad for the CW. In fact, these are some of the highest ratings Reaper has gotten since its premiere.

Remember, it's all relative. Most other shows on the network getting 3.4 million viewers would be considered pretty darn good. But, for SV, 3.4 million means they've lost two million viewers since the season premiere. And that's the bad part.

The thing is, it's understandable. In the Premiere Clark was so like Superman ready for his destiny and then... Lana returns and he started hiding on the farm.
so far it's been:

Bizarro............5.18 million
Kara................4.59 million
Fierce..............4.82 million
Cure................5.18 million
Action..............4.65 million
Lara................4.38 million
Wrath..............4.64 million
Blue.................4.51 million
Gemini.............3.71 million
Persona............3.81 million
Siren.................4.01 million
Fracture..............3.67 million
Hero...................3.81 million
Traveler...............3.44 million

Thanks for the summary GabbyA.

While folks like to blame this ship or that storyline, to me the clear demarcation after Blue says "continuity of story". Gemini was after a month break, Persona, a month+. I think Prison Break did it best, A fall spate of episodes with a mid-season cliff-hanger. A late winter/spring sequence (paired with 24!). As a highly serialized drama, this worked well. At this point SV is a highly serialized drama (pretty normal after this many years). It's not a procedural or a comedy. They should have taken a break after Blue and come on like gangbusters in mid-Feb thru early May. I know the strike really messed things up but the dribs and drabs approach seemed to kill the momentum. And the CW doesn't advertise this show at all.

Well in my honest opinion, I agree with SueB.

The loss of viewers in Blue to Gemini is because of the month off, and then it's over a month for Persona. Now we do see the typical increase from persona to Siren, people realize it's back on boom. The downgrade from Siren to Fracture IMHO is because Fractured aired on Valentines Day and honestly I think people would be out on a romantic date instead of watching smallville.

Hero they had that trailer hype and the excitement for the episode. IMHO they advertised the return of smallville way better for Hero then they ever did for Gemini/Persona the problem is, Hero sucked. They should have named the episode Stride or even Gum so that turned people off from Travler. Now, it isn't the only factor IMHO, Easter was that sunday, there were the games, IMHO Traveler was more a victim to the Day/ time of year it aired.

Now this is, according to K-Site, what's in store the weeks ahead:

March 27 "Veritas" NEW!
April 3 "Siren" Repeat
April 10 "Fracture" Repeat
April 17 "Descent" NEW!
April 24 "Sleeper" NEW!
May 1 "Apocalypse" NEW!
May 8 Episode #7-19 NEW!
May 15 Episode #7-20 NEW! (Season Finale)

If the CW was fucking smart, they'd re air Traveler and Veritas on April 3 and 10 respectively that way the continuity wouldn't break and people get a second chance to See Traveler and a chance we get a better rating as a repeat then when it aired.

I wish they'd show the repeats those weeks too.

A recent TV Guide interview said something about "the April 24 episode" when it seemed they were referring to "Descent" - it makes me wonder if that episode and everything following it have been pushed back a week.

I don't know why I said last week that there would be no college basketball tonight going up against "Veritas" because there is. It's the start of the sweet sixteen round, therefore, I would doubt that the rating for "Veritas" will go up. Maybe it will increase slightly, but I don't see much improvement.

I wonder how the ratings will be for this episode,and the ones after? The USA Today online version is saying that this is the season finale. People might think this is the last episode of the season, and not know there is more after it.

myankskent, the NCAA tournament isn't hurting much of anything, IMO. It's only garnering 7-8 million viewers a night, and it's losing viewers as it moves into it's second hour. The previous holder of the 8/7c spot on CBS was Survivor, which was getting around 13 million viewers a night. Smallville wasn't affected much at all by Survivor, so I definitely don't think the NCAA tournament is touching Smallville's audience at all. I know you personally love this particular tournament, but it's not a ratings bonanza, IMO. My friends who love basketball and even have money riding on these games don't even watch it. They just want to know who wins.

It's not about the total viewers, though. The NCAA tournament comes in first in the adults 18-49 demographic and I think that is what hurts Smallville. But you might have a point. I don't know how Survivor does in that demographic and whether or not more people who watch Smallville turn it off when Survivor is on. Last week was only the first day of the tournament and there are usually a lot of blow out games at that point. Tonight, I think CBS will do better with the tournament seeing as how all of the games are at night and there are only 16 teams left. We'll see what happens.

EDIT: Just to point something out, and I am by no means a guy who knows a great deal about ratings, but when "Hero" aired, it did a 1.4 in the 18-49 demographic and Survivor did a 3.2. The next week, "Traveler" did a 1.3 in that deomographic and the tournament did a 3.3. So CBS increased slightly and the CW decreased slightly between the two weeks. So perhaps that is the reason why "Traveler" dipped a bit from "Hero". But regardless, tournament or no tournament, Smallville hasn't been getting it done. Maybe it's all of the breaks, maybe it's the storylines...I really have no idea.

Aw, but Ausellio said to circle the day on our calendars, and I did mine in pen! ;)

According to the in-episode CW promo, new episodes come back April 17.

Fast nationals
Capping off the evening was CW Smallville (Viewers: #5, 3.84 million; A18-49: #5, 1.5/ 5)

Scry took it to me. He was right. That's a nice rebound for Smallville. I don't think that you could ask for anything more considering the rating for "Traveler". The problem now is that Smallville is taking another break, although it is a positive that they showed a trailer for "Descent", even though they seemingly gave away the biggest part of the episode.

W00t! Finals! :)

SMALLVILLE 2.4/4 1.6/5 3,860,000 1.6/5
REAPER 1.8/3 1.2/3 2,782,000 1.0/3

I don't think this was posted before. Basically, it shows how big a bounce SV gets once they figure in the DVR numbers. Here is the list through Fracture.

Credit goes to TheLastKryptonian posting at K-Site for the list.

Season 7 Week to Week (Live +SD) for first 12 episodes

Bizarro............5.18 million*
Kara................4.59 million*
Fierce..............4.82 million*
Cure................5.18 million*
Action..............4.65 million*
Lara................4.38 million*
Wrath..............4.64 million*
Blue.................4.51 million*
Gemini.............3.71 million*
Persona............3.81 million*
Siren.................4.01 million*
Fracture..............3.67 million*


* - Final Rating

Season Average - 4.43 million
_______________________________________

Here are the Live+7 ratings for the first 12 Episodes.

Bizarro............5.59 million
Kara................5.04 million
Fierce..............5.20 million
Cure................5.61 million
Action..............5.08 million
Lara................4.75 million
Wrath..............5.12 million
Blue.................4.90 million
Gemini.............4.05 million
Persona............4.34 million
Siren.................4.53 million
Fracture.............4.18 million

Live+7 Season Average - 4.87 million


I gotta believe that the CW isn't too unhappy with these numbers.

Wow, thanks BadToad.

Looking at those ratings, I think it is clear we need more Dr. Knox and more shirtless Chloe. Those two things are ratings gold.

This is from pifeedback for Thursday 4/17/08:



It's not too bad, right?

Not the greatest, but when you consider that the show was in repeats for a few weeks and yet again, I've run into people who've said "I didn't know Smallville was new last night!" it's encouraging.

Considering usual SV ratings trends, next week's episode should do well as it followed a good episode.

If only the CW promoted Smallville like they do a certain other show with the initials GG... come on CW, you know you want to do a Smallville "WTF?" campaign.

Considering it was the first episode back after a break, which means no lead in, and Supernatural was a repeat, so that meant no lead out, it could have been worse. But, considering what an exceptional episode "Descent" was, those ratings should be higher. And I heard the CW really did put out some ads on the network to try to get word out that SV last night would be a new episode so I can't pin it on them. I'm sure the DVR numbers will make this episode go up the way they always do for SV, but sadly viewers didn't really put "Descent" on their calendars since the rating went down from Veritas, or at least, they didn't make watching it live a priority.



They really should do a theme. "Everything you've waited to see.....will happen." in Season 5 was a great campaign because it created a lot of enthusiasm for the show. The content of the show in S7 has been very depressing and maybe if they had a good tagline for it, they could spin it so that the light at the end of the tunnel would be visible again.

I guess the rating also took a hit because the last episode before hiatus wasn't a strong one. "Veritas" was used to set certain things up but really nothing happened in that eppy.

I hope so.

Supernatural is new next week as well, so that lead out that's was missing this week will be there next week.

I think the CW is so foolish. I understand that they don't have a lot of money in their advertising budget. But I also think SV represents their best chance to bring in good numbers (by CW standards). And due to the subject matter of SV, its such an easy show to advertise for. They truly are fools, IMO

It's really stupid because they use the show as a platform for advertising.But how is that useful when no one is watching it?I think alot of persons at the CW arent doing a good job.

I think I saw that stupid fucking GG ad during every commercial break. Hey, Ad Monkeys - try advertising the one show that gets decent ratings!

Heh. I admit I watch GG and even I'm tired of seeing the promos and ads for the show. It'd be nice if the CW would remember that their Thursday night lineup isn't too shabby.

I will be interesting to see how the CW promotes S8 (if they even promote it at all).

I was over at friends, and we were watching WWE last night. During the show, Gossip Girl was advertised every commercial break, Supernatural had 2 ads, and Smallville had zero ads.

Graph for Smallville Ratings per Season

According to this graph, the ratings have continued to decline with the only consistant bump being Season 5, which is the 3rd highest rated. Season 5, where Chloe discovered the whole truth of Clark's secret after telling him that she knew about his abilities. Clark confessed his alien origins, and the two were partners all season long....

Interesting...

Last nights ratings from pifeedback.com

To me, they're down 200,000 in 18-49 from where I think they should be, even given the age of the series, the usual springtime decline in ratings and the lack of publicity that number should be at least 1.6.

Finals are out and despite being preempted in Chicago, SV grew:

Smallville 3,620,000(millions) 1.5/4(18-49) 1.5/5(18-34)

Do the finals include timeshifted viewing?

Or does that come a week later?